When I Survey the Wondrous Nace, part 1: A Prophetic Think Tank

If you think I am way off base here, consider Jesus’s next astounding statement: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up. Jesus is again speaking in two senses of lifting up: One, what must lifted and, two, why. What is that part of the nace which is the Messiah, whose sacrifice will atone for sins.

Why it/He should lifted up is that part of the nace upon which supports and displays the What part of the Nace. Why is because of the faithfulness of God’s promises to man, expressed through the prophecies. Yes, Jesus Messiah is set up high as a banner upon the pole of the oracles of God. This is the only pole upon which he can be lifted to be Messiah among the people, to faith, and this is the only reason, the only nace, upon which God accepts faith in Messiah to be supported. The light which Jesus speaks, and from which the unbelievers flee, is the light of the p’shat of scripture and Jesus Himself.

When I survey the Wondrous Nace.

We all know that old song “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Exactly. I share these feelings. Big Time. I became dead to the world and the world to me. But you will never get that when you survey the Cross, only a Cross which is a Nace.

What Christ died on and for is not a piece of wood. Not upon anything you can think of that is natural to the world or natural to human sensibilities, intellect and priority. It’s not anything upon which you can divine divinity in which your view of the divine is controlled or created by you. Vertical but meant to be applied horizontally to your spirit. A burden and the only source of illumination that we can put our hands on. It lifts up Christ for the world to see and believe or it’s a specially designed tool of debasement, disrespect, rejection, revulsion, apathy, and ignorance applied to Him. A real Cross is as infinitely a transgression against Transcendence as it a means of infinite forgiveness. For one, nothing, or a whip, or a bludgeon, or a mock laugh, and to the other a reason to live and to die. The Nace is the Revelation of Jesus of Nazareth, Messiah, fulfilled by him and foretold by the prophets. And, yes, it really is a wonder far beyond a hug from your mother.

How would Bible exposition change with the insistence that Messianic prophecy is the only single legitimate reason for faith in Christ and the only ordained content of evangelism?  Upon what scriptural axiom or basis will be the next reformation, the only possible reformation? What is Christianity all about, really?

If there is to be a real reformation, it will not only be by the What of scripture, its p’shat.  Not feelings of sorrow for a man in pain. Not the guilt that one feels that Jesus had to go through so much so that we could live. It’s not a deep commitment to accepting the precepts and moral code of religion. It’s not the personal benefits of riches in heaven or the personal benefits of a prayer object or a belief object. It’s not decisions based upon hunches and feelings about the truth of Christ in the face of an onslaught of all kinds of good reasons not to believe. It’s not “by grace through faith alone” or any other pious theological idol that one can believe fervently in, yet such belief can’t substantially benefit one spiritually. It is not through things about Christianity that show up in any other religion, and therefore not through things upon which a common, unrighteous faith can find nourishment.

It’s the Why of scripture, the remez. The Immissa cross is not an object of faith because it’s too complicated: there is one added horizontal beam that should not be there. It should be a simplex. It should be a nace. It should be messianic prophecy alone as the only path to truth, and the only path to which Truth can reach the heart of those who love the truth and want more of it.

Not that the Immissa cross has no meaning at all. It’s is full of meaning:

“I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; I did [them] suddenly, and they came to pass. Because I knew that thou [art] obstinate, and thy neck [is] an iron sinew, and thy brow brass;  I have even from the beginning declared [it] to thee; before it came to pass I shewed [it] thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them. Thou hast heard, see all this; and will not ye declare [it]? I have shewed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them. They are created now, and not from the beginning; even before the day when thou heardest them not; lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them. Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time [that] thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb.” (Isaiah 48:3-8 KJV)

It symbolizes the hard-heartedness of man.

Well, it really doesn’t matter what the real shape of the Cross was. The only thing that matters is what the wood that Christ was lifted up on ultimately means.

It’s like the ten commandments monument controversy in Alabama. This battle over only a symbol has itself come to symbolize, even among the combatants, the essential disagreements that Christianity has with the world: one group wants the monument to stay because it represents Christian values. Another wants it to go because it represents Christian values. The substance of Christian values, not the symbol, is that God has proven to Man that Jesus of Nazareth is the divine Messiah through the prophecies and is the preeminent reason for righteous faith in Him and the preeminent reason by which God would accept his faith to salvation, has been lost to those who place symbols above it.

When You Survey the Wondrous Nace?

When I survey the Wondrous Cross? Take up a survey of that which has the first purpose not of proving your own fitness for heaven, but to prove the only way that God’s morally exists to faith. Only then can you say that you surveyed the Wondrous Cross and know God, not just some song.

Here is the next article in this series: The Meaning of the Cross and the Lord’s Prayer, part 2: Passing by Nehushtan

What is the Word of God?: Passing by Nehushtan

An Analysis of the Brazen Serpent Imagery: Passing by Nehushtan

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