The cross is the central event of history. It is right to divide history at the cross.

Life really is lived “before Christ” (BC) and “in the year of our Lord” (AD).

When we see the truth of the cross and begin to live according to that truth, then we begin to divide our life in the way it should be divided as well.

What is the truth of the cross?

1. God sent His Son, and He died a horrible death for you. But, of course, it’s much more than a horrible death. Many people have died horrible deaths. Some of those died heroic deaths on the part of other people.

Jesus, who lived a perfect life, took our sin upon Himself. He who knew no sin, became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

2. You were at war with God, but now God has made peace. We can have peace with God, peace with others, and peace with ourselves because God reconciled us to Himself through Christ.

3. You don’t have to keep living the way you’ve lived in the past. This may be the most immediate application of the cross. Through Christ’s work on the cross, we are new. To be “in Christ” (Paul’s description of the new life in Christ) is to be a new creation. Jesus told us we must be born again. When we surrender to His will and open our lives in faith, we are born again. We are new creatures.

In Christ, our old self is crucified and we receive a new nature. We experience the presence of the Holy Spirit and joy in the hope in Christ.

This has amazing applications. It means that I am not controlled by my past. My past no longer owns me. In Christ I am free. I no longer live; it is Christ who lives in me Galatians 2:20).

4. You can work for God. God has given to us the ministry of bringing God and people together. We are an extension of Christ’s work of reconciliation.

Whenever we go out into the world, we are Christ’s ambassadors, representing Him to the world.

The cross brings us to God and opens the way to eternal life.

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