Tim Challies has a great post (what’s new?) about Stuart Townend’s hymn “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us.”  I love this hymn, and am tickled that it’s in heavy rotation whenever my church observes the Lord’s Supper.

Tim observes the recorded occasions in the Gospels when Jesus successfully evaded death at the hands of His enemies, as it wasn’t His appointed time yet.  An angry mob with rocks or people ready to push Him off a cliff did not suffice to murder Christ before His time.  In fact, no one could actually do it, in and of themselves.  Jesus said that He laid down His life and that no man could take it from Him.

And so it was, even with the cross.  Tim (rightly) comes to the conclusion that “it was not the nails that held Jesus to the cross.”  But, contrary to Townend’s lyric, it was not “my sin that held Him there”, either.  My sin has no more power over Jesus than the mob’s stones or the arms of those who sought to push Him off a cliff.

Now, I understand that Christ chose to die on the cross because of my sin.  And I understand the emphasis on my sin, particularly in a time when there seems to be no personal responsibility for one’s own actions.  But to say that my sin held Him on the cross swings the pendulum from “no responsibility” to “too much credit” (even if it’s “credit” for a bad thing).

It was not my sin that held him there.

It was His love that held him there.

Semantics?  No.  It’s the heart of the gospel.