A testimony against the effectiveness of nominal Christians in the institutional church system to change the culture in which they live can be found in Hollywood news. Failing to live a 24 hour a day, seven day a week lifestyle which reflects that they are disciples of Jesus—for all the world to see—they place their hope to do what they refuse to do in a multi-million dollar movie on the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus Christ, “The Passion of The Christ.”
Apparently the logic involved here is that if you can’t be an effectiveness witness for Christ by your own personal lifestyle, then take them to this movie instead! Let it do in a few hours of a movie run what you can’t do in your own lifestyle on a day by day basis! How irresponsible!
“The Passion of The Christ” focuses upon the vehicle which our God, our Creator, utilized in order to bring about the single most important event in human history. It takes a means to an end, a method, a technique, if you will, which God the Father utilized in order to craft the most magnificent finished work in all of eternity. It focuses, almost exclusively, on the suffering and death of Jesus Christ which was necessary to pay for your sin and mine, if we will but believe it and accept Jesus as our Savior.
In choosing this vehicle of punishment and death for His Only Begotten Son, God the Father implemented a common method used in the ancient world, i.e., crucifixion. The final act of actually nailing a victim upon a cross was only part of a lengthy procedure by which rebellious foreigners, military enemies, violent criminals, robbers, and slaves were executed. Thousands upon thousands of people were victims of this horrifying procedure.
The death depicted in “The Passion of The Christ” shows not only what Christ suffered, but also what multiplied thousands of others also suffered who were victims of this sadistic method of execution.
My point here is that the death of Christ by crucifixion is not unique to the Son of God—many thousands of others were similarly executed by Rome.
What is unique, however, is that the death of Jesus paid the penalty for the sins of mankind, and that He arose from the dead, which is an historical fact, and that He now sits at the right hand of the Father.
To snatch this vignette out of the sequences of events in the life of Jesus Christ, and to blow it up out of all proportions and focus exclusively on this method of execution serves no real value. It’s not the way that Jesus died that is important to us—it’s what His death accomplished for us and the fact that He was resurrected and is now at the right hand of the Father.
“The Passion of The Christ” does not detail the accomplishment of this means to an end, this method, this vehicle, this technique, which God the Father utilized. Instead of bringing hope to millions by the spiritual truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it focuses instead on the physical suffering that was necessary as a means to bring eternal hope to multiplied millions—but not mentioning this hope.
What is the result of this expensive film that concentrates on the physical suffering necessary for Jesus to accomplish the will of the Father so that humanity now has a Savior for its sins? Read the news accounts and you will see that the group most affected by this film are those who have always found it necessary to “suffer” physically in order to “earn” their salvation. “The Passion of The Christ” has simply added fuel to their twisted theological fire and wrongly re-emphasized that human suffering is necessary to attain and continue to have salvation.
It should be understood that true disciples of Jesus Christ will suffer in this life. However, our suffering is a result of what Jesus, the Son of the true and living God, suffered to bring us eternal life as a mandate from God to die for the sins of all mankind. Suffering will be inflicted upon us—we are not to originate it in vain attempts to appear to be “religious.”
Renewed dedication and fervor to human suffering and pain to gain God’s favor is the result of this film. Those who put this film on the market and those who embrace its message of horrendous suffering fail to realize that only the Son of God could suffer and die for our sins and that He paid the entire price necessary to satisfy the justice of God. Nothing that they can do will in any way, shape, manner or form add to or subtract from the finished work of Jesus.
After all the handkerchiefs have been wrung out, what is left of eternal value after having viewed this film? The only thing left is the feeling, the impression, the misconception of endorsing the human philosophy that in order to be saved you must suffer violently and then God will be pleased with you for having added a “monthly payment” to the “down payment” that Jesus made on our behalf.
Entire religious organizations dedicate their money, time and efforts to get the unsaved to view the film so they can then “present the Gospel” to them so they can “make a decision for Christ.” The idea is advanced that we should all feel guilty because we are all responsible for putting Jesus to death on the cross.
This is like saying that I should feel guilty for having been born. And even worse, having been born as a fallen, sinful creature. However, I had nothing to do with that. At a given time and hour, I popped out of my mothers womb, sin and all. I am, however, responsible for making a decision to avail myself of the provisions God has given to all humans everywhere to do something about my sin. And that something is accepting the death of Jesus Christ as redeeming me from my sinful state and trying as hard as I can to be His disciple. Failure to do so is where the guilt part becomes mine.
Sorry folks, but I have no guilt for having pounded nails into the flesh of Jesus at His crucifixion. Scripture is clear that God the Father made the decision to have His Son die for the sins of all mankind, and God the Father is the One Who chose crucifixion as the method of death for Jesus.
This “guilt projection” is simply an opportunistic attempt to capitalize on primal, raw, naked human emotions which are aroused from seeing the cruel and vicious treatment of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ as portrayed in “The Passion of The Christ”. This is not the salt and light of which Jesus spoke. This is trading on human emotions to cut more notches on your “I got ’em saved!” bragging belt.
It looks like these people will do anything to avoid being a true disciple of Christ with a personal lifestyle that reflects the values of Jesus and draws all men unto Jesus.
This film cannot be considered an evangelistic tool because it neglects the important details as found in the Bible necessary to truly portray Christ for Who He is and what He really accomplished at Calvary.
There is no spiritual fruit forthcoming from this expensive film. It will only promote physical actions which are nothing more than thinly disguised “works.”
As one critic remarked in his review of the movie, “The Passion of the Christ is preaching to the choir and doing so in shorthand.”-Walter Chaw.
The Bottom Line: This film promotes a variation on the theme of “works.” In doing so, it depreciates, diminishes and degrades the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross for mankind by taking a snapshot in time—freezing it, and blowing it up out of all reasonable proportions. An exaggerated snapshot of the physical suffering of Jesus just prior to His great spiritual victory against the powers of darkness but not focusing the viewer on the spiritual results of His tremendous and magnificent accomplishment for all of mankind.
Is that really what you wanted when you got your unsaved friend to see the film?
