How would you answer the question, “What has been the most significant event in the history of mankind?’ Would it be a huge natural disaster? The Magna Carta? The Enlightenment? The harnessing of electricity? The electronic revolution? The splitting of the atom?

It would be hard to put down one event that affects the whole human race. But it can be done. Nothing has significance as large as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Why is it so?

Mel Gibson tried to convey something of the significance of the cross in the stunning presentation The Passion of the Christ.

The physical sufferings of Jesus were graphically and powerfully portrayed. People all over the world were impacted by that film.

But the whole story was nowhere near being told. Christ was the God-man. His life and His own claims cannot be explained any other way. His capacity to suffer was infinitely greater than a mere man’s.

A man is more than physical. He is mind and spirit. The suffering of Jesus in mind and spirit, prior to, and during the hours spent hanging on the cross, is too deep, too beyond us to comprehend.

He felt abandoned by His Father. He was identified with human sin.

An immeasurable weight of penalty for sin was being laid on Him, just as if He were the most guilty offender of all time. More than that, the accumulation of human guilt was attributed to Him.

What for?

The reason this is the most significant event in history is that He died for the sins of the world. The word ‘substitution’ in a way summarizes what happened. He took your place and mine, accepting the guilt, though He was the only innocent man ever to live on earth.

Anyone reading the Bible with an open mind would have to see this message right through its pages. The Old Testament, completed four centuries before the birth of Christ, predicted this sacrificial death. Animal substitutes prefigured the human substitute. The coming Messiah would be a ‘man of sorrows’. “All of us like sheep have gone astray, but the Lord laid on Him the sin of us all” — so said Isaiah 750 years BC.

Jesus Himself declared that He had not “come into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him” (see John chapter 3, verse 17John chapter 3, verse 17).

The open way

The death and resurrection of Jesus opened the way for any and all to find forgiveness and everlasting life. Hear His words:

“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes on Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”

We cannot add anything to the value of Christ’s death. The two things which the Bible asks of us are repentance and faith. These are one thing in a sense, because they are inseparable. Turning away from self and sin to the risen Saviour, trusting Him for full salvation.

“In the past God overlooked [our disobedience of Him], but now He commands all people everywhere to repent. For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man (Jesus) He has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17, verses 30-31Acts 17, verses 30-31).

May this Easter be the time for many to come to this point and receive what He died to gain.