The Judgement of the Cross - The Judgement of the World

The Judgement of the Cross – The Judgement of the World

In John Chapter 12, Jesus makes a statement that should challenge the hearts of all believers. “John 12:31 Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. 32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”
NOW was now over two thousand years ago. In Christ it is still now to us who come to see Him and understand His judgement.

What does He mean Now is the Judgement of the World? If He be lifted up, He will draw all mankind to himself? This is the Judgement of the Cross. The Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 6, “I am crucified to the world and the world is crucified to me.” Catch what He says, I am crucified. He doesn’t say I was crucified as He did in Romans 6, when He declared we died with Christ at the cross. The judgement that had come in Paul’s heart was I am crucified to the world and the world is crucified to me.

What does that mean? It means I am dead to the world and the world is dead to me. However, is that our concept of life that the world has no hold on us? Now as I say this, I have to define the world. What is the world? It is not simply planet earth. This word used for world is kosmos, (2889 in the Strong’s), which means the orderly arrangement. The orderly arrangement of the world was sin and death, the law, the pride of life, the functions of the flesh, etc. The arrangement had to do with everything in the old man.

Paul is saying that He is crucified to the world, to its arrangement and order. Then He said it is crucified to Him. Now Paul was not crucified. Even those who were crucified literally, could not say what Paul did. Only one could make this statement true and real. The one who is the Lord Jesus Christ. In Paul’s knowing of Christ, he had come to the seeing and comprehending of being dead to the world and the world being dead to him through the work of Jesus Christ, and through the reality of Christ that was in him.

The only way this becomes real to us is through the knowing of Jesus Christ and His judgement upon the world at the cross. In His powerful work of the cross Jesus took me and you with Him and He died, pronouncing judgement on the world! In this judgement we are to come in our hearts to living unto Christ and not to the world.

Unfortunately, many of us have no concept of this. We have been taught that we live the best lives we can, and someday Jesus will take us away from the world. At the cross He did just that. He took us in His death, and brought us forth in His resurrection to be a people who manifest Him and not the world. If we do not understand this, and see this by the Spirit of God, we will not manifest Him. He must be revealed in our hearts. We must come forth unto Him. Glory to God!