The Basics -- The Cross of Jesus Christ
As the biblical account of redemptive history unfolds, the story of God’s saving purpose is revealed even as the story takes a number of surprising twists and turns. The New Testament opens with an angel announcing to a young virgin that God’s promised Messiah was at long last coming to visit his people and bring them salvation. Jesus was born of Mary, he grew to manhood, and began his public ministry after his baptism by John the Baptist (Matthew 3:1-13). As we read in Matthew’s gospel, when our Lord’s messianic mission got underway, “[Jesus] went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people” (Matthew 4:23).
Eventually, Jesus’ public ministry took him to Jerusalem. On the way there, Jesus informed his disciples, “the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death” (Matthew 20:18). It was John the Baptist who said of Jesus upon first encountering him, “behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Since Jesus came as Israel’s Messiah, the mediator of the covenant of grace, and fulfilled the anointed offices of prophet, priest, and king, the necessity of his death comes as somewhat of a surprise–although this death was foretold by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 52:13-53:12), who predicted that God’s promised Messiah was also the suffering servant spoken of throughout Isaiah’s prophecy. When Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph on Palm Sunday, it appeared to all as though he would at long last take his place on Israel’s throne to restore the nation to its former greatness. But by Friday afternoon of that week, Jesus was dead, hanging on a Roman cross, having died an agonizing death by crucifixion.
Why did the story of our redemption take such a dark and foreboding turn? Why did Jesus need to die? Thankfully, throughout the New Testament, the biblical writers tell us why Jesus died and what his death means for us. When we briefly survey at the terms which the biblical writers use to explain the death of Jesus, the meaning and purpose of his death becomes clear.
First and foremost, Jesus’s death is said to be “for our sins.” His is a “substitutionary atonement,” dying for us, and in our place. In John 10:14-18, Jesus speaks of his coming death in the following terms: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep . . . . the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” Jesus describes his coming death as “for his sheep” (i.e., for them and in their place).
Reinforcing the centrality of the idea of substitution, the New Testament describes Jesus’ death as a “propitiation” for our sins, that is, a sacrifice which effectually turns aside the wrath of God toward those for whom he is dying. Paul speaks of the death of Christ as “a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Romans 3:25). The apostle John tells us that Jesus’s death is a propitiation, and that his death shows us the love of God toward sinners. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Jesus’s death as the true Passover lamb on Good Friday, effectually and actually turns God’s wrath away from his people, because Jesus takes God’s wrath upon himself. Because he is God incarnate, his death alone can satisfy the holy justice of God by making a full and complete payment for the guilt of our sins. As Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
The language of “sacrifice” is also significant. In his Epistle to the Ephesians, Paul tells us that “Jesus Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). This tells us that the Old Testament sacrificial system pointed ahead to Jesus and his once for all sacrifice for sin on Calvary. In yet another set of verses, Jesus’s death is set forth as the means through which sinners are reconciled to a holy God from whom they are estranged. Paul tells the Christians in Rome, “for if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Romans 5:10). In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul adds, “all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).
Elsewhere, Paul describes Christ’s death in terms of redemption–the price paid in the Roman world to purchase slaves, granting them their freedom. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (Galatians 3:13). In Mark 10:45, Jesus informs the twelve that “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” And Peter describes the death of Jesus in much the same way, “knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19). The emphasis in these verses is upon the unlimited value of Christ’s redemptive work on our behalf.
The cross of Jesus Christ is therefore the only means of removing the guilt of our sin, as well as the fulfillment of the first messianic promise in Genesis 3:15, where we are told the coming Messiah (Jesus) will be bruised, even as he crushes the serpent’s head (Satan). In Colossians 2:13-15, Paul tells us, when “you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with [Christ], having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” When Jesus was nailed to cross, so too was the list of our many sins, the guilt of which Jesus has removed from us, once and for all.
Although the death of Jesus is unexpected when we first begin to trace out the story of our redemption, when we look carefully at God’s promise to save his sinful people, we soon discover that Jesus’s death is the “scarlet thread” of our redemption. There is no other way for a Holy God to save his people without sacrificing his justice. That he did so at all, shows us his great love for sinners. As Paul recounts his ministry to the Christians in Galatia, he tells them, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
Our Lord’s death for our sins was foretold throughout the Old Testament, and that death fully described and carefully explained in the New. The meaning of the cross is clear. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).