The Cross of Christ

As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross. And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull), they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it. And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over him there. And over his head they put the charge against him, which read, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

(Matthew 27:32-56 ESV)

There was an old police show on television called Dragnet. One of the main characters was famous for always saying when questioning a witness or a suspect, “just the facts, please, just the facts.” Many people have the same approach to religion – they just want the facts. We want to know that the things we believe are true. Fairy tales are fun to read, but we don’t build our lives on something made up. And we would not base our hope for eternal life on an outright fabrication.

The Christian faith claims to be based on certain facts. Christianity is unique in that it is not just a philosophy or mysticism. The crucifixion is one of the central facts of the Faith.

But some facts still require explanation. Even when we know the facts we have to know what these things mean. What is the significance? The Cross is like that. Jesus’ death on the Cross is dark and mysterious without some explanation of its significance. Unfortunately, the Gospel writers give us only the facts and very little explanation.

When something especially horrible happens we are interested in finding the meaning behind the facts. We want to know why bad things happen because evil is an aberration – a departure from what is normal and expected. And so we have always struggled to explain evil so that it might make some sense – that which is otherwise unwelcome nonsense. The most troublesome question is why bad things seem to always happen to innocent people.

Jesus was innocent and did not deserve to die. Perhaps this is why the Cross doesn’t make sense to many people. Why did God let Jesus die in such a horrible manner? God could have sent a legion of angels to rescue Him! Here is another instance in which something really bad is happening and God seems to be passive and uninterested. But maybe Christians are so familiar with the Crucifixion that we are no longer shocked by it and we have stopped asking the hard questions. We even wear crosses for fashion statements! Why did the darkest moment in human history have to happen? Why did Jesus have to die like this?

There are many people who admire the teaching of Jesus but can’t explain the meaning of the Cross except that it was just another tragic injustice. We have never listened to the great moral teachers and have always persecuted the prophets. What is harder to explain is Jesus’ willingness to embrace the Cross and walk open-eyed into the Darkness alone.

We should not ignore the obviously evil and ugly nature of the crucifixion of Jesus. To make like life easier we often ignore the unpleasant things and live in denial. But the ugly reality of the Cross is the most important reality we must all face.

At the Cross we see the most evil side of human nature on display. The first thing we notice is that it is not enough for the enemies of Jesus to put Him on the Cross, they also had to mock Him as He suffered. It is the nature of human cruelty to abuse the weak and the vulnerable, to add insult to injury, and to kick the person who has fallen down. At His weakest and most vulnerable point, the enemies of Jesus surround Him like blood-thirsty animals and continue to bite and tear at Him. But Jesus remains silent before His tormentors.

There were evil men who wanted Jesus dead and these men were fully responsible for their evil plan. Of course, God knew about their plan and God used them to accomplish His own plan. But the fact that the Cross was a Divine plan in no way removes all human responsibility. There is no conflict between Divine sovereignty and human responsibility. But the evil of man cannot overcome the purpose of God.

The Cross shows us that evil aspect of human nature that would even get rid of God Himself. We do not want to submit to God. We want our way, even if we have to crucify the Son of God! The greatest evil in the world comes from a desire for power and control.

If the human race is basically good, then how do you explain the Cross?

Evil always looks uglier out there in the world, but evil is planted in the heart of every person. We find it easier to point out the evil in the world than to look at the evil in our own hearts. Then we would have to admit that we are part of the problem! The Apostle Paul said that the Cross is foolish and offensive to the world (See 1 Cor. 1.18ff). One reason for this offense must be that the Cross causes us to look at something about ourselves that we would rather avoid seeing. The Cross illustrates our inability to change the basic structure of the world, not to mention our hearts. The Cross is God’s answer to all the evil in the world. The Cross should be enough to prove that only God can overcome evil and apart from the Cross of Christ we have no hope of a better world or a better Self.

There is an old song that asks the penetrating question: “were you there when they crucified my Lord?” There is a sense in which we were all there at the Cross of Christ. Those who actually did the deed and had Jesus crucified or who pounded in the nails were not the only guilty ones. We continue to crucify the Son of God when we choose to do our own will instead of the will of God! The Cross was man’s foolish attempt to get rid of God and that wicked spirit is still alive and well in the world today. But the wicked intentions of man cannot overcome the purpose of God. While men were doing their best to get rid of Jesus, God was actually working out His own plan.

The crucial thing to see about the Cross is not what men were doing but what God was doing. It is hard to see what God is doing, especially when something evil is happening. When men are doing something evil we don’t see how God can be at work at the same time. We usually think that man’s evil stops or at least frustrates the work of God. But it doesn’t and the Cross proves it!

At the Cross God was using evil to defeat evil. Only God could figure out how to make this happen! The Cross is a demonstration of the wisdom of God. Evil was turned back on itself at the Cross, causing its own destruction. I am not saying evil will eventually turn into something good on its own, given enough time, or that good somehow needs evil to exist – that is the philosophy of Dualism. Evil was defeated at the Cross of Christ because God was there working out His eternal purpose – something God had planned before the foundations of the world were even laid. The Cross could have never happened apart from the will of God because no one could have killed the Son of God against His will. Jesus laid down His life willingly because He was doing the will of the Father. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed “not my will but yours be done.” Jesus had previously asked His Father to find another way to accomplish His will, something that did not include the Cross, but there was no other way to accomplish God’s perfect will and eternal purpose. Evil is rebellion against God’s will. So Jesus defeated evil by submitting Himself completely to God’s will.

In his story “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” C.S. Lewis illustrates how Jesus willingly offered Himself. The great lion, Aslan, the Creator of the land of Narnia, offers his own life in exchange for the life of the boy Edmund, who had become a traitor and served the White Witch. Aslan surrenders himself to the Witch and her dark forces, allowing himself to be tied down to the Stone Table, mocked by the Dark Powers, and his majestic mane shaved off in humiliation before being killed by the Witch’s cruel, stone knife. In the same way, no one could have arrested, bound, and killed the Lion of the Tribe of Judah if He had not offered Himself as a willing sacrifice. It is no wonder that in the book of Revelation Jesus is depicted as the Lion who became the Lamb!

From the highest perspective, Jesus went to the Cross for His Father, not just for us. Jesus was doing the will of God and that is why Jesus is the Lamb of God. God was offering His Son as a sacrificial lamb that would take away the sin of the world. The Cross was God’s work. You and I had nothing to do with the offering of Christ.

But why did God have to offer His Son as a sacrifice?

The Cross was a transaction between Jesus and His Father which is hard for us to grasp. It is hard to understand what happened behind the scenes in the spiritual realm when Jesus died. But the Gospel writers give us some clues that help us understand what really happened when Jesus died. First, there was three hours of darkness. Then there was Jesus’ piercing cry from the Cross: “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” The darkness and the cry from the cross are both signs pointing to a single, terrible reality: when Jesus was dying on the cross He was bearing the guilt of our sin. The darkness was symbolic of the wrath and judgment of God. The piercing cry of Jesus was not just symbolic but was something that actually happened. Jesus was actually forsaken by God when He was on the cross bearing our sin. This is because Jesus was being judged by God for our sin.

Many people today are offended at the idea of God being angry at sin. We have chosen a God of love instead. But the Biblical God is both righteous AND loving and He is both of those things all the time. To say that God is ONLY loving is to have an unbalanced and unbiblical view of God, perhaps to even have invented a false god. The real question is how God can be righteous in dealing with sin and yet still be merciful to sinners and forgive their sin? The Cross is the answer to this dilemma!

The Cross is God graciously providing Atonement, or a covering, for sin. This was the only way for God to be both righteous and merciful (See Rom. 3.23ff). Jesus became a lightning rod for God’s wrath, taking the blow of God’s justice for us. So God can be merciful to us and forgive our sins through Christ because He had already paid the penalty and satisfied the righteousness of God. And so Jesus became the PROPITIATION for our sins, or that which turned aside the wrath of God. In one sense Jesus went through Hell – being separated from God – so that we would never have to experience this ourselves. God is now free to forgive or justify those who believe in Christ’s sacrifice.

The Cross was God’s way to demonstrate, or show forth, His character. The Cross was a demonstration of the righteousness of God. God cannot ignore sin. However, the Cross is also a demonstration of the love and mercy of God, because God is providing a way for sinners to be justified and forgiven. The Cross allows God to be everything God is without compromising any aspect of His character in our salvation!

We must now receive this Atonement. Even if you can’t quite understand how Atonement works, you can still believe that it does work. Jesus has taken sin away! When we do to the doctor we do not have to understand all of the complex science behind the medicine to be cured. The whole point of the Cross is not to have an abstract theory of the Atonement but for the blood of Christ to be applied to our lives. The Blood of Christ will only benefit those who apply it to their live through personal faith and receiving the Gift of God.

The Gospel writers tell us that when Jesus died the veil in the Temple was ripped in two. This also gives us a picture of what the Cross has accomplished for us. That veil in the Temple was a picture of our separation from God. The veil blocked access from the Holy of Holies, which was the Presence of God. But when Jesus died sin was removed and so the veil was also removed. This means there is nothing between us and God. There is nothing in the way, not even your sin, to keep you from coming to God through the blood of Christ. Jesus has made a way, in fact, He is the Way and there is no other. If there is something that is keeping you from coming to God, like a guilty conscience, the blood of Christ can give you confidence in the presence of God (See Heb. 10.19ff.). When we know the holiness and righteousness of God, we fear His wrath, becoming aware of our sin and unworthiness. Those who do not fear God either don’t know God or are not aware of their sinfulness. But when the blood of Christ is applied to our live through faith, or trusting in the efficacy of His atoning death, we are made clean and acceptable to God. We no longer have to fear God’s wrath. We have no confidence in our own righteousness. We trust completely in the blood of Christ to justify us before God.