What Happened at the Cross

In jewelry stores from Fifth Avenue to the airport in Rome one piece of jewelry is universally displayed—the cross. Clerical robes have this emblem sewn on the front or back. Churches display the cross in wood, bronze, concrete, or brass. The last month of the year some office buildings light certain windows at night to form a cross which can be seen for miles.

What does the cross of Jesus mean? If we stopped people on the street and asked that question we might hear, “It’s a symbol for Christianity, I guess.” Or, “Jesus was a martyr and was nailed to the cross.” Others might say it was a myth, or a history major might say it was an example of Roman justice.

Another answer to the question, “What does the cross mean?” was given by the poet, Venantius Fortunatus. He tried to express how Jesus Himself might speak of the cross if we asked Him. The poet pictured Jesus on the cross, surrounded by men who were intent upon killing him.

Jesus looks at them and says:

Oh, how sweet the wood of the cross, How sweet the nails, That I could die for you.

This deeply personal, intimate view of the cross is what the apostle Paul taught when he said, “In human experience it is a rare thing for one man to give his life for another, . . . though there have been a few who have had the courage to do it. Yet the proof of God’s amazing love is this: that it was while we were sinners that Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:7-8, Phillips).

The focus of Paul’s whole ministry to the great commercial city of Corinth was summed up when he said, “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

The average person in Corinth would have answered a question about the cross in the same way as the man on the street in the USA or any European, African, or Asian country. Corinthians lived in a city which was known for its depraved moral character. It was the kind of town in which we wouldn’t want to raise our families. The Corinthians were a sophisticated, sexually dissolute bunch, who thought that the cross was ridiculous, foolish, and even idiotic. Commenting on this view, Paul said, “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:25).

In Corinth the preaching of the cross of Christ was a stumbling block to the Jews, and idiocy to the philosophic Greeks. The philosophers believed they could unravel divine mysteries because they were overconfident of their own mental capacities. However, Paul said that the natural man (meaning the man who does not have the Spirit of God indwelling him) cannot understand the things of God. He meant that sin has twisted our understanding of truth so that we cannot recognize the truth about God.

Before the teaching in the Bible about the cross can mean anything to us, the Spirit of God must open our minds. The Scriptures teach that a veil covers our minds as a result of our separation from God.

To an “outsider” the cross must appear to be ridiculous. But to those who have experienced its transforming power, it has become the only remedy for the ills of each person, and of the world.

In spite of this available power, the gospel about Christ who was crucified is still unimportant to millions. They reflect the failure Paul analyzed when he questioned, “What have the philosopher, the writer and the critic of this world to show for all their wisdom? Has not God made the wisdom of this world look foolish? For it was after the world in its wisdom had failed to know God, that he in his wisdom chose to save all who believe by the ‘simplemindedness’ of the gospel message” (1 Cor. 1:20-21, Phillips).

How can we brand the message of the cross as foolishness? Have we done so well with our private lives, with our families, and with our society that we can claim wisdom? It’s time we abandoned the pretense of being intellectual and recognize that our best minds are baffled by life.

God successfully changes men and women by the message that centers in the cross. His approach recognizes our disease and presents the right medicine. He offers His wisdom as an alternative to our failures.

In our everyday life we profit from many helps that we can’t understand. We go to the sink and turn on the water tap, never stopping to figure out the source of the water, or how it was carried through the pipes to us. What about a prescription from a doctor? We can’t read it or analyze it. We pay a sum we may think is too much because we rely on the doctor’s knowledge and authority to make us well.

In the same way we may not be able to fully comprehend the deep significance of the cross, but we can benefit from it because the Bible gives us the authoritative answer to the problem of sin.

What Happened at the Cross?

The cross is the focal point in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Some think that God didn’t want Christ to die, but was forced to adjust His plans to adapt to it. Scripture makes it very clear, however, that the cross was no afterthought with God. Christ was “delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23).

God designed the cross to defeat Satan, who by deception had obtained squatters’ rights to the title deed of the world. When Satan with all of his clever promises separated man from God in the Garden of Eden, he was more than the deceiver of Adam and Eve. In some mysterious manner he began to exert a kind of pseudosovereignty over man. In his arrogant violence, Satan unleashed his fiercest attack to stop Christ’s ministry by seeing that He was murdered. But Satan was stopped by God and caught in his own trap. He hadn’t realized that God loved the world so intensely that He could let His own Son be subjected to the worst Satan could do. Satan miscalculated. He didn’t comprehend the greatness of God’s love and the wisdom of His plan.

Satan’s power was broken at the cross. “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).

What a blow was dealt to Satan! Although he is still a wily pretender, his destruction was made certain by the victory of Christ at the cross. “That through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14). What seemed to be the biggest defeat of history turned into the greatest triumph.

Through the cross, God not only overpowered Satan but brought Himself and man together. Christ rescued the slaves that Satan held captive and reconciled them to Himself. The Bible describes this amazing divine plan in these words: “We speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:7-8).

The cross revealed an eternal secret. This was “the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested” (Rom. 16:25-26).

If it were possible for one man, Adam, to lead mankind to ruin, why shouldn’t it be possible for one man to redeem it? The Bible says, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22).

What Did the Cross Cost God?

As human beings filled with our own hurts and desires and emotions, we find it almost impossible to stretch our minds enough to conceive the cost to God in allowing His only Son to go to the cross. If He could have forgiven our sins by any other method, if the problems of the world could have been solved in any other way, God would not have allowed Jesus to die.

In the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before He was killed, Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me” (Matt. 26:39), in other words, if there is any other way to redeem the human race, O God, find it! There was no other way. And then He prayed, “Not as I will, but as You will” (Matt. 26:39).

It’s important to understand that when Jesus prayed that prayer, He was not just considering the simple act of dying. Just as His life was unique, so was His death. What happened to Him when He died never happened to any other person in the past and would never happen to anyone in the future. To be able to understand this we need to look into God’s revelation before Christ’s earthly ministry, back to the Old Testament.

The orthodox Jewish religion was founded on God’s grace. God entered into a covenant relationship with Israel, declaring Himself to be their God and stating in a special way that they were to be His people (Deut. 7:6). With this type of relationship, how were they to express their love for Him? The answer was by doing His will as it was described in the Old Testament law. But the people could not keep the law perfectly, and when they broke it, they sinned. As the Bible says, “Sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4, KJV).

The sacrifices in the temple were meant by God to show graphically that a person’s guilt and penalty for sin could be transferred from him to another. In the case of the Old Testament, a perfect animal symbolically bore the penalty and was killed.

Why did God give the law if He knew people couldn’t possibly keep it? The Bible teaches that the law was given as a mirror. When we look into it, we see what true righteousness is. The Ten Commandments describe the life that pleases God. If we are separated from God by sin, the law exposes our sin and faces us with our true spiritual condition. The mirror does not reveal a very attractive image!

Sin had to be paid for, so in the beginning God instituted the sacrificial system by which we finally could be brought into a right relationship with God. In Old Testament times, those who had sinned brought sacrifices of animals and offered them to God. These sacrifices were shadows of the Great Sacrifice who was yet to come.

In Leviticus 4, Moses described a situation in which a leader needs to offer a sacrifice. We can think of it in seven steps:

1. “When a leader sins . . . 2. he shall bring for his offering a goat, 3. a male without defect. 4. He shall lay his hand on the head of the male goat 5. and slay it . . . ; it is a sin offering. 6. Then the priest is to take some of the blood of the sin offering . . . and put it on the horns of the altar . . . 7. Thus the priest shall make atonement for him in regard to his sin, and he will be forgiven” (vv. 22-26).

Notice the sequence. Man sinned and wants forgiveness of God. He brings an animal, a perfect specimen, to the priest and lays his hand on its head. Symbolically, at that point the guilt and punishment he bears because of his sin passes to the animal. He then kills it as a sin offering, and the priest places some of the blood on the altar.

What is the significance? It is an atonement for the man in regard to his sin. In place of a broken relationship between God and the sinner, “atonement” results and “he shall be forgiven” by God.

The sacrifices were visual aids to show sinners that there was hope because the punishment for sin could be transferred to another. However, they were only symbols, because “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb 10:4). But God could forgive them in the light of what He would one day do at the cross. Jesus, “having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God” (Heb. 10:12).

God did not initiate the sacrifices because He was bloodthirsty or unjust. He wanted us to zero in on two things: first, the loathsomeness of sin, and second, the cross on which God Himself would satisfy forever the demands of His justice. “Not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He [Jesus] entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12).

When Christ atoned for sin, He stood in the place of guilty men and women. If God had forgiven sin by a divine decree, issuing some sort of a heavenly document written across the sky, without the atonement which involved the personal shame, agony, suffering, and death of Christ, then we might assume that God was indifferent to sin. Consequently we would all go on sinning, and the earth would become a living hell.

In the suffering of Jesus we have the participation of God in the act of atonement. Sin pierced God’s heart. God felt every searing nail and spear. God felt the burning sun. God felt the scorn of His tormenters and the body blows. In the cross is the suffering love of God bearing the guilt of man’s sin. This love alone is able to melt the sinner’s heart and bring him to repentance for salvation. “He [God the Father] made Him who knew no sin [Jesus] to be sin on our behalf” (2 Cor. 5:21).

The Reason for Communion

Many people do not understand communion. For them, the communion service has no mystical meaning. And yet the cross is what communion is all about. In the Lord’s Supper, Jesus likens Himself to the Lamb that was offered in the sacrifice or atonement and says to His disciples and to all who will believe in Him, “This is My body broken for you.” This is symbolic of what He did on the cross. When the cup is offered the emphasis is upon the fact that His blood is shed for the remission of sins. The elements of bread and wine convey to us the reality of atonement and forgiveness. We can touch them, taste them, and see them. We have bread in our hands, but we have Christ in our hearts. We have the cup in our hand, but we have the benefits of forgiveness through His blood in our hearts.

One of the most famous Scottish theologians was John Duncan of New College in Edinburgh. As communion was being held in a Church of Scotland on one occasion, when the elements came to a little sixteen-year-old girl, she suddenly turned her head aside. She motioned for the elder to take the cup away—that she couldn’t drink it. John Duncan reached his long arm over, touched her shoulder, and said tenderly, “Take it, lassie, it’s for sinners!”

How Can I Understand All This?

There is a mystery to the death of Christ that is beyond our human understanding. The depths of God’s love in sending His Son to pay such an awful price is beyond the measure of the mind of man. But we must accept it on faith or we will continually bear the burdens of guilt. We must accept the atonement that Christ has made and not try to make our own atonement, and this we can never do. Salvation is by Christ alone through faith alone, and for the glory of God alone.

Christ took the punishment which was due us.

My friend and associate, Cliff Barrows, told me this story about bearing punishment. He recalled the time when he took the punishment for his children when they had disobeyed. “They had done something I had forbidden them to do. I told them if they did the same thing again I would have to discipline them. When I returned from work and found that they hadn’t minded me, the heart went out of me. I just couldn’t discipline them.”

Any loving father can understand Cliff’s dilemma. Most of us have been in the same position. He continued with the story: “Bobby and Bettie Ruth were very small. I called them into my room, took off my belt and my shirt, and with a bare back, knelt down at the bed. I made them both strap me with the belt ten times each. You should have heard the crying! From them, I mean! They didn’t want to do it. But I told them the penalty had to be paid and so through their sobs and tears they did what I told them.”

Cliff smiled when he remembered the incident. “I must admit I wasn’t much of a hero. It hurt. I haven’t offered to do that again, but I never had to spank them again, either, because they got the point. We kissed each other when it was over and prayed together.”

In that infinite way that staggers our hearts and minds, we know that Christ paid the penalty for our sins, past, present, and future.

That is why He died on the cross.