As we head up to Easter: what does the cross mean?
For our Muslim friends it is inconceivable that God should be crucified. And it’s certainly true that Christ could have used his divine power and walked away from it. So why did he die? Could humanity not have been improved by gentle instruction and reform, rather than by something as drastic, sharp, and bloody as this? (Which I think we find in no other religion?)
But to grasp the cross we need to grasp what God had been saying throughout the preceding ages, because the new testament builds on the old. What Paul tells us is `of first importance` is that `Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures`, that is, the Scriptures the churches had when he wrote, primarily the old testament. And throughout the old testament, from Cain and Abel onwards, blood sacrifice is shown to be central and essential to worship. The point is that what is sacrificed takes the place of someone else; again from the Bible’s opening book, the ram taking Isaac’s place in Genesis 22; and then, crucially, comes Passover, to this day the central feast of Jewish religion, where people were safe from death and God’s judgment if, and only if, they were in a house which had the blood of a slaughtered lamb at its entrance. Then too there was the entire system of old testament worship in tabernacle and temple, with at its centre the blood sacrifice of animals, sacrificed to pay for the worshippers’ sin; making clear that people could only meet with God if there was a sacrifice on their behalf. And at the other end of the old testament we read:
` He was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.` (Isaiah 53:5-6.)
All these foreshadowed Calvary from the very dawn of human history, and throughout the old testament era. For our Muslim friends the events of Genesis 22 are the basis of one of their two great annual feasts, Eid al-adha, even though (as we can share!) those events only find their full meaning in terms of the whole pattern of old testament sacrifice pointing to Calvary. But through the old testament God is making clear that such sacrifice was not the invention of perhaps some cavemen who didn’t know any better, it was the central necessity of God-human relationship. God hates the sins that you and I do; we’ve all sinned and ended up outside the glory of God (Rom 3:23). The consequences of human evil can only be separation from a holy God, which (since he is the source of all life) must mean death (Rom 6:23), both temporal, and eternal, ie hell. So because God is utterly holy and just, there is a penalty for our sins that cannot just be ignored, and must somehow be paid. Our only hope is if somehow there is a Substitute who takes our place and pays our penalty; `penal substitution` as theologians call this. (`Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness`, says Hebrews 9:22.)
Thus Passover, where God’s people were safe only as they were sheltered under the blood of a sacrificed lamb, is an astonishing prophetic picture of the cross where, as John 1:29 says, Jesus the `Lamb of God… takes away the sin of the world.` `Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed` for us, says Paul (1 Cor 5:7); `It was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed… but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect`, says Peter, likewise using Passover language in 1 Peter 1:18-19. And in Revelation (which presents Christ as the Lamb throughout, 28 times), the worship of the Lamb in 5:9 builds on the fact that ` You were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God people from every tribe and language and people and nation.` In other words: our situation was so serious (does any other religion face this?) that God himself had to step in and rescue us at enormous cost to himself. (And when he did, we tortured and murdered him; we.) On Calvary, Christ has taken our disastrous place: `Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us` (Gal 3:13); `God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Cor 5:21). On Calvary Christ has taken our catastrophic place… and so we are redeemed, we are rescued, we are saved!
And while Christ paying for our sins as our substitute on the cross is the foundation for everything else, there is also another huge, wonderful stage that follows! When we respond to his gospel call, we don’t just reach out to receive forgiveness, we reach out to actually receive Jesus himself to come into our inmost being. It is because we are `united with him in his death`, as Paul says, and then `united with him in his resurrection` (Rom 6:5; cf Gal 2:20, ` I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me`!) that his death is our death, the penalty he paid in dying is paid for us – and so his resurrection life is also ours; the barrier between us and God is removed forever, we are`united with him`! This is massive! We are not just forgiven (utterly essential though this is), but we are joined (cf Eph 4:15-16) with Christ, actually baptized – that is, entirely submerged – into his supernatural `body` (1 Cor 12:13). And then it’s because we’re `united with Christ` that we come to share everything he is and has. All his loving power for good is now ours to claim (as we pray `in Jesus’ name`). So are his love, his peace, his joy, his wisdom. Indeed in the end we will share all the joy of this most joyous being in the universe (Matt 25:23), `share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ` (2 Thess 2:14); in fact we will share in his very throne (Rev 3:21)! And the starting point of all this wonder is the cross. This is the greatness of the gospel, may God help us to worship and to share it; it’s happened, we can be so thankful at such good news!
And taking all this from yet another angle: the cross tells us so much about God, and so much about ourselves; God willing we’ll explore these next time…
