The Cross - What it Finished
The significance of the Cross: The authors of the gospels tell us that the Lord Jesus
spoke of the cross before His death (Matt 10:38, Mark 10:21, Luke 14:27) as a symbol
of the necessity of full commitment (even unto death) for those who would be His
disciples. But the major significance of the cross after Jesus’ death and resurrection is
its use as a symbol of Jesus’ willingness to suffer for our sins (Phil 2:8; Heb 12:2) so
that we might be reconciled (II Cor 5:19, Gal 2:20) to God and know His peace (Eph 2:
16).
Thus the cross symbolizes the glory of the Christian gospel (I Cor 1:17). The fact is
that through this offensive means of death (I Cor 1:23; Gal 5:11), the debt of sin
against us was “nailed to the cross” (Col 2:14), and we, having been freed from sin and
death and made alive to God (Rom 6:6-11).
The apostle Paul summed up the importance of the crucifixion best. “We preach Christ
crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those
who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God”
(I Cor 1:23-24). Out of the ugliness and agony of crucifixion, God accomplished the
greatest good of all, the redemption of sinners.
The finished work of Christ – meant the work of atonement or redemption for the
human race that He completed by His death on the cross. This work is so perfect in
itself that it requires neither repetition nor addition. Because of the work, He is called
“Savior of the world” (I John 4:14) and “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world” (John 1:29). Paul goes on to say that Christ, by enduring the form of death on
which a divine curse was expressly pronounced in the law absorbed in His own person
a curse for us; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” (Duet 21:23;
Gal 3:13). Since Christ partakes of the nature of both God and humanity He occupies
a unique status with regard to them. He represents God to humanity, and He also
represents humanity to God. God is both Lawgiver and Judge.
Christ represents Him. The human family has put itself in the position of the
lawbreaker. Christ has voluntarily undertaken to represent us. The Judge has made
Himself one with the guilty in order to bear our guilt. It is ordinarily not of the question
for one person to bear the guilt of others. But when the one person is the
representative human being, Jesus Christ, bearing the guilt of those whom He
represents, the case is different. In the hour of His death, Christ offered His life to God
on behalf of mankind. The perfect life that He offered was acceptable to God. The
salvation secured through the giving up of that life is God’s free gift to mankind in
Christ.
Paul goes on to the limit of daring in speaking of God as “Him who justifies the ungodly”
(Rom 4:5) God can be so described because “Christ dies for the ungodly” (Rom 5:6).
Those who are united by faith to Him are “justified” in Him. As Paul explained
elsewhere, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him” (II Cor 5:21). The work of Christ, seen from this point of
view, is to set humanity in a right relationship with God.
When sin is considered as defilement that requires cleaning, the most straightforward
affirmation is that “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (I John 1:
7). The effect of His death is to purify a conscience that has been polluted by sin.
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself
without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
(Heb 9:14). Spiritual defilement calls for spiritual cleaning and this is what the death of
Christ has accomplished.
Jesus Himself declared that He came “to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
Sin is also viewed as estrangement, or alienation from God
In this case the saving work of Christ includes the reconciliation of sinners to God.
“God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (II Cor 5:19).
Those who are separated from God by sin are also estranged from one another.
Accordingly the work of Christ that reconciles sinners to God also brings them together
as human beings. Hostile divisions of humanity have peace with one another through
Him. “For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the
middle wall of division between us” (Eph 2:14).
When the work of Christ is pictured in terms of an atoning sacrifice, it is God who takes
the initiative. He has revealed His pardoning nature above all in the person and work
of Christ. This saving initiative is equally and eagerly shared by Christ. He gladly
cooperates with the Father’s purpose for the redemption of the world.
God finished the legal side. We must do the vital side.
Believe and speak it out.