Stunning & Inexhaustible - are you tired of the cross?

A myriad of realities make Jesus’ death stunning and relevant and inexhaustible.

Our intellectual understanding and emotional satisfaction are interwoven. The more we know of God the more we love God. Put as a question: how do we love God more? Not solely, but certainly and essentially by seeking to understand him more.  And that must include understanding the cross; all its various biblical perspectives.

As John Stott put it: ‘What I believe about God himself, about his character and purpose, about time and eternity, about evil, suffering, salvation, reality, faith love – and everything else besides – is largely determined by the cross.’  (Preface, The Essential John Stott, 1999)

So how would the Bible have us understand the cross?

The family home - reconciliation

Perhaps the image we are most familiar with is of the family home - of an estranged child who has committed all sorts of insults and wounds to loving parents finally finding a way home, and accepting that way home, in the cross. Jesus, the perfect and obedient son, reconciles the loving Heavenly Father to disobedient child. God is the loving father; we are disobedient children, wayward and sullen; and Jesus' death brings reconciliation. (Luke 15:11-32; 2 Corinthians 5:18)

The temple altar - propitiation

There is the uncomfortable-for-many image of the cross as sacrifice. We are right to feel emotionally uncomfortable! Those who accept this image only as cold truth surely fail to understand it at all. It is biblically and intellectually creditable. It is also emotionally disturbing.  An image of blood and death and gore and mess. The appeasement of God's rightful anger at our sin with another, an innocent, taking the death penalty in our place. Here Jesus is the lamb willingly and knowingly being led to death. We are those whose death-deserving-sin is paid for by another. God is the holy Lord - righteous and pure with holy wrath at our unholy sin. God is the Lord Almighty; Jesus the lamb; my penalty taken by another. (Isaiah 52 and 53, John 18:11 & 14; Romans 3:21-26, Genesis 22 and 32, Leviticus 16; Hebrews 9:11-14; 10:10,14; 1 John 2:2; 4:10)

The law court - justification

God the Father; God the Almighty; and now God the Judge. The law court imagery has us as guilty criminals facing sentencing and Jesus accepting that sentence for us. And the perfect Judge judges one crime only once.  If Jesus takes the sentence for my crime then we must be declared innocent of our crimes, free to live again. My sentence is served by Jesus. (Romans 3:21-26; Colossians 1:14)

The battle field - victory

Then victory, victory, victory. This is God the King.  The image is of the battle field - war and fight and battle and death and triumph. The cross is the great defeat of satan’s great champion death.  Just as David’s defeat of Goliath was the defeat of Philistine so Jesus’ defeat of death, satan’s strongest warrior, is the defeat of satan himself. Jesus is the warrior king defeating the schemes of evil and the devil himself as he defeats death. The enemy defeated; God is the victorious King; I'm a soldier in a triumphant army. (Colossians 1:13; 2:15)

The wash room - expiation

Dirtied and muddied and covered in sin. Stinking, foul, unpleasant.  We are filthy.  Filthy because of the sin we have chosen to roll in.  Filthy because of other’s sin slung at us which has struck.  Jesus comes as soap of the strongest kind, washing us clean. Cleansing from guilt and shame - from sin done by us and sins done to us. No more guilt. No more shame. Washed; cleansed; clean. (Leviticus 16; 1 John 1:9)

The slave market - redemption

We are slaves - to sin and addiction and money and wickedness and self-interest; shackled and chained, under tyrant owners. God is our true owner. Jesus the price paid to free us, returning us to our rightful, loving owner. A new master, paid for at the cost of Jesus, for a new life of freedom. (Mark 10:45; Romans 3:21-26; Galatians 5:1)

The cinema – revelation

Unable to perceive accurately who God is, God himself shows us his true identity in Jesus and ultimately in Jesus’ death on the cross.  God is revealed as Jesus dies – his justice (all crimes are fully punished and justice is served) and his love (the very guilty ones can be pardoned).  And so the God who says ‘you shall not acquit the guilty’ (proverbs 15:17) also is the ‘God who justifies the ungodly’ (Romans 4:5).  The cross is the clearest sight of God’s justice and his love. 

The kidnap reunion – ransom

Held against our will by sin and satan.  Kidnapped with a price for release beyond our resources to pay Jesus ‘came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom’ (Mark 10:45).  So freedom from kidnap – reunited again and no longer imprisoned. 

The barter house – exchange

The barter house where you can exchange items of roughly equal value.  You arrive with one thing you no longer need and leave with another you do – each party getting a fair deal.  The divine barter house of the cross involves a great exchange – between Jesus’ perfect righteousness and my filthy and flawed unrighteousness.  It is no fair deal.  We exchange something of no value and gain something of infinite value.  ‘Christ died…the righteous for the unrighteous’ (1Peter 3:15).  Our righteousness is ‘filthy rags’ (Isaiah 64:6) and they are exchanged Christ’s perfect standing.

Bigger Hearts through Growing Minds

How can even the smallest grasp of the extent of these wondrous realities not enlarge our hearts and expand our minds and fan into flame our love for all that God is and has done?

* based on an original post from 20.11.12