What happened on the cross? Lots ... it was truly cosmic, universal in the truest sense possible. If we can gain a solid and holistic understanding of what he accomplished for us, it will lead us to a solid and holistic understanding of what it means to follow him.
1. By Christ’s sacrifice God takes away our sin and provides complete forgiveness.
This is the “Satisfaction Motif,” the most important and prominent way of understanding Christ’s death. Christ’s sacrifice completely satisfies God’s holy and righteous judgment of sin and sinners. As people, we all have done wrong. We have broken God’s laws and God’s heart. As it is written:
There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Romans 3:10–12)
When Christ died on the cross, God was able to completely forgive our sin because the demand of his righteous judgment against us was put on Christ. As sinners apart from Christ we all have real, objective guilt. Before God we all stand guilty. Yet, when Christ died on the cross, he took away our sins:
But now he [Christ] has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as a man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:26–27)
He [Christ] is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2)
For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. This is the wonderful message he has given us to tell others. . . . "Be reconciled to God!" For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. (2 Corinthians 5: 19-21, NLT)
As sinners, we humans have no method of atoning for our sins against God. God had to take the initiative. Only God could atone for the sins of human beings. Christ’s death on the cross provided the complete ground and basis upon which God forgives, cleanses, and purifies people from wrongdoing. Only when our objective guilt is removed are we truly free and that is what Christ did for us.
1.1 The cross is a substitute for the eternal punishment our sins deserve.
God’s holiness and justice demand that sinners be punished: that is why Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden; that is why the ancient world was destroyed by the flood; that is why many of the Israelites were destroyed in the desert; and that is why God punished the nation of Israel.
God’s justice is not lenient, as human justice can be, because God’s holiness is at stake. Humankind’s only hope is to have our sins removed so that we will not experience the punishment from God that we deserve for each of our sins. In his great love, God put upon Christ the punishment we deserve. In Jesus' death on the cross, he freed us by taking the punishment due us for our sins and in the process satisfied God’s holy anger against us.
We are made right in God's sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done. For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. (Romans 3:22–25, NLT)
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6)
When Jesus was crucified he provided the only possible way for sin to be removed. Only Christ could bear the penalty justice demanded. Jimmy Allen put it this way:
God is just, those who violate his law must be punished. How can a holy, righteous, just God save an unholy, unrighteous, unjust man and still be God? The Lord will never condone wrongdoing or fellowship sin. If man was to be saved, a way had to be devised whereby God could maintain his holiness and pardon man. There could be no compromise with sin. Shallow minded people sometimes ask, “How can a good God condemn anyone?” Really, Paul’s question in Romans is, “How can a just God save anyone?” The love and mercy of God found a way in which sinners could be forgiven … Jesus had to die to uphold the justice or righteousness of God.
The atonement of Jesus Christ, then, was necessary because it provided (in Christ’s suffering) for the removal of sin because Christ suffered the penalty that sin necessitated. Through the cross, we can be freed from the punishment we deserve.
1.2 The cross provides forgiveness from sin on a continual basis.
Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection provided an ongoing sacrifice. If we truly trust him, Christ’s atonement cleanses us from sin everyday. The expression “walk in the light” is the Bible’s way of describing living with a “genuine and active faith.” Christ’s provision for our ongoing forgiveness is described in 1 John.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. (1 John 1:7-10)
This is why Christians live with ongoing joy and peace. They experience the realization of forgiveness for all past sins at conversion and then the renewing reality of forgiveness daily through ongoing confession and faith in Christ’s blood. Christ, then, offers forgiveness perpetually for those who actively trust him.
1.3 The cross leads to eternal life with God after death.
The death of Christ cleared the way for us to have a completely restored relationship with God in eternity after death. This restoration is often appropriately referred to as our “salvation”:
For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:9)
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you. (1 Peter 1: 3-4)
Our salvation will be consummated with the joy of an unending, intimate communion with God in eternity. Through his death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus Christ gave the proof and the substance of our own future resurrection to be with God forever.
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality … then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:51–54)
Just as Adam and Eve caused the entire human race to be excluded from intimate communion with God and to be destined for death, through his atonement, Jesus Christ has provided the basis for all of his followers to re-establish an intimate communion with God and to be destined for eternal life with him where death no longer exists. What Adam destroyed, Christ rebuilt.
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