It is well known that the cross is at the centre of Christianity, but for centuries there has been debate about what precisely happened on the cross, and there is much misunderstanding. What I believe to be the most fundamental aspect of the cross is that the punishment that should have been ours was laid upon Jesus Christ instead, and because of this we are declared innocent, made righteous. I don’t want to go into all the theology of this, but do want to deal with misrepresentations of this view. This is perpetrated by, among others, the likes of Steve Chalke as “cosmic child abuse”. This is perhaps the most notorious misrepresentation, but there are Christians who see Jesus as persuading a reluctant God to forgive us.
Properly understood the cross is the greatest act of love in history. We all know it was an act of love of God towards us, but it was also an act of love between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In that most famous verse, John 3:16, we read that “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son ...”. This should we really knock the cosmic child abuse nonsense on the head from the start, but let’s look at things from a positive perspective.
The cross (and resurrection) were a joint enterprise between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, an enterprise agreed upon from all eternity. And it was an act of love between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To see something of this, think of the great adventures we have in films and books, or great real life stories. Many of them will involve a few people embarking together on some quest or mission. This will work together on this, all be committed to the same purpose. But the quest will often involve great risk and cost to one or more members of the party. This gives us some insight into one aspect of what the cross was all about. God, (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), wanted to save mankind from our sin. The only way to do this was through the cross, and this would involve the death of the Son. They were perfectly united in this plan, its purpose and the way it had to be done, and they worked together in order to execute the plan. The cross was an act of love between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the notion of “cosmic child abuse” could not be further from the truth.
The cross is, of course, also the greatest act of love towards us by God. We perhaps find it easier to appreciate the emotional side of this love, ie God loving us so much that He was prepared to die for us through His Son. We sometimes find it a little harder to appreciate the importance of the legal side of this (ie Christ paying the price of our sins). To help us understand this a little let’s consider adoption, and adoption is a very Biblical concept (Eph 1:5; Rom 8:23). For adoption to work it requires both emotional commitment and proper legality. The adopting couple need to be committed to the child, without that emotional commitment the adoption will not work. But the emotional commitment while necessary is not sufficient, the proper legal process has to be gone through. If the legal side was not done properly then at some point someone could come and take the child away. This again can give us some insight into the cross. There is a deep emotional commitment to us from God, far deeper than we can ever appreciate, and that is an essential part of the cross. But our sin puts us in a seriously bad position. We are guilty, far more guilty than any of us ever appreciate, and something needs to be done about that. The cross dealt fully with that guilt. We may not, perhaps even cannot, fully appreciate exactly how it achieved this, but it is essential that it did so. And it did do so, so that we can be completely secure in God’s love. Because of the cross there is now no charge that can be brought against us.
I hope that these thoughts will help us to appreciate a little more of height, depth and width of God’s love.
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