The Cross

He suffered, under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and buried.  The good news of Jesus Christ is grace.  God’s grace toward people in rebellion against him.  But grace is not something that cost’s nothing.  Grace assumes some kind of offence.  You and I know this intuitively.  When someone wrongs you, it creates an offense.  That offense is now present and can only be resolved by some sort of payment.  To put things right and for forgiveness to occur (which is another word for grace) a payment for the wrong is needed.  This is why we say, “he must pay” or “you’re going to pay for what you’ve done.”  Intuitively we know that payment is necessary when wrong has been committed.  This is true both in relational matters and judicial matters.  “They’ve paid their debt to society,” we say.  The part of the Apostles Creed that we come to now deals with this important concept.  Why did Jesus die?  Why did he die upon a cross?  These are the questions that this part of the creed answers.  Jesus suffered, was crucified, died and buried.  The clear testimony of scripture is that this occurred for the forgiveness of sins.  Jesus said, “the son of man ... came to give his life as a ransom.”  A payment.  But how can a cross be the payment?  The Bible says that the cross is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolish to the Gentiles (I Cor 1:23).  As the writer says, “The cross is offensive to the Jews because a crucified Messiah implies a crucified Israel … Calvary means that Israel also must die ... must share in the fate of the ungodly.”

To die upon a cross was the ultimate curse of the law (Duet 21:22-23, Galatians 3:10ff). For the Jew this inconceivable and incompatible with their understanding of the Messiah.  Furthermore, for the Gentiles it was foolishness to exalt in the execution of a condemned criminal.  A cross was the ultimate form of condemnation and humiliation.  Nothing else in all of society was understood to be more heinous than a criminal’s end upon a cross.  To suggest and even more to exalt in and worship one who died on a cross was sheer madness.  Justin Martyr wrote, “they say our madness consists in the fact that we put a crucified man in second place after the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of the world.”  But the scripture continually testifies that God put forth Jesus as an atoning sacrifice (a payment) for the forgiveness of sins.  “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation (a payment) by his blood to be received by faith.”  (Romans 3:23-25).   This is exactly was Jesus understood himself to be doing when he said that his life was a ransom payment and the reason why he set himself to go to Jerusalem.  Peter affirmed this when he said, “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.  Peter goes on to say that his was done for the “forgiveness of your sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.”  Michael Bird writes, “Whenever the cross is raised, there will quickly gather a gaggle of mockers to hurl insults at it.  And yet, none of the sneers, taunts, or profanities hurled at the cross and at those who raise it up can change the fact that the cross is a beacon of light in a world that is cold, brutal, and dark.  For upon the cross we encounter the depth of God’s mercy for those who were once children of disobedience and his love for those once enslaved to the present evil age.”  It is God’s doing as a ransom payment to rescue all those who would believe his work, for it is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe (Romans 1:16).