Now we’ve come to the redemption events that all the symbols and pictures in the Old Testament were anticipating: Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.
Jesus’ crucifixion isn’t an easy thing to wrap our minds around. Many of us grew up with a simplified version of the gospel that went something like this. Because of our sin, we are under a sentence of death and eternal punishment. But Jesus offered his sinless life on the cross in place of ours. When he accepted the punishment that our sins deserved, he turned aside God’s wrath and judgment. Our debt was paid, justice was satisfied, and we can be forgiven.
But you don’t find that picture in any of the gospels. In fact, many parts of the gospels contradict it. So what are the pictures we find in the gospels that can build our understanding and help us hold tightly to Jesus and the cross? We’ll begin with Jesus’ own words. Our first picture will be of Judgment.
Pictures of Judgement
A few days before his crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples that on the cross our broken world and Satan, its current ruler, would be judged.
John 12:31-32 NLT
The time for judging this world has come, when Satan, the ruler of this world, will be cast out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”
John 16:8-11 NIV
When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
On the cross, God was judging the world, and the corrupt, unjust systems that underpin it. Paul says that God has “disarmed the powers [spiritual rulers] and authorities”.
Colossians 2:13-15 NIV
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Think of a balance beam scale. On one side we have Jesus, the creator of the world, who loves us enough to humble himself, come to earth as a man just like us, endure hardships like us, but also show us what the kingdom of God is like, healing disease, casting out demons, raising the dead.
On the other side of the scale we see Satan leading his rebels to torture, humiliate, and murder our creator. Truly, this is the worst that Satan and the world could do. So on the cross, Satan and his rebels have been weighed in God’s balance. On one side we have Satan’s darkness; on the other we have God’s light. That is a picture of judgment, and Satan is now condemned.
Jesus also said that when he was “lifted up”, he would draw all men to himself. I don’t think anyone can see Jesus on the cross and remain indifferent. We are either drawn to Jesus, or we reject him, and our reaction reveals our own situation with respect to judgment. Either we recognize the brokenness of our world, and our own part in that, and agree that the world needs redemption and restoration and we need rescue. Or we reject Jesus because of our pride, or indifference, or any of the world’s current forms of idolatry.
Our reaction shows us which road we are on, the narrow or the wide road, and hopefully gives us the chance to turn to the light.
Matthew 7:13-14 NIV
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Pictures of Sacrifice
In the last few days before he was arrested, Jesus had a lot to say to his disciples, preparing them for his death, and passing along the pictures they would need in order to make sense of the coming events. One of those pictures was of sacrifice:
John 15:12-13 NLT
This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
John 17:18-19 NLT
Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth.
How should we understand this, given our cultural background that looks at sacrifice as a backward, savage practice, unworthy of a loving God? Here, we’ll only look at two facets of sacrifice that apply to Jesus. You’ll find a more extensive treatment of sacrifice in Appendix C.
The sacrifice Jesus spoke of wasn’t a sacrifice in the pagan sense of appeasing an angry god. The Bible makes it clear that the only sacrifice God has ever desired is trust and obedience.
Philippians 2:5-8 NLT
You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Mark 14:32-36 NLT They went to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and Jesus said, “Sit here while I go and pray.” He took Peter, James, and John with him, and he became deeply troubled and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” He went on a little farther and fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by. “Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
Jesus knew that pain and suffering lay ahead. He even asked the Father if there might be some other way to redeem mankind. But in the end, Jesus chose obedience to his Father’s will.
Jesus sacrificed his own will and his own body to his Father’s will. He was willing to endure the pain of the cross out of love for mankind. When Jesus willingly gave himself up to death on the cross, he passed the ultimate test of trust and obedience. And he did it as mankind’s champion and representative head.
Sacrifice can look different from God’s point of view compared to ours. Remember that at the Passover, the Israelites thought they were saved from the Angel of Death by the blood of the Passover Lamb. But in God’s sight, they were saved by the sign of the cross, painted in blood on their doorposts.
There is a second purpose for sacrifice in the ancient world that God recognized. Sacrificing an animal had long been part of the ritual used to seal, or ratify, a covenant. This confirmed the importance of the covenant for both parties. It’s in that sense that Jesus’ explanation of the Afikomen and the Cup of Redemption at the last supper apply. Jesus was sealing the new covenant between God and mankind with his blood.
Luke 22:19-20 NIV
And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
Jesus Came to Find and Win His Bride
Part of Jesus’ mission was to come to earth to seek a bride. Marriage is two very different (male and female are pretty different) people living in harmony and enjoying each other.
We’ve already looked at the Marriage Covenant, God’s symbolic picture of the relationship he wants with each of us that’s as close as a marriage. An important insight into Jesus on the cross is found in Greg Boyd’s message about Romans 10. He pictures Jesus coming to earth to pursue his bride:
“The good news is that God has this incomprehensible, indescribable, unfathomable love for this race of people who rejected him and put themselves under Satan’s bondage.”
“…The good news is that Jesus comes as the bridegroom who wants to rescue his bride from her own self-imprisonment and from his arch enemy.”
”…On the cross, Jesus is saying ‘Here is what I’m really like’. …Jesus is wooing us with the beauty of his love revealed on Calvary. …The good news is that the cross is God’s marriage proposal! Where he’s saying ‘this is who I really am, this is who I Am to my very heart, and this is how much you mean to me – Will you marry me? Will you enter into covenant with me? Will you pledge yourself to be faithful to me?’ Folks, that is the good news.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C83bc-lmOg (sttarting at 32:00)
Jesus Was Faithful to His Mission
Jesus’ mission was to redeem the world, and to destroy Satan’s work.
John 3:16-17 NIV
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
1 John 3:5a, 8b NIV
But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. … The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
As the Roman soldiers were nailing Jesus to his cross, he could have stopped everything. He had already shown his authority over nature, over disease, over Satan and his demons, and over life and death. If Jesus had simply said, “Enough!” he would have been surrounded by armies of angels, and the Roman soldiers hammering in those spikes would have been paralyzed.
In fact, Jesus could have told his Father at any point after his arrest, “I’m all done. These people aren’t worth it.” But instead, Jesus said “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.” Jesus stayed nailed to that cross until he had accomplished his core mission, redeeming mankind from sin and Satan. When Jesus said, “It is finished!”, mankind had been redeemed and the new covenant age had been inaugurated on earth. When Jesus comes again, he will bring the new creation, he will be our God and King, and we will be his people.