77 Questions about the Atonement (Q&A #59)

59.     What is “the Word of the Cross”?

By this expression the apostle Paul meant nothing less or other than God’s Explanation for the Cross.  In a nutshell:   God justified the crucified Jesus from unjust condemnation by wicked authorities under the influence of Satan, by means of raising him from the dead to be Messiah and Lord, in order successively to deactivate this Adversary who has the control of death and to undo his works; dissolve the enmity in his own Jewish flesh; neutralize our body of sin; exempt us from and abrogate the Law of Moses with its directives and decrees; deactivate all sovereignty, all authority, and power—the chiefs of this present wicked age—along with the final enemy, Death; and then usher in His everlasting Kingdom, in which we can share, too, if we trust and follow him.  In sum, “the Word of the Cross” is the Explanation about Jesus’ Resurrection from a death of the Cross, and all it implies.  Without the Resurrection, the Cross means exactly zip.  The Cross emphatically highlights “dead” in the phrase, “Resurrection from the dead”.  If God hasn’t raised Christ from a death that serious and certain, we’re all still in our sins, and any other “word of the Cross” is empty, our faith, futile!  This means:  No Atonement without Resurrection!  The Explanation of the Cross = Jesus’ Resurrection from the Dead.  That’s the clincher.

77 Questions about the Atonement (Q&A #52)

52.     What does it mean that Christ “bore our sins in his body on the tree”?

This expression means that Jesus carried up or absorbed in his own embodied existence the full weight of the deadly offenses assaulting him from all the sinners surrounding him, not excluding even his own disciples (Simon Peter penned these words, after all!), instead of avenging himself by punishing or destroying them.  Out of love, he descended from above to save people from their sins and to illuminate the only way of sustainable life beyond the gaping grave.  For them to bear their own sins would mean, tragically, they get sucked into that black hole without remedy.  Christ’s demonstration on Golgotha serves as the paradigmatic illustration of God’s agelong attitude toward humanity at large in every place and era whatsoever.