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.
The Premial Atonement 