The Apostle Paul began his summary of the gospel with these words: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures”.1 Elsewhere he wrote: “we preach Christ crucified”.2 So it is no exaggeration to say that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross is the heart of the gospel; the cross is its central theme.
The Bible describes the death of Christ in different ways:
“He bore the sin of many”
He is “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”
“Christ died for our sins”
“Christ . . . suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God”
Writing to fellow Christians, Paul states:
He was “made to be sin on our behalf”
“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us”
The Apostle Peter also writes to Christians:
“who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed”
What did Christ truly accomplish on the cross?
At the cross, sin was judged, wrath was satisfied, enemies were reconciled, slaves were redeemed, and the powers of darkness were defeated.
Sacrifice
The language of sacrifice that describes the cross of Christ is drawn from the Old Testament instructions for Israel’s worship of God outlined in the book of Leviticus.
“How can a holy God have a relationship with sinful people?” God’s answer in Leviticus is that the people are to offer sacrifices (primarily of animals) to the Lord to atone for their sins and thereby make them acceptable in His presence. The death of these animals, along with other food offerings enabled God to continue His special relationship with Israel, even when they were guilty of sin and disobedience.
Those sacrifices were never truly final or perfectly effective in dealing with the sins of the people. That is why there needed to be a greater and perfect sacrifice that would put away sin once for all: “but now, once at the end of the ages, He [Jesus] has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself”.
Propitiation
How will sinful man escape the wrath of God? How can God’s infinite wrath be fully satisfied? Never were more important questions asked. And the answer is in this word that is used in the Bible but is unfamiliar to most of us today: “propitiation”. It means appeasement or satisfaction and is found in the book of Romans at the heart of Paul’s explanation of the gospel:
“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 by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:23-26 ESV).
By experiencing all of God’s wrath against sins, the Lord Jesus Christ satisfied, or “propitiated” God and established a righteous basis for the salvation of sinners.
Reconciliation
Our sin has not only made us guilty (requiring sacrifice), and incurred God’s wrath (requiring propitiation); it has also separated us from Him.
The prophet Isaiah comments on this broken relationship when he says, “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear [you]”.
We were made to enjoy a close, personal relationship with our Creator, but instead, we have become separated from Him – distant, rebellious, and sinful. That is the broken condition in which we find ourselves.
The cross of Christ answers this need as well. Christ’s death is a work of reconciliation, by which the hostility and alienation between God and man can be removed and peace enjoyed:
“For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation” (Romans 5:10,11).
“by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled” (Colossians 1:20–22).
Reconciliation is the aim of the gospel: restoring us to the all-satisfying, unspeakably glorious God from whom our sins have cut us off.
Redemption
There is more. The cross also brings redemption. The language of redemption in the Bible is drawn from the commercial world. To “redeem” means to purchase someone, especially in the context of freeing slaves through the payment of a ransom.
The Bible teaches that Christ came to redeem people from the bondage of sin. The ransom price was His own life. Paul declares: “There is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time”.
Jesus Himself said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many”.
True freedom from the penalty, power, and ultimately the presence of sin has been provided through the death of Christ. He paid the ransom price in full when He died on the cross, and no one needs to remain in bondage to sin. To receive Christ as Saviour is to be saved from sin.
Conquest
Finally, the cross involved a victorious conquest. Since man’s fall into sin, the entire creation has groaned under sin’s curse. Because of this, the Bible speaks of the whole world as being under the rule of Satan. “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one,” says the Apostle John.
But from the very beginning, God promised that a Saviour would come to defeat Satan. When the time was right, Jesus, the Son of God, came to conquer the pretender to His throne. The Apostle John states it succinctly: “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil”.
Perhaps the clearest text concerning Jesus’ conquest is Hebrews 2:14,15, which reads: “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
Through the triumph of Christ’s death, He rendered the devil powerless, delivered those who are enslaved by the fear of death, conquered the great enemy of death, and secured eternal life.
On the third day, Jesus displayed His conquest over the power of sin and death by rising from the grave: “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” Because Christ has been raised, all who repent and place their faith in Him are promised that they will be raised with Him, the slavery that is fuelled by the fear of death is broken.
All this was accomplished at the cross. It makes the message of the gospel more than something to admire – it is something to respond to.
The gospel calls each person to turn from sin and trust in Jesus Christ. The wonderful promise of the Bible is that anyone who comes to Christ will be received. As Jesus Himself said in John 6:37 (ESV), “Whoever comes to Me I will never cast out”.
The question that remains is personal: will you trust Him?