In the third of our alphabet series, ‘The A-Z of Christian Faith’, we looked at the letter C and concluded (from 1 Cor 1:18-25, 1 Cor 2:1-5 and 1 Cor 15:1-8) that ‘C is for Christ Crucified’. Paul makes it clear that this is the absolute essential element of the gospel; as Simon Ponsonby (pastor of theology at St Aldate’s, Oxford) says, in an open letter to the church published in the February issue of ‘Christianity’ magazine, ‘Drop the cross; lose the plot.’ He says, ‘If we drop the cross we lose the plot, and we cannot blossom and bless, only wither and die… We have a gospel. We have the breath-taking, heart-racing, life-changing, epic story of God who loves us and has come for us. This story of stories presents God in Christ entering the world to rewrite our fractured story, to rescue the drowning, to find the lost, to free the bound, to comfort the broken, to restore the fallen, to enlighten the confused, to create community, to transform society, to recreate creation.’
In John 12:12-16, we read about Jesus’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, how the crowd heard that Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem and took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!’ Matthew also tells us about this moment, explaining how Jesus came to be entering riding on a young colt and how this was recognised as the fulfilment of Zechariah’s prophecy about the Messiah (Matt 21:1-11, Zech 9:9) Excitement was high; the crowds ‘spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.’ (Matt 21:8) Everyone fully expected Jesus to be the kind of political King they were all longing for; but the events of the rest of Holy Week remind us that God tends to act in ways that surprise us and in ways that cannot be predicted.
The final week of Jesus’ life on earth is detailed in all gospels: Jesus teaching His disciples about the kind of kingdom He would usher in, the last supper with disciples, the loneliness of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, His betrayal, arrest, trial and finally crucifixion. If anyone had told the disciples on Good Friday that ‘Christ crucified’ would be described as the ‘power of God for salvation’ (Rom 1:16), they would have thought you were mad. Not only was Jesus dead, He was dead by the most horrific form of execution possible and to Jews, crucifixion was particularly vile, for it reminded them of Deut 21:23 (‘cursed is anyone who is hung on a pole.’) We are used to the idea that the cross represents something wonderful and powerful: the means of salvation. That was not the case then. Jews saw this as a despicable form of death, not at all what they expected would happen to God’s Messiah.
Why did God choose crucifixion as the means of salvation?
- Because He loves to confound or destroy the wisdom of the wise and frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent. God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours (Is 55:8-9). We simply cannot grasp His wisdom, but must all stumble over the ‘scandalon’ Christ crucified presents to us (see 1 Pet 2:8). A crucified Saviour makes no rational sense, but paradox is involved; it doesn’t seem to make sense to us in either a religious or a rational way, but it is the way God has chosen to work to save people from their sins and we need to accept that He knows far more than we do when it comes to saving!
- Because He wants our faith to rest not on human wisdom but on God’s power (1 Cor 2:5). Only faith that rests on God’s power and God’s way of doing things will achieve anything spiritual and lasting.
- Christ crucified is the means of salvation, revelation and conquest. John Stott says ‘What God in Christ has done through the cross is to rescue us, disclose himself and overcome evil.’ (‘The Cross of Christ’, P 167) Christ dealt with the problem of sin on the cross by sacrificing Himself for our sins (2 Cor 5:21), revealing God’s love for all mankind (John 3:16) and defeated sin and the power of the devil by rising from the dead (Heb 2:14-15).
In dying for us, Jesus has ushered in a new age, ‘the day of salvation’ (2 Cor 6:2) and given us new life, new hope and new purpose. Some of the benefits of Christ crucified lie ahead in the future, but we have the present assurance that nothing can now separate us from His love and that we are now reconciled to God: ‘But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.’ (Col 1:22) We can be whole and holy before God through the crucifixion of Christ.