“For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” - 1 Corinthians 1:22He may well have added that it is a stumbling block to 21st Century Americans, who want God to be a harmless and kindly grandfather. The idea of our salvation culminating in a crazy level of violence directed toward an innocent man is a tough pill to swallow among some audiences.
Today I want to take a look at the crucifixion and ask a few questions:
- How exactly does this event bring about our salvation?
- Why did God choose to do it this way?
An Infinite Offering:
The story begins with humanity created in a state of friendship with God. This state of friendship was a gift which went beyond man’s natural capacities. Unfortunately for us, Adam and Eve forfeited this gift through their disobedience.
Through them, all of humanity experienced separation from God. And because the original friendship with God was a supernatural gift, there is nothing that anyone can do to earn it back. This separation, on account of the infinite debt of sin, is something we’re all saddled with – and there is no way out.
To solve this problem, God began forming a group of chosen people – the Israelites. One of the things they were taught to do was make sacrifice to God. And the idea of these sacrifices was that the offerer was giving something of value up to God in token of the reparation of his sins.
We can see this concept of sacrifice in an episode where King David was needing to make a sacrifice. He was offered the sacrificial animals for free, but objected because his offerings must represent the surrender of something of value to him:
“Then Araunah said to David, ‘Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him; here are the oxen for the burnt offering, and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king.’
But the king said to Araunah, ‘No, but I will buy them from you for a price; I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing.’ So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. David built there an altar to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and offerings of well-being. So the LORD answered his supplication for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel.” - 2 Sam 24: 22-25Now, none of those sacrifices could actually do the job. The debt of sin was infinite, and thus man would have to offer something of infinite value to make reparation. The solution to this problem was twofold. First, God would take on a human nature and become a man. From there, Christ would offer up Himself as a sacrifice which would merit the forgiveness of the world. We see this explained in the letter to the Hebrews:
“Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. Therefore he had to become like his brethren in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.” - Hebrews 2:14-17That is the cliffnotes version of how the bloody crucifixion of an innocent man (who is also God) saves us.
Why the Crucifixion, Specifically?
Still, a person may realize that this isn’t the only way God could have done the job. Being God, every action Jesus performed could have potentially merited the salvation of the world – if He’d wanted to do it that way. Jesus could have saved the world through a card trick, or by doing ten push-ups, or by simply declaring it.
Why then did God choose to save us by subjecting His Son to a gruesome, torturous execution? Perhaps I can lend four reasons:
1: A Show of Sincerity:
The factor which makes this whole thing work is the divinity of Jesus Christ. If Jesus wasn’t really God, then everything I just wrote above is worthless nonsense. So one is justified in asking, “Is Jesus really God?”
One of the most simple and powerful (and thus controversial) arguments for Jesus being God is the “Trilemma” of CS Lewis. It starts with the premise: “Jesus said He was God.” From there you tease out three possibilities:
- He was God
- He was nuts.
- He was a liar.
And yet, knowing full-well the consequences, Jesus was willing to declare His divinity to His enemies:
“Again the high priest asked him and said to him, ‘Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One?’
Then Jesus answered, "I AM; and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.'" - Mark 14:61-62
2: A Show of Seriousness of our Guilt
The gravity of our sins is often dependent upon the person we hurt. If I punched a notoriously evil man, people may shrug at it. If I punched a good man, people would be shocked. If I punched my wife, people would want my head on a pike – and rightfully so.
So we see that the more good and innocent a victim is, the more terrible the crime becomes. In this way, the crucifixion of Christ shows us how bad our sins are. You can look at Jesus bleeding on the cross and say to yourself, “This is what sin is.”
Perhaps I could put it another way; Imagine I caught James hitting his younger brother Fulton. That would be downright terrible. But suppose my reaction to this was to pat James on the head and say, “Well son, you ought not have done that, but let’s put this behind us.”
That would seem understated compared to the gravity of what James had done. One might suppose I really didn’t take the matter seriously. In the same way, if Jesus had simply declared our sins forgiven – or accomplished it through something trivial – one might wonder, “Huh, I thought it was a bigger deal than that…”
3: A Show of Love:
Philosopher Peter Kreeft once posed the question, “Jesus bled at His circumcision. He could have redeemed through world through a single drop of blood. So why not?” His answer was, “Because love gives everything. He gave it all, because that’s what love does.”
So the Crucifixion also shows us how much God loves us. Despite how terrible our sins are, God loves us enough to suffer a horrifying death to reconcile us with Himself. As it says in Scripture:
“’Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.’ For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” - John 3:14-17
“Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:7-8
4) A Show of Solidarity:
In the pagan world, the gods lived up on their mountain – or in their ethereal realm – and played games with humans. They had no sympathy for us and had no idea what it was like to suffer in the way we do. Christianity reveals a very different picture. God is shown to possess something rather un-godlike: humility and compassion.
Whatever it is we are suffering, we cannot look to God and say, “You have no idea what this is like.” Jesus experienced the death of loved ones, the hardship of scraping out a living, the boot heel of tyranny, the sting false accusations, torture, and finally a violent death. As Paul wrote to the Phillipians:
“[Christ] who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be exploited. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness. And found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” - Phillipians 2:6-8Because of this, we can know that God has sympathy for us no matter what we are going through:
“Because he himself was tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.” - Hebrews 2:18
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin.” - Hebrews 4:15
Behold the Lamb of God:
So that’s Good Friday. It is the solemnization of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The sacrifice that restores us to God, the sign of Christ’s truthfulness, the sign of our terrible debt, the sign of God’s love, and the sign that we are never alone in our suffering.
It is simultaneously the worst and best thing which has ever happened.
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