The Death of Jesus

Sadly, the incarnate God was too offensive for the people He came to save—and they sentenced Him to death.

Jesus’ death provides a way to dwell with God. If Jesus is God’s love made manifest, the cross illustrates just how far God’s love will go. Salvation is “a revelation of the loving heart of the triune God. The Father moved with compassion, determined from all eternity to send His only Son into the world to redeem men.”[i]

What Jesus did on the cross is called atonement. The centerpiece of Christ’s atoning work is the love of the Father. There’s a tendency in Western Christianity to think of Father God as judgmental or harsh and Jesus as the kinder, more loving “version” of Him. This could not be further from the truth.

Scholar Leon Morris said that “salvation comes to us with all the majesty of God the Father behind it. It is a divine work in the fullest sense.”[ii] The Father’s initiation, His willingness to send the Son as the very expression of His heart in human form, undergirds the entire story of the cross. “The atonement takes place,” said Morris, “because God the Father loves us and makes provision in His Son for our salvation.”[iii]

This provision was not child abuse. God did not send His Son against His will; Jesus was a willing participant in the entire plan. The love of God the Father was made real at the greatest of costs when Jesus willingly laid down His life to reconcile humanity’s sin.

What kind of God would go to such lengths to win back His people? The cross we so often take for granted was a weapon of Roman torture. Jesus knew exactly what would happen if He continued to open the kingdom of God to the poor, the weak, and the needy, and He chose to walk the road to the crucifixion. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” And this is what Jesus, the ultimate Friend, did for us.

Respond

Think of someone you love so much that you would willingly die for them. How does the notion of this kind of love affect your perception of God’s love for you?

[i] Joseph Stump, The Christian Faith: A System of Christian Dogmatics (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1942), 129.

[ii] Henry, Basic Christian Doctrines, 153.

[iii] Henry, Basic Christian Doctrines.