By Norman H. Young
A Commentary on the Sabbath School Lesson February 26–March 4, 2005, “The Heart of the Cross”
Sin is one of those many words that is easily and frequently used but difficult to define. We may classify as sin those actions or forces that disrupt, demolish, disturb, degrade, or destroy interpersonal relationships. Sin’s purpose is to alienate us not only from God, but also from each other. Sin must not therefore be isolated from the interpersonal and the havoc it causes to and within relationships, both divine-human and human-human. Once we see sin in this social context, we are obliged to think of redemption in the same way. Salvation, then, is not simply a mechanism to ease a bad conscience or to fix up a rotten past; it’s the dramatic restoration of our relationship with God and with each other. The means of that restoration was the cross. But why was the cross necessary? How did it work?
Any explanation must address the biblical data. First and foremost we should note that God took the initiative in the cross. God was reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19); God set forth Christ as an atoning sacrifice (Rom. 3:25); God did not withhold his own Son (8:32); God delivered him up for us all (v. 32); and God sent his Son to be the means of atonement (1 John 4:10).
Secondly, the cross was the result of God’s love and grace. The cross didn’t cause or procure his love or mercy, nor was it powerlessly idle awaiting the cross. The cross was not a price that God’s mercy paid to his justice so as to activate or release his love—his love was the prime mover of the process of redemption. God so loved that he gave (John 3:16); God demonstrated his love in that Christ died while we were still sinners (Rom. 5.8). By his mercy and grace he saved us (Rom. 5:15; Eph. 2.4–5; Titus 3:5). Helen Waddell tells of a conversation between two medieval monks, Abelard and Thibault, in which the latter, pointing to a fallen tree that had been sawn through its middle, said: "That dark ring there, it goes up and down the whole length of the tree. But you only see it where it is cut across." So it is with the cross. The cross is "the bit of God that we [see]," but the love that is there revealed goes back deep into the eternal heart of God.1 There was a cross in the heart of God well before there was a cross on Golgotha.
Thirdly, the cross was for the sake of humans. Christ died for the ungodly (Rom. 5:6), the just for the unjust (1 Pet. 3:18); he became poor for our sakes (2 Cor. 8:9); he suffered for us (1 Pet. 2:21); he gave himself for us (Titus 2:14). Fourthly, the cross was directed at the cause of our estrangement from God—our sin. He died for our sins (1 Cor. 15:3); he gave himself for our sins (Gal. 1:4); he offered the single sacrifice of himself for our sins (Heb 10:12); he took the debt that was against us and canceled it by nailing it to the cross (Col. 2:14). Fifthly, the cross brings about our restoration to God (Rom. 5:9); our reconciliation to God (Col. 1.22); a state of peace with God (Rom. 5:1); the end of our hostility (Eph. 2:13–15); his death cleanses us (1 John 1:7) and forgives us (Eph. 1:7). But how did the cross achieve all this? We should note that the New Testament uses a series of metaphors drawn from legal, social, and commercial life to describe the saving event of the cross. None of them alone explains the whole mystery, and together they remain metaphors; they are evocative of a sublime wonder rather than prosaic explanations of a bare fact. God acted in Christ to forgive the world its sin against him. Through the cross the world’s sin is not reckoned against it (2 Cor. 5:19). But remission always means that the cost is born by the remitter. If I forgive a one-hundred-dollar debt, then I incur the cost. The cross is not a payment made to the devil or to God’s justice; it’s the cost that God absorbed in his forgiving of human sin.2 Hence the cross is a consequence of God’s merciful disposition and not a prerequisite before his mercy can act. In four key texts the Greek word for atonement is used in the New Testament, namely, Romans 3:25; Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2 and 4:10. In the Old Testament, sin-offering ritual atonement was procured through a process of confession, slaughter, blood manipulation, and disposal (Lev. 4:20, 26, 31, 35). The cross fulfils this whole process of atonement and not simply an element of it, for example, the shedding of blood. But if the cross secured the world’s forgiveness ("not counting their [that is, the world’s] trespasses against them" [2 Cor. 5:19]) and made atonement for its sin ("he is the atoning sacrifice…for the sins of the whole world" [1 John 2:2]), doesn’t that give a false security and encourage sin?
Just as sin had destruction of relationships as its purpose, so forgiveness has as its objective to restore, to reconcile, to repair, and to redeem broken relationships. To accept the gift (Rom. 5:15–18) is to accept the Giver; and a restored relationship with God—as with any meaningful relationship—impacts powerfully on behavior. Just recently, at the request of and with the oversight of my wife, I shoveled cow dung, planted camellias and dahlias, and shifted pot plants. Such little acts do not produce love, do not describe it, do not earn it, nor do they deserve it, but they are appropriate acts expressive of a loving partnership. If there were no such deeds, neither would there be a healthy relationship. Our relationship with God is no different.
We can never earn or deserve a loving relationship—it’s always a gift. But healthy relationships always express themselves in loving acts of kindness. The cross granted us the opportunity to enter into friendship with God. Our deeds can never earn or deserve that friendship. However, we cannot be friends with God and live as if we were strangers to him. So atonement (or forgiveness) is not simply a device to ease our guilt or cover our sins; it’s the dynamic means of bringing us into fellowship with God, and if we have fellowship with God we will walk in his light (1 John 1:6–7). We conclude with a paraphrase of a text cited in Tuesday’s lesson:
For our benefit God treated him who had no experience of sin
As though he had experienced sin
So that we who have experienced sin
Might become in him
As though we had no experience of sin.
(2 Cor. 5:21)
1. Helen Waddell, Peter Abelard: A Novel (London: Constable, 1933), 201. I’m told the growth rings do not actually go up and down the whole trunk, but this fact does not destroy the point of the illustration.
2. Cost, unlike payment or price, is intransitive, for the action remains with the subject.
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