The Gospel Coalition

Here are links to this week’s five Easter reflections on the beauty of the cross:

• The Beauty of a Blood-Stained Cross
• The Cross of Christ: God with Us
• The Cross of Christ: God instead of Us (1)
• The Cross of Christ: God instead of Us (2)
• The Cross of Christ: God for Us

The truth that God is with us and that Jesus has died instead of us is indeed glorious. But without knowing that God is for us, victory would not be ours. We need more than a shoulder to cry on. We need more than hands and feet that will take the nails that we deserve. We need the strong arms of a Savior who comes back from the dead. Because of the cross and resurrection, God is now for us. Christ has conquered.

The Defeat of Evil

Anyone near the cross of Jesus on that fateful day in the first century would have thought that he was just another would-be Messiah. A miserable failure. Another leader who got caught in the crosshairs of Roman imperialism.

Satan saw this Jesus on the cross and believed he had triumphed. Jesus looked shameful. There he was – naked and bleeding, shamed and scorned and mocked. As he died, everyone thought he had been defeated.

But the truth is… Satan was being disarmed, displayed, defeated and shamed. Yes, Jesus appeared to be stripped and defeated, but through his obedient death on the cross, Satan and all the forces of hell were being conquered. Satan was contributing to his own demise. Evil committed suicide when it put Jesus on the cross. As John Stott writes:

“What looks like (and indeed was) the defeat of Goodness by evil is also, and more certainly, the defeat of evil by Goodness. Overcome there, he was himself overcoming. Crushed by the ruthless power of Rome, he was himself crushing the serpent’s head. The victim was the victor, and the cross is still the throne from which he rules the world.”

So here is the paradox: in the midst of human suffering and shame, in the midst of Christ’s agony, we see the strange but wonderful plan of God – that through this the world would be changed. That through this the world would be put back together again. That through this apparent defeat, God would achieve his greatest victory. The serpent’s head was crushed by the Savior’s heel.

The Son of God became what we were not so that we could become what he is.

Jesus – the Bread of Life – hungered, that we might be filled.

Jesus – the fountain of Life – was thirsty, that we might be satisfied.

Jesus – the Power of God – grew weak, that we might be strong.

Jesus – the Truth – was accused of false witness, that we might be declared righteous.

Jesus – the Healer – was wounded, that we might be restored.

Jesus – the very source of Life – died, that we might live.

Redeemed from Slavery

The Bible has a word that expresses the idea of God acting for us: “redemption.” When we think of redeeming things, we often think of coupons. Some may think of the slave trade in the United States two hundred years ago, and the possibility of buying freedom for a slave.

But when a first-century Jew heard about redemption, their thoughts returned to the Exodus – that great moment in Jewish history when God delivered the Israelites from bondage in Egypt.

God appeared to Moses and promised deliverance, saying:

“I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.”

Moses went before Pharaoh, King of Egypt, with a message from the Lord, King of the world. God says, “Let my people go!” Pharaoh refused. So God poured out his wrath upon Egypt, destroyed the Egyptian army, and thereby rescued his people from foreign captivity.

Today, we do not find ourselves enslaved to a foreign nation, but we are in bondage. Human beings are enslaved to sinful desires and lusts. We are in captivity to the Evil One, who is a greater Enemy than Pharaoh ever was. We are enslaved to the curse of death, as we watch our loved ones snatched away and realize that our own death awaits us.

But just like God destroyed the power of Pharaoh in order to rescue his people and take them to the Promised Land, God has now acted through the person and work of Jesus Christ to redeem us as well. The grace of God has appeared that we might be freed from our sinfulness. Jesus Christ has come to give himself for us, that we might be redeemed, bought back, no longer in captivity to the Enemy.

As Jesus was dying upon the cross two thousand years ago, the voice of God the Father resounded throughout the universe, sending the clear and unstoppable message to Satan and all the forces of hell – LET MY PEOPLE GO!

• God delivers us from our sinfulness.
• He delivers us from our self-centeredness.
• He delivers us from slavery to the Evil One.
• He delivers us from the Law’s condemnation, nailing the accusations of the Evil One to the cross where Jesus died.
• He even delivers us from death itself.

But God does not deliver us and then leave us alone. He is purifying for himself a people for his own possession, a people who are zealous for good works. We have left behind our old way of life and are now on our way to God’s Promised Land.

• We are delivered from evil for good works.
• We are delivered from sin for righteousness.
• We are delivered from death for a new life.

Our master is no longer Satan, but Jesus Christ, the King of kings. We now have hope. We now have peace – all because of our conquering Savior.

Christ conquers sin, death and the grave, freeing us from the power of the evil one.

Christ resists temptation, freeing us from our inclination to always choose our own way over God’s.

Christ calls people, freeing us from being focused on ourselves.

Christ casts out demons, freeing us from oppression.

Christ heals, freeing us from sickness.

Christ forgives, freeing us from guilt and sin.

Christ teaches, freeing us from misunderstandings about God and his Law.

Christ loves, freeing us from the futility of trying to earn favor with God.

Christ comes back from the dead, freeing us from the sting of death.

Christ gives us his Spirit, freeing us from being motivated only by our selfishness.

Christ promises to return, freeing us from despair that history is pointless and not moving anywhere.

And now, we await the return of Jesus Christ, when on the Last Day, the Day of Resurrection, even the curse of death will be overturned forever. When the unveiling of Jesus Christ the King takes place, all who are in the graves will hear the voice of the Crucified and Risen Lord, and Death will be dealt its final blow, as Jesus shouts to the graveyards, “Let my people go!” And those who hear the voice of the Son of God will live.

~~~

My mind returned to those dead leaves that lay before me and my son on that crisp autumn morning. I cannot help but reflect upon the beauty of redemption. Beautiful, but lifeless leaves. They reflect the beauty of Christ’s death and the promise that new life is coming closer day by day. Spring is coming. Christ is coming. The Messiah who makes all things new.

Here is love vast as the ocean
Loving kindness as the flood
When the Prince of life, our ransom
Shed for us His precious blood
Who His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten
Throughout Heaven’s eternal days

On the Mount of Crucifixion
Fountains opened deep and wide
Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide
Grace and love, like mighty rivers
Poured incessant from above
And Heaven’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love

There are only forty slots left for this year’s Band of Bloggers meeting in conjunction with Together for the Gospel.

I will be joining Justin Taylor, Jon McIntosh and Jared Wilson for the panel discussion, and I look forward to the conversation and learning from these other men.

The book giveaways are a highlight of this meeting – 12 books will be donated from various publishers. (Take a look at the list here.)

The remaining slots will disappear quickly. Register today!

(Continued from yesterday)

Passover – Jesus bears God’s wrath in our place

Now let’s revisit Passover – the central moment in the history of the Jewish people. After hundreds of years in slavery, the time had come for God’s chosen people to be delivered. The cries of his oppressed people had reached his ears. He determined to strike all of Egypt in wrath. The only way to be spared was to smear the blood of an innocent lamb on the doorposts of the home.

Many people today resist talk about the wrath of God. It makes God seem angry. But what would you think about someone who saw an evil event occur and just shrugged his shoulders? What would you think about a person who saw the Holocaust taking place and just said, “So what?” What would you think about a judge who saw your baby being kidnapped and abused and said to the criminal, “That’s okay, try to do better next time!”

God is understandably angry over evil. He has made a good creation and his creatures have rebelled against him. The world is not as it should be. God must judge sin, and to be just he must judge all sin. It is because of his great love, that God is wrathful. If God did not have wrath toward sin, he would not be a loving God. That is why He decided to uphold his justice and his mercy at the same time through Jesus Christ.

On the cross, God demonstrated his perfect justice and his great mercy. He executed justice by pouring out his wrath against sin upon his only Son. He showed mercy by absorbing that wrath himself, thus allowing us to escape his judgment.

Because Jesus was filled with horror and cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, we are filled with wonder and cry, “My God, my God, why have you accepted me?”

Because Jesus cried, “Father, forgive!”, the taunts we hurled at him at the cross are transformed into praise for his generous mercy.

Because Jesus said, “I thirst,” we can drink from the fountain of living water and never thirst again.

Because Jesus said, “Woman, behold your son” and felt the pain of separation from his earthly family, we can experience the blessing of being united with a heavenly family.

Because Jesus cried, “It is finished!”, our new life can begin.

Because Jesus committed his spirit into the Father’s hands, God commits his Spirit into our hearts.

Jesus is the Passover Lamb – the substitute that protects us from the wrath of God. He experienced the curse of God, the punishment for sin, the hellish torments of eternal damnation – all for the glory of God and the salvation of his people.

Creation – Jesus fulfills God’s original intention for humanity

Let’s turn the pages back even further. Picture the first humans in the Garden in uninterrupted fellowship with God and each other. They are called to do the will of God, but they disobey. Not your will, Lord, but mine! decides Adam.

Thousands of years later, another garden is before us. Gethsemane. The Second Adam is agonizing over the will of God. Jesus shrinks back from the thought of being cut off from God, from drinking the cup of God’s wrath so that his sinful people might be spared. Not my will, Lord, but yours! he decides.

The essence of Adam’s sin was that he put himself in God’s place. The essence of Christ’s righteousness is that he put himself in our place.

But these events are all part of God’s redemptive plan. In the first garden, God had promised to defeat Satan, sin and death. Now, in the second garden, because of the submission of the Son, the promise is kept. The fulfillment of prophecy, the climax of history, the culmination of God’s eternal plan comes crashing down upon Jesus of Nazareth.

Like Adam, Jesus had a task – to reflect the image of God. As Jesus bore the punishment for the sins of the world, he reflected the image of a self-giving God. He completed his earthly work.

On the sixth day of creation, God had made man in his image. Behold the man! Adam, the man whose sinful choice delivered all of humanity into the powerful grip of sin and death.

Now, on the sixth day, Friday, Pilate stands next to Jesus and declares, “Behold the Man!” Jesus, the “second Adam,” the true human being whose sinless life will undo the curse of sin and death.

Behold the Man who will pay for our sins!

Behold the Man who is our Messiah and Lord!

Behold the Man who is our Savior and God!

Piercing through the dark storm clouds and echoing through the valleys surrounding the hill of Golgotha, Jesus cried out from the cross, “It is finished!” announcing that his work was complete.

On the sixth day, God had completed his work of creation. Now Jesus finished his work, as the spotless Lamb who died as our sacrifice.

“It is finished!” The victory cry resounds from the cross. The sacrifice had been accomplished. And God saw that it was good.