What Did Jesus Accomplish On The Cross?

What Did Jesus Accomplish On The Cross?

As we come to the end of “The Cross” series, I wanted you to have in writing a summary of the varying aspects of what Jesus accomplished on the cross that we covered in this series plus some others that we did not cover. Much of this is based on, “Cross: God Dies,” in Gerry Breshears and Mark Driscoll’s book, Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe. In fact, any unattributed quote is taken from that work.

The primary theme of the cross is substitutionary atonement. Jesus died in our place for our sins. What does Scripture teach us that He accomplished through His substitutionary atonement?

1. New-covenant Sacrifice: Leviticus 17:11 says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.” Hebrews 9:22 says, “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” 1 Peter 1:18-19 says, “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Of course, this is also pictured in Genesis 3 when God killed an innocent animal to provide a covering for Adam and Eve, in the Passover, and in the sacrificial system. Driscoll and Breshears write, “In the Bible the word covenant appears more than three hundred times and is therefore essential to our rightly understanding how God relates to us. Both the Old and New Testaments speak of the new covenant. The Bible tells us that a new epoch in human history has arrived with the coming of God into human history as the man Jesus Christ. In the new covenant, all of the prophecies, promises, foreshadowing, and longing of the old covenant are fulfilled. In the new covenant it is Jesus Christ who serves as our covenant head. Jesus went to the cross to shed his blood in our place for our sins so that we can have a new covenant relationship with him. Today, in the new covenant, we no longer need a priest because we have Jesus, who is our Great High Priest. We no longer need to offer blood sacrifices because Jesus is our sacrifice for sin. We no longer need to visit the temple to be near to God because Jesus is our temple. We no longer need to celebrate the Passover because Jesus is our Passover. Finally, we no longer need to live in habitual sin because through Jesus we have been made holy and have been given new life.”

2. Propitiation: Scripture repeatedly tells us that God hates sin and is righteously angry with sinners on whom He pours out His wrath. John MacArthur explains the various aspects of God’s wrath in this way:

A. Eternal wrath-hell
B. Eschatological wrath-final Day of the Lord
C. Cataclysmic wrath-flood, Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
D. Consequential wrath-principal of sowing and reaping
E. The wrath of abandonment-removing restraint and letting people go in their sins

Propitiation is the fact that the wrath of God was diverted from us to Jesus when He died as our sacrifice on the cross (Romans 3:23-25, Hebrews 2:17, 1 John 2:2, 1 John 4:10). Driscoll and Breshears say, “At the cross, justice and mercy kiss; Jesus substituted himself for sinners and suffered and died in their place to forgive them, love them, and embrace them, not in spite of their sins, but because their sins were propitiated and diverted from them to Jesus. Jesus did this not by demanding our blood but rather by giving his own.”

3. Justification: Romans 3:26 says, “To demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” God is totally just and cannot overlook sin. Sin must be punished, and the punishment for sin is death. Thankfully, God is also patient, merciful, gracious, and forgiving. How can these realities of His nature be reconciled? “The answer is the doctrine of justification: guilty sinners can be declared righteous before God by grace alone through faith alone because of the person and work of Jesus Christ alone.” “Additionally, not only did Jesus take all our sins (past, present, and future) on the cross, but he also gave to us his perfect righteousness as a faultless and sinless person.”

4. Gift Righteousness: “On the cross what Martin Luther liked to call the ‘great exchange’ occurred. Jesus took our sin and gave us his righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, ‘For our sakes he [God] made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’ Unlike the self-righteousness of religion, gift-righteousness is passive; it is not something we do, but rather something Jesus does, and we receive as a gift by personal faith in him alone. The gifted righteousness of Jesus is imparted to us at the time of faith, simultaneous with our justification. Not only does God give us family status, but he also gives us new power and a new heart through the indwelling Holy Spirit. This is what theologians call regeneration. Therefore, we not only have a new status by virtue of being justified, but we also have a new heart from which new desires for holiness flow and a new power through God the Holy Spirit to live like, for, and with Jesus.”

5. Ransom: “God made us to love, honor, and obey him in thought, word, and deed. Every time we fail to do that perfectly, we accrue a debt to God. Every person has sinned against God, and hell is the eternal prison for spiritual debtors who have stolen from God by living sinful lives.” Therefore, we need a ransom that is sufficient to erase the debt we owe our Heavenly Father. We are incapable of paying that debt, however. Therefore, Jesus said, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). He paid the debt that we are incapable of paying.

6. Redemption: We are enslaved to sin, but Jesus died to buy us back and bring us back to God (Galatians 4:1-7). Through redemption, we become adopted children of God with all the privileges and blessings that accompany Him being our Father.

7. Victory: Colossians 2:13-15 says, “You, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”

8. Expiation: This is pictured by the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement. It is the reality that God not only forgives our sins, but He also cleanses us from the defilement of our sins and the sins which are committed against us.

9. Example: “Jesus died for our sins, thereby enabling us to experience new life. Jesus lived as our example showing us what it means to live a truly holy human life. Throughout Jesus’ life he repeatedly stated that the purpose of his life on earth was to glorify God the Father, or to make the Father’s character visible. Jesus’ glorifying God the Father included dying on the cross. Practically, this means that there is joy not only in our comfort and success, but also in our suffering and hardship, just as there was for Jesus.”

10. Revelation of God’s love: John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” “The cross is something done by you. You murdered God incarnate. The cross is something done for you. God loves you and died to forgive you.”

11. Reconciliation: Romans 5:10 says, “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Reconciliation basically means to bring two separated parties back together again. Spiritually, we have separated ourselves from God through sin, but God acted in Christ to bring us back to Him. We are no longer enemies of God, and He is no longer angry with us. We are now in a Father-child relationship.