The Multifaceted Cross: 6 Things to Celebrate this Friday (and Every Day)

What happened on Good Friday is so scandalous and profound that the Bible does not limit itself to a single explanation. Dutch theologian, Herman Bavinck, explains, “[T]he work of Christ is so multifaceted that it cannot be captured in a single word nor summarized in a single formula.”[i] “Multifaceted” is exactly the right word for the cross. It brings to mind the image of a giant deep-cut diamond, a unity with a multiple facets, each refracting rays off and through the other.[ii] Let’s take one lap around this flawless wonder and look at six things to celebrate this Friday and every day ...

1. At-one-er

Behind our first image of the cross is the idea that we are not merely apathetic about God, we are “hostile” toward him.[iii] Hence, our need for what the Bible calls “atonement,” someone to bring at-one-ment where two sides are at war, a peacemaker. The Bible also uses the term “reconciliation”—mending a rift, bringing friendship to a hostile situation. The cross is God’s decisive way of this new friendship a reality. “In Christ,” says Paul, “God was reconciling the world to himself.”[iv] It is not us, but God, in Christ, who makes the first disarming move. As 83% of self-identified evangelicals “agree” or “somewhat agree” with the statement that “a person obtains peace with God and then God responds with grace,” we desperately need to recover the true evangel, the good news that God and God alone is the great Initiator of peace and salvation for hostiles like us. The cross is about our At-one-ment, and more …

2. Battlefield Hero

In Genesis 3:15 we find a cryptic promise that a Man would one day be born and bruised to fatally stomp on the Serpent’s head. Later the Serpent is described as a vicious Dragon, a devouring Lion, a murderous Thief, Apollyon, “the Destroyer.”[v] Jesus appears in first century Palestine “to destroy the works of the devil,”[vi] that is, to crush the Serpent, slay the Dragon, hunt the Lion, catch the Thief, and destroy the Destroyer. Paul tells that that Jesus, “disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”[vii] Just as the captured soldiers of a defeated army were often dragged in chains on a public shame walk, so Jesus shows “the ruler of this world,” “the prince of the power of the air,” the “strong man, fully armed.”[viii] to be powerless. The cross is about our Battlefield Hero, and more …                 

3. Chain-breaker

While bringing bondage to the devil, Jesus brings “freedom,” pays “the ransom,” and offers “redemption” to us.[ix] This is the language of the slave market. Jesus told a crowd who believed they were already free that “everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.”[x] We typically think of slavery as being chained by some outside force. But Jesus describes a slavery from within. We are not so much held captive against our desires but by our desires, not bondage against the will but what Martin Luther called “bondage of the will.” Francis Turretin clarified with his memorable image of “a prisoner who kisses his chains and refuses deliverance.”[xi] Thankfully Jesus died to “deliver us from the kingdom of darkness,” and “so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.”[xii] As Jesus himself put it, “If the Son set you free, you will be free indeed.”[xiii] The cross is about our Chain-breaker, and more …

4. Defense Attorney[xiv]

God makes and enforces laws.[xv] But we love ourselves more than our Maker, more than our neighbors, more than the poor and the outcast. This is criminal and God is a God of Justice.^[xvi] So the Judge sends us a Substitute, someone willing to be “pierced for our transgressions,” and “crushed for our iniquities.” In this “wonderful exchange” (as Luther described it) Jesus chooses, at the behest of his loving Father, to stand in the place of lawbreakers to be treated as the Lawbreaker. Our death sentence has been served. Justice has been satisfied.[xvii] “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”[xviii] The New Testament adds that “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”[xix] “Advocate” (from the Greek, parakleton) pictures the resurrected Jesus zealously pleading our case. If we represent ourselves before the bar of Perfect Justice then we should tremble. But we have nothing whatsoever to fear because Jesus offers his services to us pro bono, and he never loses a case. He has the only fail-proof argument for the Judge to take our side—his own completed death sentence for all of our law breaking.[xx] The cross is about our Defense Attorney and more …

5. Eternal Priest

How can a self-polluting people (like us) enjoy the presence of a pure Being? The answer to that question moves us into the Temple where priests performed elaborate purification rituals for over a thousand of years. For a purification offering the priest would lay his hands on a bull, goat, lamb, or bird as a kind of symbolic transfer of impurity, then slay the animal to bring forgiveness to himself and the people.[xxi] The annual Day of Atonement offering involved two goats.[xxii]  The first goat was killed by the priest and its blood sprinkled to cleanse the most Holy Place, then the Tent, then the Altar. The second, the “scapegoat” would be symbolically loaded up with the collective defilements of the people and led outside the city to wander alone.[xxiii] A “paschal offering” was a lamb “without blemish” killed at twilight, its meat eaten, and its blood painted over the doorposts.” [xxiv] Breaking God’s rules is a costly and bloody endeavor. [xxv]  But animal slayings are hardly a real solution to the problem. And so Jesus became “a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”[xxvi] The cross is about our Eternal Priest, and more…

6. Forsaken Son

Ephesus had a mound outside its city gates where those whom society branded unfit for life and love were dumped. Paul opens his letter to this city with an image that would have shocked an Ephesian audience. God the Father, “chose us in him [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unblemished before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.”[xxvii] Many of the first people to ever read those words would have been the Exposed, unwanted by their own fathers and raised as slaves in Ephesus. God the Father rescues them from the dump and calls them “holy and unblemished.” The fatherless, at last, have a Father, a Father who chose them, who can never abandon them, who will spend forever lavishing gifts on them. This adoption happens “through Jesus Christ,” and the cross is right there at the center of it all: “In him we have redemption through his blood …”[xxviii] Jesus saves outcasts, making their adoption possible, by taking their place and becoming the Outcast. Like the Exposed, “He was despised and rejected by men.” He was “taken away” and “cut off out of the land of the living.” He “suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.”[xxix] 

The ABCs of Atonement 

These are not a few scattered images, but overlapping facets of the same Jesus on the same cross. From each angle, Jesus does for us what we could never do for ourselves.[xxx] He elevates us into a friendship, victory, freedom, justice, purity, and family we could never reach on our own. I encourage you to make a habit of preaching this good news to yourself every day. Thank Jesus that through the cross he is the …

… At-one-er. I was hostile to God, but Jesus has made me “at-one” with him, breaking down the wall of division and welcoming me into friendship.

… Battlefield Hero. The forces of fear and evil held me in their oppressive grip, but Jesus, the Warrior-King, has crushed the enemy’s head and claimed victory.

… Chain-breaker. I was a slave to darkness, selfishness, and anxiety, but Jesus is my great Liberator who purchased my freedom and cut my chains.

… Defense Attorney. I broke the laws of an infinitely just Being, but Jesus took my death sentence and now pleads the winning case for my innocence.

… Eternal Priest. I was unclean, but Jesus became my spotless Lamb and serves as my Priest so I can stand confidently in the presence of divine Perfection.

… Forsaken Son. I was left to die at the human dump, but Jesus became Forsaken in my place so that I can enjoy adoption as a cherished son/daughter of God.

Praying through these six biblical images may take 6 minutes or it may take 60 seconds. But that brief time of preaching the good news to yourself can boost an otherwise anxious day into something grace-filled and worshipful.