Doctrine
"...if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt."
Matthew 26:39
The cross stands at the very center of the Christian faith. We do not merely admire it — we preach it, we glory in it, we rest our whole hope upon it. But why? Could not God have saved sinners some easier way, without the agony of Calvary? The Bible answers that the cross was not one option among many. It was a must. There was no other way for a holy God to save guilty sinners and remain just. To understand why is to understand the very heart of God.
To see why the cross was necessary, we must first feel the weight of the problem. God is holy — so pure that He cannot look upon sin with the least approval. And He is just — He must punish sin, or He would not be righteous.
"Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." (Habakkuk 1:13)
Sin is not a trifle to be waved away. It carries a fixed and dreadful penalty, decreed by God Himself: death.
"...the soul that sinneth, it shall die." (Ezekiel 18:4)
Here, then, is the great difficulty. Every one of us has sinned, and the sentence of death hangs over us. God is our Judge, and He is holy and just.
"But why," someone asks, "can God not just forgive and forget, and say no more about it?" Consider an earthly judge. If a man were plainly guilty of terrible crimes, and the judge simply shrugged and let him go free, we would not call that judge good — we would call him corrupt, a betrayer of justice. A righteous judge cannot ignore the law; the penalty must be satisfied. So it is with God, only infinitely more so. For God to merely wink at sin would be for God to deny His own holiness and cease to be just. His righteousness demands that sin be punished. And yet His love longs to save the sinner. How can both be satisfied at once? Only at the cross.
From the very beginning God taught, by blood sacrifice, that sin is deadly and that its penalty must be paid by the death of a substitute. When Adam and Eve sinned, God clothed them with the skins of slain beasts. Israel was spared by the blood of the Passover lamb. The whole system of sacrifice pointed to one great truth: sin is paid for by shed blood.
"For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." (Leviticus 17:11)
And so the unbending rule stands: no blood, no forgiveness.
"...without shedding of blood is no remission." (Hebrews 9:22)
But the blood of bulls and goats could never truly take away sin; it could only picture the payment to come. A greater sacrifice was needed — a spotless one, of infinite worth. There was only One who could be that sacrifice.
This is the heart of the cross: the Lord Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, took the sinner's place and bore the sinner's punishment. He stood in for us — the innocent for the guilty — and the sword of divine justice fell upon Him instead of upon us.
"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5)
Seven hundred years before Calvary, Isaiah saw it: our transgressions, our iniquities — but His wounds, His bruises. God laid on Him what belonged to us.
"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:6)
He carried our sins in His own body up to the tree, and there paid in full the debt we could never pay.
"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." (1 Peter 2:24)
Now behold the wisdom of God. At the cross, God did not set aside His justice in order to show His love; He satisfied His justice and displayed His love in the very same act. The penalty was fully paid — so God is just. And it was God's own Son who paid it for us — so God is loving. God can now forgive the believing sinner without any stain upon His righteousness, because the price has been fully met.
"...that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." (Romans 3:26)
Read those words with wonder: just, and the justifier. God remains perfectly just, and yet He justifies the ungodly who trust His Son — because at the cross justice was fully served. And it was love that held Him there.
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
If the cross could have been avoided, surely God would have spared His beloved Son. In the garden of Gethsemane, the Lord Jesus Christ, in agony, asked the Father whether the cup of suffering might pass — yet He bowed to the Father's will.
"O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." (Matthew 26:39)
The cup did not pass. He drank it to the dregs. And in that we have the clearest proof that the cross was a must: if there had been any other way to save us, the Father would have taken it, and spared His Son. There was no other way. So the Son went to the cross.
Upon the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ did not cry, "I am finished," as a defeated man. He cried in triumph, "It is finished" — the work is done, the debt is paid, the price is met in full.
"...It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." (John 19:30)
And at that very moment, the great veil in the temple — the curtain that shut sinful man out of the presence of God — was torn from top to bottom by an unseen hand, for now the way to God was open.
"...the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom." (Matthew 27:51)
Then, the third day, He rose from the dead — the Father's receipt that the payment was accepted in full, and the sinner who trusts Him shall live.
Because the cross is finished, there is nothing you can add to it. You cannot pay a price already paid, nor earn a gift already bought. The cross demands that you come with empty hands, ceasing from every effort of your own, and rest wholly upon what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. To the proud, the cross is foolishness; to the humble who believe, it is the very power of God.
"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18)
Will you come to the cross today? Trust the crucified and risen Saviour who took your place, and the debt of all your sin — paid there in His blood — is yours forever cancelled.
"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."Isaiah 53:5