What did the Cross Accomplish?
It’s an unmistakable symbol. You’ve seen it everywhere — on billboards, bumper stickers, necklaces, and church lawns. The cross — a symbol of death — propped up as a badge of honor. Ancient Romans used the cross to extract the most extreme torture on the worst of criminals. It was the most shameful way to die. So much so that Romans wouldn’t even crucify their own citizens. They reserved it for the scum of society — the murderers, the rapists, the insurrectionists.
If ancient Romans could see our civilization’s exultation of the cross, they would, without a doubt, find it repulsive. It would be the equivalent to us celebrating school shooters, child abusers, and suicide bombers. You don’t celebrate people like that. You condemn them. So why would the first Christians prop up Jesus’ cross as a positive symbol rather than denouncing it? Wouldn’t they have been embarrassed that their leader died a convicted criminal?
The reason Christians celebrate the cross is because they recognize something more than a criminal’s death transpired. They understand that a cosmic transaction took place as Jesus hung on the Roman cross that day.
A COSMIC TRANSACTION
The apostle Paul articulates this cosmic transaction for us in Romans 3:23-26. He writes:
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Much ink has been spilled over this text, so it’s naive to think I could do it justice in a short blog post. With that being said, however, I’d like to highlight three concepts from this passage that summarize what the cross of Christ accomplished.
1. PROPITIATION
Paul states that God put forth Jesus Christ “as a propitiation by his blood.” The idea of Christ dying a propitiatory sacrifice makes some people uncomfortable. The reason is because the word propitiation (hilasterion in the Greek) means to satisfy or appease anger. In pagan cultures, subjects oftentimes performed ritual sacrifices to placate — or propitiate — the wrath of their gods. Is Paul drawing parallels from pagan rituals to describe Christ’s death on the cross?
GOD’S CHARACTER
While Paul uses the same word to describe Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, substantial differences exist between his and the pagan’s sacrifice. First, unlike pagan gods, God’s wrath is never arbitrary, spiteful, irrational, or unpredictable. Rather, God’s wrath is a righteous predictable response to sin. In many respects, his wrath is much like the righteous anger a decent human being feels towards injustice, only purer. Because of his holy character, he can’t ignore all the injustice, greed, murder, deceit, and immorality in the world. His righteous anger must be propitiated, and we see examples of this all throughout scripture.
In the Old Testament, animal sacrifices propitiated God’s wrath. We see this especially on the day of atonement (Lev. 16) where the high priest sacrificed an animal and sprinkled its blood on the mercy seat above the ark of the covenant as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of Israel. The required bloodshed appeased, or propitiated, God’s wrath. Those sacrifices, though, were shadows of a greater sacrifice to come. After all, “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb. 10:3). The animal sacrifices simply pointed to an ultimate sacrifice, namely Jesus’ once and for all propitiatory sacrifice on the cross (Heb. 7:27).
GOD’S INITIATIVE
A second difference between the propitiatory sacrifices hinges on who takes the initiative. For the pagan, he must take the initiative to actively prevent his god’s anger. He must walk on egg shells to avoid offending his short-tempered deity. God, on the other hand, takes the initiative himself. He doesn’t wait for us to placate his wrath, he placates it himself. Notice that Paul said, “God put forward” Jesus as a propitiation by his blood.
And lest we think this is some sort of cosmic child abuse, let’s remember that the Father and Son, though distinct persons, are perfectly unified in their nature and will. That is to say, the two aren’t at odds in this mutual decision. It’s not as if the Son took the loving initiative to placate his angry Father, or that the Father sent his Son against his own will. No, this was the plan of God — both Father and Son.
Contrary to the spiteful, unpredictable pagan gods, this propitiatory act demonstrates the perfect love of God. On the cross, both God’s perfect love and righteous wrath meet. God through his divine love, offered himself as the propitiation for our sins, to satisfy his own righteous demands by his grace. John Stott appropriately states, “If it is God’s wrath that needed to be propitiated, it is God’s love that did the propitiating.”1
2. REDEMPTION
We transition now from temple courts to the marketplace as we focus on the concept of redemption. According to our text, we are justified by his grace “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The most basic meaning of the word redemption is to purchase or pay a ransom price. In the first century context, this term typically referred to the ransom price of prisoners or slaves.2
Considering that context, Christ’s death served as a ransom payment for us. Jesus himself said, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45). Furthermore, Peter tells us “knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things such as silver or gold… but with the precious blood, as of a lamb, unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:18-19). This imagery implies that we are in bondage to sin and guilt, and the only payment that can deliver us is Jesus’ own blood.
As with propitiation, God’s holiness demands a payment, and he takes the initiative by making the payment himself. Imagine a store owner paying for the item you stole in order to balance his drawer. In the same way, God pays the debt you owe. This price we owe for our sins, Paul tells us, is death (Rom. 6:23), but Jesus offered himself as the price as an act of grace. After all, we never could pay for our sins. God demands a spotless sacrifice — something only Jesus could deliver.
3. JUSTIFICATION
We now turn our attention to the court room. In simplest terms, the word justify means to declare righteous. It’s a not guilty pronouncement a judge makes at the end of the trial. Paul says in our text that “all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift.” In other words, we’re all guilty. We’re all facing condemnation. But instead of pronouncing judgment on us, which we deserve, God declares us righteous as an act of grace.
But let’s not confuse justification with amnesty, which is a pardon without just payment. God’s holiness is why he can’t forgive sin without a payment. Think about our outrage at a judge who didn’t condemn a murderer. We would appropriately declare that he is a bad judge. We would demand that the murderer make payment for what he did. God, on the other hand, is a good judge whose holiness demands payment for sin, and that payment was Jesus’ blood.
This is why Paul declares near the end of our text, “It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Because God is holy, he is just. Therefore, he can’t allow sin to remain unpunished. But at the same time, he’s the justifier, because he offered up himself as the just penalty for our sins.
In this sense, justification is possible because of propitiation and redemption. Because God appeased his righteous anger and paid the ransom price, he can declare us not guilty. And remember, Paul says we’ve been justified by God’s grace as a gift. That is to say, we don’t deserve this right standing with God. We deserve condemnation not justification.
SO NOW WHAT?
Jesus died in your place to placate the wrath of God, pay the ransom price for your sin, and make it possible for a holy God to declare you righteous, even though you’re a sinner. But now what? If you want Christ’s work to apply to you, Paul declares that it can be “received by faith.” That is, you can be justified — put into a righteous standing before God — by faith alone.
To be clear, faith is not merely a mental acknowledgement that Jesus died on the cross. It’s more than that. True faith is one that trusts in — relies on — Jesus’ death for their salvation, and nothing else.
Later in the same letter, Paul declares “that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). He can confidently say this because God already condemned our sin in the person of Jesus Christ. John Stott correctly asserts, “It’s only because Jesus was condemned that we can be justified.”3
This is the good news of the Gospel. You can be truly forgiven of your sins and put into a righteous standing before God by trusting in Jesus’ death on the cross for your sins.
