“The cross is the center of the world’s history; the incarnation of Christ and the crucifixion of our Lord are the pivot round which all the events of the ages revolve. The testimony of Christ was the spirit of prophecy, and the growing power of Jesus is the spirit of history.”[i]
– Alexander MacLaren, Scottish Pastor
Christ is the divine intersection of the four most important truths. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the time and space where all four truths collide. Jesus died on the cross by the definite plan of God, to the glory of God, in a way that baffled the disciples and all of humanity, demonstrating the awe-inspiring, matchless love of God for lost sinners – sinners like you and me.
God Is In Complete Control
The arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus Christ was not a haphazard event. The chaos of the crowd, the vengeful religious leaders, and a scrambling Roman prefect (Pontius Pilot) were all part of God’s sovereign plan to provide salvation for sinners. The Apostle Peter in his sermon on the day of Pentecost, calls it, “the definite plan…of God” (Acts 2:23). The crucifixion of Christ wasn’t an inconvenient plot twist that God was forced to respond to. This was God’s design from before the very foundation of the world. God wasn’t a helpless spectator. He was masterfully directing every element — including the betrayal of His only begotten Son.
Judas Iscariot has gone down in history as the man who betrayed his friend, Jesus, for 30 pieces of silver. He’s become the archetype for betrayal. Judas was a man chosen to spend three years learning from the Lord Jesus. He seems to have been one of the more trusted disciples because he was in charge of the money (John 12:6). Yet, he was a thief and appears to have only followed Jesus with financial and political aspirations as his motive. When Judas came to the realization that Jesus wasn’t going to conquer Roman tyranny and establish Himself as the ruling Jewish king, the disillusioned disciple looked for an opportunity to cash out. The religious leaders of the day were eager to contract Judas because they wanted to quietly arrest Jesus and bring Him to a swift, violent end.
On the night of the Passover celebration, Jesus confided to His disciples that He knew one of them was plotting to betray Him. The identity of the traitor, Jesus said, “is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it” (John 13:26). Jesus dipped the bread and handed it to Judas who was within reach. Judas became the fulfillment of the prophetic words in Psalm 41:9, “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.” Jesus affirms that specific prophetic fulfillment in John 13:18. As Judas accepted the bread, Satan himself possessed this “son of destruction.” Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly” (John 13:27). Hours later when Judas led a mob to the private praying spot of Jesus, Matthew 26:50 records the Lord saying, “Friend, do what you came to do.” Luke 22:48 records Jesus asking him, “Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” Clearly, Judas was acting of his own volition, but legitimately possessed by Satan! That must garner some mercy from the readers and hearers of his tragic tale. But trumping Satan’s vile intentions and Judas’ sinful choice, God was orchestrating the whole unfolding story.
While Judas illustrates the paradox of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility, Jesus Christ literally embodies it. On that same night, Jesus prayed three times in the Garden of Gethsemane, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). Jesus is the God-Man – fully God and fully man. In the hours before His crucifixion, Jesus was submitting His human will to the divine. What a mystery the incarnation (God in the flesh) is!
The sovereignty of God and the free-will of man are both illustrated in the Gethsemane prayer. They are also clearly stated throughout the Scripture. How we reconcile these two seemingly incompatible ideas has been the source of endless debate. As a simple illustration, visualize these two concepts as separate and distinct lines. When lines intersect, they create a cross. And that is where God’s sovereignty and man’s free-will intersect — at the cross of Jesus Christ. They are made compatible within the God-Man. Jesus had a human will, but willingly submitted His will to the plan of God. The cross of Christ is where the seemingly opposite doctrines of God’s Sovereignty and humanity’s free-will harmonize.
What about us? What about free-will? Are we just robots? Puppets? A.W. Tozer writes, “God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil.”[ii] We exist within the paradox, the mystery (Deuteronomy 29:29). God is in complete control and we, like Christ, must submit our human will to the divine. We must have our own Garden of Gethsemane moment where we pray, “Thy will be done” (Matthew 26:42, KJV).
All Things Exist For God’s Glory
We have yet to straight out answer the age-old question: Why do bad things happen to good people? Before I answer, we need to first examine the question. To start – who gets to define what is good and what is bad? How do we determine who is good and who is bad? Jesus told a rich, young seeker, “No one is good except God” (Mark 10:18). About humanity, David writes, “There is none who does good” (Psalm 14:1). Nobody qualifies as good, because “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23). The question, then, is fundamentally flawed.
Why do bad things happen to good people? Actually, that’s only happened once in history. A bad thing happened to the only good human to ever walk the planet – Jesus. At Calvary, He would face, not just nails, whips, spears, and ridicule, but the holy wrath of God for sin would be poured out on Him. God “made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). It was the plan of God that something “bad” happen to someone who was good, so that something good could happen to someone who was truly bad (Isaiah 53:10). This was all done for the glory of God.
Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:6-11
The sacrificial death of Jesus, the good God-Man, was all about God’s glory! Christ’s glorious work brought about the salvation of sinners, which increases the glory given to God. Jesus’ substitutionary death would bring “many children into glory” (Hebrews 2:10, NLT). There it is – God’s glory and our salvation (joy) paired once again.
God’s Ways Are Not Our Ways
The cross was once an emblem of Roman tyranny and terror, but has now become the symbol of the Christian life. On the surface that doesn’t make a lot of sense. It seems dark and foreboding, like choosing an electric chair or noose as a symbol for a movement. The fact that God took the most horrific instrument of human execution and reclaimed it for His purposes shows that His ways are not our ways. While some see the cross as foolish, the Scripture says the cross “is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). This is the divine paradox of the Gospel – death is the door to life.
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 16:24-25
The Son of God died on a Roman cross and then called His students to carry their own cross. Jesus challenged His followers to live a cruciform life – a cross-shaped life. A person molded by the cross surrenders complete ownership to divine purposes. Taking up our cross means continually toppling the kingdom of self and crowning Jesus as Lord. The Apostle Paul writes, “I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31, NASB). That perpetual dying is the only way to the newness of life that Jesus promises. It is the only way to peace with God. The cross is the only way to find meaning and purpose in our lives.
Sometimes people will use the phrase, “That’s my cross to bear.” In some ways they are right. The cross is a model for how to suffer well. Even though Christ is God’s beloved son, Hebrews says, “He learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). Christ was not exempt from God’s school of suffering. Like Jesus, we learn greater dependance and obedience to the Father as we take up our cross. We can joyfully embrace whatever cross we have to carry, because we are confident in Christ’s proven, resurrection power![iii]
Joining Jesus in death means we will also join Him in victory. The gruesome death of Jesus was followed with His triumphant resurrection from the dead. That is God’s way: first trials then triumph – death and then resurrection.
God Loves Us
Imagine a timeline of human history stretching from the beginning until now. The cross of Christ stands at the very center. It is there that through Christ, God was providing “salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). The visual in my mind is seeing Jesus’ arms stretched out on the cross. One arm is reaching back into history and saving those who looked forward in faith to a coming Savior. The other arm is reaching through time to you, me, and even into the future to those of faith who will look back in time at the cross for salvation.
When we repent and believe in Jesus, we are welcomed by the love of God into a community. That community is the family of God. The saints of the Old Testament looked forward to the coming of the promised Messiah. The New Testament believers and those after them, look back to Christ. What unites us is the work of Christ on the cross. God’s love brings this super-eclectic group together across time and space. His love leaps through history and across cultural, racial, national boundaries, and language barriers. His love makes a family out of us and them. John records in Revelation 7:9-10 the great family reunion in Heaven. He writes:
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
All four truths culminate in Christ. From the very beginning God has been in complete control, writing the story of His glory in a way that is unique, only to Him. Yet, God is not distant, but near. He is not aloof, but aware. He knows us and loves us. Christ is the proof that God is in control, working out all things for His glory and our good, and accomplishing His loving purposes in a mysterious, unexpected way.
Prayer of confession and belief –
God, when I reflect on the ministry and mission of Christ, I am in greater awe of who you are. That you would, from before the foundation of the world, have this plan in your heart leaves me speechless. I praise you for your sovereign, glorious, mysterious, and loving way.
Amen.
For further reading: 2 Corinthians 4:7-18; 1 Peter 2:21-25; 5:10-11