The Cross and Resurrection: What Did He Do?
30 min read
The cross was not plan B. It was the climax of Israel's story and the fulfillment of God's redemptive purpose from before the foundation of the world.
"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God." — 1 Peter 3:18
1. The cross was anticipated, not accidental.
In Luke 24:26-27, the risen Jesus explains to the Emmaus disciples that the Messiah had to suffer. This was not an unexpected reversal that required theological explanation after the fact. It was the plan. Isaiah 53, written seven centuries earlier, describes in detail the suffering servant who would be "crushed for our iniquities" (v. 5) and "make many to be accounted righteous" (v. 11). Jesus himself predicted his death three times in the Synoptic Gospels Mark 8:31Mark 9:31Mark 10:33-34. The cross was the destination, not a detour.
2. The cross addresses the fundamental human problem: sin and its consequences.
Romans 3:23 — "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 6:23 — "the wages of sin is death." The cross addresses this specific problem. Not merely bad behavior that needs reforming. Not merely ignorance that needs educating. The problem is guilt before a holy God and the spiritual death that follows from that guilt. The cross is where that problem is resolved, at cost, by the only one who could pay what was required.
3. The cross is where justice and mercy meet.
Romans 3:25-26 describes the cross as a "propitiation" — the place where God's righteous wrath against sin was satisfied — so that God could be "just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." This is the paradox of the cross: God does not simply waive the penalty for sin, which would make him unjust. He absorbs the penalty himself, which satisfies justice while extending mercy. The cross is not God forgiving cheaply. It is God paying dearly.
4. Jesus went willingly.
John 10:18 — "No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord." The crucifixion was not something that happened to Jesus against his will. It was something he walked toward deliberately, with full knowledge, out of love for the Father and love for us. Gethsemane Luke 22:39-46 shows the genuine human agony of that choice — and the genuine human obedience that chose it anyway. "Not my will, but yours, be done."
5. The cross is the ultimate expression of what God is like.
Romans 5:8 — "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." The cross is not the demonstration of how much humans are worth. It is the demonstration of how much God loves. These are different claims. The first makes God's action contingent on our value. The second makes God's action an expression of his character — a love that goes to the uttermost not because we deserved it but because he is who he is.
Treating the cross as a past event with only historical significance. The cross is also a present reality — the ongoing basis for forgiveness, access to God, and freedom from condemnation. Its effects are not merely historical. They are perpetually available.
Read Luke 23:32-47. Write a paragraph: what does each of Jesus' statements from the cross reveal about the meaning of what he was doing?
Submit your paragraph on Luke 23 and your journal answer about willing sacrifice.
A: No. The cross was anticipated in Isaiah 53, predicted by Jesus himself, and described in Revelation as the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" Revelation 13:8.
A: God absorbs the penalty for sin himself, satisfying justice while extending mercy — making him "just and the justifier" Romans 3:26.
A: Because it means the cross is not a tragedy that happened to Jesus but a deliberate act of love — the fullest expression of who God is.
Lord, you did not have to do this. You chose to. Let that truth settle in me as more than a doctrinal fact — as a love I can actually receive. Amen.