The Cross of Christ

by John R.W. Stott

The greatest merits of Anselm’s exposition are that he perceived clearly the extreme gravity of sin (as a wilful rebellion against God in which the creature affronts the majesty of his Creator), the unchanging holiness of God (as unable to condone any violation of his honour), and the unique perfections of Christ (as the God-man who voluntarily gave himself up to death for us).

his whole presentation reflects the feudal culture of his age, in which society was rigidly stratified, each person stood on the dignity which had been accorded him, the ‘proper’ or ‘becoming’ conduct of inferiors to superiors (and especially to the king) was laid down, breaches of this code were punished, and all debts must be honourably discharged.

We must certainly remain dissatisfied whenever the atonement is presented as a necessary satisfaction either of God’s ‘law’ or of God’s ‘honour’ in so far as these are objectified as existing in some way apart from him.

Anselm (died 1109), as we have seen, emphasized the objective satisfaction to the honour of God which had been paid by the God-man Jesus,

Peter Abelard of Paris (died 1142) (Abelard’s teaching is considered in greater detail on pp.252ff.) emphasized the subjective moral influence which the cross has on believers.

Bernard of Clairvaux (died 1153), the mystic theologian, continued to teach that a ransom-price...

Here, then, are five ways in which theologians have expressed their sense of what is necessary before God is able to forgive sinners.

The limitation they share is that, unless they are very carefully stated, they represent God as being subordinate to something outside and above himself which controls his actions, to which he is accountable, and from which he cannot free himself.

The necessity of ‘satisfaction’ for God, therefore, is not found in anything outside himself but within himself, in his own immutable character. It is an inherent or intrinsic necessity. The law to which he must conform, which he must satisfy, is the law of his own being.

Scripture has several ways of drawing attention to God’s self-consistency, and in particular of emphasizing that when he is obliged to judge sinners, he does it because he must, if he is to remain true to himself.

first example is the language of provocation.

He is never provoked without reason.

Secondly, there is the language of burning.

Thirdly, there is the language of satisfaction itself.

But the reason why this threat of national destruction is so poignant is that it was uttered against the background of God’s love for Israel, his choice of them and his covenant with them.

a fourth way in which Scripture emphasizes the self-consistency of God, namely by using the language of the Name.

the way God chooses to forgive sinners and reconcile them to himself must, first and foremost, be fully consistent with his own character.

Perhaps the boldest of all human models of God in Scripture is the pain of parenthood which is attributed to him in Hosea, chapter 11.

The Bible includes a number of other phrases which in different ways express this ‘duality’ within God.

is ‘the compassionate and gracious God....Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished’;

‘love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peac...

as ‘a righteous God and a...

and in wrath he rememb...

Calvin, echoing Augustine, was even bolder. He wrote of God that ‘in a marvellous and divine way he loved us even when he hated us’.40

If we spoke less about God’s love and more about his holiness, more about his judgment, we should say much more when we did speak of his love.42

Without a holy God there would be no problem of atonement. It is the holiness of God’s love that necessitates the atoning cross....43

there do seem to have been two basic and complementary notions of sacrifice in God’s Old Testament revelation,

first expressed the sense human beings have of belonging to God by right,

second their sense of alienation from God because of th...

f...

‘peace’ or ‘fellowship’ offering which was often associated with thanksgiving (Lev. 7:12), the burnt offering (in which everything was consumed) and the r...

s...

the sin offering and the guil...

both kinds of sacrifice were essentially recognitions of God’s grace and expressions of dependence upon it.

better to distinguish them, as B. B. Warfield did, by seeing in the former ‘man conceived merely as creature’ and in the latter ‘the needs of man as sinner’.

God is revealed in the sacrifices on the one hand as the Creator on whom man depends for his physical life, and on the other as simultaneously the Judge who demands and the Saviour who provides atonement for sin.

the latter is the foundation of the former, in that reconciliation to our Judge is necessary even before worship of our Creator.

This was significant symbolism, not meaningless magic.

By laying his hand(s) on the animal, the offerer was certainly identifying himself with it and ‘solemnly’ designating ‘the victim as standing for him’.6

The clearest statement that the blood sacrifices of the Old Testament ritual had a substitutionary significance, however, and that this was why the shedding and sprinkling of blood was indispensable to atonement, is to be found in this statement by God explaining why the eating of blood was prohibited: For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life (Lev. 17:11).

Three important affirmations about blood are made in this text.

First,

Secondly,

Thirdly,

No forgiveness without blood meant no atonement without substitution. There had to be life for life or blood for blood. But the Old Testament blood sacrifices were only shadows; the substance was Christ. For a substitute to be effective, it must be an appropriate equivalent. Animal sacrifices could not atone for human beings, because a human being is ‘much more valuable...than a sheep’, as Jesus himself said (Matt. 12:12). Only ‘the precious blood of Christ’ was valuable enough (1 Pet. 1:19).

two reasons to start with the Passover.

first

original Passover marked the beginning of Israel’...

second reason

the New Testament clearly identifies the death of Christ as the fulfilment of the Passover, and the emergence of his new and redeemed community as the new exodus.