The Cross of Christ

by John R.W. Stott

So substitution is not a ‘theory of the atonement’. Nor is it even an additional image to take its place as an option alongside the others. It is rather the essence of each image and the heart of the atonement itself.

the better people understand the glory of the divine substitution, the easier it will be for them to trust in the Substitute.

Just as human beings disclose their character in their actions, so God has showed himself to us in the death of his Son.

although his glory was manifested powerfully in his miracles or ‘signs’,5 it was above all to be seen in his present weakness, in the self-humiliation of his incarnation.

On three separate occasions Jesus referred to his coming death as the hour of his glorification.

First,

Secondly,

Thirdly,

So Father and Son are revealed by the cross. But what is it which they reveal of themselves? Certainly the self-humbling and self-giving of love are implicit there. But what about the holiness of that love, which made it necessary for the Lamb of God to take away the world’s sin and for the Good Shepherd to lay down his life for his sheep, and which made it more expedient (as Caiaphas correctly prophesied) ‘that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish’?

the reason for God’s previous inaction in the face of sin was not moral indifference but personal forbearance until Christ should come and deal with it on the cross.

second of the three interpretations best fits each context

may not be necessary altogether to reject the other two.

For if the righteousness of God is the righteous standing he gives to those who believe in Jesus, it is by his dynamic saving activity that such a gift is available and bestowed, and the w...

The ‘righteousness of God’, then, might be defined as ‘God’s righteous way of righte...

apart from Christ and his cross, the world would never have known what true love is.

John is saying that only one act of pure love, unsullied by any taint of ulterior motive, has ever been performed in the history of the world, namely the self-giving of God in Christ on the cross for undeserving sinners.

authentic love is characterized by limitless self-giving, risk-taking with no certainty of success, and a vulnerability which is easily hurt.

For ‘the symbol of the cross in the church points to the God who was crucified not between two candles on an altar, but between two thieves in the place of the skull, where the outcasts belong, outside the gates of the city’ (p.40).

There are three reasons why the ‘moral influence’ or ‘exemplarist’ theory must be confidently declared to be untenable,

first is that those who hold this view tend not take it seriously themselves.

Secondly, we need to quote against Abelard and Rashdall the words of Anselm, ‘you have not yet considered the seriousness of sin’.

The ‘moral influence’ theory offers a superficial remedy because it has made a superficial diagnosis.

Thirdly, the moral influence theory has a fatal flaw in its own central emphasis.

But the question we desire to press is this: just how does the cross display and demonstrate Christ’s love? What is there in the cross which reveals love? True love is purposive in its self-giving; it does not make random or reckless gestures. If you were to jump off the end of a pier and drown, or dash into a burning building and be burnt to death, and if your self-sacrifice had no saving purpose, you would convince me of your folly, not your love.

Just so the death of Jesus on the cross cannot be seen as a demonstration of love in itself, but only if he gave his life in order to rescue ours. His death must be seen to have had an objective, before it can have an appeal.

the cross can be seen as a proof of God’s love only when it is at the same time seen as a proof of his justice.

It is because we are convinced of the purpose and costliness of the cross, namely that we owe our life to his death, that we feel his love tightening its grip upon us and leaving us no alternative but to live for him.

First, the parables in question make no allusion to Christ either.

Secondly, each of the three parables contains two actors who are deliberately contrasted with each other

The parables highlight, through this contrast, the condition of forgiveness, not its ground.

thirdly, Christians see the cross in all three parables, because the forgiving mercy shown to the humble tax collector, the bankrupt servant and the prodigal son received its supreme historical demonstration in the self-giving love of God-in-Christ, who died that sinners might be forgiven.

Douglas White

son....According to this teaching, there is no pre-requisite to God’s forgiveness, save the spirit of repentance.’

this interpretation of the parable is common in the Muslim world:

He explains that the whole village would know that the returning prodigal was in disgrace, and that punishment of some kind was inevitable, if only to preserve the father’s honour. But the father bears the suffering instead of inflicting it.

‘we have a father who leaves the comfort and security of his home and exposes himself in a humiliating fashion in the village street. The coming down and going out to his boy hints at the incarnation. The humiliating spectacle in the village street hints at the meaning of the cross’ (pp.54–55).

We conclude, then, that the cross was an unparalleled manifestation of God’s love; that he showed his love in bearing our penalty and therefore our pain, in order to be able to forgive and restore us, and that the Parable of the Prodigal Son, far from contradicting this, implicitly expresses it.

So it is again clear that power (saving power) is not in the world’s wisdom but in God’s foolishness, namely the gospel of Christ crucified.

The gospel of the cross will never be a popular message, because it humbles the pride of our intellect and character.

For the cross is equally an act, and therefore a demonstration, of God’s justice, love, wisdom and power.

In addition to the salvation of sinners (as indicated by the four images we considered in chapter 7) and the revelation of God (especially of his holy love, as considered in the last chapter), the cross secured the conquest of evil.

the ‘objective’ or ‘legal’ view (Christ’s death reconciling the Father), associated with Anselm,

the ‘subjective’ or ‘moral’ view (Christ’s death inspiring and transforming us), associated with Abelard.

third view which Aulén calls both ‘dramatic’ and ‘classic’. It is ‘dramatic’ because it sees the atonement as a cosmic drama in which God in Christ does battle with the powers of evil and gains the victory over them. It is ‘classic’ because, he claims, it was ‘the ruling ...

Nevertheless, Gustav Aulén was right to draw the church’s attention to the cross as victory, and to show that by his death Jesus saved us not only from sin and guilt, but from death and the devil, in fact all evil powers, as well.

But the New Testament does not oblige us to choose between them, for it includes them both.

all three of the major explanations of the death of Christ contain biblical truth and can to some extent be harmonized,

In the ‘objective’ view God satisfies himself,

the ‘subjective’ he inspires us,

the ‘classic’ he overcomes...