The Cross of Christ

by John R.W. Stott

Because in the context Peter is emphasizing the cross as our example, it is all the more striking that he should at the same time write of Christ our sinbearer and substitute.

Exmple as in glory through suffering

not only as Son over the angels and as Prophet over Moses, but in particular as Priest over the now obsolete Levitical priesthood.

In order to grasp the broad perspective from which John views the influence of the Lamb, it may be helpful to divide it into four spheres – salvation, history, worship and eternity.

By a very dramatic figure of speech the robes they are wearing are said to have been ‘washed...and made white in the blood of the Lamb’. In other words, they owe their righteous standing before God entirely to the cross of Christ,

Lamb is more than the Saviour of a countless multitude; he is depicted also as the lord of all history.

It is significant that what has qualified him to assume this role is his cross; for this is the key to history and the redemptive process it inaugurated.

because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God

And his worthiness, which qualifies him for these unique privileges, is due to the fact that he was slain, and by his death procured our salvation.

learnt that the servant was not greater than the master, and that for them as for him suffering was the means to glory. More than that, suffering was glory, and whenever they were ‘insulted because of the name of Christ’, then ‘the Spirit of glory’ rested upon them.

the commonly held belief is that God cast a spell over the enemies of Jesus in order to rescue him, and that either Judas Iscariot51 or Simon of Cyrene was substituted for him at the last moment.

he found Islam’s missing dimension, ‘the intimate fatherhood of God and the deep assurance of sins forgiven’.

His death on the cross was a great example to the world, but that there was anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue in it, my heart could not accept.

Christianity which ‘has taken the side of everything weak, base, ill-constituted’. Being ‘the religion of pity’, it ‘preserves what is ripe for destruction’ and so ‘thwarts the law of evolution’

For faith in the Mediator – in the event which took place once for all, a revealed atonement – is the Christian religion itself; it is the ‘main point’;

simply the struggle for the right interpretation of the Cross.

For the only authentic Jesus is the Jesus who died on the cross.

In the Jewish court a theological charge was brought against him, blasphemy. In the Roman court the charge was political, sedition.

He was perceived as a threat to law and order, which could not be tolerated.

they make no reference at all

to hammer or nails or pain, or even blood.

later the centurion in charge of them believed, or at least semi-believed),

His overriding aim was to maintain law and order, to keep those troublesome Jews firmly under control, and, if necessary for these ends, to be ruthless in the suppression of any riot or threat of one.

First, Pilate was convinced of Jesus’ innocence.

He wanted to avoid sentencing Jesus (since he believed he was innocent) and at the same time avoid exonerating him (since the Jewish leaders believed he was guilty).

It is easy to condemn Pilate and overlook our own equally devious behaviour. Anxious to avoid the pain of a whole-hearted commitment to Christ, we too search for convenient

subterfuges.

The crowd won. Why? Because they said to him: ‘If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar’ (John 19:12).

They cared more for regulations than for persons, he

had said, more for ceremonial cleansing than for moral purity, more for laws than for love.

‘he knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him’.

Envy is the reverse side of a coin called vanity. Nobody is ever envious of others who is not first proud of himself.

And the Jewish leaders were proud, racially, nationally, religiously and morally proud.

Matthew recounts two jealous plots to eliminate Jesus, the first by Herod the Great at the beginning of his life, and the other by the priests at its end.

He is still, as C. S. Lewis called him, ‘a transcendental interferer’.12

final appeal to him by dipping a piece of bread in the dish and giving it to him (John 13:25–30). But Judas rejected Jesus’ appeal, and his betrayal has always seemed the more odious because it was a flagrant breach of hospitality.

deliberately contrast Mary and Judas, her uncalculating generosity and his coldly calculated bargain.

Incensed by the waste of a year’s wages, he went and sold Jesus for barely a third of that amount.19

First, Judas ‘handed him over’ to the priests (out of greed). Next, the priests ‘handed him over’ to Pilate (out of envy). Then Pilate ‘handed him over’ to the soldiers (out of cowardice), and they crucified him.

More important still, we ourselves are also guilty. If we were in their place, we would have done what they did. Indeed, we have done it.

We too sacrifice Jesus to our greed like Judas, to our envy like the priests, to our ambition like Pilate.

Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us (leading us to faith and worship), we have to see it as something done by us (leading us to repentance). Indeed, ‘only the man who is prepared to own his share in the guilt of the cross’,

wrote Canon Peter Green, ‘may claim his share in its grace’.

that although Jesus was brought to his death by human sins, he did not die as a martyr. On the contrary, he went to the cross voluntarily, even deliberately.

From the beginning of his public ministry he consecrated himself to this destiny.

In his baptism he identified himself with sinners (as he was to do...

No-one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord’

‘Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas, for money; not Pilate, for fear; not the Jews, for envy; – but the Father, for love!’

But on the divine level, the Father gave him up, and he gave himself up, to die for us.

‘I did it, my sins sent him there’ and ‘he did it, his love took him there’.

attributed Jesus’ death simultaneously to the plan of God and to the wickedness of men.