What Did the Cross Accomplish?: A Conversation about the Atonement

by N.T. Wright

In closing, when we consider the cross of Jesus, we likely are faced with a mystery that is too great to be fully comprehended, yet it can be apprehended.21 In reflecting on the cross, both the greatness and the goodness of God are revealed, so that we see both God’s holiness and God’s love. At the cross, God’s glory and grace meet. At the end of our study, perhaps we still cannot entirely understand what God has done for us through the cross because of our human limitations. And maybe that’s okay because God is greater than any human mind can fully comprehend. Why should we expect fully to comprehend God’s work when we know that we cannot understand God fully?22 Maybe we can know what we need to know even if we cannot plumb the depths of God’s work. Still, I know this: when I partake of the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, I am truly grateful. Perhaps the best response is not theology but rather doxology. Isaac Watts’s classic hymn says best where our doctrine of the atonement should end.