COULD GOD HAVE FORGIVEN US WITHOUT THE CROSS?
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Well, didn’t He forgive the Israelites before the Cross? Yes, but only superficially.
The New Testament consistently taught that OT forgiveness was not the same as the forgiveness that came through the Cross:
∑ For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. (Hebrews 10:1-4)
Instead of the eradication of sin, the Old Testament forgiveness merely covered over sin:
∑ [Jesus] whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (Romans 3:25)
Because Israel’s sins were merely “passed over,” Jesus’ atonement had to work retroactively to cleanse the sins of the OT saints:
∑ For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. (Hebrews 9:13-15)
It is only through Christ that our sins are cleansed and purified so that we can confidently enter into the presence of God (Hebrews 10:19-22). Instead, OT forgiveness was only a matter of God passing over sins, not purifying them:
∑ Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. (Psalm 32:1;)
∑ Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? (Micah 7:18)
The OT saints would only experience a “passing over transgression,” but they were also promised a New Covenant through which God would “remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:34).
Because their sins hadn’t been eradicated, even the deceased OT saints could not come into the presence of a God whose righteousness had not yet been satisfied by the Cross:
∑ And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:39-40)
Consequently, after Jesus proclaimed that “It is finished” and the veil of the Temple was torn in two, symbolizing the fact that the way into presence of God was now opened, there was a great earthquake to reinforce this lesson:
∑ And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. (Matthew 27:51-53)
Presumably, after their appearances, those saints were enabled to ascend into God’s presence.
The Old and New Testaments have gradually unveiled God’s one plan for humanity, which culminates in our being made one with our Savior? It’s a puzzle with Christ as the center piece. It is not a hodge-podge, constructed by 40 different authors over 1500 years, but a single vision that moves irresistibly to take hold of eternity. I think that this says something about Divine authorship, but now we have to turn to the “why” questions:
Why didn’t the Father simply eradicate sin without any blood offering? Why was it necessary for Jesus to die for our sins?
Evidently, there was no alternative to Jesus’ horrid and public death for humanity. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus had prayed for an alternative, but none was offered (Matthew 26:39). Why then did Jesus have to endure the Cross if God is omnipotent and can do all things?
This is a misunderstanding of God’s omnipotence. He can do anything He wants to do but not in any way. Clearly, He cannot sin or violate His promises or even His character, which demands an adequate payment for sin. Why? We cannot answer this question completely. Nor can we comprehensively answer simple questions like, “Why is the sky blue” or “What is matter?”
However, we can answer questions for which God provides answers. Surprisingly, the Cross represented the display of God’s supreme glory:
∑ And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (John 12:23-24; 13:31-32)
How strange that the hour of God’s greatest glory was also Jesus’ painful, humiliating, and disgraceful death on the Cross. However, it proved the extent of God’s love, as nothing else could, that He would die for us while we were His enemies (Romans 5:8-10).
This display of God’s love and glory it not just a graphic and gory show, it is a display that I had vitally needed. One atheist had made a public challenge to all Christians – “How do you know that your faith is not just an elaborate con-job by the greatest con in existence?”
Actually, this had been my question for years. Although I believed in Jesus, I was dogged by the doubt that He might be a sadist who created us merely for His entertainment. This is the way I had felt while undergoing the most intense depression and panic attacks. Eventually, however, it was revealed to me that He couldn’t be a sadist if He had willingly endured the Cross for me. This revelation and the evidence that the Cross of Christ was a thoroughly-proven historical fact set me free from this doubt.
The Cross was not only a necessary display of God’s love and glory, it also represented the ultimate display of His righteousness. He also had to display to the world that He is so serious about sin that an adequate payment had to be made for it:
∑ But now the righteousness of God has been manifested [through the Cross] apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:21-23)
This revelation of God’s righteousness speaks volumes to us about the seriousness of our sins. They are so serious that no payment could ever suffice apart from the death of God the Son Himself. And if our sins had been so heinous before God that nothing short of the death of His Son could take them away, we need to resist them with all of our might.
If Jesus is truly God, His Cross has made us eternally rich beyond belief, and this is something we need to know. After making an extensive case that Jesus is God (Colossians 1:13-21), Paul explained why we need to understand this:
∑ See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. (Colossians 2:8-10)
When we fail to understand how incredibly rich our Lord has made us, we become susceptible to being taken “captive by philosophy and empty deceit.” To guard against this, Paul argued that Christ is fully God (“in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”) and that we have Jesus and all His riches. If we truly understand this, we will not fall prey to any new philosophy or therapy.
The Cross also presents us with a mandate for living a new Christ-centered life. Since we have Jesus, we should live accordingly:
∑ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God [in essence, God], did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:3-8)
Jesus had willingly “emptied Himself” of His heavenly status to come to us in the form of a human being as “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). If Jesus had humbled Himself so profoundly and completely, we too should be willing to humble ourselves by looking “to the interests of others.”
You might agree with me that these are essential lessons – the love, righteousness, riches, and requirements of the Cross – but ask, “Couldn’t these lessons have merely been taught in a classroom without an actual Cross?” I don’t think so. Without the Cross, they would have remained a baseless collection of dogma, guaranteed to breed doubt and cynicism.
Even from our very limited understanding of the Cross of Jesus, we can begin to understand why salvation requires us to believe that Christ the Son had to die for our sins.
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