The third major theme in Paul with regard to what the Cross means is that of Reconciliation.

RECONCILIATION

Reconciliation presupposes a condition of estrangement. alienation (or even hostility).  Paul argues that sin had produced this condition in man.  The key text is Colossians 1 v 21.

“And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in the body of his flesh by his death..”

But sin has not only alienated man from God.

Paul, a Jew, worked with the Genesis 3 story of the Garden of Eden in which sin has a 4 fold consequence:

• We are alienated from God: they hid from the presence of God in the
garden
• We are alienated within ourselves: they felt a sense of shame
• We are alienated from our fellows: the man and his wife blamed
each other
• We are alienated from our environment: work became hard work!

This last aspect is an “aetiological story” in Genesis but it contains an essential truth.  Man’s greed in exploiting and abusing nature has produced deserts and environmental problems which we are only just recognising.

Reconciliation deals with all these areas of alienation.  Paul focuses on the Cross as the climactic point of reconciliation.

• Reconciled to God: Colossians 1 v 21 (already quoted) and also
“ For if while we were enemies,we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, how much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life… Not only so, we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received our reconciliation…”
Romans 5 v 11

• Reconciled within ourselves:
Romans 7 describes a situation in which man is totally at odds with himself.  He knows what he ought to do.  He knows what he wants to do.  But he cannot do it.  Another power within him compels him to do the thing he hates.

” O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
Romans 7 v 24

The answer? “Thanks be to God , through Jesus Christ our Lord”.
Romans 7 v 25

Christ makes us ‘whole’ in the sense of making us integrated personalities.

• Reconciled with our fellows:
In Paul’s thought it was the alienation and hostility between Jew and Gentile which was paramount. He sees the death of Christ as overcoming this.  ” Remember that you gentiles were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise.  But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. He is our peace who has made us both one….. and has reconciled us both in one body through the Cross.””
Ephesians 2 vv 11-16

This reconciliation between persons is further detailed in Galatians 3 v 23 in which Paul says that the barriers which divide humankind are broken down.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek ( i.e. a racial barrier)

there is neither slave nor free ( i.e. a social / economic barrier)

there is neither male nor female ( i.e. a gender barrier )

for you are all one in Christ Jesus”
Galatians 3 v 23

• Reconciliation of the whole creation.
Paul does not develop the idea of creation estranged from God.  He accepts it as a fact and makes the point that salvation has a cosmic dimension.  Creation, too, is subject to bondage and decay.  The process of salvation includes creation.

The key passage is Romans 8 vv 18-25.

We often forget that all of Paul’s Letters were written before the Gospels. But, whereas the Gospel writers were content with recording the story of the Cross, Paul delved deep into its meaning.

The Centrality of the Cross

The Cross was central to everything that Paul understood about the work of Christ. When he arrived in Corinth he stated that he “determined to know nothing except Christ crucified”,  and in Chapter I of his letter to the Corinthians he said “Jews demand signs, Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified”. This pre-occupation with the Cross has had dire consequences for Protestant theology. It ignores the rest of Jesus’ life. And Eastern Orthodox Christians remind us that the Incarnation (the birth at Bethlehem) was just as crucial for our salvation. The fact of the matter is that it is the whole of Jesus’ life which constitutes a single, saving act of God. The Cross (together with the Resurrection) is its climax but must not, and cannot, be separated from all that went before.

God was in Christ
A crucial text in Paul’s understanding comes in 2 Cor 5. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself”.  For Paul it is God who forgives, God who reconciles, God who justifies, and he does all this in and through Christ.  Working with a Trinitarian concept of Father, Son and Holy Spirit we have often fallen into the trap of separating the Father and the Son in such a way as to suggest that the Father punished the Son for the sins of the world.  As though Christ on the Cross appeased and placated an angry Father.  Paul would have none of this.  For him God was in Christ and therefore the sufferings of Christ are none other than the suffering of God Himself.

God through His Spirit
Salvation, for Paul, has two aspects.  One centers on the work of Christ.  The other on the work of the Holy Spirit.  The difference is illustrated in a consideration of two key words in his theology:  Justification and Sanctification, and can be tabulated in the following way:

JUSTIFICATION What God does FOR us in Christ. Is a relative change (i.e. a change in our status) Confers pardon Deals with sin as guilt

SANCTIFICATION What God does IN us through the Spirit. Is a real change ( i.e. a change in our nature) Confers holiness Deals with sin as corruption.

This table is somewhat of an over-simplification but it helps clarify our thinking.

Insofar as we are thinking about Paul’s understanding of the Cross we shall limit ourselves to the objective aspect of our salvation  (what God does FOR us).  But this is not the whole story.  It must be complemented by the subjective aspect (what God does IN us).  Salvation is a process, not a one-off.

The Cross in Paul’s Understanding
One line of approach is via a consideration of some of the words that Paul uses to describe what God has done through Christ with particular reference to the Cross.

Redemption

Reconciliation

Justification

REDEMPTION
There are two images behind this word.  One stems from the dockyard market place where slaves were bought and sold.  The other stems from the Old Testament idea or the “kinsman” who acts as redeemer.

i) The contemporary image which Paul used came from the practice of buying and selling slaves in the market place.  The picture is of a prospective owner selecting a slave from the line of those on view, paying a price, and then commanding “strike off his chains and let him go free”.  The slave is liberated from the bonds that bound him – but at a price.

“You are not your own. You were bought with a price.” I Cor.6 v 20

The price paid by Jesus on the Cross is the price of his own life.  It is the price of forgiveness whereby we are liberated from the bondage of our guilt, set free from sin.

ii) The Old Testament image is reflected in the Book of Ruth.  Ruth, a Moabite woman, returns to Bethlehem with her mother in law Naomi.   She is a widow, a ‘stranger’, a refugee.  She is taken in and cared for by Boaz who adopts her as a member of his own family.  By this action Boaz is said to be acting as a “kinsman”.  The Hebrew word can also be translated “Redeemer”.  Boaz plays a kinsman’s part and accepts responsibility for Ruth.

God in Christ accepts responsibility for us.  This is the meaning of His incarnation at Bethlehem.  God becomes one with us, one of us.  In Christ He identifies Himself with our humanity – at Bethlehem  – at the Baptism in the Jordan – and on the Cross.

JUSTIFICATION
This is the most difficult concept to grasp and has given rise to much heated debate!

It is a key doctrine of St Paul.

“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God.” Romans 5 v 1

“We know that a man is not justified by works of the Law but through faith in Jesus Christ.” Galatians 2 v 16

The whole of Paul’s letter to the Romans is a sustained exposition on the theme of Justification by faith.

As usual Paul is working with an “everyday” picture.  In this instance it is a Law Court.  He imagines the defendant brought before the Judge.  The defendant is patently guilty.  Amazingly the Judge pronounces a verdict of “acquittal”.

Paul argues that we stand before God as guilty.   But, in justifying us, God sees us as we are in Christ and acquits us.   Through faith we are identified with Christ and God pronounces the verdict that He would have pronounced on Christ.

It is this idea which the eucharistic hymn expresses;

“Look, Father, look on his anointed face,
and only look on us as found in him”

But this teaching has given rise to criticism.  Is it not a legal fiction for God to announce a “Not Guilty” verdict and acquit us when the reality is that we are guilty and have not changed?

What does that say about the justice of God?  Such a verdict is patently unjust.

Two attempts have been made to preserve the justice of God in this situation:

Protestant theology has argued that God treats us as though we were righteous by virtue of our identification through faith with Christ.  In theological terms the righteousness necessary for us to be acquitted is imputed to us.  This does not remove the objection however, and so some Protestant theologians have gone further and argued that God is able to acquit us because the moment of faith gives us a righteous intent and God acquits us on the basis of that intent.

Catholic theology has tended to argue that God imparts a real righteousness to us, and on that basis he is able to justly pronounce our acquittal.

The debate and distinction between an imputed and an imparted righteousness has been long and heated and has divided Protestant and Catholic.

Part of the confusion has resulted from a misunderstanding of what “righteousness” means.  To many it is an ethical quality, a kind of “goodness”.  But this is not the Old Testament meaning where “righteousness” refers to the nature of a relationship.  In the O.T. a man is righteous if he is in a right relationship with God.  On this basis to say that we are justified means that our status viz-a-viz God is changed.  We no longer stand before God as guilty sinners, but as pardoned sinners.  And it is God who makes this change in relationship possible.  We cannot earn it or merit it.  It is offered as gift and received by faith.

Excursus
The Bible frequently uses the imagery of clothing to symbolize relationship.

Jacob’s coat of many colours symbolized his favourite son relationship with his father.

Consider the O.T. story of the Garden of Eden where man is driven from the garden i.e. from the presence of God.  But God provides clothes for the man and his wife.

The theology behind this imagery is that man’s disobedience has changed the nature of his relationship to God – the man is now guilty.  But God does not ex-communicate him altogether.   He makes possible a different relationship and the provision of clothing symbolizes this new standing / relationship.

In the N.T. this symbolism is continued in the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15).  The Prodigal is welcomed home as a son and not as a hired servant and to make the point his father orders him to be wrapped in the best robe;  “for this my son was dead and is alive again”.

Working with this analogy Paul envisions being justified as being clothed with the righteousness of Christ.  It’s a theme which Charles Wesley picked up when he sang;

“No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus and all in Him is mine,
Alive in Him, my living head,
and clothed in righteousness divine”

The Justification of God.
There is another way in which we can view the idea of Justification.  It is to see it, not as the justification of man, but the justification of God.

On this understanding the Cross justifies God in forgiving us.  We say that God forgives us freely.  But is not the idea of free forgiveness immoral?  Simply to say “I forgive you” could easily be seen as condoning the wrong action, or turning a blind eye to it, or treating it with less than seriousness.  Surely justice demands that some penalty be incurred.

Some “theories” of the atonement pursue this argument by saying that the Cross represented:

God punishing His Son in the interests of justice.  This penal substitutionary “theory” is quite unacceptable to many Christians.

There is another way of understanding the argument.  It is to remind ourselves that the penalty (and the consequence) of sin is separation from God.  God in Christ endures this consequence.  (Hence the cry from the Cross “My God. why have you forsaken me?”)

Therefore the forgiveness which God offers can be seen as free to us but costly to Him.  What it cost God to freely forgive us was the crucifixion of Love.

So God may be said to be justified in offering us a free forgiveness.  He has borne within Himself the cost of being able to offer forgiveness.  The Cross of Christ is sign and symbol of that cost.

John’s view of the Cross is dominated by his “high” understanding of Jesus. The opening verses of his gospel speak of the Word who was with God in the beginning, and Jesus is the Word made flesh.

1. So John sees the Cross in the light of the Lordship and Kingship of Jesus. John uses the word “King” all through his Passion story. At Jesus’ trial before Pilate the argument is all about kingship. At the conclusion of the trial Pilate presents Jesus to the people saying; “here is your king”. The inscription written on the Cross reads “The king of the Jews” and it is written in Hebrew, the language of the sacred scriptures; in Latin, the language of the imperial power; and in Greek, the language in which the gospel is proclaimed. The “wreath” around Jesus’ head is a crown of thorns. If Luke reports that, on the Cross, a Man dies, John says that on the Cross a King dies.

2. John’s view of Jesus’ death is heavily “predestinerian”. It was all part of God’s Plan from the beginning. Six times John speaks of the Passion in terms of “the scripture must be fulfilled” and quotes an OT text to show its fulfillment. Reading John’s account it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Judas and Pilate and all concerned were simply acting out, on the stage of human history, a script which had been written in advance.

This was true of Jesus too. He “knew” what must happen. So John omits Jesus’ plea in Gethsemane that “this cup might pass from me”. He does not have to wrestle to know what God wills for his unity with the Father is complete from Day 1. When Pilate asks whether Jesus realises that he has the power to crucify him Jesus tells Pilate that the only power he has is that given to him from above. John also omits the anguished cry of dereliction on the Cross and replace it with the victorious and triumphant cry “It is finished”.

3. John also speaks of that Jesus as the Lamb of God and brings the Jewish belief in the lamb sacrificed into play. But which lamb? Was it the paschal lamb of Exodus 12? But this lamb did not take away sin. Nor did the lamb offered in the daily sacrifice in the Temple. Was it the “scapegoat” of Leviticus 16? But this “lamb” was not killed. It seems that the Passover Lamb of Exodus 12 best fits John’s understanding since he makes the point that none of Jesus’ bones were broken after he died. This is in accordance with Exodus 12.

4. John sees the Cross as the moment of Triumph and Exaltation and Glory. Exaltation in that John refers to Jesus being “lifted up” in the context of Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness. Three times John refers back to this incident. Triumph in that John records Jesus’ last words as being the traditional cry of a Roman conqueror “It is finished / accomplished”. And Jesus tells his disciples “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world”. And Glory in that John sees the Cross as the supreme moment of glory, the climatic point at which all Jesus’ talk about glorifying God in his actions and being glorified by God is reached.

So John offers an insight which is crucial for us. The Cross does not stand alone as a separate incident in Jesus’ life. For, in John’s understanding the Cross, resurrection and ascension and giving of the Holy Spirit are all part of a single, saving event. They are one event, not four.

5. The imperative of love. If his use of the “lamb” introduces the idea of sacrifice John does not think of it as a sacrifice that takes away sin. Instead he sees it as a sacrifice which is revelatory. It reveals the amazing love of God. This is first captured in that most familiar of all texts, John 3 v 16. “God so loved the world….” It is seen in John’s repeated reference to Jesus being “lifted up”” as was the serpent in the wilderness. Those who saw it “lifted up” were healed / saved. For John to “see” is to believe, as he illustrates when Peter entered the tomb and found it empty.

It was Isaac Watts who encapsulated John’s understanding in his hymn ‘When I survey the wondrous cross’. He bids us look at the Cross, see the sorrow and love flowing mingled down from Jesus’ bleeding wounds, and then, in grateful response, acknowledge that “love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all”.

If, as John insists, the Cross was divinely pre-ordained, then how can we attribute any blame or responsibility to Judas, Pilate or anybody else involved in the drama?

Is the “revelatory” understanding of the Cross a sufficient understanding? Or do we have to say that, on the Cross, something “objective” was done to achieve our salvation?

Luke used Mark’s story of the Passion as a basis for his re-telling. But he makes some important modifications which indicate a different understanding.

1. Mark stressed that Jesus was alone and abandoned, even by God. Luke qualifies this. He says that in Gethsemane Jesus received strength through angelic intervention ( 22 v 43). Even more significantly Luke omits the Cry of Abandonment from the Cross. Instead Luke replaces it with a quotation from Psalm 31, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”. The whole of Psalm 31 is an affirmation of trust in a God who is present Deliverer. For Luke Jesus is never out of communion with the Father and never reduced to total despair.

2. Luke’s story is dominated by an insistence that the man Jesus was innocent. We see this at a number of places in his story.

• In the trial before Pilate the Roman governor declares on three occasions that Jesus was innocent of any crime.

• Luke tells the story of Jesus before Herod ( This story is not found in the other gospels and one wonders why. Did Luke include it because it shows that a Jewish authority as well as the Roman authorities found him innocent?). Herod mocks Jesus but refuses to condemn.

• One of the bandits crucified alongside Jesus said “This man has done nothing wrong”

• The Centurion at the Cross said “Truly this man was innocent” (as opposed to Mark’s wording “This man was the Son of God”.

3. Throughout his gospel Luke emphasises Jesus’ forgiving and healing power. This theme recurs in the Passion story. Jesus restores the ear of the soldier who arrested him in Gethsemane. He forgives those who crucified him. He promises Paradise to one of the criminals crucified alongside him. The Passion is all of a piece with the rest of his ministry.

4. A case can be made out for Luke understanding the Cross as being the death of an “innocent martyr” and this begs the question; Did Luke see it as having saving significance? Was Jesus crucified “for our sins” (Paul) or by our sins?

Luke refers back to the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53. However, he does not quote the verse “by his stripes we are healed”. He does quote part of verse 12 “he was numbered with the transgressors” (which reaffirms the innocence of Jesus) without adding the rest of the verse which speaks of his suffering as a means of redemption for others.

Given that Luke was Paul’s travelling companion for many years it is surprising that his Passion story does not reflect Paul’s theology of the Cross. Paul understood the Cross in terms of Justification, Redemption, Atonement. These themes are absent in Luke.

I think the explanation for this ‘silence’ is that Luke sees the whole of Jesus’ ministry as a “saving event”, not just the Cross. Jesus’ healing, forgiving, redemptive power was manifested throughout his ministry and continued on the Cross.

“The death of an innocent martyr”. Is this how Luke’s story strikes you?

“Today you will be with me in Paradise”. What does this mean to you?

Do you think Luke’s story is influenced by the fact that he was writing for a Gentile audience? (see Luke 1 vv 1-4)

By the time Mark wrote his gospel (c 64 AD) a Passion Narrative had already come into existence. This was because the death and resurrection of Jesus was the core of the Christian proclamation and all evangelists and preachers needed to be singing from the same hymn sheet!

However, each gospel writer had his own “agenda” and retold the story from a different perspective.

Mark’s account of the Passion dominates his gospel, the last week of Jesus’ life taking up more than a third of the gospel.

Mark lays particular stress on the sufferings of Jesus. He portrays a Jesus who is wholly alone. In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus comes three times to his disciples, only to find them sleeping. When Jesus was arrested they all forsook him and fled. The three groups of people present at the crucifixion offer no support, rather they mock him. And even God seems to have abandoned him. Such is his ‘aloneness’ that he cries out “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus not only suffers, but he suffers alone.

This emphasis on the suffering of Jesus would have had particular relevance to Mark’s readers. He was writing in Rome at a time when the Roman authorities had begun persecuting Christians. Christians were having to endure unimaginable suffering. So Mark’s emphasis on the suffering of Jesus was both warning and encouragement. A warning that Christians could not expect anything less than what their Master endured. An encouragement to endurance since God raised Jesus from the dead, thereby vindicating him. They, too, would be vindicated.

Mark understands the Cross as God’s judgement on the world. He does this by emphasising the three hour period of darkness which covered the earth from the 6th – 9th hour. Mark is using the frequent O.T. theme found in Amos, Joel and Zephaniah in which the “Day of the Lord” is envisaged as a day of darkness and not light. A time of judgement rather than the hoped-for salvation of the nation.

The cry of dereliction from the Cross is more than a feeling of total abandonment. Mark says that Jesus “screamed” and he uses the same word used when Jesus exorcised demons during his ministry. And when he cried out for the winds to cease and the waves to quieten down. In Mark’s view the Cross becomes the decisive battleground in the cosmic conflict between Good and Evil.

Mark tells us that “the veil of the sanctuary was split”. For Mark this represents a statement to the effect that the Temple and all it stood for had been abolished. The Glory had departed! Here was the fulfillment of the words of accusation brought against Jesus when he was on trial before the Sanhedrin.  Jesus stood accused of saying that he would destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days.

(The letter to the Hebrews puts a more positive gloss on this incident. The writer says that the Veil split opens up a new and living way and provides direct access to God, all barriers removed.)

Mark also records the confession of the Roman soldier who helped crucify Jesus. “Truly this man was the Son of God”. (Some manuscripts read “a Son of God”). If Mark intends this to be read as a full Christian confession of Jesus’ divinity then it is noteworthy that this is the first time any human recognises Jesus as such. And it is made by a Gentile!

• How would you sum up the meaning of the Cross for you?
• What impresses you about Mark’s account?
• The Centurion said “Truly, this man was the Son of God”. How would you express your basic conviction?