Surveying the Cross: The Significance of the Death of Christ

A Chapter a Day

• Sunday, March 28, John 14
• Monday, March 29, John 15  
• Tuesday, March 30, John 16
• Wednesday, March 31, John 17
• Thursday, April 1, John 18
• Friday, April 2, John 19
• Saturday, April 3, John 20

If you would like to receive a short, daily email to help you better understand and apply the chapter we are reading together each day, please sign up by texting the word Chapter to 22828.

sur·vey  verb  /sərˈvā/

1. (of a person or their eyes) look carefully and thoroughly at (someone or something), especially so as to appraise them.
2. to view or consider comprehensively

When we survey the cross biblically, we see that . . .

1. Jesus’ death on the cross was God’s from the beginning.

“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— ²³ this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. (Acts 2:22-23, ESV)

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; (Isaiah 53:10a, ESV)

2. Jesus’ death on the cross was also the work of men.

“Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? ¹³ The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. ¹⁴ But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, ¹⁵ and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.” (Acts 3:12b-15, ESV)

–>  The cross teaches us both God’s   and human .

“Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, ²⁵ who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit,

                “ ‘Why did the Gentiles rage,
                         and the peoples plot in vain?
              ²⁶  The kings of the earth set themselves,
                         and the rulers were gathered together,
                         against the Lord and against his Anointed’—

²⁷ for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, ²⁸ to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. ²⁹ And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, ³⁰ while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” (Acts 4:24-30, ESV)

3. Jesus’ death on the cross was motivated by God’s great for us.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:9-11, ESV)

4. Jesus’ death on the cross was where he took the and absorbed the that was due for the sins of those he came to save.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2, ESV)

–> Propitiation (Gk., hilasmos) – “a sacrifice that bears God’s wrath and turns it to favor” (ESV Study Bible).

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹ Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Romans 5:8-9, ESV)

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁰ who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10, ESV)

5. Jesus’ death on the cross was in the of and on of all who repent and believe in him.

          ⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions;
                         he was crushed for our iniquities;
             upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
                         and with his wounds we are healed.

       ⁶  All we like sheep have gone astray;
                         we have turned—every one—to his own way;
             and the Lord has laid on him
                         the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6-6, ESV)

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV)

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, (1 Peter 3:18a, ESV)

6. When we in Jesus, God imputes (counts, reckons) our sins to Jesus and imputes (counts, reckons) Jesus’ righteousness to us.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— ²² the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ 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. ²⁶ It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:21-26, ESV)