I have often talked about the utter brilliance of the cross, God’s method of upholding perfect righteousness and justice while at the same time securing grace—“so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus,” as Romans 3:26 says. Because of the cross, Christianity is the only religion where no evil is swept under the rug yet anyone can be forgiven, where God is both a good judge who doesn’t compromise justice and a forgiving Father who gave his Son to save us—while we were his enemies, no less!
In Ephesians 3:11, Paul refers to the gospel as “the eternal purpose which [God] carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Why was the work of Christ on the cross God’s “eternal purpose”? Because it reveals crucial truths about him that we wouldn’t have seen any other way, and because God’s ultimate goal is for his people, whom he adopts “to the praise of the glory of His grace” (Eph. 1:6), to know him deeply “so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7). This is why knowing truths about God is not just an academic exercise but is central to the Christian life.
In Authentic Ministry, Michael Reeves describes what the cross reveals about God and how seeing those truths changes us and fuels our lives as Christians:
It is only at the foot of the cross, where our sin and God’s judgment and grace are supremely revealed, that we will find a true change of heart.
Why is it that the message of Jesus’ death is so uniquely powerful to enlighten the blind, awaken the dead, and enliven the sluggish Christian? Quite simply, it is because in the cross of Christ we see most clearly the glory of God. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). It is the glory of God which shines light into otherwise impenetrable darkness, and it is by beholding the glory of the Lord that anyone is transformed “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18).
At the cross, the true wisdom, power, holiness, goodness, love, and sovereignty of God are revealed in all their surprising beauty, winning the hearts of those who look to him. And while God is always wise, powerful, holy, good, loving, and sovereign, we do not understand or see that aright apart from Christ. His sovereignty, for example, we would mistake for cold tyranny or unfeeling government; his goodness we would take for weak indulgence.
When the glory of God is displayed in the cross, we get to see all God’s perfections. We see that God is not merely helpful to the weak, but long-suffering and infinitely merciful to great sinners. We see the riches of his grace, his sovereign power to save, his holy justice, and his love. His bleeding makes our hearts bleed, and his shame makes us ashamed. In the cross we see a divine disgust at sin that makes sin appalling in our eyes too.
But more: through the cross we see a love so fierce it pierces our apathy and overwhelms desire for other things. At the cross we see the majestic goodness of Christ and the sweet security we can have in him. That is why it can transform the vicious, the sad, the despairing, and the selfish into joy-filled, radiantly generous, and kind saints.
Don’t wander endlessly in subjective feelings and fears. Whatever suffering, confusion, doubt, or anxiety you’re dealing with in a life that feels out of control or separated from God’s love, the cross is an objective historical event you can look to for solid proof of who God is and his unshakable relationship with you through Christ.