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PRESBYTERIAN
The Presbyterian Church in Canada • presbyterian.ca ISSUE 25, SPRING 2023
Jesus and the Cross: A Reformed View
By the Rev. Dr. John Vissers, Professor of Historical Theology, Knox College. A revised version of an article that was originally published in Who is Jesus? A Reformed View, 2000.
On a recent visit to the Denver Museum of Art, we toured an exhibit of religious works that in- cluded paintings of Jesus on the cross. The paintings illustrated one event: the death of Jesus on a hill outside Jerusalem two thou- sand years ago. But the images were quite different, depending on the artist, and the time and place in which the artist lived.
The Bible is similar to this. The New Testament contains four Gospels—each book is differ- ent, but all focus on the death of Jesus. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John point to the cross of Christ as central. Yet each saint tells the same story from a different per- spective.
In addition to the four Gospels, the New Testament uses differ- ent images and metaphors to describe the cross. In one of its most eloquent sections, Living Faith describes some of the lan- guage used in the Holy Scripture:
God’s reconciling act in Jesus Christ is a mystery
which the Scriptures
describe as
the sacrifice of a lamb,
a shepherd’s life given for his sheep,
atonement by a priest.
It is also the innocent dying for the guilty,
the ransom of a slave, payment of a debt,
and victory over the powers of evil. (3.4.3).
Like a diamond with many
facets, the meaning of Christ’s death is interpreted through rich and diverse expressions:
Such expressions interpret the love of God
revealing the gravity, cost, and sure achievement
of our Lord’s work. (3.4.3)
The expressions reflect a mys- tery. The metaphors and images illuminate that mystery in ways that forever binds them to our faith. It is difficult to think about the cross of Christ without at the same time thinking about the sac- rifice of a lamb or the love of a friend. These expressions try to express the deep love of God, which is beyond words.
Yet that love we cannot fully explain.
God’s grace, received by faith alone,
pardons and justifies,
redeems and reconciles us. (3.4.3).
In humility, therefore, we ac-
knowledge this: we cannot ex-
plain it fully. But as followers of Jesus in the Reformed tradition we also believe our faith should seek understanding. We love the Lord our God with mind as well as heart. As we begin to think deeply, we understand that the cross of Jesus has something to do with God’s love for a world that is not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s about God’s judging and sav- ing act in Jesus Christ in which God bears the burden of our bro- kenness. But that’s not obvious at first glance.
For when we look at the cross, we see religious and political authorities who conspired to ex- ecute Jesus as a blasphemer and a criminal. We see a failed
Messiah—the victim of his own delusions, betrayed by one of his own disciples, abandoned by the rest. To be sure, we might salvage some meaning from the death of this inspiring teacher, failed Mes- siah, and heroic martyr as an ex- ample for our own lives. But death is death, after all, and Jesus died. That should have been the end of the story.
The early church saw it differ- ently. There was more to this than first meets the eye. They tell the story of the cross in detail be- cause they believed Jesus had been raised from the dead. In this sense, the gospel writers look at the cross of Jesus from the per- spective of the risen and ascend-
ed Christ. Apostolic preaching was marked by its emphasis on the cross. On the Day of Pente- cost, Peter connected the death and resurrection of Jesus with repentance and the forgiveness of sins. God’s crucified Messiah was alive, God’s Holy Spirit was being poured out, and God’s reign was breaking into the world.
In his letters, Paul picks up this theme and points to the cross of Jesus as the means through which all people are incorporated into God’s saving plan. Again and again, the death of Jesus is ex- plained in terms of images from the Hebrew Bible, especially the sacrifice of atonement. In short,
Continued on page 4
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