As Jesus prayed in the garden, he reached stress levels of epic proportions to where he began to sweat drops of blood. He prays, “Father if there is any way, let this cup pass from me.” He knew there wasn’t. That prayer was in anticipation of what was to come in the following hours.
As His closest friends slept, His betrayer was closing in. In the coming hours Jesus would be betrayed by a kiss, abandoned by his friends, and denied thrice by his closest friend. He would endure three trials, several beatings, public scorn and mockery, and condemned to die, as a murderer was released at the request of His own countrymen. He would then be taken and given thirty-nine stripes, crowned with thorns, stripped of His clothes, and crucified by Roman executioners.
The scene of the crucifixion was a gruesome and excruciating death where it’s victims eventually would die of suffocation. The physical nature of what Christ was about to endure was significant, but what we may not always see in the cross is the spiritual consequences.
Paul tells us that on the cross, Jesus became sin for us.
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)
It was necessary that the weight of the sins of the world were laid on him. So on the cross, Christ not only experienced the incredible physical pain of a crucifixion but also the white hot tidal wave of God’s wrath on our sin.
He became our propitiation.
This isn’t a word that we use very often but it’s important that we know it and understand what it means.
As we read the scriptures and experience this fallen world we see clearly that we all have a major sin problem and it’s a big problem. The reason it’s a big problem is because all sin is ultimately against a Holy and Just God. Our only way out of this big problem is that our sins be forgiven. However, if God just forgives our sin then He becomes unjust because sin must be dealt with.
Imagine a court case where a murderer goes before a judge and tells the judge that he’s sorry and won’t do it anymore. If the judge is just, his sorrow and possible repentance means very little. A crime has been committed and justice must be served.
If God is just, and He is, our sin had to be dealt with. His justice must be appeased. The only just punishment for sin is God’s white-hot wrath. In the cross Jesus endures both the wrath of man and the overwhelming wrath of a Holy God that was poured out on him as He bore our sins. This was the cup that he prayed fervently that it might pass from him.
He drank that cup for us.
In the cross of Christ, it is important to see God’s love, His mercy and His grace. After all this is what Jesus referred to when he said, “Greater Love has no man than that He lay down His life for his friends.” Paul says that “God demonstrates His love in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.”
It is equally important for us to recognize that in the cross, God’s love, mercy and grace collide with God’s justice and wrath. It is where Christ bore our sin and where that sin was dealt with once and for all time.
J.I. Packer writes, “a gospel without propitiation at its heart is another gospel than that which Paul preached”
Though we can clearly can see the wicked intent behind the people who delivered Christ up and those who crucified him, we can still proclaim that the Friday before easter is truly a “good” Friday. Because our sin was dealt with. God’s justice was appeased and the wrath due our sins was absorbed by Christ and righteousness imputed to those who place their trust in Him.
Praise God that Christ has become our propitiation.
