Metaphors of The Cross Part 1

Introduction

Most people (at least most Christians) would agree that the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross is the most significant event in all of history. We can divide the human race in many ways; by race, by age, by gender, by intellect, but the only division that will have eternal consequences is the division between those who have trusted in the cross of Christ for those salvation and those that have not - every decision we make, every choice we make will ultimately come down to this. The beauty of this event, and the gospel message, is that it is a truth that a small child can understand and grasp it and make their own personal decision to follow Jesus, and yet it is a rich and complex truth that can result in whole books being written on the subject which even then just scratch the surface.

That is why I want to explore this area as part of this blog series. The overall title for the series is: Metaphors of the Cross - Exploring the Atonement. The Atonement is a phrase we will be using lot and so it helps to start with a definition. The Atonement can be defined as:

The work Christ did in his life and death to secure our salvation.

So when we talk of the Atonement we are talking of all of Christ's life from his Incarnation to his Ascension, but most particularly his death on the cross, and in the blogs that follow we will explore the Cross, from a number of different perspectives. Christ does indeed secure our salvation, but what do we really mean but that? What is the true extent of Christ's work? I will call these different perspectives 'metaphors', other writers use different phrases such as 'theories' of the cross or 'models' of the cross, but I prefer the term 'metaphor'  and you will see what I mean by that as we move through this series. But let me start with an illustration that sums up very simply the purpose and scope of this series:

If you shine white light through a prism it breaks down in a rainbow or spectrum of colours, red light, blue light, green light and so on. Indeed white light is made up of all these constituent colours blended together. The purpose of the cross is a simple concept which we can define in a few sentences: we have sinned and because of that sin there is now a barrier that separates us from God. Furthermore our sin demands a punishment, which is eternal separation from God. God  is a just God and so cannot ignore our sin, yet he loves us and does not want to punish us. He solved this dilemma by coming into the world as Jesus Christ and dying in our place on the cross. God's justice is satisfied and the barrier between God and men is broken. That is the heart of the gospel and the simplicity of that message is the white light in my prism analogy.

That truth (the white light) can be broken down in greater detail (the colours) and because the atonement can be seen from a number of perspectives it is only when we join them all together do we have the full richness and extent of what Christ achieved on the cross. We talk of such terms as 'Redemption', Reconciliation', and  'Sacrifice', and others beside; words such as 'Propitiation' and 'Expiation' which we do not use in our normal speech these days. These are refer to one aspect of what Christ achieved on the cross and are the 'colours' that make up the overall light of the atonement in the prism analogy. For example when we look at Reconciliation (the bringing together of two parties who are in dispute) we have the Relational Metaphor. Because of sin the good relationship between God and man has been broken. Christ on the cross addresses that aspect of sin and brings us back into a good relationship. This is just one way of looking at the cross through the doctrine of Reconciliation and and the lens of the Relational Metaphor.

In later blogs we will explore this any many other ideas in more detail, and there are set of questions we will be asking:

• How is sin presented through this perspective?
• How does Christ, through his work on the cross, address that aspect of sin?
• What other examples of this principle, and verses are there in scripture to support this idea?
• What objections are there to this idea and how can we answer them?

See you next time...