DALE RATZLAFF | Pastor and Founder, Life Assurance Ministries (1936–2024)
Why do evangelicals make such a big deal about the cross?
The cross and the resurrection are God’s provision for saving humanity. As we approach another Passion Week with its Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we stand in humility and awe as we once again gaze at the uplifted Christ suffering the anguish and pain of the cross. Our mind’s eye perceives His limp, wounded, and blood-stained body sorrowfully laid in another’s cold, damp tomb. Then, early on the first day of the week, our sorrow is transformed into amazing joy. He is risen! Yes, He is risen indeed!
Vicariously, in a moment of time, our mind races back to that eventful week: the disciples clamoring about who was the greatest; the last supper with the symbols of a new covenant in His blood; boastful, self-reliant Peter; the agony under the olive trees; the sleeping disciples; the betrayal kiss, and the disciples fleeing for their lives. We feel the heat from the warming fire; we hear the rooster crow and listen to Peter swear, “I don’t know the Man”.
Stunned, we witness the sham trials, the purple robe, the crown of thorns, the slaps in the face, and the spitting. Standing in the hostile crowd we see the judge take his place and hear his pronouncement, “I find no guilt in Him.” Then from around us rises the damning cry, “Crucify Him, Crucify Him…His blood shall be on us and on our children” (Matt. 25:22-24).
Abraham named the place, “In the mount of the Lord, it will be provided”—and now we see the Lord’s Provision.
We watch Him bearing His own cross through the narrow, stony streets of the city of peace, where more than a thousand years before the aged Abraham raised the knife to slay his son and was interrupted by the angel. Abraham named the place, “In the mount of the Lord, it will be provided”—and now we see the Lord’s Provision.
We hear the blows of the hammer on nails piercing flesh, fastening it securely to the wood of the cross. We hear Him pray, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” To the repentant thief He speaks a promise of hope, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” To His mother, “Woman, behold your son.” To the beloved disciple, “Behold your mother.” We hear the cry of true humanity undergoing real torment, “I am thirsty.” We feel the terror of sin’s separation as we hear the beloved Son who always did His Father’s will cry out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?”
Darkness shrouds the cross. There is silence broken only by the sobs of the onlookers and an occasional taunt, “He saved others; let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe.” Then, with the last fragment of human strength He proclaims, “It is finished.”
It is here we understand the magnitude of human sin, the depths of agape love, and the long reach of the arm of grace.
Now, centuries later, we still stand in wonder at the Christ event. It was this event that proved for all time that God is just in the way He justifies sinners.
It is here we understand the magnitude of human sin, the depths of agape love, and the long reach of the arm of grace. At the cross we compute the price paid for our redemption. God was there in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting our trespasses against us. As we rehearse this event He commits to us the word of reconciliation. We become ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
Why? Because “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). †
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