“Glory in the Gore: How the Paradox of the Cross Helps Us to See the Goodness of Good Friday”
Nick Robinson
In my life, I have taken two personality tests, and both of them concluded that I am a walking paradox. My personality is a mixture of a bunch of traits that should not go together. I am an introverted people person. I am analytical, yet I hate numbers. I am agreeable, yet stubborn in my beliefs.
Perhaps this is why I love reading the Bible. It is full of paradoxes. God, who is spirit, created physical matter. The infinite and holy God, condescends to commune with finite and sinful man. More paradoxes are found in how the prophets and the apostles write. They say things like, “Hear, you deaf, and look you blind” (Isa. 42:18) and “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2Cor. 12:9).
There is, however, no time where I am more in awe of Christianity’s paradoxes than when I come to “Good Friday,” a holiday in which we come to celebrate the righteous Son of God dying under his Father’s wrath, not for his own sins, but for the sins of murderers, blasphemers, idolaters, thieves, adulterers, and every other flavor of sinner. Even the way that churches have historically celebrated Good Friday is not very celebratory. We enter into church and exit the church service in reverent silence.
Yet, I have found in my own soul a strange cocktail of grief and joy, because it was by his wounds I have been healed, and by his blood I have been reconciled with my creator who I now call Father. Though I once hated Him. My emotional civil war continues as I meditate on the doctrine of the incarnation and how it relates to the cross of Christ. He was the “God-man”. Of course, we know that God cannot die, but the Son of God took to himself a real, unmixed, and unconfused human nature, capable of being born, of being hungry, of suffering, and of - yes - dying. This doctrine, as difficult as it may be to understand, has nonetheless led to one of the most praise inducing lines in the history of Christian hymnody, written by Charles Wesley, “Tis mystery all! Th’Immortal dies! Who can explore His strange design?” Even the hymnist is at a loss for what to do!
So what are we to do? Rejoice? Regret? Be repulsed? The answer, I believe, is that we should stand in awe of the wisdom and glory of God that shines through the cross of Christ. The paradox that we see in the death of Christ is foolishness to those who have not been brought to life in Christ, but to those who have, the paradox of the cross is the divine panoramic showing the infinite height, depth, and width of the glory of God in His salvation of sinners.
A Judicial Paradox
The Westminster Shorter Catechism tells us that the Christian’s justification (being accounted righteous in his sight) is an “act” of God. It is a work that He alone takes without any outside aide. God is the one who is both just and the justifier, not the sinner. (Rom. 3:26) It is as Jonathan Edwards writes, “We contribute nothing to our salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”
But what kind of “act” is justification? It is certainly not an arbitrary act or a passing fancy that God has. He is not a man. He is holy and therefore cannot sacrifice his justice on the alter of mercy in the way that we can. When I show mercy to my children by not punishing them when they disobey, I have for sure been merciful, but I have been so at the expense of justice. God cannot do this.
God’s “act” of justification is implied in the word itself. Justification is a judicial act. It is the rendering of a verdict, and this verdict for the Christian is “righteous.” But this righteousness by which we are reconciled with God is what Luther called an “alien righteousness.” It is the righteousness of Christ, given as a free gift of God to all who rely upon Him alone.
The imputed righteousness of Christ is a precious thing to the Christian. I thank God I do not have to place my hope in my hobo’s bindle worth of good works, the best of which are still stained with sin’s filth. Yet, my sins must be punished to the uttermost. They have all come against the fount of all goodness, and have marred the image that He gave to all humanity at creation. The sins of God’s image bearers are lies, making God out to be something that he is not.
Enter now the cross of Christ. I am judged to be righteous because of His righteousness. He was punished under God’s wrath, not for his sins, but for my sins. (2Cor. 5:21) Christ was perfectly righteous under the law so that he might show a double grace. First, he was able to take upon himself my sins and the sins of all God’s elect because He Himself was not defaced with sin’s foulness. At the same time, He was able to clothe me in the pure vestments of his own righteousness. (Isa. 53:11; Zech. 3:1-5) I am justified before God, because my life is hidden in the blood and righteousness of the Savior.
This is the great paradox of Christ’s work of salvation in the courtroom of God: Sinners live, because the righteous one died. (1Pet. 3:18) The judge has become our defense. The offended has become our surety. David Clarkson writes, “Here is the wonder of Christ’s love: it is fixed upon man, the worst of creatures. Consider his resolution, and wonder: I will give eternal life to those who have dishonoured me.” This eternal life was purchased through the giving of his own life, under the penalty of his own people’s sins. The love of Christ is wonderfully absurd.
A Present Paradox
When I was a high school Bible teacher, I was asked a lot of good questions, but there was one question that I would get every year that would set my heart on edge: “Why does this matter?” It is an important question, and is difficult to answer if for no other reason than there are a hundred ways you could answer it. It matters because it has come to us from God. It matters for eternal life. However, I noticed whenever I was asked this question, that what the student really meant was, “Why does this matter right now? How does this affect my present life?”
I would like to conclude by giving you two, broad reasons why the paradox of the cross matters for our lives right now.
The Cross Gives Present Assurance in the Midst of Doubt
If justification is an “act” of God, then sanctification is a “work” of God. It is progressive, trending ever towards Christlikeness, but it will never be perfected in this life. Paul writes that, in Christ, the “old man” of the flesh has died, and the “new man” of the Spirit has been brought to life. (2Cor. 5:17) Yet, he also writes in Rom. 7:24, “Oh wretched man that I am! Who will save me from the body of death?” Paul was a new man, but he was still at war with the old dead man. This suggests that for Paul and the Christian the old, dead man, is dragged behind us on our pilgrimage to the Celestial City. I once heard a pastor describe a Christian’s dalliances with sin to be his “dancing with a corpse.”
Of course, it is true that in Christ, sin has lost its dominion and control over the sinner. To borrow an illustration from Charles Spurgeon, the cross of Christ has disarmed the beast of the old self. Nonetheless, he still exerts an influence over the Christian, and his influence becomes arrows in the quiver of Satan, our ancient accuser and enemy.
The Christian’s only refuge while under such a blitzkrieg of accusations, is in the shadow of the cross. We are comforted and protected in the knowledge that we will not be killed by the attacks of Satan because it was Satan who was crushed under the weight of the cross. Christ died not merely for the past sins of the Christian, but the present and the future sins as well. Our sins killed Christ, and because of this, they cannot kill us.
It is here that we have a practical paradox: In the shadow of the cross, the arrows of Satan can be turned into arrows of grace. Martin Luther gives us the script to use in our retort to Satan when he writes, “When the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: ‘I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!” (Martin Luther, Letters of Spiritual Counsel 86-87)
When we realize that our place before the judgement seat of God has already been occupied by another, and that we are deemed righteous in His sight because of the righteousness of His Son, Satan and the world lose their power to convict the Christian. I can add nothing to Christ’s work of justification, nor can I, or the powers of hell, take anything away from it. In Christ, justice is satisfied, and we are secure.
The Cross Gives Present Hope in the Midst of Suffering
The “problem of suffering” has been a question that has been slung at Christians for millennia, and it is a difficult problem. Christians must take it seriously. However, I have found that in many circumstances when I have had the question asked of me, that it takes on less of an inquisitive tone, and more of a judgmental tone. I believe that this is because many who ask the question do not really care to hear the answer. The question it seems is their justification for unbelief. “If God can do anything,” they say, “and yet he does nothing to end suffering and evil, then my disdain for Him is justified.”
This line of reasoning is tragic for a number of reasons. To begin with, the atheist can offer no solution to the problem themselves. If the problem of evil proves that God does not exist, does that mean that the problem of suffering just vanishes like smoke in the wind? Of course not! The problem is still there. Nothing has been solved. In fact, by removing God from the equation, we have only compounded the problem by removing hope from the suffering that we cannot escape.
So while the Christian might struggle to give an account in the hour of suffering, we nonetheless do have an answer: The problem of suffering has been answered in the sufferings of Christ. Death and sin have been vanquished. It is through the proclamation of the gospel of the suffering Messiah that the Christian may give an account for their hope in the midst of suffering.
But our hope goes further still. Our theology of the cross is not merely a theology of heaven’s court room. It is also a theology of life. The Apostle Paul believed that the cross of Christ was not simply something that we read about in the Bible, but was also something that we experience in our own sufferings. Paul writes in 2Cor. 1:5, “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”
It was Martin Luther who was known for making the “theology of the cross” his “theology of life,” but the Puritans shared this belief. Thomas Case writes, “Our own sufferings give us partial insight into the sufferings of Christ Jesus... (We say) “If the chips of the cross are this heavy, what was the cross itself? If my bodily pains are so bitter, what were the agonies the Lord sustained in his soul? If the wrath of man is so piercing, what must the wrath of God be? Is it a heart piercing affliction to be deserted by friends? What was it then for the Son of God’s love to be deserted by his Father?” ( Thomas Case, Select Works, A Treatise of Afflictions, 73-75).
This is the paradox of Christian hope: The cup of our suffering, though terrible, contains the sweetness of grace as it bears witness to the atoning sufferings of Christ. Even when under the heaviest of crosses, the Christian will still find blessings because it was Christ’s cross that contained His Father’s justice.
So this Good Friday, let us aim to see the glory in the gore of the cross of Christ as it stands, not only at the apex of redemption, but at the center of our lives.