The longer I walk with Christ, the more I not only love Him, but the more I love the cross. I love to read the crucifixion story. It moves me every time. I love to read about the cross — I have at least a couple dozen books that deal with the singular topic of the cross and the death of Christ and I am constantly on the lookout for more.
I love the cross because its message and themes are the root of my worship of God. Without the cross, I would be bound in worshiplessness. Without the cross I not only could not approach God, I could not even know of Him and His love for me. The cross is the center of my life.
Yet for all I have learned about the cross and the more I study about the cross, the more I recognize my inadequacy to know its fullness. Let me suggest three verses that illustrate that weakness –
“fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb. 12:2; NASB)
Joy and the cross? Joy and pain? Really? Yes. Remember, joy is a settled peace and confidence in God and in doing what is right. So as Christ looked at the cross, He saw beyond the shame to His obedience to the Father. He saw God being glorified through His death and the eternal redemption of sinners. He saw the one-time fulfillment of the long-practiced annual rite of the day of Atonement. He saw the advent of the Holy Spirit in the lives of those who would believe in Him. He saw Himself seated eternally at the right hand of the Father. And that gave Him joy.
Did Christ see the trial of the cross? Sure. That’s why when He prayed in the Garden he sweated drops like blood. But He also saw beyond the temporary to what arose behind it — and that gave Him pleasure and joy.
And we give evidence that our eyes are focused on Him and not the circumstances surrounding us when we look at Him and joyfully endure the cross that He gives us.
Consider also a second verse —
“For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and [it was the Father’s good pleasure] through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.” (Col. 1:19-20; NASB)
This is one of those “loaded” verses — packed with wonderful truth about the work of God in Christ and the cross. But in our familiarity with these truths, we do well not to miss what pleased God — it was the pleasure of the Father to reconcile wayward sinners to Himself. [So far, so good.] Furthermore, it was the Father’s pleasure [He glorified and exalted Himself and His name] by making peace with disobedient sinners. [We can understand that.] And it was the Father’s pleasure [joy, delight, satisfaction, and glory] to accomplish redemption and peace through the violence of His Son’s death on the cross. [WHAT!?]
Can that be right? Yes. Remember the words of Isaiah?
“But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.” (Is. 53:10; NASB, my emphasis)
It is not difficult to see the glory of God in the incarnation. Even the angels sang of it (Lk. 2:14). It is not difficult to see the glory of God in the life of Christ. God Himself sent a dove at the baptism of Christ to affirm that He was glorified through and pleased with His Son (Mt. 3:17). But is God glorified through the cross? Does the Bible really say that God derived pleasure not only from the cross, but He derived pleasure in crushing, bruising, and pouring His wrath out against His Son? It does. And He did derive that pleasure.
It was not the Romans that crucified Christ. It was not the Sanhedrin that killed Him. It was not the treachery of Judas that took Him to the cross. He was crushed, bruised, and put to death by the hand of His Father.
Now we must be careful to note that it was not for His sin that He died. He was pleased to go to the cross and God was pleased to punish Him on the cross, to satisfy the wrath of God and to redeem sinners. In other words, and the end of the verse affirms this, the pleasure of God was not so much in the bruising of the Son as it was in what the bruising accomplished — forgiveness, healing, and restoration of lost sheep to the Good Shepherd.
Three and a half centuries ago, Stephen Charnok said this: “[God’s] eternal delights were in him, not only as his Son, but as a Redeemer. God’s delight in Christ and Christ’s rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and delighting in the sons of men, are coupled together.…God delighted in him [and in crushing him] because he delighted in the redemption of man.” [Christ Crucified, pp. 138-9.]
Thursday of the Passion Week is the day where Christ gave the mandate (“Maundy” is derived from the Latin word for “mandate”) to the disciples to wash one another’s feet. It is also the night, shortly after that command and illustration, that He was betrayed into the hands of the civil authorities, and the speedy road to the cross ensued – within about 12 hours He was placed on the cross, and a few hours after that He would be dead.
You cannot read the account of Thursday night and Friday without seeing the blackness of the disciple’s hearts. There was dread and fear in them. But we are unwise if that is all we see. Don’t miss the joy. Thursday was the night of betrayal and Friday was the day of death, but it was Good Friday too. The Son was delighted to demonstrate the fullness of His love for the Father through His full obedience to Him. The Son was pleased to offer to God the sacrifice of Himself so that God’s name would be most glorified through the reconciliation of sinners who believed in Him to God. God was delighted to bruise His Son so that His justice would be fulfilled and through that appeased justice present to His Son an eternally pure bride that would forever glorify and honor the Son. And they both were pleased to endure the temporary and fleeting darkness of separation on the cross so that they would reap the eternal joy of union with us, to their glory.
What’s so important about the cross? It’s a place of joy — joy of the obedient Son, joy of the crushing, appeased Father, and joy of the redeemed sinners.
[I was greatly helped in thinking through this topic by Piper’s chapter “The Pleasure of God in Bruising the Son,” in The Pleasures of God, pp. 161-184. This theme is also addressed in a condensed form in a sermon of the same title.]
Words of Grace 