We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

cross

What the Cross Tells Us About God

Whether we’re talking about our relationship with God or with other people, the quality of the relationship can never go beyond the level of trust the relating parties have in each other’s character. We cannot be rightly related to God, therefore, except insofar as we embrace a trustworthy picture of him. To the extent that our mental picture of God is untrustworthy, we will not rely on him as our sole source of life.

Paul tells us that the gospel is “veiled … to those who are perishing” because “the god of this age has blinded” their minds so that they cannot see “the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor 3:14-15). Satan’s strategy is to attack our conception of God. The root of our alienation from God and our bondage to sin is our untrustworthy and unloving mental pictures of him. Those who are under Satan’s blinding oppression cannot receive the “light” that God wants to “shine in [their] hearts to give [them] the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:3-6).

Only when the Spirit frees us from the blinding oppression of the “god of this age” can our hearts and minds see the glorious beauty of the God revealed in Christ. And only when we with “unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory” can we be “transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory (2 Cor 3:17-18).

Jesus describes himself as “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). The Greek word for “truth” (aletheia) means something like “uncovered” or “not concealed.” The glorious character of God is fully unveiled in Christ on the cross. As John wrote, no one had “ever seen God” or really known God up to that time. But the Son, “who is himself God … has made him known” (John 1:18).

When Jesus fully unveiled the true character of the one true God on the cross, he “disarmed the power and authorities,” vanquished Satan and his minions (Col 2:14-15), and thereby set free all who would accept the truth.

On the cross, the light expelled the darkness, the truth vanquished all deception, and the beauty of the true image of God destroyed the ugliness of all false images. And so now, for all who will yield to the Spirit, as the veil over our minds is removed, we can see “God’s glory displayed in the face of Jesus” (2 Cor 4:6) and be set free to enter into the loving, trusting, and transforming relationship God has always wanted to have with his people.

The cross is first and foremost the full disclosure of the true character of God and his pledge to demonstrate this loving, self-sacrificial character in all his dealings with us. We are challenged to take him at his word and to reciprocate by cultivating this same character in our relationship with him and all others. We do this not by striving, but by simply gazing on the beauty revealed in the cross with our minds and hearts open to the Spirit.

—adapted from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 235-237

Photo Credit: Jacob Meyer via Unsplash

Related Reading

Crucifixion of the Warrior God (Official Trailer)

Video by Rex Harsin

The Only Thing That Matters Is Love: The Kingdom of God (Part 3)

To say that living in Calvary-quality love is the most important thing in our life is to grossly understate its importance. This stands in distinction from how we typically define the Kingdom of God. But it stands in line with the fact that Jesus is the Kingdom of God. Paul says the “the only thing…

Court-of-Law Theology: How It Falls Short

Courtney “Coco” Mault via Compfight Last week, we introduced a way of talking about theology with concentric circles. This approach is distinct from the common Western model of theology that depends upon a court-of-law framework. The following is an excerpt from Greg’s book Benefit of the Doubt regarding this: ____________________________ Within the legal strand of…

The Challenge of Malala to the Church

I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but it’s Malala Yousafzai appearing on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. At the age of 14 Malala was shot in the face at point blank range by the Taliban while riding to school on a bus, all because she wouldn’t stop speaking up for the right of girls…

Scripture’s God-Breathed Imperfections

“Inerrancy” of Scripture

As a conservative evangelical who accepted the “inerrancy” of Scripture, I used to be profoundly disturbed whenever I confronted contradictions in Scripture, or read books that made strong cases that certain aspects of the biblical narrative conflict with archeological findings.

Christ the Center

The center of the Christian faith is not anything we believe; it’s the person of Jesus Christ. The foundation of my faith is a person, not a book and a set of beliefs about that book. Rather than believing in Jesus because I believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, I came…