The Paradox of the Cross
First Corinthians 1:18 says, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (Holy Bible: English Standard Version 2002) For mankind death is a point of inevitability, yet death is not part of God’s original plans. There is evidence of this in the verse in John chapter 11 that says “Jesus wept” this is not just Jesus crying over his dead friend, but Jesus is crying over the whole of mankind and its disconnect of God’s original plan. God’s plan is then reconnected with mans inevitable demise through the death of God himself. Jesus Christ was put to death on a cross but in doing so he took on the sin of the world that would condemn man and crushes it securing salvation for them. So in this one act of sacrifice the cross is death and salvation wrapped into one moment. Hugh of St. Victor said this on the death and salvation of Christ, “He (Jesus) did this so that the redemption to be offered might have a connection is us, through its being taken fro what is ours. We are truly made to be partakers in this redemption if we are united through faith to the redeemer who has entered into fellowship with us through his flesh. Now human nature had become corrupted by sin, and had this become liable to condemnation on its account. But grace came, and chose some from the mass of humanity through mercy for salvation, while it allowed others to remain for condemnation through justice.” (McGrath 2007) Again through this symbol of death those who have fellowship with the Christ find grace, mercy, and salvation. Hastings Rashdall said this of the crucifixion, “The atoning efficacy of Christ’s work is not limited to death. The whole life of Christ, the whole revelation of God which is constituted by that life, excites the love of man, moves his gratitude, shows him what God would have him be, enables him to be in his imperfect way what Christ alone was perfectly, and so make at-one-ment, restores between God and man the union which sin has destroyed.” (McGrath 2007) Dorothee Sölle says in his writing on Suffering and Redemption that, “The cross is either a ‘metaphysic of punitive death,’ that is from the perspective of the God who ordains suffering who finally has a chance to complete Abraham’s sacrifice, or it is a ‘mysticism of consolation for death,’ which people receive for their own suffering and dying view of the cross. But the cross is neither a symbol expressing the relationship between God the Father and his Son nor a symbol of masochism which needs suffering in order to convince itself of love. It is above all a symbol of reality, Love does not ‘require’ the cross, but de facto it ends up on the cross. De facto Jesus of Nazareth was crucified; de facto the crosses of the rebellious slaves under Spartacus adorned the streets of the Roman Empire.” (McGrath 2007) The cross is a work of man for death, the cross became a place of glory for Jesus, and God transformed the death on the cross to a life-bearing symbol requiring fellowship.
Works Cited
McGrath, Alister E. The Chrstian Theology Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
