We must never forget that it was never enough for Christ to be merely with us in his incarnation. To redeem us, and to undo the damage of the first man, Christ must also act for us in his life, death, and resurrection. Apart from his work, we have no redemption, no justification before God, and ultimately no hope in the world. In this sense, the incarnation is a prelude to the atonement. If the incarnation was enough, then our salvation would only require Bethlehem and not Gethsemane or Calvary. But Bethlehem was never enough.
Trying to capture all that our Lord Jesus achieved in his glorious work is difficult. John Calvin sought to grasp its comprehensive nature by the munus triplex—Christ’s threefold office as our new covenant head and mediator—prophet, priest, and king. What Calvin sought to avoid was reductionism, the “cardinal sin” of theology. Yet, although there is a danger in prioritizing one aspect of our Lord’s work above others, Scripture does seem to stress the centrality of Christ’s priestly office and his sacrificial death for our sins (Matt. 1:21; 1 Cor. 15:3–4).
We must never forget that it was never enough for Christ to be merely with us in his incarnation. To redeem us, and to undo the damage of the first man, Christ must also act for us in his life, death, and resurrection. Apart from his work, we have no redemption, no justification before God, and ultimately no hope in the world. In this sense, the incarnation is a prelude to the atonement. If the incarnation was enough, then our salvation would only require Bethlehem and not Gethsemane or Calvary. But Bethlehem was never enough. And given the centrality of Christ’s cross, it is vital that we think about it correctly.
A Multifaceted Work
As we turn to the Scriptural presentation of the cross, we must immediately acknowledge that it is a rich, multifaceted, and glorious work. Scripture presents the cross in at least eight complementary ways: obedience, sacrifice, propitiation, redemption, reconciliation, justice/justification, victory/conquest, and moral example. To explain the cross biblically, we must account for all biblical data in the way the Bible itself presents it. As we do so, we discover that although the cross is presented like a beautiful gem that can be looked at from many angles, if we are to explain the cross theologically, capturing all that Scripture says about it, we must state what the cross is about centrally. What, then, is central to the Bible’s explanation of the cross? It is this: that Christ Jesus, God the Son incarnate, has come as our mediator and new covenant head to offer himself before God on behalf of sin to bring about our eternal redemption.
This Scriptural truth, especially during the Reformation and post-Reformation era, was best captured by the theological view of penal substitution. As a theological explanation of the cross, penal substitution was not trying to be reductionistic in its explanation; rather, it was seeking to account for all of the biblical data within the Bible’s storyline and worldview. What reason was given for penal substitution best capturing what is central to the cross? It was that penal substitution best accounts for why the divine Son had to die and why he alone can save.
