Who would have ever dreamed a Roman cross, one of the worst, most fearsome devices of torture ever devised, would become a symbol of the greatest love ever expressed? For “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” and saved us “from the wrath of God” (Romans 5:8–9).

The cross. What a terror. Extremely, almost inconceivably terrible. It was designed to be that way — to strike profound terror into the minds of any who could potentially be tortured upon one.

Two thousand years removed from the reality of Roman crucifixion and having become familiar with the cross as an abstract theological term, it can be hard for us to emotionally connect with what it really was: the terrible means of Rome executing its wrath upon its worst offenders.

And Jesus was executed on a cross. He was counted as among the worst offenders. His death was real, and it was really terrible. He was an object of wrath. But not just of Roman and Jewish wrath; in fact, not mainly of Roman and Jewish wrath (John 19:11). Jesus was primarily the object of his Father’s wrath — the most just, righteous, and terrible wrath there is. And he became that object willingly, even when his every human impulse longed for escape (Mark 14:36). It’s the very reason he came.

For This Purpose He Came

Jesus knew what his mission was long before circumstances took their terrible turn toward the cross. He told a Sanhedrin member early on that he had come to be “lifted up” as Moses had lifted up the bronze serpent in the wilderness (John 3:14). He explicitly warned his disciples,

The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. (Luke 9:22)

To a crowd seeking more divine bread from Jesus, he said,

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. (John 6:51)

And as time drew near for the horrible events to take place, Jesus grew more determined to face them (Luke 9:51), even as his anguish also intensely increased:

Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? “Father, save me from this hour”? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. (John 12:27)

Jesus had come “for this purpose.” What did he mean? He had come to glorify his Father’s name (John 12:28). He had come “to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). He had come to express his Father’s and his own love for sinners like us (Romans 5:8). He had come to draw all people to himself (John 12:32). He had come to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29) by becoming the propitiation for the sins of the world (1 John 2:2).

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