something amazing happened on the cross of Calvary. It was a real event in the realm of reality, and infinitely more real to God. Only God can save us. If he had not bothered to bring his holy lamb into the world, we would have perished for millions of years.
Thank God we have been granted ‘so great salvation’. The garments of salvation, the most expensive ever made, loomed over Calvary. What God did to save us is unfathomable.
The Cross of Calvary seemed to sum up all the negative forces that depress the human race. But this it was not a defeat; it was omnipotence in action, omnipotence turning every negative into a positive, a supreme act with a supreme result.
Jesus became defenseless for the defenseless, undesirable for the undesirable and unclean for the unclean; he faced death for the dying and horror for the terrified. He suffered injustice for all who were oppressed and gave up his reputation for them.
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What happened at Calvary?
Beyond all miracles, the death of christ on the cross of Calvary was an act of such greatness that the world can never surpass it. Thanks to this act of kindness, many things happened that we will explain throughout this article:
1. The everlasting covenant of grace was fully fulfilled
In the Bible, redemption and salvation are spoken of as the result of an everlasting covenant. The blood of Christ is called “the blood of the everlasting covenant” (Heb. 1:20 p.m.). This means that his death marks the completion of the fulfillment of the terms of that covenant. That everlasting covenant is revealed between God the Father and God the Son.
Under the terms of this covenant, God the Father chose a host of hell-deserving guilty sinners from Adam’s fallen race. The conditions of this covenant were the perfect satisfaction of the law and the justice of God, the perfect justice, which no sinner could produce even with his best efforts (Rom. 3:20).
Under the terms of this covenant, God the Son agreed to take responsibility for saving everyone the Father had given him. God the Son had to incarnate, be under the law, to redeem those who were under the curse of the law (Galatians 4:4-5). He obeyed the law perfectly, even to death on Calvary’s cross, and thus satisfied all the conditions of the everlasting covenant of grace in time.
In this great work, He himself established for his sheep an eternal justice of infinite value by which God the Father could justify the wicked. This is what ended on the cross of Calvary (John 17:4; 7:30 p.m.). Salvation itself was not over, since the multitudes for whom Christ died had not yet been born. The pact was fulfilled, justice was introduced, the ground of salvation was prepared.
Christ, by himself, for his people, fulfilled all the conditions of the eternal covenant of grace. He ensured the salvation of all whom he represented, all for whom he lived, obeyed, died, and rose again. He will not lose even one of them, since his justice demands his final salvation and glory. He paid his debt in full and they should receive the benefits of his payment.
2. The scriptures of the old testament were fulfilled
The entire Old Testament is primarily God’s revelation of his purpose to save sinners, based on God’s righteousness. promised messiah. From the first revelation of this promise in Genesis 3:15 Until the last chapter of Malachi, there is a continuous and progressive revelation of both the Person and the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.
The Old Testament teaches how that sin demands death and justice demands life. But it also teaches that there is no justice among sinful humanity. God had to send his Son to get mankind saved. All the Old Testament sacrifices that were commanded by God were but types of Christ and salvation based on his.
Every time a sacrifice was made, God wanted it to teach the principles of the Gospel; representation, substitution, satisfaction and imputation, all by Christ, the promised Messiah. All representations of the Mosaic Law were, in essence, a “schoolteacher to lead to Christ, so that the nation might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24).
The history of Israel as a nation had no eternal significance except as a revelation of God’s redeeming glory in Christ and as a preparation for the coming of the Messiah to establish justice for His people. Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world in the sense that he was appointed before the world was created.
All the old testament it pointed to Christ as revealed in the Gospel of eternal salvation and final glory based solely on His righteousness. Every Old Testament believer knew and believed this righteousness-based gospel of salvation from the promised Messiah and awaited his coming. The new Testament it records His first advent and points to the Messiah who has come and has already established justice.
3. God’s attributes were honored, magnified, and revealed
On the cross of Calvary, God displayed His redeeming glory. This is the revelation and the honor of each of the attributes of his holy character. God displays some of His glory in creation, providence, and even damnation, but it is only in the redemption of sinners through the Lord Jesus Christ that we see God’s character attributes consistently working together to accomplish God’s sovereign purpose. to save his people from their sins.
This is the highest glory of God. This is the light of the knowledge of the glory of the Creator in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). In the redemption of sinners based on the righteousness of Christ, we see God’s holiness, justice, truth, righteousness, his hatred of sin, as well as his love, mercy, grace, and compassion.
All that God is in His essence, His very Being, was magnified and honored and revealed in this great salvation by Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. This shows us three truths:
- Christ had to go to the cross of Calvary to glorify his Father in the salvation of sinners.
- The only way that God could be glorified as a righteous God and Savior is based on the righteousness of Christ.
- The sum of all these attributes of god expresses the way in which god identifies himself as a just and savior god, or as a god who justifies the wicked.
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The teachings that the sacrifice of Christ leaves us on the cross of Calvary
There are infinities of things that we can learn by analyzing what the sacrifice of Jesus was on the cross of Calvary. Here we explain some of these:
1. The reality of sin
LegallyWhen we see sin imputed to Christ, we learn that wherever sin is imputed, the law of God must pronounce a curse. God’s law requires death wherever sin is imputed.
Christ did not sin, knew no sin, was holy, harmless, and blameless (Luke 23: 14,41; Heb. 7:26). However, when the sin was charged to his account, God had to punish him in Him. morallyWhen we look at fallen humanity, we see that the essence of sin lies in the fact that fallen men love darkness and hate light (John 3:19-20; 7:7; Acts 4:26-28; Heb. 13).
Why? It is because “the carnal mind is enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7). This shows that all men by nature are in a state of guilt, condemnation, pollution, and unbelief, and all their efforts to save themselves are dead works.
But by nature we refuse to believe this, because we do not submit to God’s standard of right and wrong, saved and lost. Fallen humanity judged Christ. We, as humanity, reveal our hatred of holiness when we crucify the Lord of Glory.
2. The reality of justice
We learn that justice is the standard of judgment for all mankind (Acts 17:31) -In Judgment, sinners will not be compared with other sinners. They will be compared to Christ, and all who fall short are sinners, and the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23).
We must have a justice that responds to the demands of the law and God’s justice, or we perish. We can’t produce it. God the Holy Spirit cannot produce it through us. God sent Christ to do it, and we must receive it by faith, trusting that He has met all the conditions and that His righteousness is all we need as the basis of salvation (Rom. 10:9-10).
We also learn that just as sin demands condemnation and eternal death, justice demands justification and eternal life. Just as where sin is imputed, the result must be death, where justice is imputed, the result must be life. Christ died, but he did not stay dead. God the Father removed him from grace, because Christ satisfied law and justice.
He paid the debt of his people. He drank dry damnation for them and provided the ransom price of justice that demands their full salvation and final glory (Rom. 4:23-25). The reality of justice teaches us that all for whom Christ lived, obeyed, and died must be saved. He cannot lose even one of them because he fulfilled all the required conditions.
He provided a righteousness that allows a holy and just God to remain holy and just and save sinners. All for whom Christ died will be saved. They will hear and believe the Gospel of God and repent of dead works. They will come to faith in Christ and repentance.
3. We learn how God saves sinners
The basis of salvation is the justice of Christ, all the merit is attributed to his obedience and death in favor of sinners. If you approach God for any other reason, you will perish. If you come to God only on this ground, you will be saved. The instrument for this is the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, and the means is faith in Christ. This is seen in the example of the thief who was saved (Luke 23:42-43).
He was a guilty sinner who deserved hell. In Matthew’s account, even this thief mocked Christ at first (Matt. 27:41-44). If salvation or any part of it had been conditioned on one like this, he surely would have perished.
It was effectually brought under the Gospel. He was made to understand who the man on the cross in the middle was: the Messiah sent by God to save his people from their sins. This thief woke up to understand that this Person was the Lord of our Justice. His faith was above circumstances.
whatWhat did this thief see with the physical eye? He saw a wretch defeated, suffering, hanging on a cross. She saw a weak and defenseless man (less than a man). What did she see with the eye of faith? He saw the Lord of Glory, the King of kings who would soon come to his mediating kingdom. He saw the Savior.
This thief knew that Christ was fulfilling all the conditions of His salvation. He trusted in the righteousness of Christ as his sole basis for it. This is what every sinner needs to see, understand and believe. God has promised eternal salvation for every sinner.;…