Is there Redemption in the Cross?

This article has been one of much thought and prayer knowing that some may react to the thoughts and misunderstand what it is I am suggesting. So right from the start know that I believe that the cross is central and essential to my faith and the hope that I hold for eternity. Also know that I believe that Messiah shed His blood on my behalf and it is through His blood that I have redemption, the forgiveness of sin and reconciliation to the Father. I agree with Hebrews 9:22, “that without the shedding of blood there is no remission.” I do not question the truth, just the timing of the event, and how the event was realized. I simply want to be true to the Scriptures.

The key verse to the common held theology, that the focus of the cross is the shed blood of Yeshua for the forgiveness and cleansing of sin, comes primarily from 1 Peter 2:24, “He bore our sins in His body on the cross that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” He took our sin and removed it on the cross. Eph. 2:16 declares that He, “reconciled them both through the cross.” And Col.1:20 says we are, “reconciled through the blood of His cross.” However these both speak of reconciliation not redemption, and there is a difference. Perhaps these hold merit, but when we look at the rest of Scripture is that honestly the focus of the cross?

Of the 24 references to the cross in the New Testament, all can be seen as the cross being an instrument of death, even 1 Peter 2:24. Sin brings us death for death is the curse passed on from Genesis Chapter 3. We will surely die. Torah set God’s standard before us and we disobeyed, and thus we are under the curse (death). Christ redeemed us from the curse coming from disobedience to the Law (death) when he became a curse for us, for cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree [cross], (see Galatians 3:10 & 13). In John’s Revelation, after telling us in Chapter 20 that death and the grave are cast into the lake of fire, John goes on to describe the New Jerusalem; in Chapter 22 we are told that “there shall be no more curse” (vs. 3) and that we shall reign forever and ever (vs. 5). Through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ the curse of death is broken and we have life. He is the first fruits and we will follow in His resurrection.

The point of the cross throughout the New Testament is victory over death. So Paul can proclaim to those in Corinth, “Death is swallowed up in victory” and ask “O Death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?” (1 Cor. 15:55). The curse of death has been broken and we are delivered through His death and resurrection. Without His death and resurrection we have no hope. Forgiven or not we would still be under the curse of death, but the cross changes all that. Death is defeated and victory is there for all who believe.

One last thought comes from our Lord’s own illustration in John 3. Nicodemus has come to Yeshua under cover of darkness to seek to know if He is Messiah. The Master Rabbi turns to Numbers and the story of the fiery serpents, a story Nicodemus was well familiar with. It is found in Numbers 21. In brief the children of Israel sinned and God sent fiery serpents among them and, when bitten, they died. They cried out a clear confession of guilt and sought forgiveness. They came to Moses to plead for deliverance. Deliverance from what? From the fiery serpents that were bringing death among them. God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. Whoever was bitten was to come and look upon the serpent lifted up and they would be delivered from death. They would not come if they did not believe. For those who believed and came and looked upon the serpent lifted up they were delivered from death. That was the focus, not redemption or forgiveness, but deliverance from death. Yeshua said in the same way the Son of Man must be lifted up. Thus, like the serpent, all who would come believing would be delivered from death.

The predominate evidence from Scripture is that the point of the cross is deliverance from death, not redemption. Redemption, to some degree, may be there, but that is not the focus or the message from God’s Word. So where does redemption come in? We are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, which is for certain; the questions are where and when. But I will save that for the next blog.