The Truth of the Cross

“The prevailing doctrine of justification today is not justification by faith alone. It’s not even justification by good works or by a combination of faith and works. The prevailing notion of justification in Western culture today is justification by death. It’s assumed that all one has to do to be received into the everlasting arms of God is to die.

In some instances, the prevailing indifference to the cross mutates into outright hostility. I once was asked to deliver a lecture explaining the relationship between the old and new covenants. In the course of delivering this lecture, I referred to Christ’s death as a substitutionary, vicarious sacrifice for the sins of others. To my surprise, someone in the back of the room yelled out, ‘That’s primitive and obscene.’ I was taken aback for a moment, so I asked, ‘What did you say?’ He said it again with great hostility: ‘That’s primitive and obscene.’ At that point, I had recovered from my surprise, and I told the man I actually like his choice of adjectives. It is primitive for a blood sacrifice to be made to satisfy the justice of a transcendent and holy God, but sin is a primitive thing that is basic to our human existence, so God chose to communicate His love, mercy, and redemption to us through this primitive work. And the cross is an obscenity, because all of the corporate sin of God’s people was laid on Christ. The cross was the ugliest, most obscene thing in the history of the world.”- From The Truth of the Cross by R.C. Sproul