Christians often and rightly talk about the death and resurrection of the Lord. This is the focus of the Lord’s Supper every time we take it.
But what did His death do? It is safe to say that most believers would say He made sure we could “go to heaven,” or be in the kingdom of God.
That is certainly true. Christ’s death made the whole world savable. He took away the sins of the world, everyone who ever has lived or will live, so that all who believe in Him receive eternal life (John 1:29; 1 John 2:2). As great as that work was, we should not stop there. His death did more than make all humans savable.
Paul says that Christ’s cross will also reconcile everything “on earth or things in heaven” to Himself (Col 1:20). Some take the reference to heaven to mean evil angelic forces that will one day submit to His authority and judgment. My guess is that the words heaven and earth refer to all of Creation. When man fell, Creation also fell under the curse. Right now, all of Creation is groaning, anticipating the day when Christ returns to make all things new (Rom 8:19-22). Christ’s death and resurrection made possible, and will bring in, a universe without sin and death.
In Eph 2:16, Paul says that the cross put “to death the enmity” and reconciled both Jews and Gentiles into one body. The Law of Moses had separated Jews from Gentiles culturally, and was the way of life for the Jewish people before Christ. Christ’s death brought peace to the two groups and united all believers in His body, the Church.
Peter says that when Christ died on the cross, He “bore our sins.” In His death and resurrection, the power of sin has been broken for the believer, and the believer can now “live for righteousness” (1 Pet 2:24). Paul has the same idea in mind when he writes that believers were buried with Christ through the baptism of the Spirit into death. Just as Christ broke the power of sin when He was crucified and rose from the dead, the believer can now live, or walk, “in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). The Holy Spirit lives within the believer and gives him the power to walk in the life Christ has given him.
Related to this last point is the forgiveness of sins. Paul says the believer has the forgiveness of sins “through His blood” (Col 1:14). Most Evangelicals say this refers to what is called positional forgiveness. When we believe in Christ for eternal life, even our future sins are forgiven. Christ’s death paid for all our sins.
I do not hold that position. I believe Paul means that when we believe, all the new believer’s past sins are forgiven. This allows him to begin the Christian life in fellowship with the Lord. When a believer sins after believing, the blood of Christ is also the means by which he finds forgiveness for those sins, after he confesses them (1 John 1:9). The bottom line is that Christ’s death makes fellowship with God a possibility for all believers.
Christ’s death accomplished other things as well. Because believers can now live righteously and have fellowship with Him, we can receive eternal rewards in His kingdom. We can even reign with Him forever. In Col 2:15, Paul says that on the cross, Christ made a spectacle of evil forces. I am not sure of what that means.
The point of this blog is simple. Many Evangelicals come to the Scriptures thinking they speak only of how we can be saved from the lake of fire. That is what Jesus came to do. But He did so much more. When we read the Bible, we should expand our minds when we think about how great our Savior is.
