Notes on John Stott’s
The Cross of Christ
Chapter 1: The Centrality of the Cross
John Stott describes Holman Hunt’s painting “The Shadow of Death” in the following terms:
“She looks startled (or so it seems) at her son’s cross-like shadow on the wall….Though the idea [for the painting] is historically fictitious, it is also theologically true. From Jesus’ youth, indeed even from his birth, the cross cast its shadow ahead of him. His death was central to his mission.”
How church history has viewed the cross:
Church history affirms the centrality of the cross to the Christian faith–despite (or perhaps because of) its incredibly negative connotations and propensity to be ridiculed.
How Jesus viewed the cross:
Jesus made no secret that He would suffer, die, and rise again. Throughout His ministry, He speaks of His hour. This hour did not come in teaching or in working miracles. Rather, it was in His death that His hour had come.
“‘The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified….Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? “Father, save Me from this hour”? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.'”
John 12:23, 27-28
How the apostles viewed the cross:
While the sermons of Acts do not explicitly detail the theological implications of the cross, they do all mention the cross and many allude to its implications by using the term “hung on a tree” to describe crucifixion. This phrase directs the hearer to Deuteronomy 21:22-23, which proclaims a curse on all who are hung on a tree–alluding to the substitutionary nature of the cross (He became a curse for us, Galatians 3:13). Additionally, the apostles’ emphasis on the resurrection is an implicit reference to the cross, since the resurrection is the reversal of a prior sentence of death.
In the epistles, the doctrine of the cross is central to the writers’ messages. Paul, Peter, John, and the author of Hebrews all go to great length to describe the implications of the cross and its centrality to the Christian life. In the Revelation, Jesus’ primary identity is as the Lamb of God–not a reference primarily to His humility but to His death as a lamb slain for the sins of the world.
Summary:
The Cross is central to the Christian faith and is the biggest distinguisher between believers and unbelievers.
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
I Corinthians 1:18
“In the Christian theology of history, the death of Christ is the central point of history; here all the roads of the past converge; hence all the roads of the future diverge.”
~Stephen Neil
(See more notes on The Cross of Christ here.)