Isaiah 53Suffered under Pontius Pilate
Fancy a school of scientists or philosophers, or the members of a political party, constantly repeating that their founder was put to death by the government, as a threat to law and order! Yet this is what Christians do, and the cross of Jesus is the centerpiece of the Creed. “Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified.” Look at these words in reverse order.
“Was crucified.” This was the standard Roman way of executing criminals. To say “Jesus was crucified” is like saying he was hanged, or went to the electric chair.
Pilate
“Under Pontius Pilate.” Hitler will be remembered as the man who gassed the Jews, and Pilate, a nonentity otherwise, goes down in history as the man who killed Jesus. Under the Roman occupation, the Jewish authorities could not execute anyone, so when they had passed sentence on Jesus for confessing his true identity as God’s savior-king, the Christ (they thought the confession blasphemous), they passed him on to the governor for action.
Pilate, having symbolically washed his hands of the matter—the goofiest gesture, perhaps, of all time—gave the green light for judicial murder, directing that Jesus, though guiltless, should die all the same to keep people happy. Pilate saw this as shrewd government; how cynical can you get?
Passion
“Suffered.” This word carries not only the everyday meaning of bearing pain, but also the older and wider sense of being the object affected by someone else’s action. The Latin is passus, whence the noun “passion.” Both God and men were agents of Jesus’ passion: “this Jesus, delivered up according to the plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23, from Peter’s first sermon). God’s purpose at the cross was as real as was the guilt of the crucifiers.
What was God’s purpose? Judgment on sin, for the sake of mercy to sinners. The miscarrying of human justice was the doing of divine justice. Jesus knew on the cross all the pain, physical and mental, that man could inflict and also the divine wrath and rejection that my sins deserve; for he was there in my place, making atonement for me. “All we like sheep have gone astray . . . and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
Because the sinless Saviour died
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on him—and pardon me.
Propitiation
Here we reach the real heart—the heart of the heart, we may say—of Christianity; for if the incarnation is its shrine, the Atonement is certainly its holy of holies. If the incarnation was the supreme miracle, it was yet only the first of a series of steps down from the joy and bliss of heaven to the pain and shame of Calvary (Philippians 2:5-8). The reason why the Son of God became man was to shed his blood as (in the Prayer Book’s words) “a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world.” God “did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all” (Romans 8:32): that was the measure of his love (cf. 5:5-8).
It is in the same terms—terms, that is, not of tolerant avuncular benevolence, but of this particular precious gift—that John explains what he means by his great and glorious, but much-misunderstood, declaration, “God is love.” “In this is love,” he explains, “not that we loved God but that [when we didn’t] he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation [better, propitiation] for our sins” (1 John 4:8-10).
The cross of Christ has many facets of meaning. As our sacrifice for sins, it was propitiation (Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2, 4:10; cf. Hebrews 2:17); that is, a means of quenching God’s personal penal wrath against us by blotting out our sins from his sight. (“Expiation” in the RSV rendering of these texts signifies only “a means of blotting out sins,” which is an inadequate translation.) As our propitiation, it was reconciliation, the making of peace for us with our offended, estranged, angry Creator (Romans 5:9-11). We are not wise to play down God’s hostility against us sinners; what we should do is magnify our Savior’s achievement for us in displacing wrath by peace.
Again, as our reconciliation, the cross was redemption, rescue from bondage and misery by the payment of a price (see Ephesians 1:7; Romans 3:24; Revelation 5:9; Mark 10:45); and as redemption, it was victory over all hostile powers that had kept us, and wanted still to keep us, in sin and out of God’s favor (Colossians 2:13-15). All these angles must be explored if we are to grasp the whole truth.
“The Son of God . . . loved me, and gave himself for me”; so “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:20; 6:14, KJV). So said Paul. Thank God, I can identify. Can you?
Further Bible Study
The meaning of the cross:
Isaiah 53
Romans 3:19-26
Hebrews 10:1-25
Questions for Thought and Discussion
What is the full meaning which Christians find in the word “suffered” (Latin passus)?
“Both God and men were agents of Jesus’ passion.” Explain.
What does Christ’s death have to do with your sins?