“Wah! How can a Christian be like that?!” Have you ever heard such remarks? Even while the Bible calls us saints, and we honestly vouch that we are really sinners saved by grace, we understand how jarring the juxtaposition of sin and holiness is—a saint should act like one.
In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul contends powerfully that the abundant grace of God we have received through Christ’s atoning death on the cross does not mean that we can keep on sinning (Romans 6:1-2). Rather, through our union with him who died and was buried, we too have died and been set free from sin. Also, through our union with him who rose from the grave, we who share in his new life also share in his victory over sin and death.
While we may be most familiar with the language of substitutionary atonement—the cross as the place where Jesus Christ died in the place of sinful humans who stand guilty before God and cannot save themselves— there are other equally correct ways of understanding the cross. Christ died for us—that is undeniable (Romans 5:8). Through the cross, God’s love for the world was profoundly expressed. We know love because Christ ‘became obedient to death’ on the cross (Philippians 2:8) and laid down his life for us (1 John 3:16). The God we see on the cross is not one who mocks our moral ineptitude, but one who, knowing our weaknesses, enters into our pain and pours himself out in sacrificial love.
Through the cross (and resurrection), Christ also triumphed over sin and death. What looks like defeat is in reality a victory; the crucified is the victor. God nailed all our trespasses on the cross and made us alive with Christ, and in so doing conquered death (1 Corinthians 15:54-57) and disarmed the powers and authorities (Colossians 2:13-15) so that we can be ‘more than conquerors’ through Christ (Romans 8:37).
Through the cross, we see God’s wisdom in salvation, his suffering love for sinners, and his victory over sin and death. When we look at the cross, may our hearts be stirred to forsake sin, determining to live victoriously with Christ daily through his power now availed to us, and reflect his love to others (1 John 4:11). May the cross profoundly change our lives so that others may say, “Wah! How can a Christian be so like Christ?!”