What Did Christ Accomplish on His Cross?

I could not doubt that the death of Jesus on his cross was real.

• He “poured out His soul unto death,” an infinite sacrifice (Isa. 53:12).

• He could not have “emptied Himself” more. Like when one turns a glass upside down to drain it to its last drop, He made a commitment to drain Himself of everything dear to Him, even life (Phil. 2:5-8, Revised Standard Version).

• He endured the “curse” of God, which is Heaven’s total condemnation (Gal. 3:13).

• This is how He “tasted [the second] death for everyone” (Heb. 2:9).

• He “gave Himself for our sins,” holding nothing back (Gal. 1:4).

• It must be said reverently, softly, in awe: He went to hell in our behalf in order to save us (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:25-27).

• So great was His love (agape)! (1 John 4:9-14).

 

But the question haunted me for years: what did He accomplish? Was His sacrifice a real success? Or did Satan succeed in hampering or partially destroying what He accomplished?

 

Through the centuries, people wiser than I have wrestled with those questions. But someone helped me find an answer in Romans 5:15-18 that seemed to say that Christ’s sacrifice was wonderfully successful:

 

“God’s act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam’s wrongdoing. For if the wrongdoing of that one man brought death upon so many [Greek: the many meaning all], its effect is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift that came to so many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ. And again, the gift of God is not to be compared in its effect with that one man’s sin; for the judicial action, following on the one offence, resulted in a verdict of condemnation, but the act of grace, following on so many misdeeds, resulted in a verdict of acquittal. … It follows, then, that as the result of one misdeed was condemnation for all people, so the result of one righteous act is acquittal and life for all” (Rom. 5:15-18, Revised English Bible).

 

How could one get better Good News than that? But then, that problem. Not everybody agrees. Some think they see fine print somewhere. I couldn’t imagine how God could contradict that, but through the centuries some have tried to explain away what I thought Paul said. There are several attempts:

 

To put this idea in simple language, Christ did not intend to die for “all people.” In fact, some of its prominent spokesmen have said frankly He didn’t even love “all people.” He loved and died only for a special group known as “the elect.”

 

The idea is that God has predestined some people to be saved; and because this is His “sovereign will,” not even they can thwart what He has purposed to do. The predestined ones go to heaven whether they want to or not.

 

In one sense, that may sound reasonable. Strict Calvinists feel forced to this position because of their view of the irresistible “sovereignty” of God. If He wills something, man cannot counteract His will. They understand the Lord’s Prayer to say, “Thy will must and will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”

 

That’s one side of the Calvinism coin.

The other side has been the “double predestination” idea that God has predetermined that the