It seems as though winter has finally given way to spring. In North Carolina, that means piercing blue skies and writing from the back porch. There is nothing quite like spring, the flowers bud after a long, dead winter. The grass is greener after months of dying in the cold. Bare branches make room for new leaves.
Everything about spring cries out with new life, rejoicing in the magnificent work of our Creator.
“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)
God’s creation speaks His name.
It is no coincidence that Easter falls within this season of renewal after the death of winter, just as Christ rose to life after His death on the cross. “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Romans 8:22). Jesus is the firstborn of all creation, and it is by Him and through Him that all things exist (1 Corinthians 8:6).
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God’s Nature Reveals the Reason for the Cross
Why did God choose this way to bring about salvation? Why did God choose death, when He, as God, could have chosen any other way? The answer is found within the character of God. Each attribute of God points to the inevitability of the cross and the need for Christ to put on flesh, to dwell with His people, die upon a cross, and experience a bodily resurrection.
We find the reason for the cross within God’s very nature.
The story of the cross goes back to Genesis, all the way to creation. God laid the foundations of the world, knowing redemption would be necessary. Jesus was not a secondary plan because God doesn’t make plans that way. He is all-knowing, sovereign, just, yet also full of love, grace, and mercy.
The character of God can be a great mystery to the human mind. The revelation of His character is threaded throughout the pages of Scripture. He reveals Himself to us in His way and in His time.
Here is how God's character led Him to choose a death on the cross:
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1. God Is Gracious
“For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:17)
Through Adam, sin and death entered into the world. Back in the garden in Genesis, just as God knew it would, His creation would fall, and when it did, sin would enter in and death came as a result. Not just physical death, but spiritual death that separated His creation from Him.
This separation was why Christ needed to come and die upon a cross, to fill the gap left by sin between God and man. Through Christ, God pours out His grace. Pure grace that offers us a life and connection back to the Father at the expense of the Son.
Grace is an undeserved and unmerited gift.
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2. God Is Loving
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
We live in a world that often wants to make God’s only attribute love. God is not only love. He is equally mercy, wrath, grace, and more. Yet, without the love of God, there would have been no need for the cross either. For it was the very love of God that propelled God to give up His Son, Christ, to the cross.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)
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3. God Is Just
“Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” (Romans 5:9)
The cross satisfied something we often don’t think about, the wrath of God. God doesn’t change. He cannot change and will not change. Sin required payment, whether that payment came from our hands or the hands of Christ, it is necessary for all.
The cross satisfied the payment for sinners, thus proclaiming those saved as righteous. This justice for believers covers their penalty, but those who reject the Lord will still come under the wrath of God. Each one of us needs our sin covered. When we stand before God, will we be able to say they are paid in full through Christ? Or will we face judgment for rejecting Christ?
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4. God Is All-Knowing
“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” (Romans 8:29)
From the beginning in the Garden, God knew that He would need to send His Son Jesus to right every wrong. Even from Genesis 3, when God tells the serpent that Eve’s offspring would crush his head, He was talking of Jesus.
The knowledge of God is limitless.
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5. God Is Glorfied
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 9:23)
All of this—the cross, the resurrection, the redemption of the lost—has an ultimate purpose, to glorify God. The Westminster Catechism says, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”
His name will be glorified over all the earth, and one day every knee will bow and tongue confess that He is God.
As winter turns to spring, and the days seem longer, and the air thicker with warmth, we see the beauty and power of God taking place around us. We see what was once dead has now come to life again. The buds of Spring proclaim Christ risen from the dead, for His glory and our good.
Michelle Rabon is a wife and homeschooling mom of three who feels called to help women thrive in their walk with Jesus every day. In 2012, she started Displaying Grace, a ministry that is focused on helping women engage with God’s Word. Michelle has also served in women’s ministry for the past five years seeking to equip women in the local church through Bible study. When she is not writing or teaching, she enjoys reading, being close to the ocean, and drinking a lot of coffee.
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Originally published Friday, 13 March 2020.
