Why Was The Cross Necessary?

There are many reasons why the Cross was necessary, but we will focus in and hone in on one particular reason. Both Jesus and the Apostles said, that Christ was to die to fulfill the Scriptures (Matthew 16:21; 17:22-24; 20:17-19; 26:54 and their parallel passages through the Synoptic gospels; John 12:20-34, Acts 3:18; Acts 17:2-3; 1 Cor 15:1-5). While we see that Jesus was supposed to die, we seem ultimately that He was supposed to die in a specific way. This specific way was understood by the Apostles in a way that Christ completely fulfilled this. Starting with Psalm 22  we see that it talks about being pierced (vrs 16) which also reminds us of Isaiah 53 where the suffering servant was pierced for our transgressions and crushed by God, all this being before the invention of the crucifixion. We also see this clearly in Peter’s sermon in Acts 5 where he says in verse 30, “The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree,“ and to Cornelius’ house in Acts 10:39, and Paul’s sermon in Antioch in Acts 13:29, all of which mention Jesus’ being “hung on a tree” and then buried. However, why bring up that he was hanging on a tree? 

We don’t need to be Bible scholars to remember what God said in the Garden of Eden to Adam, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:17). So to partake of this special tree is to place judgment upon yourself. Well, we know what happened. Adam and Eve both took the fruit of this particular tree, even though they had any tree in the world literally, but they decided to take from the one God said not to take. But it was God’s mercy that prevented them from dying that day, though the consequences still did occur. We weave through the story of Genesis going through the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph and we exit Genesis. We then move to Exodus where Moses is raised up by God to take the people out of the land of Egypt, where they were held captive as slaves for 400 years. Then God, through Moses, leads His people across the Red Sea and through the wilderness to Mt. Sinai where Moses receives the Law of God. The people of God are continually sinful and God is shown to still yet be faithful, which we find in Deuteronomy 1:19-46 and 9:1-29. And while Moses is laying out this second giving of God’s law to God’s people we run across a specific stipulation that may seem obscure but it is vital to our understanding. Deuteronomy 21:22-23 says, “And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance.” A man who has been condemned and is put to death on a tree, and so that you do not defile the land that God gives for an inheritance, you shall not leave him up all night but bury him the same day. This man is to be considered “cursed by God.” We see this example with Joshua after the destruction of Ai, Joshua, in accordance with God’s Law, had the king of Ai hanged in a tree until the evening, taken down, thrown outside the city and buried with rocks over the king’s body. It was precisely this act that brought Joshua to renew the covenant God had with His people. We see this again in Joshua 10:26-27 where Joshua had the Amorite kings hanged in a tree (after they were already struck dead), the bodies hung there until evening, taken down and buried by large stones in a cave. 

When we reflect on the Deuteronomy law given by God, we can see John’s words so vividly in John 19:31,33,42, “Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath...But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead...So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.” The Apostles Peter and Paul also drew upon Deuteronomy not because they were embarrassed that Christ died under a divine curse, but they wanted to draw people’s attention to it because it was our curse he was bearing (Galatians 2:20, 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24). Thus, the cross was sin (curse) bearing. More than that, both Peter and Paul show that it was substitutionary. In 1 Peter 3:18, Peter says, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.” Christ not only suffered as the curse, but he was righteous and suffered for the unrighteous (suffering=penal, righteous for unrighteous=substitutionary). A similar statement is also seen by Paul in 2 Cor 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  As we see in both Peter and Paul’s letters, they understood that hanging on a tree was a sin-bearing mark and when they preached it in Acts it is reasonable to believe that they already had this theological atonement model in their mind. So while they preached, they were drawing all the way back from the Jewish legislation of Deuteronomy 21 and making specific applications to Christ and His work. So the earliest sermons were not only thoroughly doctrinal in nature, they were rich theologically specifically regarding atonement and legal theory. 

Finally, one brief point that we often overlook is that while the cross was necessary for Christ, it was also necessary for the slain Lamb to be worthy of opening the scroll with 7 seals found in Revelation 5:8-9. The Cross was also necessary for Christ to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength, and honor and glory and praise in vrs. 11-14. So it does not stop with individual salvation, but for the entire redemptive plan of God. 

This is why the cross was the center of the message of the early church (1 Cor 1:18-25; 2:1-2; 15:1-5 it was of first importance, Gal 6:14 where Paul boasted only in the cross). So we believers must see that not only death was necessary, but the Cross specifically was necessary. The Cross was necessary to be the instrument of Christ’s death so He can be a curse on our behalf, but also provide the way to our ultimate salvation by opening the seven-sealed scroll. Therefore, since the cross was necessary, it must be at the focal point of our preaching. So while we were initially cursed because of a Tree in Genesis 3, the rest of the Scriptures lays out that we ultimately are saved because of a tree because Christ took on that curse while He was on the tree. Even inanimate objects such as trees have an important theme in Scripture! 

Recommended Reading

The Cross of Christ by John Stott

In My Place Condemned He Stood by J.I. Packer and Mark Dever

Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray