Why did Jesus die on the cross?
We often take a highly individualized view of Christ’s work: “He died for my sins.” In these terms, a sinner thinks of Jesus as his personal Saviour, his Lord and Friend. And all these beautiful things are true.
Yet Scripture gives a far wider and deeper view of why Jesus died. Colossians 1:17 says that in Christ that “all things hold together.” Christ is much more than the redeemer of sinners. He is the ruler and sustainer of the entire universe.
When Christ died on the cross, He was establishing a cosmic peace. The reconciliation that He achieved is not just between God and a world of individual sinners. It is between God and his broken creation.
It says a few verses later in Colossians 1 that God purposed “through Christ to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (v. 20). All things!
Since “all things” have been tainted and ruined by sin, “all things” need reconciling to God.
The Lord intends to repair and reconsecrate a creation which once was very good, to make it very good again. So the effect of Christ’s work on the cross reaches even into the structures and patterns of this world.
In the words of the old Christmas carol, the blessings of Christ’s redemption extend as “far as the curse is found.”
This cosmic outlook changes how we see what happened at the cross.
Through this event and the resurrection three days later, God was preparing for the day when the whole world will be perfectly subject to his Son: sin destroyed, the kingdom of darkness defeated, death swallowed up. God will completely heal and perfectly restore this groaning creation.
This is how Jesus can announce in Revelation, “I am making everything new!”
To speak of cosmic reconciliation doesn’t mean that every sinner is going to be saved, everyone restored to peace with their Maker. But one day, all people will bow before God’s Son as Lord: “Every eye will see him,” says Revelation 1:7, “even those who pierced him.” They hate and oppose him now, but one day they’re going to see the Son for who He really is: the King of all creation, the Lord of the universe, the Saviour of those who have believed.
Knowing that everything holds together in Christ, we are better able to make sense of this world. In our time there is so much moral confusion, political tension, fear of environmental ruin, and financial uncertainty. As the people of Christ, we should not let our perspective on such things be shaped by the endless and often pessimistic news commentary. We have no reason to despair but every reason for hope.
For we know that this is our Saviour’s world. It is his to rule, and it is his to restore, through his blood shed once on the cross.