Torrance Tuesday: The Relevance of the Cross

Scottish theologian Thomas F. Torrance writes:Â

"In bringing His work to completion Jesus laid hold of man at the very point where he contradicts Him. Until we recognize that, and allow it to awaken in our own heart the recognition of the same antagonism within us to the love of God, we are evading the issue and destroying the relevance of the Cross to us. In other words, the Love of God lays hold upon us and exerts its power upon us by exposing in our hearts a deep-seated hostility to God. Is not the Cross God's attack upon the pride and inhumanity of man, and is it not man's attack upon the holiness and love of God? Jesus did not endure the Cross that we might side-step that whole issue between God and man, but endured the Cross both to expose our strange hatred of His grace and in grace to remove that antagonism through atonement. But He knows that this antagonism has its roots so deep in man's heart and will, and even beyond it in a vast evil will, that man is helpless to remove it. His will has become so much his self-will that whatever he does to escape from it only serves to imprison him deeper in his self-will. Man's hostility to God is part of a whole kingdom of evil over which he has no control. Jesus descended into that to do battle with it, to wrestle with it and to break its power over man, and to hew a way out of its tyranny and lead men back into the freedom of God's children.

"He who refuses to acknowledge that the hostility that nailed Jesus to the Cross is lodged in his own heart, that he too has his share in the contradiction of sinners against the love of God, renounces the relevance of the Cross to him, and puts himself beyond its saving power. Only if we are implicated in the Cross can it be an instrument for our salvation. Only when we allow it to uncover our guilty implication in the crucifixion of the Son of God, and to awaken in us the conviction that in our heart too there is embedded the contradiction of sin against God's love, does the Cross exert its healing power upon us. Then it is our Cross and our salvation, for we belong to the sinners who crucified Him and we belong to those for whom He died" (When Christ Comes and Comes Again, T.F. Torrance, 166-167).