Victory on the Cross

Victory on the Cross
Oil on Canvas
9" x 12"
11/09/15
1 hour

This is my first oil painting, and is one of my favourite paintings to date. I chose to paint this image of Christ’s death (with His spirit leaving Him) from a picture that I found online, as it meant so much to my faith.

Further to passages setting out Christ’s betrayal, torment and mocking, Matthew 27:45-55 (NIV) sets out the account of Christ’s death as follows:

“The Death of Jesus

From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”

Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”

Many women were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.”

Christ’s death (and His subsequent resurrection, marking victory over death) is the hallmark of the Christian faith. Since the fall of Man through Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden, the whole of Mankind have been cursed with sin. In order to be reunited with our just and righteous God, Man had to be restored to righteousness. In the old testament times, animal sacrifices were used as an illustration of what was needed to bridge this gap; after Christ came as the perfect sacrifice, our relationship with God is restored through our love for, belief in and obedience to Christ.

I used to struggle with this concept deeply as a non-believer. I used to wonder, why would God make an imperfect creature such as Man, doomed for damnation, to be salvaged through such a cruel method involving a completely innocent human sacrifice? However, now, after being blessed with God’s grace and having been enlightened, it means so much to be able to share my new insights on the meaning of this picture to me:

1.     Free will. The story of our salvation with Christ begins with free will. God graciously granted free will to Man, which he created as a relational being in His image. What was valuable to God was for Man to choose to exercise our will freely to conform to His word, to be a family with Him in the kingdom of His righteousness. However, Man fell away from God and continuously exercised free will for ungodly purposes. Even those who loved God deeply would often fall from grace. After the fall, nobody, on their own strength, was able to exercise free will in a manner fully pleasing to God.

2.     God is righteous and just. There are consequences for the ways we choose to exercise our free will. There is so much open sharing about God’s love, but an equally important aspect of God’s character that is less shared about is His just and righteous nature (and the anger and wrath that often follows from this). As Psalms 9:8 (NIV) states: “He rules the world in righteousness and judges the peoples with equity.” To be judged before such a righteous God is truly a scary thought. When I was a non-believer, I used to have long debates on God’s “righteousness”. I didn’t question the existence of sin (which is rampant), but questioned why the Christian God was such a bloodthirsty God, demanding the sacrifice and blood of perfect innocent animals (and subsequently Jesus) as penalty for sin. While I recognized that it would otherwise be our blood which needs to be the price, since He makes the laws, I felt that a practical way was for exceptions to be made, without blood having to be shed. For what did the poor animals (and Jesus) do to deserve punishment for our transgressions? But as I matured in my faith I realized that these systems were in place because God cannot compromise on His perfect standards and wanted us to recognize the severity of sin. God demanded animal sacrifices as an illustration on the severity of sin and the holiness of God, and Christ, the ultimate sacrifice, was a gift of God taking our place Himself to bear the rightful punishment of our sins.

3.     God loves us. God is a deeply relational being, and wants nothing more than to relate to each of us personally. But that is not all. Spending time together is just one aspect of love. Love also requires an aspect of vulnerability, of sacrifice. To love is to be open and to allow ourselves to be hurt. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 (ESV).  Jesus was God, but He came down to the world as a Man, fully vulnerable, to reach out to us and love us. He could have stayed in heaven, but He did not. He came down to be with us. He opened Himself to us. He was stung by rejection. He was humiliated and hung up on the cross. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” 1 John 3:16 (ESV). God loved us THIS much, to come down as a Man, to be mocked and humiliated and rejected and betrayed subsequently, all for our sake.

4.     Christ is the intersection of God’s love and His justice. Christ came to take our sins away, and is the perfect intersection between God’s love and justice. It may be difficult for us to acknowledge this, but we are horrible sinners, each and every one of us, and we all deserve God’s wrath. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (ESV). Christ was God. He did nothing wrong. “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5 (ESV) “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV). “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 (ESV).

5.     Christ’s Sacrifice is Necessary. John 3:14-15 (NIV) states that “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” Jesus had reached out to Nicodemus using a passage in the Old Testament (Numbers 21:5-9), where the Lord sent venomous snakes to punish the Israelites for their incessant complaints in the desert. When Moses interceded on their behalf, God instructed Moses to make a bronze replica of a snake and raise it above the camp on the pole. Those who were bitten would be healed if they looked at it and acknowledged their guilt and expressed faith in God’s forgiveness and power. Likewise, Jesus had to be crucified (i.e. lifted up), and His death would form a necessary part of God’s salvation plan. Such salvation is independent on any works or righteousness on our part, and is based on full dependence on God’s free gift to us. That of course does not mean that we are not to do good works – rather, we are saved by Christ for good works, and not saved by ourselves by good works. God was victorious through Christ’s death. The battle against Satan was won through Christ’s death on the cross, and our victory over sin has been secured through Christ.

6.     Christ was obedient onto death; we are to ‘take up the cross’ and follow Him. “Even though Jesus was God's Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. In this way, God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him. And God designated him to be a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 5:8-10 (NLT). Christ was afraid, but He was obedient and endured. Ultimately, He saved us from the penalty of our sins, and was exalted beyond measure. As believers, we should follow suit in Christ’s example as God only has the best plans for us. As stated in Matthew 16:24-27(NIV): “Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.” As seen in the foregoing passages, a true disciple of Christ is one that does not deny Him, but instead denies themselves (i.e. their sinful human nature) to follow Him. This means that as Christians, we should walk in His path, led by His spirit, fully obedient to God’s directions as Christ himself was. There are eternal consequences to our decisions, and we are wise if we choose to follow the footsteps of our saviour who has redeemed our souls with His own blood. There are times where it will be difficult, where life may seem unfair (i.e. Jesus’ death was through no fault of His own). But if we choose to be obedient to God, we can become great tools which He uses to accomplish His glory for His kingdom and people!

7.    Eternal Consequences and Rewards. Christ is victorious over death and over sin; even if our passage on earth is daunting and challenging (as earth is a sin-filled place full of imperfections), we can expect eternal rewards for our obedience to him. Revelations 21:9-26 sets out the following vision of John:

“One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long. The angel measured the wall using human measurement, and it was 144 cubits thick. The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.

 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.  The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

The above account illustrates the eternal glory that awaits those who are obedient to God’s words; in contrast, on the day of judgment, for those who do not follow Christ, it is written that “Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.” Revelations 20:15 (NIV). There, “…[t]hey will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” Revelations 20:10 (NIV).

For God had created the heavens and earth, and had loved us so much that He had reached out to Mankind repeatedly and had called us to repentance to His truth. He had even come down to earth to die for our sake, to bridge the gap between His righteousness and His love, so that we may be able to stand with Him in His presence. But those who choose to remain willfully blind and/or deaf to His love, call, justice and truth will not be able to join Him in eternal glory after the first death, but will be forever separated from Him for eternity. To be in a world without the presence of God eternally is indeed a terrifying thought.

Which choice will you make?

8.     Prayerfully Seeking God. When I was a non-believer, I found it difficult to believe or “buy into” the truth of God’s word because this was only one of the many “possible truths” out there in view of the multiple religions worldwide. I always believed that there was one ultimate truth (that we would be stupid not to follow/acknowledge), but had a difficulty discerning what the ultimate truth was. However, as I was sharing my struggles, one of my Christian friends told me to simply pray about it if I was sincerely seeking the truth. For Jeremiah 23:13 (NIV) promises us that “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” So I did. God did not answer my prayer immediately – there was no instant enlightenment. Rather, He brought me through a really painful process that stretched over more than a year, which made me realize that He is real and which spoke to me in a way nothing else could. If anyone is struggling with difficulties in accepting the Christian message but believes that it could be the ultimate truth, I urge you to pray sincerely with all of your heart. Because these prayers can work wonders!