Person X has sinned. They feel guilty. They feel dirty. They feel helpless to deal with their burden. What can wash away their sin? ‘Nothing but the blood of Jesus!’ On Good Friday we remember God’s plan to address sin. The Cross is where Jesus died the death we deserve to die so that—in faith—we might be justified, or declared right (‘righteous’) in God’s sight.

The Bible famously uses a number of pictures to convey justification. Here are three:

Covered (Exodus 12:13)- The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

Cleansed (Ps 51:7)- Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
    wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Cleared Off (Ps 103:12)- as far as the east is from the west,
    so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
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In each picture the guilt or penalty of sin is pictured as wonderfully and vividly removed from us. When we are in Christ we no longer stand condemned (Ro 4:6–8, 8:1, 33–4) but rather forgiven, just. Still more Christ’s righteousness is imputed (credited) to us so that in God’s sight not only are we not guilty but are righteous (Isa 61:10; R 5:19). All of our sins, past, present and future, are covered, cleansed and cleared off.

But this doesn’t mean sin does not exist in our lives. Jesus paid the penalty of our sin but is addressing the power of sin through imparted righteousness. Here He gives us His life-giving Spirit (1 Cor 15:45) so that we might be sanctified in actual fact. This too is wonderful news. Not only does Jesus impute righteousness, He also imparts it. He gives us the tools to deal with sin in our life, we are not alone.

And the end of the story is just as grand as its beginning, a day when the believer will be free from not only the penalty and power of sin but even its very presence (Rev 22).

Far too many needlessly labour under the burden of sin when imputed and imparted righteousness are offered in Jesus. He can and will cover, cleanse and clear off our sin when we come to Him in repentance and faith so that we may live a life free from guilt, free to live as God intended. 

What precisely happened on the Cross? The momentous events surrounding it like the darkness, the earthquake, etc, all point to the fact that something of cosmic significance took place.

We call what happened on the Cross the atonement, what Christ did in His life, and ultimately His death, that earned the believer’s salvation. Put another way, what He did to enable sinners to become right with their Creator (at-one-ment, the act of making someone at one with someone else).

The atonement, because of the infinite criminality of our sin against a holy God, has a certain wonderful multifacetedness to us. Not only does it have a depth but a breadth. This is borne out by the number of different pictures of the atonement that Scripture uses to convey just what transpired on that day. Knowing these helps us contemplate the wonder of the Cross.
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* Moral Example: I don’t include this in the numeric list because this is less what Jesus accomplished and more the example He set. Nevertheless, in His death, Christ did set an example for us of self-sacrificial service. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. (1 Pet 2:21).

1. Sacrifice: The act of giving up something to gain something else. Christ gave up His life in order to gain salvation for us. He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Heb 9:26).
2. Reconciliation: A relational word. Through sin our relationship with God was severed, broken. Through Christ’s death He restored that relationship for the believer so we might be called friends of God (Jn 15). All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself (2 Cor 5:18a).
3. Redemption: Slave language. The act of buying or purchasing someone out of slavery. The believer was in bondage to sin, but faith in Christ releases us because He paid the price. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb. (Rev 14:4).
4. Ransom: A ransom of is usually paid to someone to release a hostage. Great controversy has debated whether Christ paid that ransom to Satan, but no, Christ owed Satan nothing, the ransom was paid to God so the believer might be released. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mk 10:45)
5. Healing: Sin is like contracting a deadly disease. Christ's death is the cure or the medicine. 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 Pet 2:24).
6. Washing: Sinning against God, we became stained, dirty, unholy. Jesus’ blood cleanses, or washes the believer. “What can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus.” Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! (Ps 51:2).
7. Honour/Shame: The Ancient Near East, as the Middle East is today, was an honour and shame culture. We were created to honour God with our lives, but in sinning we dishonoured Him, thus bringing shame upon ourselves.  Through His death Jesus enabled the disgraced one’s honour to be restored. “Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.” (Isa 54:4).
8. Propitiation: This means a sacrifice that turns God’s wrath [just anger] toward sin into favour. Because Jesus bore God’s wrath, God’s wrath passes over the believer. Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (Ro 3:24b–25a).
9. Penal: Legal speak. That because we’d broken the Law of God, we were legally guilty of a penalty, a punishment. Jesus stood in the believer’s place to bear God justice against crime.

In all these things Jesus was the believer’s substitute, which accomplished a variety of different things to enable us to become at one with God. Captivated by this Isaac Watts wrote the hymn, When I survey, which has been adapted by Chris Tomlin that includes the chorus, O the Wonderful Cross…