At The Cross

Four Benefits Jesus Gives You At The Cross

1. At the cross, Jesus took our place

In Mark 15:6-15, Jesus is sent to the cross instead of the murderer Barabbas. Jesus was innocent and wrongly accused. Barabbas was guilty and belonged in prison. Yet Barabbas went free, and Jesus wad condemned. These circumstances give us a clear picture of the substitutionary nature of Jesus’s work on the cross. The innocent Jesus substituted Himself for guilty sinners like us. The apostle Paul said, “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

2. At the cross, Jesus took our curse

When the Roman soldiers were mocking Jesus, they placed a crown of thorns upon His head. In the earliest chapters in the Bible, we learn that thorns were one result of the curse that had come into the world because of sin,

“To Adam He said, Because you have listened to your wife’s voice, and ate from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it, ‘the ground is cursed for your sake. You will eat from it with much labor all the days of your life. It will yield thorns and thistles to you; and you will eat the herb of the field.” – Genesis 3:17-18.

While Jesus was on the cross, there was darkness over the land from noon to 3 pm,

“When the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour” – Mark 15:33.

Jesus bore the thorns and darkness of our sin upon Himself at the cross.

Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us -for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (Galatians 3:13).

3. At the cross, Jesus clothed you

Mark records that when Jesus was crucified,

“Crucifying Him, they parted His garments among them, casting lots on them, what each should take” -Mark 15:24.

This was a fulfillment of prophecy found in Psalm 22:18. These wicked men took Jesus’s clothing for themselves. Ironically, the didn’t recognize that through the cross, Jesus would be clothing for His people.

“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord! My soul will be joyful in My God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks Himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with Jewels” – Isaiah 61:10.

Through His death on the cross, Jesus covered the shame of our nakedness by giving us His robe of righteousness.

4. At the cross, Jesus was tearing heaven open for you

When Jesus died, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38).

The curtain was guarded by the holy of holies, where God’s presence was most concentrated. Because of sin, mankind didn’t have the same access to God that the Levitical priests had. Mark used the word “torn” one other time in His gospel when describing Jesus’s baptism,

“And when He came up out of the water, immediately He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove” – Mark 1:10.

Interestingly, Jesus would later associate His crucifixion with baptism,

But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be immersed with the immersion that I am immersed with?” -Mark 10:38

At the cross, the veil was torn, giving access to the heavenly sanctuary.

“Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which He dedicated for us,a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and having a great priest over God’s house, let’s draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed with pure water” -Hebrews 10:19-22.