Even if you just look at the first verse of most of the books in the New Testament, you’ll see this obsession with the crucified Christ. First of all Christ is there, usually in the first verse—
-
Matthew 1:1, ‘Jesus Christ’
-
Mark 1:1, ‘Jesus Christ’
-
John 1:1, ‘the Word [who is Jesus]’
-
Acts 1:1, ‘Jesus’
-
Romans 1:1, ‘Christ Jesus’
-
1 Corinthians 1:1, ‘Christ Jesus’
-
2 Corinthians 1:1, ‘Christ Jesus’
-
Galatians 1:1, ‘Jesus Christ’
-
Ephesians 1:1, ‘Christ Jesus’
-
Philippians 1:1, ‘Christ Jesus’
-
Colossians 1:1, ‘Christ Jesus’
-
1 Timothy 1:1, ‘Christ Jesus’
-
2 Timothy 1:1, ‘Christ Jesus’
-
Titus 1:1, ‘Jesus Christ’
-
Philemon 1:1, ‘Christ Jesus’
-
James 1:1, ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’
-
1 Peter 1:1, ‘Jesus Christ’
-
2 Peter 1:1, ‘Jesus Christ’
-
Jude 1:1, ‘Jesus Christ’
-
Revelation 1:1, ‘Jesus Christ’
And then, in all those books, Jesus Christ is shown to be the one who has died. Here are just a few examples…
-
The turning point in Matthew, Mark, and Luke is about this: ‘the Lord Jesus teaching that the Son of Man must suffer.’
-
By chapter 3 of John, ‘Jesus is saying that the Son of Man must be lifted up,’ referring to the crucifixion.
-
By chapter 2 of Acts, the cross is being preached.
-
In Romans 5:8, ‘the righteousness of Christ dying for the ungodly is declared.’
-
But in verse 17 of 1 Corinthians, Paul speaks of ‘the cross of Christ and its power.’
-
In 2 Corinthians 5:14, ‘One has died for all, therefore all have died.’
-
In Galatians 6:14, ‘May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.’
-
In Ephesians 2:16, ‘To reconcile both of them to God through the cross.’
-
In Philippians 2:8, ‘He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.’
-
In Colossians 1:20, ‘Making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.’
Even with a book like James, what we have—though he makes no explicit mentions of the cross of Christ—is a picture of what it looks like for the cross of Christ to affect our morality.
So, I’m not saying that we have to go around with some kind of bingo card, making sure the cross has been explicitly mentioned a certain number of times in all the Christian content we consume. The question is, does the spirit of the content reflect the cruciform shape of the Christian life? If it doesn’t explicitly mention the cross, does it speak about the implications of the cross?
