The Work of the Cross is the The Central Accomplishment of Jesus

In Scripture, when God has something important to say, it is sometimes repeated. Usually one repetition is sufficient to tell us to pay attention, as when Jesus would begin a statement with the words "Truly, Truly I say to you..." (In the original language the word "truly" is actually the word Amen. "Amen, amen, I say to you). Sometimes Scripture repeats something twice to make very certain we don't miss something important. A very few times does Scripture repeat something three times for emphasis---for example:

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory," are Isaiah's words when he became aware of the holiness of God and his own deep-seated sinfulness (Isaiah 6).

When it comes to the life of Jesus---His temptations, betrayal, trial, death and resurrection---four, not two, not three, Gospels were written. Surely this strategy by the Holy Spirit is intended to help us see the supremely great importance of God becoming a man. We must not miss the message that "...in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them..." (2 Corinthians 5:19)

John R.W. Stott has written a thorough treatment on the cross of Christ, revealing the importance of this subject from God's point of view [2]. But, the cross of Christ is all-too-frequently neglected or even crowded out of Christianity by other less "offensive" aspects of theology and Bible study.

Not only is the subject of the Cross all about the death of Jesus on our behalf, but also it points to the fact that we, too, must be put to death, in Christ, on that same cross, to gain eternal life.

Our crucifixion with Christ shows us that there is nothing in the old creation, in the first Adam, that can be saved apart from death. Paul writes, "I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if justification came by the law, then Christ died to no avail." (Galatians 2:20-21)

While writing to encourage the Christians in the early church at Colossae, the Apostle Paul reveals to them some of the mighty once-for-all-time accomplishments of Jesus on the cross:

"As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so live in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits (stoicheia) of the universe, and not according to Christ.

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (permanently), and you have come to fullness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ; and you were buried with him in (the) baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having canceled the (legal) bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside (blotted out), nailing it to the cross.

He disarmed (stripped of power and authority) the principalities and powers (in the heavenly places) and made a public example (spectacle) of them, (bodily) triumphing over them in him." (Colossians 2: 6-15)