The Finished and Victorious Work of the Cross
During Passover, Passion Week, and Resurrection Weekend, millions pause to reflect on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Yet for many, this sacred season has been reduced to cultural tradition like Easter eggs, celebrations, and commercial distractions.
For believers, however, this moment calls us back to something far deeper: the High Cost of Love demonstrated at Calvary. It is a time to remember that our salvation, freedom, and reconciliation with God were not earned, they were purchased.
The contrast reveals a profound distinction between the merchandising of Easter and the holiness of the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
For believers around the globe, this is a sacred time, a solemn reminder of the Great Sacrifice that purchased our salvation, freedom, and reconciliation with God. May we never lose our wonder and awe at the price that was paid.
Perhaps you’ve heard or even asked yourself: Is what Jesus did on the Cross 2000 years ago really pertinent to me today?
It is im possible to have a strong foundation as a Christian unless we have arevelation of the Passion of Christ, the Work of The Cross, and The Power of the Resurrection…and how it can transform our lives today. Without that understanding, we will be apathetic believers at best.
In some circles and especially in our western culture, we may have heard about the Cross so often that the thought of our sins that put Him there doesn’t still break our hearts, igniting a burning passion of gratitude and service within us.
We sometimes take for granted the High Cost of Love that was displayed upon the Cross for us. I wonder if it’s because we have so many distractions and substitutes that put more focus on self rather than fixing our eyes on the Author and Finisher of our faith?
The Cry from the Cross: “It Is Finished!”
Among the final words Jesus spoke while hanging on the Cross, recorded in the Gospel of John, are these powerful words:
“So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.” (John 19:30)
These were not words of resignation but a declaration of victory. The Greek word tetelestai means paid in full, completed, accomplished. The mission for which Christ came into the world had reached its fulfillment.
Immediately following His death, something extraordinary occurred: “Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” (Mark 15:38)
The veil was of considerable size and weight. I’ve been taught that it was 30 feet wide and 90 feet high, supported by four pillars. So when we read that the veil was torn from top to bottom, a supernatural event is being described, as if some great pair of hands took to the veil and tore it as if it were nothing. We are looking at nothing less than the hands of God reaching down to rip away that which separated us from His presence!
This veil in the temple separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, the earthly symbol of God’s dwelling presence. Because of humanity’s sin, the holiness of God would not allow the presence of sinful flesh before Him. No one was allowed to go behind the veil into the presence of God except for once a year, on the Day of Atonement, when the High Priest was permitted to enter and make atonement for the people.
When Jesus, the High Priest of the New Covenant, completed His work on the Cross, access to God was opened.
“For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.” (Ephesians 2:18)
Through the finished work of Christ, we now receive forgiveness, salvation, healing, freedom, and restored fellowship with God. The Cross was not merely an event; it was the doorway into relationship.
The Great Exchange:
Centuries before Calvary, the prophet Isaiah foresaw what would take place:
“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows… He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:4–5)
This prophetic picture reveals what I call The Great Exchange through the High Cost of Love. Jesus exchanged:
• our sin for His righteousness,
• our guilt for His forgiveness,
• our sickness for His healing,
• our death for His life,
• our separation for intimacy with the Father.
An old hymn captures it well: We owed a debt we could not pay; He paid a debt He did not owe.
Christ willingly experienced our separation so we could experience His fellowship.
A Question Worth Asking:
Is what Jesus accomplished on the Cross truly relevant today?
It is impossible to build a strong Christian life without a clear revelation of Christ’s passion and sacrifice. Without understanding the Cross, believers often drift into apathy, living shallow spiritual lives disconnected from eternity.
The late Leonard Ravenhill frequently wrote a piercing question on his notes:
“Are the things you’re living for worth Christ dying for?”
In one handwritten letter he sent me during a difficult season of his life, despite illness and physical suffering, he concluded with a statement that deeply impacted me:
“He is no fool who exchanges his burden of sin for the burden of the Lord.”
Those words convicted and encouraged me. The Christian life is not merely
receiving forgiveness; it is exchanging our burdens for His purposes.
The Exchange of Burdens:
The first exchange Christ made was eternal, giving us life in place of death. Yet the exchange continues daily as we surrender our will to His.
To follow Christ means embracing His heart for a broken world. If our sins are forgiven yet we lack passion for God’s purposes, something is missing at the foundation of our faith.
Paul reminds us: “You are not your own…you were bought at a price.” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)
Christianity is not living as we please while occasionally calling on God for help. It is yielding every part of our lives to His lordship. Our goal is not to make God fit into our plans, but to fit into His.
Paul seemed to be wondering if the Corinthians had forgotten this foundation stone of a fruitful Christian life. Christianity is not living any way you want, with a quick call to Jesus for help whenever you get yourself in trouble. The life of faith is not a “pick and choose” game where we keep what we like and discard what we don’t. Christianity is not making the Word of God fit what we want so we can continue to satisfy our own fleshly desires and greed. Our quest should be to fit into God’s plans rather than trying to squeeze Him into ours.
This is still a watershed issue that should challenge our values today. Despite the fact that Jesus died to give us new life through His resurrection, we are often too busy thinking about and doing things which amount to resurrecting the “old man” rather than living the resurrected life, so it becomes very easy to get off into error.
Identifying with the New Life:
Many believers struggle because they continue identifying with their past rather than their new identity in Christ. When we continually rehearse old failures, strongholds remain.
The Cross calls us to die to the old man and live the resurrected life. When we die to ourselves and commit ourselves to the full lordship of Jesus, our hearts become less likely to be drawn into deception. Thus, a firm commitment to do the will of God will keep us from falling into error by entertaining what is not His will for our lives. When we are not focused on God’s covenant for our lives, it is so easy to become deceived through vain imaginations, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.
We need to orientate our minds toward identifying with our new life in Christ instead of our old man, who was dead in trespasses and sins. When we identify with our pasts, it is impossible to break the strongholds of sin in our lives. This “identification” problem stands at the core of most struggling Christians.
Jesus promised: “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine…” (John 7:17)
Commitment to obedience protects us from deception and aligns our hearts with truth.
The Leper’s Cleansing – A Prophetic Picture:
Leviticus 14:1-4 describes the “great exchange” in a truly wonderful way:
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “This shall be the law of the leper for
the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought to the priest. And the priest shall go
out of the camp, and the priest shall examine him; and indeed, if the leprosy is
healed in the leper, then the priest shall command to take for him who is to be
cleansed two living and clean birds, cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop.”
Leprosy, in the Bible, is symbolic of the uncleanness of sin and especially the result of sin: death. Aside from a miracle, there was no cure for leprosy. (Yet, God provided instructions for those who would be cured! Proof that He wants to do miracles!) Because it was highly contagious, those who were infected had to live in separate colonies. If you were a leper and someone approached you on the road, by law you had to raise your arms and shout, “Unclean, unclean!” so people would know to avoid you for fear of being infected.
God uses leprosy in Leviticus 14 to illustrate how our sins were cleansed in Jesus 2000 years ago on the Cross. This is the same chapter Jesus referred to in Matthew 8:1-4 after He healed a leper. When the leper was “cleansed” or healed, Jesus told him to follow the prescription in Leviticus 14. A healed leper would undergo a specific ritual designed to teach about the Messiah and His redemptive work.
One bird was killed in an earthen vessel over running water — a picture of Christ in human flesh.
The second bird was dipped in the blood and released into the open field.
The imagery is profound.
The slain bird represents Jesus’ sacrificial death.
The living bird represents resurrection life, Christ victorious and all who are set free in Him.
Through His blood, the sinner is cleansed and released into freedom.
This is the Great Exchange: He died so we might live.
Consecrated Hearing, Doing, and Walking:
After cleansing, blood was applied to three places on the one who is cleansed:
This symbolized total consecration.
The ear — set apart to hear God’s voice.
The hand — set apart for righteous works.
The foot — set apart to walk in God’s ways.
Every dimension of life comes under the sanctifying power of Christ’s blood. Holiness is not human striving but divine transformation.
The Oil Upon the Blood:
Oil, representing the Holy Spirit, was then placed upon the same areas where the blood had been applied.
The order reveals God’s pattern:
1. Cleansing through the blood
2. Sanctification for God’s purposes
3. Empowerment by the Spirit
The Holy Spirit seals salvation, sanctifies character, and empowers believers for service: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” (Acts 1:8)
The early church proclaimed not only a crucified Christ but a risen Lord demonstrated through Spirit-filled lives.
Sealed, Sanctified, and Empowered:
The remaining oil was poured upon the head of the cleansed person — a picture of overflowing empowerment. This foreshadows the outpouring of the Holy Spirit described in Acts.
The Christian life is meant to be lived in supernatural dependence upon God.
Without Him we can do nothing, but through His Spirit we become witnesses of the living Christ.
Leviticus 14 is loaded with symbolic references that are easy to miss. “Cedar wood” is representative of the wood of the Cross, and thus becomes a symbol of the crucifixion. “Scarlet” is a type of the blood of Christ which was shed on that Cross for our sakes. “Hyssop” is symbolic of the purging Jesus experienced on our behalf (Psalm 51:7, Hebrews 1:3), cleansing away the sins of the world by His blood.
The chapter continues:
“And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel
over running water. And for the living bird, he shall take it, the cedar wood and
the scarlet and the hyssop, and dip them and the living bird in the blood of the
bird that was killed over the running water. And he shall sprinkle it seven times on
him who is to be cleansed from the leprosy, and shall pronounce him clean, and
shall let the living bird loose in the open field” (Leviticus 14:5-7).
What is the significance of the two birds?
The first bird is killed in an earthen vessel over running water. The first bird typifies God manifested in the “earthen vessel” of flesh—Jesus of Nazareth. “Running water” (sometimes referred to as living water) is figurative of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was “killed…over running water” in the sense that, from beginning to end, He was anointed by and saturated with the Holy Spirit “without measure” (see John 1:32, Matthew 26:6-13, John 4:7-14).
The second (living) bird is taken together with the cedar wood, the scarlet, and the hyssop, and dipped in the blood of the bird that was killed over running water. The leper is sprinkled with this blood seven times, then the living bird is loosed into the open field.
Many commentators believe the second bird is figurative of us as we are cleansed of our sins, and the bird that was killed is figurative of the Lord exchanging His life for us.
Think about it! The “living” bird is taken together with the elements representative of the crucifixion. It is dipped in the “sinless” blood of the bird which was killed over running water, then let loose into the open field after the leper is sprinkled with blood seven times.
Jesus overcame the world “by water and blood” (1 John 5:5-6). Although He was crucified, death could not hold Him because of His sinless blood. He was resurrected from the dead by the living water of the Holy Spirit. Then He sprinkled His blood before the temple in heaven, once and for all, so that He could forever cleanse all those who would come to Him (John 20:17, Hebrews 9:12).
The Crown of Thorns for the Crown of Life:
Jesus bore a crown of thorns — symbolizing humanity’s curse — so that we might receive the Crown of Life.
He took upon Himself:
• sin,
• guilt,
• fear,
• pain,
• death.
Scripture promises: “Be faithful… and I will give you the crown of life.” (Revelation 2:10)
One day we will lay every crown before Him, declaring Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
The Cross Was Not an Accident — It Was Fulfillment
Among Jesus’ final words were: “It is finished.” (John 19:30)
The Greek word tetelestai means paid in full.
This declaration meant more than the end of suffering. It announced that everything foreshadowed in the Old Covenant sacrificial system had reached completion.
Jesus did not abolish the Law; He fulfilled it.
The entire Levitical system pointed prophetically toward Him
Jesus, Our Perfect Sacrifice:
In Leviticus, God established five primary sacrifices that governed Israel’s worship and relationship with Him. Each revealed a different aspect of atonement and fellowship. Together they formed a prophetic picture of Christ.
At Calvary, Jesus became the Perfect and Complete Sacrifice, fulfilling all the offerings simultaneously.
1. The Burnt Offering — Total Surrender (Leviticus 1)
The burnt offering was completely consumed on the altar, symbolizing total consecration and devotion to God. Jesus fulfilled this perfectly. He held nothing back. “Not My will, but Yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)
Christ offered Himself entirely, in absolute obedience to the Father.
The Cross reveals complete surrender.
2. The Grain Offering — The Sinless Life (Leviticus 2)
The grain offering contained no blood but represented thanksgiving and a life of purity and holiness. It was made of fine flour, symbolizing a life without corruption.
Jesus lived the flawless life we could never live. He was:
• without sin
• without mixture
• without compromise
His perfect humanity qualified Him to become our substitute.
The Cross was effective because His life was spotless.
3. The Peace Offering — Restored Fellowship (Leviticus 3)
The peace offering celebrated reconciliation between God and humanity. It symbolized restored relationship and shared fellowship through the Cross: “Having made peace through the blood of His cross…” (Colossians 1:20)
Jesus removed hostility between God and man.
The veil tearing in the temple declared that peace had been restored and access to God reopened.
The Cross was not only about forgiveness — it was about fellowship.
4. The Sin Offering — Atonement for Sin (Leviticus 4)
The sin offering dealt with humanity’s sinful nature, cleansing defilement before God.
Paul writes: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Jesus became our sin offering, carrying the weight of humanity’s rebellion upon Himself.
The judgment we deserved fell upon Him.
This is the heart of the Great Exchange.
5. The Trespass Offering — Payment for Our Debt (Leviticus 5)
The trespass offering addressed specific acts of wrongdoing and required restitution.
At Calvary, Jesus paid humanity’s moral and spiritual debt in full.
When He cried, “It is finished,” the account was settled forever.
The debt ledger was erased.
The Perfect Sacrifice:
Unlike repeated temple sacrifices, Jesus’ sacrifice was once and for all.
“By one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:14)
He was simultaneously:
• the High Priest
• the Lamb
• the Altar
• and the Offering
Every sacrifice pointed to Him. Every altar anticipated Him. Every drop of blood foreshadowed Calvary.
The Cross was the convergence of centuries of prophecy.
A Personal Lesson — The Exchange of Burdens:
During a season when I suffered severe sciatic pain and emotional exhaustion, I received a handwritten letter from Leonard Ravenhill, then in his 80s, recovering from illness and heart attacks.
Yet he wrote with surrender, not complaint:
“My times are in Thy hands… ready for service, lowly or great.”
He ended with these words:
“He is no fool who exchanges his burden of sin for the burden of the Lord.”
Those words convicted me deeply.
The Cross is not only where Jesus removes our burden — it is where we exchange our lives for His purposes.
The Invitation of the Cross:
The Cross still asks each of us a personal question: Are you living surrendered to Christ, or still carrying the weight of your past?
While many today pursue exalted and high places, Jesus, The Exalted One, left His highest place to pursue us.
In Jesus’ own words, “No greater love has no man than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
The Great Exchange is available today.
Exchange guilt for grace.
Exchange striving and self-rule for surrender.
Exchange your brokenness for His life.
Exchange fear for faith.
Exchange religion for relationship.
Let our prayer be:
“Not my will, Lord, but Yours be done. Transform my heart. Sanctify my life. Let
me never be ashamed of the Gospel.”
BY DOUG STRINGER
(Portions extrapolated from Doug’s book, Born to Die…that we may live as well as other writings from throughout the years)
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