By Ptr. Paul Mojica

Picture the final hours: a man stripped of every friend, mocked by the crowd he came to save,
and nailed to a beam of wood under a darkened sky. That is where our salvation was won. We
are often told that “Salvation is as easy as ABC,” that is, admit, believe, confess. It is a
memorable way to describe our response to grace. But stand for a moment at the foot of the
cross and ask whether “easy” describes God’s side of that story. There, “easy” is not the word
we would probably choose. I think instead of another ABC: abandoned, betrayed, and crucified.
This is the ordeal Jesus Christ endured to undo every form of evil and secure a heavenly
inheritance for us (1 Pet 1:3–5).

What Christ accomplished on the cross will remain an inexhaustible field of exploration. With
this in mind, let us devote a moment each week to meditating on the different dimensions or
motifs of Christ’s atoning work. Hebrews 10:5–18 speaks of its fullness or completeness. Such
fullness is described through abundant images, metaphors, and frameworks or models. What a
thrilling task it would be to weave these materials together. We hope to see how complex God’s
plan of redemption is, encompassing several dimensions, and at the same time, reflect on how
it is cohesively accomplished in Christ.

One final word: I am aware of the unending debates about which model of atonement captures
the entirety of God’s actions and which metaphor should be dismissed as irrelevant in today’s
context. I hope that we will not get hung up on these disputes, no matter how important they are
as part of our theological tasks. Let us move beyond by recognizing that the atoning work of
Christ is manifested in people of various historical contexts and theological priorities. And let us
not forget the divine origin of atonement. Because every motif springs from the same divine
source, their very diversity is not a threat to coherence but a witness to it. A thousand hues, one
canvas, one painter, one story.

Though we cannot avoid some overlapping of our reflections, I am convinced that each motif
emphasizes a distinct theological concept, giving us a particular focus on the nature of
atonement and, most importantly, the character of God. “If the Cross of Christ is anything to the
mind,” John Stott wrote, “it is surely everything — the most profound reality and the sublimest
mystery” (Stott, The Cross of Christ, 46).