Thelogical Reflections

Volume 2, Issue 1 – April 2025

Why the Cross—Not the Resurrection—is the Centrality of the Gospel

Date: 19 April 2025

Author: Dr. Chansamone Saiyasak (Professor Religious Studies and Missiology), Theological Commissions & Religious Liberty Commissions of Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand & Asia Evangelical Alliance (a WEA-Regional Alliance) | Author’s Profile

The message of the Gospel stands on two historical pillars: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Both are essential, but they are not identical in function. The death of Christ—on the Cross—is where the saving work takes place. The Resurrection, glorious and essential though it is, serves as the divine confirmation of what the Cross has accomplished. It is the Cross, therefore, that the New Testament places at the heart of the Gospel, and this is precisely what John Stott emphasizes in his seminal work, "The Cross of Christ."

Stott writes with theological clarity that “the cross is at the centre of the evangelical faith. Indeed, as I argue in this book, it lies at the centre of the historic, biblical faith... Evangelical Christians believe that in and through Christ crucified God substituted himself for us and bore our sins, dying in our place the death we deserved to die” (The Cross of Christ, 11). This focus is deeply rooted in Scripture. When Paul distills the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15, he begins with the words, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3). This is not a mere sequence of events—it is a declaration of priority. The Cross is where the atonement is made, sin is judged, and salvation is accomplished.

But what of the Resurrection? John Stott does not diminish its role, but he is careful to distinguish it from the work of atonement. He writes, “The resurrection did not achieve our forgiveness, nor did it secure our justification... All these blessings are ascribed in the New Testament not to the resurrection but to the death of Jesus” (The Cross of Christ, 234). Paul affirms this distinction in Romans 4:25: “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” The Resurrection is God’s affirmation that the Cross was sufficient. It is the Father’s "Amen" to the Son’s cry: “It is finished” (John 19:30).

To grasp the centrality of the Cross, one must also enter the mystery of Christ’s suffering. Jesus did not die a painless, dignified death. He suffered—and in doing so, He absorbed not only the punishment of sin but the full weight of human pain, alienation, and shame. Stott reflects profoundly on this when he writes, “I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross... In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?” (The Cross of Christ, p. 326). Christ is not a detached deity. He is “the Suffering Servant,” foretold in Isaiah, who “was pierced for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5). His wounds are not incidental—they are the very means by which healing comes to us (1 Peter 2:24). In His suffering, Christ identifies with the wounded, the abandoned, and the broken—offering not only forgiveness, but solidarity.

And this brings the Cross into deep conversation with the Thai, Lao, and Southeast Asian worldview. In Buddhism, the cycle of suffering (dukkha) is driven by attachment and karma, leading to endless rebirths in samsāra. Salvation (or nibbāna) is reached by extinguishing desire and detaching from the self. But even devout practitioners carry the weight of karmic debt across lifetimes.

Here the message of the Cross speaks with power and compassion: Jesus, though innocent, enters the wheel of suffering—not as a karmic victim, but as a willing substitute. He bears the full burden of sin, shame, and karma, and breaks the cycle not by detachment, but by sacrificial love. He offers not extinction, but new life. This is not a call to escape the world through non-self, but to be embraced by a God who enters our pain to redeem it. As Paul writes, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).

In this way, the Suffering Christ is the answer to the deepest longing of Thai, Lao hearts, Southeast Asian hearts: not just to end suffering, but to be forgiven, made whole, and set free. Not by accumulating merit or extinguishing desire, but by receiving a gift of grace through the Cross. This is not a foreign religion—it is a universal remedy for a universal problem.

The earliest Christians preached a gospel that was unapologetically centered on the crucified Christ. Paul, addressing the Corinthians, declared, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2), and “We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:23). As Stott notes, “The Christian faith can be summed up as ‘the faith of Christ crucified’” (The Cross of Christ, 21). This preaching did not ignore the Resurrection, but it made clear that the crucifixion—marked by agony and mockery—was the act through which God reconciled the world to Himself.

The Church’s symbolic memory of Jesus reinforces this theological priority. Christians could have adopted many symbols—the manger, the towel of service, the empty tomb—but they chose the Cross. As Stott reflects, “From Jesus’ youth, indeed even from his birth, the cross cast its shadow ahead of him. His death was central to his mission” (The Cross of Christ, 19). The Cross alone provides the means by which sin is dealt with, guilt is removed, grace is extended, and suffering is dignified.

To call the Cross the center of the Gospel is not to diminish the Resurrection. Rather, it is to understand the divine choreography of salvation: the Cross is the means of atonement, the Resurrection is the evidence that it worked. In the profound words of Stott, “The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God... the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man” (The Cross of Christ, 160). That substitution took place not in the garden tomb, but on a Roman cross.

Therefore, we proclaim Christ crucified—not as a relic of Christian history, but as the center of our faith, the ground of our hope, and the source of our peace. From the Cross flows the Gospel, and from the empty tomb, its vindication. And to Thai, Lao and Southeast Asian hearts yearning for release from karma and rebirth, the Cross of Christ is not an alien message—it is the very doorway into freedom, peace, and eternal life in the embrace of the Suffering and Saving God.

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