What sort of benefits does the cross of Christ provide us?
It certainly is an appropriate question to ask as we are just days away from Good Friday and Easter. Jesus died on the cross, something happened, and now because of it things are different for us. Throughout Church history there certainly have been a variety of understandings of that what, and for the most part they have been fairly consistent with each other. But something happened in the 20th century that provided a very different spin on what the work of Christ means for us in this life, and the next.
Any Christian who affirms the Nicene Creeds affirms that the work of Christ is for the forgiveness of our sins. Because Christ took our sins, we receive the blessing and benefit of having them no longer on us. Now we have to ask the question: what does that look like and mean? Classically, that question has been answered by the Church as proclaiming that we now receive new life, free from the curse through and because of Christ that enables us to become like Him in a way that was not possible before His once for all sacrifice.
The early Christian witness is remarkably unified: the cross is the place where God’s love, justice, and mercy converge. Paul writes, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). In Colossians he adds that God has “forgiven us all our trespasses, having canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col 2:13–14, ESV). The cross, then, is the hinge of both forgiveness and new creation. We are no longer under the curse of the law, yet we are not left to drift into easy moral license; instead, we are placed into a new story—death to sin, life in Christ, formation into holiness.
The Church Fathers amplify this picture. St. Irenaeus speaks of Christ as the “last Adam” who recapitulates human life, summing up and redeeming every stage of our fallen history so that “what Adam rendered a slave he might make lord” (cf. Adv. Haer. 5.1.1). The cross is the definitive act through which Christ undoes the pride of the first Adam and restores human nature to communion with God. St. Augustine, writing in the 4th–5th century, similarly stresses that the cross is the place where God’s love and righteousness coincide: the innocent Son bears the punishment we deserve, and in that very act love is shown to be greater than our sin. As he puts it in one of his sermons, the cross bends the head to kiss us, extends the arms to embrace us, and opens the heart to receive us.
St. John Chrysostom, preaching in the 4th century, declares that the cross is not only the salvation of the Church but also “the boast of those who hope in it” (cf. his homilies on the Cross). For him, the cross frees us from enmity with God, breaks the authority of the devil, and delivers us from death and destruction. Through the cross, he says, we learn piety, discover the true nature of God, and are taught to die for others as Christ first died for us. In this ancient vision, the cross is never a mere event in the past; it is the living center of a transformed life and a reconciled world.
But in the 20th century, a new story attached itself to the cross. The so‑called “prosperity gospel” teaches that Christ’s death purchased not only spiritual salvation, but also material abundance, physical health, and social success. In this way of thinking, the atonement covers not just sin and guilt, but also poverty, sickness, and misfortune. Advocates of this view claim that if you have faith, give generously, and “confess” God’s promises, you will be rewarded with wealth, health, and a life free from suffering. The cross thus becomes less about reconciliation and more about a transaction in which God is obligated to grant earthly prosperity to those who “activate” their faith.
This message is a radical departure from Scripture. The apostles promise suffering, not immunity from it (Rom 8:17; 1 Pet 4:12–13). Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matt 16:24), not “follow me and I will guarantee you comfort.” Paul writes that “if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co‑heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Rom 8:17). The New Testament repeatedly pits the way of the cross against the way of the world, warning that those who love money stand in danger of idolatry (1 Tim 6:10; cf. Matt 6:19–21).
The prosperity gospel also distorts the biblical doctrine of the Abrahamic covenant. It claims that believers are Abraham’s heirs and therefore entitled to material prosperity as part of God’s covenant blessing. But when Paul speaks of “the blessings of Abraham” falling on the Gentiles in Christ, he immediately explains that this blessing is the promise of the Spirit through faith (Gal 3:14). The covenant is fulfilled spiritually in reconciliation, adoption, and the indwelling of the Spirit, not primarily in bank accounts or real estate.
The Bible sounds a clear warning against the idolatry of wealth and the illusion that faith is a lever for acquiring it. Jesus warns that “no one can serve two masters… You cannot serve God and money” (Matt 6:24). The apostle John exhorts, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21) a phrase that early Christian moralists read as a summons to flee the idolatry of greed. The pastoral letters likewise warn that the love of money is a root of many evils and can lead believers to wander from the faith (1 Tim 6:9–10). The Fathers echo these warnings. St. Augustine repeatedly warns against the “lust of the eyes” and the danger of treating wealth as a sign of God’s favor, pointing instead to the cross as the true mark of Christian identity. Likewise, St. John Chrysostom rails against the obsession with riches among his flock, urging them to see Christ crucified rather than Caesar adorned. For the Fathers, the cross is the final answer to the world’s false promises: it is the place where God exposes the emptiness of power, status, and wealth and offers something far greater: union with himself.
The prosperity gospel is not simply a different emphasis on the Christian life; it is a different gospel altogether. By teaching that the atonement guarantees material prosperity, it turns the relationship between God and human beings into a quid pro quo transaction: you give, you speak, you believe, and God must pay. This view undermines the very nature of grace, which is the unmerited favor of God. If prosperity is automatically attached to faith, then grace becomes a tool, and God becomes a kind of cosmic vending machine, programmed to dispense rewards when the right buttons are pressed. Moreover, the prosperity gospel misrepresents the nature of faith itself. The New Testament portrays faith as trust in the person and promises of Christ, not as a “spiritual force” that manipulates God. Yet many prosperity teachers speak of faith as a self‑generated power that can be harnessed to make God give. This is far removed from the Pauline picture of faith as the instrument by which we receive forgiveness, righteousness, and the Spirit (Gal 3:14; Eph 2:8–9). It is also alien to the apostolic view of prayer, which is directed to “Your will be done,” not to getting God to serve our desires (Matt 6:10; James 4:3).
The true gospel offers something more profound and lasting than the prosperity gospel’s glittering promises. The cross secures for us not an escape from suffering, but a share in the life of the risen Christ. St. Paul can write, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). This is the heart of the gospel‑centered alternative: the Christian life is not about maximizing personal gain, but about being conformed to the image of Christ, even through the cross.
The cross brings us:
- Reconciliation with God: “We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom 5:10) and “the Cross is the reconciliation of enemies to God” (Chrysostom).
- Deliverance from sin and death: the cross annuls the power of sin, breaks the hold of death, and unmasks the petty calculations of the devil.
- Sanctification and holiness: the Spirit is poured out on those who are joined to Christ, enabling us to walk in newness of life (Rom 6:4; Tit 3:5–7).
- Eternal inheritance: the cross is the pledge of resurrection and the promise of a new heavens and a new earth, where sorrow and pain will be no more (Rev 21:4).
For the Fathers, the cross is the icon of both God’s love and our vocation: it is the place where God stoops low enough to save, and where we are called to stoop low enough to serve. It is the standard raised against the world’s values, the pattern of true discipleship, and the guarantee of glory to come.
As we approach Good Friday and Easter, the prosperity gospel should not be our tutor. The cross did not come to make us rich by the world’s standards, but to make us heirs of God and joint‑heirs with Christ (Rom 8:17). It did not come to free us from suffering, but to give our suffering meaning by joining it to the body of the Crucified One. The benefits of the cross are spiritual, eternal, and relational: forgiveness, adoption, the Spirit, communion with God, and the hope of resurrection.
The true prosperity of the believer is to be like Jesus, to love as he loved, to serve as he served, to forgive as he forgave, and to hope as he hoped, even when the world calls it foolishness. As we walk toward the cross and the empty tomb, may we receive the cross’s real gifts, reject the false promises of the prosperity gospel, and live in the light of the one who, though rich, became poor for our sake, that we through his poverty might become truly rich in every way that matters (2 Cor 8:9).