God gave His Son to die for our sins on the Cross, and then raised him from death to be our heavenly High Priest. The symbol of the Christian Faith is not a crucifix, on which hangs a dead Jesus, but an empty cross — the symbol of his finished work.
Neither is the symbol a tomb, because after three days God raised him from among the dead. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” the angels asked the women at the empty tomb (Luke 24:5).
For God to forgive our sins, we must believe that Jesus died for us on the Cross. Thereafter, as Christians we no longer look back to the crucified Jesus — other than to give thanks — but heavenward to the living, raised, and glorified Lord Jesus.
The one who died for the sins of the world now intercedes to God for all who put their trust in his finished work on the Cross. When Jesus declared, “It is finished!” He was declaring that by bearing our sins, he had paid for our sins with his own blood and in so doing redeemed us — bought us back. The empty cross is a symbol that in God’s eyes our new life no longer on earth but elsewhere. As Jesus himself said, “You are in this world but not of this world.”
The risen and exalted Son of God loves the church and sanctifies it, i.e. cleanses it and sets it apart for his good purpose (Titus 3:5 & 1 Peter 3:21). God gave His Son to die for the sins of the world, and after doing that Jesus rose from the dead to become the ongoing Saviour of everyone who believes through his role as their living High Priest.
Our message to the world is not “Jesus Lives!” but that he died to save everyone from the penalty for sin, which is damnation! Only when others believe — as we did — that Jesus died for their sins, will they see that he now lives for them — and move onward and upward in life from the historic crucifix of the dead Saviour to the present reality of the risen Jesus as the believer’s heavenly High Priest and soon-coming Lord!
Not a crucifix that portrays the crucified Jesus. Nor an icon of an empty cross from which that the body of Jesus was taken down and placed in a tomb. Nothing that any idol or icon could ever capture.
Just the certainty in the heart of every believer that after three days Jesus rose again and ascended into heaven; that God accepted his shed blood as payment in full for the sins of the world; and that since then Jesus has been the High Priest of everyone who believes in him. Can we understand this to the fullest extent? Certainly not.
We can only accept it as being so from the Gospel accounts and because of our own heartfelt faith. Glory to God! Praise to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. {Insert herein your own heartfelt doxology.]