teaching/sermons/col-1-15-20/expansion/11_cross_as_throne.md

11 — Cross as Throne / Enthronement Through Suffering

BP material on the claim that the crucifixion is itself the coronation — not the prelude to it, not redeemed by it, but the moment of enthronement. Sources: article:the-apocalypse-of-jesus, podcast:high-priest-showdown, podcast:gospel-apocalypse, and the hypsoō / "lifted up" cluster surfaced by semantic search. /message-prep style — verbatim quotes + record_id citations + BP-distinctive angles. Pick threads to develop.

Connects to Col 1:18 ("he is the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy") and Col 1:20 ("making peace through his blood, shed on the cross") — the supremacy of v.18 is cross-shaped supremacy, and the reconciliation of v.20 is the throne-room transaction.

Thread 1 — The single most concentrated quote

"From one perspective, the cross looks like a beastly torture device. But Jesus viewed it as his throne. And on this throne, he exposed the sub-human nature of our evil by letting it do its worst, and then he overcame it with his love."

[video:son-of-man frag=15] and [study-notes:son-of-man-script-references frag=15]

Single sentence. Carries the whole claim. Note Tim's pairing: the cross exposes (apocalypse = unveiling) AND overcomes. Both moves happen on the same wood at the same hour.

Thread 2 — Mark's Gospel designed as a 3-act apocalypse, with the cross as the climactic revelation

This is the spine of [article:the-apocalypse-of-jesus]. Mark is structured so that each act contains an apocalypse — a moment where Jesus's royal-priestly identity gets unveiled:

The Mark-structural point for v.18/v.20: the unveiling of the King happens at the cross, not despite it. Mark's third apocalypse is not the resurrection — it's the centurion at the foot of the cross.

"Throughout Mark's story we see a shocking apocalypse develop—the suffering, crucified, and risen Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah and the royal priest King." [article:the-apocalypse-of-jesus]

Thread 3 — The Caiaphas showdown: Daniel 7 + Psalm 110 fused

[podcast:high-priest-showdown] walks the whole arc and lands here. The trial scene (Mark 14:61–62) is the moment Jesus explicitly self-identifies as the enthroned royal-priestly Son of Man — and then he gets executed. The execution doesn't interrupt the enthronement; it consummates it.

"You say that I am, but I tell you, from this moment forward, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven." — Jesus before Caiaphas (Matthew's version, cited in podcast)

Tim's gloss:

"He's not just saying I'm like another priest. This is as Jewish, Hebrew Bible of a way as you could say, 'I'm that one that Moses met on the mountain. I am the one that David talks about in Psalm 110. I am that one that Daniel had a vision about that goes to the right hand of the human that extends to the right hand of God.'" [podcast:high-priest-showdown]

Two texts welded together in one self-declaration:

Tim citing Nicholas Perrin's Jesus the Priest:

"All along Jesus has been hinting at his own identity as the royal priestly son of man, in flat contradiction to the high priest's own tenure. Mark's account is a tale of two competing priestly powers... For Mark, Jesus is this royal priestly son of man, the Melchizedek-type seed of David who displaces and judges Caiaphas." [podcast:high-priest-showdown]

The showdown structure: anointed-one vs. anointed-one. The high priest condemns the true high priest. Caiaphas tears his clothes (the one act forbidden to a high priest, Lev 21:10) — performing his own disqualification at the moment of Jesus's vindication. The cross that follows is then announced as the throne by the explicit Psalm-110/Daniel-7 fusion Jesus just spoke.

Thread 4 — hypsoō: the verb that means "lift up" and "exalt" simultaneously

The Johannine pillar of the cross-as-throne reading. Greek hypsoō (ὑψόω) is a double-meaning verb — physical lifting AND royal exaltation. John exploits this:

The Hebrew-Bible source text is Isaiah 52:13 (the opening line of the suffering servant poem):

"Look, my servant will prosper. He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted." — quoted in [podcast:high-priest-showdown]

The LXX uses hypsōthēsetai — same verb John uses for the crucifixion. Tim's reading of Isaiah 52:13–14:

"There's this figure called God's servant who's gonna be lifted up and exalted. But then we're immediately told he's gonna get worked over... His exaltation is having people be shocked at him because he's so beat up. And somehow that exaltation by being beat up is the way that he sprinkles the nations." [podcast:high-priest-showdown]

From the wider corpus on John specifically:

"In the Gospel of John, Jesus' exaltation is precisely the moment that he's hoisted up onto this Roman [cross]." [podcast:i-am-who-i-am-part-10-born-spirit frag=117]

"In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, 'I will be lifted up.' It's the language of exaltation and enthronement on the cross." [podcast:meaning-hope frag=118]

The Numbers 21 / John 3:14 hyperlink adds a second layer: the serpent on the pole is itself a paradox-image — the cursed thing lifted up becomes the means of healing. The cross is the new bronze serpent. What kills becomes what saves, by being elevated.

Thread 5 — The Markan ironic coronation

Mark 15 is staged as a coronation parody that the narrator means literally. Each "mockery" item is also a real coronation rite:

"His crucifixion is depicted as his enthronement as the King of the Jews. He receives a crown. He also receives a robe. He's exalted up, not onto a throne, but onto the cross." [podcast:kingdom-god-part-3 frag=14] / [video:gospel-kingdom frag=11] / [youtube:xmFPS0f-kzs frag=11]

The crown (of thorns), the purple robe, the placard naming the kingdom ("King of the Jews" — in three languages, the empire's diplomatic conventions for an enthronement proclamation), the elevation, the flanking attendants (the two thieves — Mark deliberately echoes James and John's request to sit at Jesus's right and left "in your glory," Mark 10:37 → Mark 15:27).

"It's enthronement language to be highly exalted... that's the moment of the crucifixion is Jesus's enthronement. I think that's the claim." [podcast:kingdom-god-part-3]

"He's enthroned as an executed Israelite." [podcast:obvious-extravagant-claim-gospels-gospels-e4 frag=83]

"He gets anointed for his death, but his death is also his coronation." [podcast:anointed-question-and-response frag=139]

The point: the irony is in the eye of the soldiers; the reality is the gospel writer's claim. Mark believes this is the enthronement, performed by the cosmic powers' own hand without their understanding (cf. Thread 7).

Thread 6 — "The cross as the exalted divine throne"

The most direct statement of the thesis in BP's corpus:

"So the Gospel, I want us to see, the cross as the exalted divine throne. It's the place where you see how God rules the world. It's the moment..." [podcast:theme-son-man-e1-empty-throne frag=117]

And:

"On his glorious throne, is what you are seeing when you see Jesus being hoisted up onto the cross. Holy cow. You're actually seeing who God really is in his essence when you look at Jesus on the cross." [podcast:theme-god-e10-gods-name-character frag=88]

The cross is not God's exception — it is God's essence. The character of God is most visible there, not least visible there. This is BP's refusal of the "wrath placated, now love" framing: at the cross, God's glory and God's love are the same revelation, not sequential.

"In his death, as he absorbs all of the pain and the sadness into himself, it's as if the cross becomes the meeting place of heaven and earth." [podcast:gods-kingdom-has-arrived-new-testament-themes-part-1 frag=130]

Heaven-and-earth-overlap (BP's Eden frame) is restaged at Golgotha. The cross is the new tabernacle, the new Holy of Holies — where heaven and earth meet, and where the priest dies for the people. (The Mark 15:38 torn temple veil makes this explicit: same Greek eschisthē / schizō as the heavens torn at the baptism. Mark frames the whole gospel between two violent tearings.)

Thread 7 — 1 Cor 2:8: the cosmic powers crucified the Lord of glory without realizing what they were doing

"None of the rulers of this age understood, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." (1 Cor 2:8)

Paul's claim is functionally cross-as-throne in cosmic-power language. The archontes tou aiōnos toutou — Col 1:16's thronoi, kyriotētes, archai, exousiai — performed the execution. Had they known the cross was the coronation, they would have refused to carry it out. They could not see what they were doing because what they were doing reversed their power. The crucifixion is therefore not the powers winning; it's the powers being outmaneuvered by their own act.

Maps cleanly to Col 1:16 + 1:20 + 2:15 ("he disarmed the powers and authorities... triumphing over them by the cross"). The Colossians 2:15 picture is a Roman triumphal procession — but the triumphator is the crucified one, and the chains drag the very exousiai listed in 1:16.

BP-distinctive angles a generic source wouldn't surface

  1. Apocalypse = unveiling, not catastrophe. "The biblical words for apocalypse mean 'to reveal' or 'to uncover.' So in a literal sense, the Gospel accounts reveal the identity of Jesus." [article:the-apocalypse-of-jesus] The cross is not the catastrophe of the gospel — it is the apocalypse of the gospel. Same root behavior as the genre but addressed to the cross itself.
  2. Royal-priestly fusion. BP refuses to separate Jesus-as-king from Jesus-as-priest. The cross is both enthronement (royal) and atoning sacrifice (priestly) in one act because the figure is one figure — Melchizedek-shaped from the start. Col 1:18 (head) + Col 1:20 (blood) is one office, not two.
  3. The schizō inclusio. Mark uses schizō twice: heavens torn at baptism (1:10), temple veil torn at death (15:38). Same Greek root. The gospel opens and closes with God violently breaking open access — and the closing tear is at the moment Jesus is most enthroned.
  4. The "tale of two priestly powers." Mark is not a king-vs-empire story; it's a high-priest-vs-high-priest story. Caiaphas's office is exposed and replaced by the cross-priest. Col 1:18 ("he is the head") inherits this — Jesus displaces the current heads of cosmic and ecclesial power.
  5. Refused binary: cross and throne, not cross then throne. BP does not narrate the gospel as humiliation → exaltation in two stages (kenosis-then-glory). The cross is the glory. Phil 2:9's "therefore God highly exalted him" reads, in this frame, as recognition of what already happened on the wood, not a reversal of it.
  6. The Isaiah 52:13 → John 12:32 thread is the structural backbone of John's whole gospel. The Greek verb (hypsoō) is the same one in both. John's "lifted up" is not metaphorical embellishment — it is technical enthronement vocabulary lifted from the Servant Song.

For Col 1:15–20 specifically

For digging deeper (entry-name pointers)

Sources