Some people see in the cross nothing more than a fine example of sacrificial love.
They cannot find there anything of atonement, of triumph over the powers of darkness, of the satisfaction of God's justice, of bearing away the sins of others.
They see only an example of self-sacrificing love, an example to be emulated.
James Denney gave one of the most trenchant responses to that emphasis almost a century ago:
What would we think, he asks, of someone who ran down the Brighton pier at full tilt, loudly proclaiming his love for the world, and who jumped off the end of the pier and drowned? Surely we would not praise his love; surely we would pity his dementia. For one cannot meaningfully speak of self-sacrificing love unless there is a purpose to the self-sacrifice. The pathetic person's "self-sacrifice" is a tragic waste to be pitied, not a noble example to be emulated.
In exactly the same way to speak grandly of the example of Jesus' love, or even of his identification with human suffering, is entirely meaningless unless there is some end in view.
We must never lose sight of the fact that that end is our salvation—our pardon, our reconciliation to God, our restoration to a proper relationship with both God and other human beings, and ultimately our transformation when Jesus comes again.
That is what gives meaning to Jesus' self-sacrifice.
Mark 10:45
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