The cross of Jesus Christ was not some surprise, not some plan B for God, but rather the plan known about within the Godhead since the beginning. God's response to the belittlement of his name, from the beginning of time, has been the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on a Roman cross.
Acts 4:27 tells us, "For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel..." Now, for the record, that's everyone in the world.
It would be like me saying, "You Americans and all other peoples of earth." This is everyone. Everyone involved in the crucifixion has been just been named here. But look at how it continues in verse 28 "...to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place." Whose hand and whose plan? God's plan.
The cross of Christ was God's idea. The death of Jesus was God's idea. From the first day, when God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, in perfect unity, said, "Let us make man in our image" (Gen. 1:26), the cross of Christ cast its shadow across all of eternity. It was the predetermined plan of God. The death of Jesus, wrath-absorbing cross of Christ, was the plan of God before creation.
The cross now stands at the central tenet of all we believe about salvation.
Matt Chandler, The Explicit Gospel
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