"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."  - John 12:32

     This language refers not only to the fact of Christ's death on the cross but also the very nature of that substitutionary death. His death accomplished redemption and all that it includes according to God's promise of salvation conditioned on Him alone. All the following are vitally connected as the sure and certain effects of His death for God's elect. Christ must be lifted up: 

1. On the cross to satisfy law and justice for His sheep and to establish the only righteousness whereby God could be just to justify the ungodly, and thereby destroy the works of the Devil.
2. From the grave to ascend on high in order that He might give eternal life to as many as the Father had given Him.
3. In the preaching of the Gospel as the One sent of the Father to fulfill all the conditions of our salvation, and as the Lord our Righteousness to reveal the only ground of justification and life.
4. In the sinner's heart by the Holy Spirit in regeneration and conversion (the new birth) that the sinner might by faith in Christ be delivered out of darkness into the light of the knowledge of Him as revealed in the Gospel.