Julia Stankova is a Bulgarian artist indebted to and innovating on the Orthodox iconographical tradition that emerged in the Balkans in the Middle Ages. Her 2004 Crucifixion is, like all Crucifixion icons, an image of both death and life. It portrays Christ hanging on the cross—but this instrument of execution exudes light and nimbs his head and penetrates a dark semicircle at the base that likely represents the abyss, the underworld. Christ’s love plunges into the depths. Above him hovers a host of angels, and behind him night turns to day.

To Christ’s sides on a smaller scale, ten half-length figures—men and women—mirror his pose of outstretched arms, each surrounded by the same bright cruciform outline. They all look up to him, ‘the pioneer and perfecter of [their] faith’ (Hebrews 12:2). These are those who, like the apostle Paul, have been justified by Christ—crucified with him and now sharing in his life (Galatians 2:20). That life is marked by a cross-shaped ethic of sacrificial love and incarnational presence.

In the background is a paradisal landscape with a flowing river; green, flower-studded hills; and a lush tree with an apple hanging from it, alluding to the forbidden fruit of Eden. According to Christian tradition, it was Adam and Eve’s taking of this fruit that brought sin into the world. Deliverance was wrought by another tree—the tree of the cross, whose fruit is Christ. The red of the distant apple is echoed in the blood that spurts from Christ’s five wounds. This blood, Christians believe, restores humanity to a right relationship with God and to a renewed Eden.

Those who put their faith in the efficacy of Christ’s perfect sacrifice, rejecting all attempts at self-justification (which will always only ever fall short), enjoy the benefits that are Christ’s. The ranks of light-surrounded followers that flank Stankova’s Christ have relinquished any sense of self-entitlement, instead resting fully in Christ’s light-exuding, finished work.