Now the death of the Lord Jesus is absolutely unique. It is substitutionary. There is no parallel death to Jesus' death—his must stand as absolute in our thinking. His substitutionary death on the cross, in space and time in history, had infinite value because of who he is as God. Thus nothing need be added to the substitutionary value of his death, nor can anything be added. He died once for all. Having said that as forcefully as we can state it, we add that, nevertheless, in Luke 9:22-24, we find Christ puts forth a chronological order. In verse 22: "The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day." The order is in three steps: rejected, slain, raised. This speaks of his coming unique and substitutionary death, yet this order—rejected, slain, raised—is immediately related by Jesus Christ himself, in verses 23 and 24, to us, the Christians. "And he said unto them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself [renounce himself], and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will loose himself for my sake, the same shall save it." Here Jesus takes this order that was so necessary for our redemption in the unique substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ and applies it to the Christian's life. The order—rejected, slain, raised—is also the order of the Christian life of true spirituality; there is no other.
If we forget the absolute uniqueness of Christ's death, we are in heresy. As soon as we set aside or minimize as soon as we cut down in any way, as the liberals of all kinds do in their theology, on the uniqueness and substitutionary character of Christ's death, our teaching is no longer Christian. On the other hand, let us remember the other side of this matter. If we forget the relationship of this order to us as Christians, then we have a sterile orthodoxy, and we have no true Christian life. Christian Life will wither and die; spirituality in any true biblical sense will come to an end.
—Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality
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