I like this perspective on the cross from Torrance as he engages the idea of ‘two-ages’, and the cross as the center-point and beginning point of the next age (which we live out of); here is Torrance:

Here we have a very important element in the conception of atonement, that by his cross Jesus Christ has made a past — once for all he has put something completely behind him. On one side of the cross there is set the old Adam, the old aeon and all that belongs to them, and they will never be resurrected. ‘Old things are passed away,’ as St Paul put it, but on the other side of the cross, ‘all things are become new.’ The cross created a past, but only because it creates a new future, or a ‘better hope’ as the epistle to the Hebrews puts it. That is what Christ has done by his redemption: opened up eschatological vista for faith in which we are already planted in Christ, and with Christ already enter through the veil into God’s presence. It is because Christ ever lives as our redeemer, our surety, our atonement, that our life is set on a wholly and eternally new basis. As such Christ is the head of all things, the head of the new age, the messianic king, to whom the whole of the world to come belongs. That is an eternal kingdom that cannot be shaken, and that is the inheritance in Christ which is freely bestowed upon us. Through Christ the forerunner, the great podeh-goel, or mighty kinsman-redeemer, the author and finisher of our faith, we enter alreay into redemption, tasting already the powers of the age to come, already in anticipation of the great anapausis [refreshment], the final resting place that is the full and blessed enjoyment of the world to come. (T. F. Torrance, ed. Robert T. Walker, “Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ,” 95-6)