We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

cross

Nothing but Christ Crucified

One of the most remarkable expressions of the all-encompassing nature of the cross is reflected in an incidental, but extremely important, comment that Paul made in his First Letter to the Corinthians. He noted that when he brought “the testimony of God” to Corinth, he hadn’t come “with eloquence or human wisdom”. He instead “resolved to know nothing…except Jesus Christ and him crucified’ (I Cor. 1:1-2).

While this statement may be somewhat hyperbolic (did Paul really resolve to know absolutely nothing except Christ crucified?), it clearly implies that, for Paul, the entire gospel was found in the message of the cross. It implies that, when we understand what took place through the “foolishness of the cross,” we understand all that we need to know about God and about other humans. When you know the character of God revealed on the cross and what he thinks about us, as revealed on the cross, you’ve got the essence of all you need to know about anyone.

Excerpt from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 233-234

Photo credit: jean louis mazieres via Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-SA

Related Reading

When Jesus Questioned the Father

Though the sinless Son of God had perfect faith, we find him asking God the Father to alter the plan to redeem the world through his sacrifice—if it is “possible” (Matt. 26:42). As the nightmare of experiencing the sin and God-forsakenness of the world was encroaching upon him, Jesus was obviously, and understandably struggling. So,…

Lighten Up: And So It Began

The Starting Point for “Knowing God”

While it makes sense that Hellenistic philosophers embraced knowledge of God as the simple, necessary and immutable One in an attempt to explain the ever-changing, composite, contingent world (see post here for what this means), it is misguided for Christian theology to do so. By defining knowledge of God’s essence over-and-against creation, we are defining God’s essence…

Our True Eternal Home

In becoming our sin and bearing the death-consequences of sin, Christ has opened the way for us to participate in the fellowship of the triune God. Because of the cross, we are now free to abide in Christ and to have Christ abide in us (John 15:4-10). The word “abide”(menno) means “to take up residence.”…

Atonement: What is the Christus Victor View?

Most western Christians today understand the atonement as a sort of legal-transaction that took place between the Father and the Son that got humanity “off the hook.” The legal-transaction scenario goes something like this: God’s holiness demands that all sin be punished, which in turn requires that sinners go to eternal hell. The trouble is,…

10 Problems with the Penal Substitution View of the Atonement

If asked what Jesus came to do and how he did it, most contemporary Western Christians would automatically say something like, “Jesus took the punishment from God that I deserved.” This is what’s usually called the “Penal Substitution” view of the atonement, for it emphasizes that Jesus was punished by God in our place. His…