Cross
What Jesus Revealed About Being Human
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Jesus, Love, Salvation, Sin
According to the creation story, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they essentially ceased being the wonderful, God-centered, God-dependent human beings the Creator intended them to be. They became less than fully human. Instead,…
A Brief Theology of Salvation
Category: General
Tags: Atonement, Cross, Evil, Redemption, Salvation
Topics: Christus Victor view of Atonement
In the NT, one of the most frequent and fundamental images used to depict our salvation is “redemption.” The root of this term lytron means a “ransom” or “price of release,” and the term itself…
The Most Quoted Old Testament Verse
Category: General
Tags: Atonement, Cross, Power, Salvation, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
No other passage from the Old Testament is quoted more by New Testament authors than Psalm 110:1. Its frequent citation should cause us to pay attention to what is being said. It reads: The Lord…
Transported
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Atonement, Cross, The Work of the People
Topics: Atonement and The Cross
What did Jesus do on the cross that we couldn’t do for ourselves? Jesus stood in our place. God stepped in to bear the consequences of our sin. And in doing so, Christ defeated the powers,…
It’s All About the Crucified Christ
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Cruciform Theology, Easter, Love
Topics: Atonement and The Cross
The world was created by Christ and for Christ (Col 1:16). At the center of God’s purpose for creation is his plan to unite himself to us in Christ, reveal himself to us through Christ,…
The Hope of the Cross & Resurrection
Category: General
Tags: Already Not Yet, Cross, Easter, Eschatology, Hope, Resurrection
In a real sense, God has already “raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms” (Eph 2:6). And while “we do not see everything subject to [us],” the truth…
The Cross Reveals God’s Love
Category: General
Tags: Character of God, Cross, Cruciform Theology, Easter, God, Jesus
The central way Christ functions as the perfect image and exact representation of God is by dying on the cross. While Christ’s entire life manifests the true God, Christ came primarily to die. It was…
The Revelation of God in the Cross
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Cruciform Theology, God, Jesus, Love, Self-Sacrificial Love
The cross cannot be understood apart from the resurrection, just as the resurrection can never be understood apart from the cross. They are two sides of the same coin. If you consider the cross apart…
What the Cross Tells Us About God
Category: General
Tags: Benefit of the Doubt, Cross, Cruciform Theology, Jesus, Transformation
Whether we’re talking about our relationship with God or with other people, the quality of the relationship can never go beyond the level of trust the relating parties have in each other’s character. We cannot…
The Cleansing of the Temple and Non-Violence
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Love, Non-Violence
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple is the most commonly cited example of those who allege that he did not absolutize loving enemies or refraining from violence. I submit that this episode implies nothing of the…
The Cross in the Manger, Part 2
Category: General
Tags: Christmas, Cross, Jesus, Power, Upside-Down Kingdom
Topics: Christology
While some shepherds were tending their flock, an angel appeared to them announcing “good news that will cause great joy for all the people,” for it news about “a Savior…the Messiah, the Lord” (Lk 2:10-11)….
The Cross in the Manger
Category: General
Tags: Christmas, Cross, Incarnation, Jesus, Jürgen Moltmann, T. F. Torrance
Topics: Christology
There has been a strand within the Western theological tradition—one that is especially prevalent in contemporary American Evangelicalism—that construes the significance of the cross in strictly soteriological terms. The cross is central, in this view,…
10 Problems with the Penal Substitution View of the Atonement
Category: General
Tags: Atonement, Christus Victor, Cross, Penal Substitution View of Atonement
Topics: Atonement and The Cross
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 Heresy of “Just War”
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Faith, Just War, Law, Non-Violence, Old Testament
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
Since the time when the Jesus-looking kingdom movement was transformed into the Caesar-looking “militant and triumphant” Church, there has been a tradition of Christians by-passing the enemy-loving, non-violent teachings of the NT and instead appealing…
Crucifying Transcendence
Category: General
Tags: Church Fathers, Cross, Cruciform Theology, God, Jesus, Philosophy, Platonism, Transcendence
Topics: Attributes and Character
The classical view of God’s transcendence in theology is in large borrowed from a major strand within Hellenistic philosophy. In sharp contrast to ancient Israelites, whose conception of God was entirely based on their experience…
The Greatest Mystery of the Christian Faith
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Cruciform Theology, Incarnation, Love, Self-Sacrificial Love, Trinity
God has always been willing to stoop to accommodate the fallen state of his covenant people in order to remain in a transforming relationship with them and in order to continue to further his sovereign…
The Rule of Love
Category: General
Tags: Augustine, Cross, Cruciform Theology, Jesus, Love, Rule of Love
The traditional confession that Scriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres (“Sacred Scripture is its own interpreter”) presupposes that there is one divine mind behind Scripture, for example. Moreover, Church scholars have traditionally assumed that Scripture’s unity can be…
The Key to Understanding the Bible
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Bible Interpretation, Cross, Cruciform Theology, Jesus
In yesterday’s post we discussed how Jesus is the starting point for interpreting Scripture. If this is the case and Jesus is the subject matter of all Scripture, then the ultimate challenge is to disclose how each aspect of…
Rethinking the Resurrection
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Cruciform Theology, Jesus, Resurrection, Revelation
Topics: Christology
As much as every other aspect of Jesus life and ministry, I submit that the resurrection must be understood in light of the cross. This event was not anything like the resuscitation of a random…