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,…
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…
Was Jesus Abandoned by the Father on the Cross?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Abandonment, Cross, Jesus, Love, Trinity
Topics: Atonement and The Cross
As Jesus hung on the cross, he cried, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (Mt 27:46). This is the cry of our God who stooped to the furthest possible depths to experience his own antithesis, as the…
What Does it Mean to be “Saved”?
Category: General
Tags: Forgiveness, Salvation, Satan, Sin
Topics: Christus Victor view of Atonement
The common legal-framework view of salvation encourages people to understand it as mere acquittal, but there is much more to it than that. First let’s consider what God saved us FROM. It’s certainly true that…
God is Like a Trojan Horse
Category: General
Tags: Atonement, Christus Victor, Jesus, Satan
Topics: Christus Victor view of Atonement
Yesterday, I introduced a basic understanding of the Christus Victor view of Christ’s work on the cross. [Click here to read it.] Today, I want to expand on this briefly. Because God is a God…
What Happened on the Cross?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Already Not Yet, Atonement, God, God at War, Jesus, Satan
Topics: Atonement and The Cross, Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Since the time of Anselm (11th century), and especially since the Reformation in the 16th century, the tendency of the Western church has been to focus almost all of its attention on the anthropological dimension…
Cheap Grace and Consumer Christianity
Category: General
Tags: Atonement, Consumerism, Kingdom Living, Penal Substitution View of Atonement
Topics: Atonement and The Cross, Following Jesus
The “cheap grace” Gospel sells well in America. We live in a culture of consumerism that conditions us to habitually look for “the best deal.” We’re more or less trained from birth to live in…
The Danger of the Penal Substitution View of Atonement
Category: General
Tags: Atonement, Forgiveness, Jesus, Kingdom Living, Penal Substitution View of Atonement, Sin, Transformation
Topics: Atonement and The Cross
About 25 years ago I was traveling on the freeway to somewhere or other and I stopped at a truck stop to get a bite to eat. I sat down at the counter next to…
Atonement, Christus Victor, & Aslan Pt 2: Who Demands a Kill?
Category: General
Tags: Atonement, C.S. Lewis, Christus Victor, Chronicles of Narnia, Penal Substitution View of Atonement
Topics: Atonement and The Cross
For part 1 of 2, click here. It’s important to notice that it was the wicked Queen, not Aslan, who demands that Edmund be killed in accordance with the Deep Magic of justice. Christian’s have…
Atonement, Christus Victor & Aslan
Category: General
Tags: Atonement, Christus Victor, Chronicles of Narnia
Topics: Atonement and The Cross
No one illustrates this Christus Victor view of Christ’s work on the cross more beautifully than C.S. Lewis in his famous fantasy, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. The gist of the story is…
Does God Have a Dark Side?
Category: Essays
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Essay, Father, God, God is Love, Hell, Jesus, Wrath
Topics: Atonement and The Cross, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
In the previous post, I argued that we ought to allow the incarnate and crucified Christ to redefine God for us rather than assume we know God ahead of time and then attempt to superimpose…
What Kind of God Did Jesus Reveal?
Category: Essays
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Essay, God, Incarnation, Jesus, Love, Power
Topics: Atonement and The Cross
The ReKnew Manifesto exists to encourage believers and skeptics alike to re-think things they thought they already knew – hence our name, Re-Knew. I am currently working through the theology of the Manifesto in a series…
The Cross in the Mirror
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, ReKnew Manifesto, Self-Worth
Topics: Atonement and The Cross, Following Jesus, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
For those who are just tuning in, we are in the midst of a series that is fleshing out the theology of The ReKnew Manifesto. So far I’ve argued that the cross is the definitive…
The Cruciform Center Part 4: How Revelation Reveals a Cruciform God
Category: Essays
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Essay, Jesus, Lamb of God, Non-Violence, Revelation, Self-Sacrificial Love
Topics: Apologetics, Atonement and The Cross, Christology, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
I’ve been arguing that, while everything Jesus did and taught revealed God, the character of the God he reveals is most perfectly expressed by his loving sacrifice on the cross. Our theology and our reading…
The Cruciform Center Part 3: How Paul’s Epistles Reveal a Cruciform God
Category: Essays
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Essay, Paul, Paul's Letters, Self-Sacrificial Love
Topics: Apologetics, Atonement and The Cross, Christology, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
As we’ve discussed, the four Gospels point to a cruciform revelation of God (click here and here for a review), but what about the most widely read writer of the New Testament? What did the…
The Cruciform Center Part 2: How John’s Gospel Reveals a Cruciform God
Category: Essays
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Essay, God, Jesus, John's Gospel, Love, Self-Sacrificial Love
Topics: Apologetics, Atonement and The Cross, Christology, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
In the previous post, we looked at how the Synoptics illustrate the centrality of the cross. While the Gospel of John varies in its structure and language from the Synoptics, the cross remains at the…
The Cruciform Center Part 1: How Matthew, Mark and Luke Reveal a Cruciform God
Category: Essays
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Essay, God, Jesus, Self-Sacrificial Love, Synoptic Gospels
Topics: Apologetics, Atonement and The Cross, Christology, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
In the previous series of posts I’ve argued that a merely “Christocentric” approach to God is too general, as can be shown by the widely different conceptions of God people arrive at, despite their claim…
Forgiveness in the Christus Victor View of the Atonement
Category: Q&A
Tags: Atonement, Christus Victor, Forgiveness, God, Jesus, Sin, Wrath
Topics: Christus Victor view of Atonement
Did Jesus need to die on the cross to satisfy God’s wrath in order for us to be forgiven? Greg discusses the role of forgiveness in the Christus Victor view of the Atonement.
Does Jesus’ Abandonment on the Cross Destroy the Trinity?
Category: Essays
Tags: Abandonment, An Open Orthodoxy, Cruciform Theology, Dwayne Polk, Essay, Father, God is Love, Godhead, Jesus, Tom Belt, Trinity, Trinity and Process
Topics: Atonement and The Cross, Theological Method, Trinity
In my previous blog I argued that Jesus’ experience of God-forsakenness on the cross was genuine and that, as a matter of fact, there was a genuine abandonment of Jesus by the Father on the…
When God Abandoned God
Category: Essays
Tags: Abandonment, Cruciform Theology, Essay, Father, Son, Trinity
Topics: Atonement and The Cross, Trinity
On the cross, Jesus’ cried out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” – which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mt. 27:46). These are arguably the most shocking, beautiful, and profoundly revelatory words…