Atonement and The Cross

It’s All About the Crucified Christ

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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,…

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10 Problems with the Penal Substitution View of the Atonement

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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…

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Was Jesus Abandoned by the Father on the Cross?

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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…

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What Does it Mean to be “Saved”?

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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…

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God is Like a Trojan Horse

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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…

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What Happened on the Cross?

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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…

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Cheap Grace and Consumer Christianity

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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…

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The Danger of the Penal Substitution View of Atonement

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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…

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Atonement, Christus Victor, & Aslan Pt 2: Who Demands a Kill?

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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…

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Atonement, Christus Victor & Aslan

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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…

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Does God Have a Dark Side?

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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…

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What Kind of God Did Jesus Reveal?

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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…

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The Cross in the Mirror

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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…

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The Cruciform Center Part 4: How Revelation Reveals a Cruciform God

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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…

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The Cruciform Center Part 3: How Paul’s Epistles Reveal a Cruciform God

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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…

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The Cruciform Center Part 2: How John’s Gospel Reveals a Cruciform God

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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…

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The Cruciform Center Part 1: How Matthew, Mark and Luke Reveal a Cruciform God

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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…

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Forgiveness in the Christus Victor View of the Atonement

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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.

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Does Jesus’ Abandonment on the Cross Destroy the Trinity?

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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…

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When God Abandoned God

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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…

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