The Cross of Christ: Part X

The final and longest post in this series!

The concluding section of the book is about how the influence of the cross spreads outwards until it pervades the whole of Christian faith and life. We cannot do away with the cross in our thinking and living. Stott examines the book of Galatians which is one of the first, if not the first, of Paul’s letters. It contains seven assertions about the death of Jesus, each of which highlights a different facet of it. When put together, they give a comprehensive view of the influence of the cross.

The Pervasive Influence of the Cross

1. The cross and salvation (1:3–5)

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

The Cross of Christ: Part IX

We continue looking at the way the cross shapes our relationships with others, and how to biblically view evil and suffering.

12. Loving our Enemies

In our relationships, we are to display the same blend of love and justice which God showed at the cross. In all honesty, this is easier said than done.

Conciliation and discipline

Christians are called to be peacemakers and to seek and pursue peace. Following is a condensed version of Stott’s thoughts:

• Peace-making isn’t one-sided. It may at times prove impossible to live in peace.
• We are called to mirror our Father’s peace-making. The peace that he secured for us wasn’t cheap, but costly. We shouldn’t expect any less. If we are the offending party, the cost may take the form of humbling ourselves,  apologizing and making any necessary restitution. In other cases, we may have to listen to both sides and witness the mutual bitterness; or to have to offer reproof or rebuke and thus risk losing a friendship.

The Cross of Christ: Part VIII

Here we are at the fourth section titled Living Under the Cross which concerns itself with how the cross alters all our relationships. It comprises four chapters which I shall tackle in pairs.

10. The Community of Celebration

Jesus Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. His purpose wasn’t just to save isolated individuals, but to create a new community of people who would belong to him and love one another. Having been brought into being by the cross, this community should have its perspective and behaviour governed and transformed by the cross.

The Cross of Christ: Part VII

My, oh my. Part seven of ten. Part of me thought I’d be here sooner, and another part of me thought I’d never get here. If I had to describe this experience in one word, it would be humbling. And before I go off on a tangent, here’s chapter nine.

9. The Conquest of Evil

The New Testament contains a lot of language that conveys victory, conquest, triumph, overcoming. It is clear that this victory was owed to the Lord Jesus Christ. By his death Christ saved us not only from sin and guilt, but also from death, the devil and all evil powers.

The victory of Christ:

This can be said to have taken place in successive steps:

• conquest predicted: Beginning in Eden. Any Old testament scripture declaring God’s present rule or his future rule may be seen as a further prophecy of the ultimate crushing of Satan.

The Cross of Christ: Part VI

After a one-week break, I’m back! During that time I did a number of other things, including celebrating Thanksgiving (was invited by my pastor and his wife) and braiding my hair (which I have done every winter since 2003). On to chapter eight, then.

8. The Revelation of God

Through the cross, God was speaking to the world. What did the cross proclaim about God?

a) The glory of God

In the gospel of John, Jesus often referred to his death as the event through which he and his father would be glorified, e.g. John 12:20-28, 13:30-32, 17:1.

b) The justice of God

A question that has perplexed humanity for centuries is, “Why do the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper?” If God was truly just, this wouldn’t be the case.

The Bible gives two answers to this problem. The first, prevalent in the Old Testament,  looks forward to the final judgment, e.g. Psalm 73. The second, frequent in the New Testament, looks back to the judgment that took place at the cross.

The Cross of Christ: Part V

Part five of ten today. So far we’ve looked at the event of the cross, i.e. what happened. The next three chapters examine its consequences and what it achieved. These chapters form the third section of the book, titled The Achievement of the Cross.

So what did the cross of Christ accomplish?  The New Testament gives three answers: salvation, revelation and conquest.  God rescues us, discloses himself and overcomes evil. Stott dedicates a chapter to each of these themes; chapter seven therefore deals with salvation. [For the sake of brevity I have left out content relating to scholars, etymology, word use in the Greek and Hebrew, historical facts, etc. Hopefully, I have not sacrificed clarity as well.]

7. The Salvation of Sinners

Christ’s salvation is portrayed using different images like propitiation, redemption, justification and reconciliation. Each of these presents a different facet of our salvation. Propitiation introduces us to rituals at a shrine; redemption to transactions in a market-place; justification to proceedings in a court of law; reconciliation to the experiences in a home or family. Substitution is the foundation of them all, for without it none of them has any validity.

Propitiation

The term appears in the following NT passages: Romans 3:24-25, 1 John 2:1-2, 1 John 4:10. To ‘propitiate’ is to appease or pacify the anger of another. Does this means that offerings and rituals can placate God’s anger? That notion sounds a lot like paganism. To distinguish biblical propitiation from pagan ideas, there are three points to be considered: a) why is a propitiation necessary? b) who is making it? c) what is it?

The Cross of Christ: Part IV

Wow. I’m beginning to feel that I bit off incredibly more than I could chew with this book. It is so full, and trying to summarise it is no small feat. Nonetheless, seeing as I’m more than knee-deep in it I shall just have to plough on, today with chapter six.

6. The Self-Substitution of God

To get to know our substitute and to understand the notion of his substituting himself, we need to first consider the Old Testament sacrifices as they were preparatory for the sacrifice of Christ. As the book of Hebrews says, Jesus Christ’s sacrifice is the perfect fulfilment of the Old Testament ‘shadows’. So, what did these sacrifices signify, and did they have substitutionary meaning?

Despite being fairly different, the forms of sacrifice described in the Old Testament shared two complementary notions: 1) the sense human beings have of belonging to God; 2) the sense of our alienation from God because of sin and guilt. Both these notions are recognitions of God’s grace and are expressions of dependence on it.

The Old Testament sacrificial system provided for daily, weekly, monthly, annual and occasional offerings. It included five types of offering: burnt, cereal, peace, sin and guilt offerings. Only the cereal offering wasn’t a blood sacrifice, and was therefore made in association with one of the others.

The Cross of Christ: Part III

Today morning I listened to Cross: God Dies, a sermon which draws some material from The Cross of Christ. Warning: if you found The Passion‘s depiction of violence over the top, this sermon isn’t for you. It may be easier to skip over the icky bits in the sermon notes. Especially insightful is the last section in the notes under the title Doesn’t the cross contradict God’s love?

Back to the task at hand… Chapter five.

5. Satisfaction for sin

It is hard to understand why God needed some kind of ‘satisfaction’ before he was prepared to forgive, and that Jesus Christ  acted as our ‘substitute’ and endured the punishment we sinners deserved. How do we reconcile these two ideas without smearing God? For starters, one’s view of satisfaction depends on the understanding one has of the obstacles to forgiveness that need to be removed.  Stott identifies four “types” of satisfaction that have been held to throughout church history:

The Cross of Christ: Part II

The Heart of the Cross is the second section of the book comprising three chapters, which I shall treat individually, starting with chapter four.

4.The Problem of Forgiveness

God commands us to forgive one another, and warns us of the consequences if we don’t. Why can’t God practise what he preaches and be equally generous? Why does this forgiveness have to involve a gruesome death?

If anybody imagines that God can simply forgive us as we forgive others, that person hasn’t considered a) the seriousness of sin and b) the majesty of God. When our perception of God/holiness and man/sin is skewed, then our understanding of atonement is bound to be distorted as well.

The question we should ask, therefore, is not why God finds it difficult to forgive, but how he finds it possible to do so at all.

To explore the seriousness of sin and the majesty of God, Stott looks at four concepts:

• the gravity of sin
• human moral responsibility
• true and false guilt
• the wrath of God

The Cross of Christ: Part I

This is the first part of a ten-part series. For more information, see the introduction.

Approaching the Cross

The first of four sections of the book is titled Approaching the Cross. Stott lets us dip our toes, as it were, into the cross-shaped pool we’ll explore more deeply later in the book. He does so in three chapters, which I have summarised as follows:

1.The Centrality of the Cross

Christians used a number of symbols before settling on the cross, the best-known of which is probably the ichthys, or fish. Not until around 200 AD did the cross appear as a symbol for Christianity (the crucifix, i.e. a cross with the figure of Christ attached, did not appear until the 6th century). The choice of this symbol is surprising, considering the ancient world’s view of crucifixion. In Roman culture, one couldn’t even mention it in polite company. The Jews, of course, considered it accursed (Deut 21:23).