Summarising chapter 7 – ‘The Cross as Divine Consent’
The relationship between God and his people is not that of a ‘forced marriage’:
‘God has given us free will and we can freely accept or reject his proposal.’
But what if we decline? “Please accept my gracious offer…or else!”
We have seen that God is Christlike – and his nature is therefore cruciform (Cross-shaped) and kenotic (self-giving).
But how can such a God be said to reign?…
Summarising chapter 6 – Of Lions, Lambs and Donkeys.
1. Kenosis – Cruciform Power
God reveals himself, not as an eagle or a lion, but as a lamb. We must think of God, not in terms of power, but in terms of humility.
According to Phil 2:7, Christ emptied himself (the word is ‘kenosis’). This does not mean that Christ gives up his divine attributes, but rather that he assumes our human nature. Moreover, in doing so, he reveals the true nature of God: loving and self-giving to the point of death.…
Chapter 5 – Word Made Flesh: The Christlike God
Jesus is the perfect representation of God; indeed, he is God incarnate (Jn 1:14).
In the Nicene Creed, the Church confesses:
‘We believe in one God, the Father almighty …and in one Lord, Jesus Christ. Light from Light, very God from very God …of one essence with the Father.’
This is consistent with Paul’s teaching in 1 Cor 8:6.
The NT writers insist that Jesus:
…‘was and is the exact image of God’s essence, the precise imprint of God’s being (Col.
Jim Gordon quotes Stanley Hauerwas:
…‘If forgiveness were forgetting then God would have to suffer the most acute amnesia, but it is God’s unimaginable creativity, which takes what we have done and makes it fruitful. The medieval image of God’s forgiveness was the flpowering of the cross. The cross is the ugly sign of torture. It is the sign of humanity’s ability to refect love and to do what is utterly sterile. But the artists of the middle ages showed this cross flowering on Easter Sunday.
A precis of chapter 6.
A missionary couple are assigned to an area where female genital mutilation is performed. They realise that the practice is so deeply ingrained that it would be futile to confront it immediately. So, for the time being, they seek to ameliorate its worst effects by providing anaesthesia and better surgical knives. Only gradually are they able to convince the people to end the practice.
Is it unreasonable to suggest that God sometimes act like that? …
A precis of chapter 5.
This cruciform approach to interpreting Scripture may seem to be new (because it has not been taught in the church for 1500 years. But, in fact, it can be traced back to the early church and (most importantly) to Scripture itself. And in the following ways.
(a) Finding Christ crucified in all of Scripture. Martin Luther has been rightly characterised as ‘the theologian of the cross’. For Luther, the cross was the key to interpreting the Bible. …
Summarising chapter 4:
In a detective novel, the meaning of an event depends on where it is in the story and how it relates to what comes before and after it.
It is just so with the Bible: although many read it as they would a cookbook, where the order of recipes is not particularly important, it does in fact tell a story, and the position of a given event within that story may be very significant.…
Summarising chapter 3 of Greg Boyd’s Cross Vision: How the Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence (Fortress Press, 2017).
What do we think about a wife who is repeatedly and viciously attacked by her husband, and yet stands by him because she is convinced that ‘He loves me’.
Why do so many Christians confess that ‘God is love’ and yet believe that he does hurtful things to people (such as predestining large numbers of them to eternal punishment)?…
We are often told that ancient societies, such as Israel, were ‘honour-shame’ cultures.
How does the relate to the crucifixion of Jesus?
To be sure, crucifixion was not only a terribly painful death, but also a shameful one.
We see something of the humiliation of Jesus’ death in Mark’s Gospel. Abandoned by his friends, tortured, and hung up (probably naked) to endure a lingering death in full public view. And yet Mark communicates a certain honour to that which most would have found utterly shameful. …
Tim Chester summarises the teaching of John Stott in The Cross of Christ:
1. The cross of Christ is a stimulus to patient endurance. There are times when we must endure suffering as Jesus did at the cross (Heb. 12:1–3; 1 Pet. 2:18–23).
2. The cross of Christ is the path to mature holiness. Suffering can be formative (James 1:2–4), as it was for Jesus (Heb. 2:10; 5:8–9).
3. The cross of Christ is the symbol of suffering service.…
