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| SECRET CHURCH // THE CROSS OF CHRIST Posted: 10 May 2011 11:00 AM PDT The following content is an excerpt from Secret Church - "The Cross of Christ" - in April 2009 Not just an event or an image. I got a quote here from Gandhi, “I cold accept Jesus as a martyr, an embodiment of sacrifice and a divine teacher, but not as the most perfect man ever born. His death on the cross was a great example to the world that if there was anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue in it, my heart could not accept. The reality is, whether it’s Gandhi or other religious teachers or the countless millions of religious Americans who watched The Passion of Christ, there’s a great lack of understanding about what’s happening on the cross, because it’s so much easier. The cross is not just an event to be discussed or an image to be viewed. The cross represents truth to be believed. Truth to be believed, trusted in, to bank your life on. So, what is that truth? Talking about the history of the cross here. What I want to do is just give a brief synopsis of church history and how Christians in the church have viewed the cross. One term, and the key theological term here is atonement. Atonement. Look on your brother or sister’s page to figure out how to spell atonement, and this is a word, theological word that sums up to be at one – that’s how you spell it, “at one ment.” Did you get that? Still early in the night, you got that. At one ment. But the picture is how are holy God and sinful man brought to be one to one another, united together, atoned? What is the condition or the price that is paid? What has to happen in order for that to take place, in order for them to be at one? How does the cross provide salvation for man? The answer to that question is multifaceted, as we’re going to see tonight, but there have been all kinds of different theories as church has said, “What’s so significant about the cross?” All kinds of theories. One theory – we’re going to run through these quick – the ransom theory. Church fathers, like origin all the way to 20th century theologians like Gustav Aulen, who basically said, “In the cross Jesus delivers us from the powers of evil by paying a ransom price for the devil.” So, the picture is we are held captive by the devil and God pays a ransom to the devil in the form of His Son’s death in order to buy us out of our captivity. If you’ve seen C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia, read that or seen the movies, this is kind of the picture. If evil witch – okay, if you haven’t watched the movie, you’re totally out of this, but if you have, the evil witch says, “Yes, a price has to be paid to me in order for Edmund to be let go.” So, Aslan has to pay me a price, okay. That’s kind of the picture that’s being expressed here, and the main picture is Christ as victor. He’s the one who conquered Satan, paid the price and to Satan in order to buy us out. Now, there’s grains of truth here, but what we have to be really careful with when we look at that theory or think about that theory is the idea that Satan has the prerogative to make demands of God. That Satan is owed something by God. This goes against much of what we see in scripture, so there’s grains of truth here. For more content regarding Secret Church #6 The Cross of Christ click HERE. |
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