Article
- Author:
- Rutledge, Fleming
- Publisher:
- Eerdmans (2015)
- ISBN:
- 978-0-8028-4732-4
- Purchase:
- Buy this book from Amazon.co.uk (commission earned)
In her large (pp696) and sometimes big book, Fleming Rutledge's target is mainstream United States Christianity which she characterises as self-indulgent and sentimental, laying emphasis on its own merits such that, at the very least, it is flirting with Pelagianism which is not to say that Rutledge is not a liberal in the more established sense of recognising the social Gospel. Her position, then, is broadly similar to the social liberal "Calvinist Madeleine Robinson although, needless to say, she does not write as well.
Rutledge's central thesis is that the Christians of America are alienated by the crucifixion which is, after all, one of the three pivotal events in the history of God made man in Jesus and the whole book is an attempt to persuade her fellow: Christians to focus on the cross as the central emblem of their faith lives.
She opens with three chapters on the sheer horror of crucifixion, emphasising how alienating people in the ancient world would have found it and very effectively focusing on the reluctance of Saint Paul's Corinthians to get to grips with it. There then follows a bridging passage on Anselm's pivotal work of atonement theology which has left a deep imprint on the second millennium of Christianity and she then proceeds to work through all the major biblical themes which underlie our understanding of the cross, notably Christus Victor, substitution and recapitulation which, again and again, she insists are to be understood as at least overlapping and in some ways mutually reinforcing. In this respect the book is magisterial: if you want a complete account of the relationship between the Bible and the cross it is all here ...
... except that the one authority on the meaning of the cross which she never quotes is Jesus. Fortunately for me, and perhaps unfortunately for her, I was reading the first part of this book while I was reading Peter Laughlin's Jesus and The Cross: Necessity, Meaning and Atonement (commission earned) (Pickwick, 2014) whose central theme is what we know about the attitude of Jesus to his own death. Here is my paraphrase of Laughlin's conclusions from a review:
we can know what Jesus thought about his own death through what he said and did: first, having seen the death of John the Baptist he knew he ran a high risk of not dying a natural death; secondly, in his supposed "cleansing" of the Temple (it wasn't a cleansing as such because Jesus and his followers never challenged the sacrificial observance right up to the building's destruction in 70 AD) Jesus declared that the old, nationalist, apostate, rite needed to be replaced by a new, universal rite and possibly a new Covenant; thirdly, based on Daniel 7, the "Son of Man" must necessarily face a time of trial to bring about the new dispensation; Fourthly, at the Last Supper Jesus made it clear that his death was a necessary precondition for saving Israel for establishing the Kingdom of God in a new eschatological Exodus; fifthly, his followers would participate in his death through the Eucharist; and, finally, by his death his followers would be spared going through the same "time of trial" mentioned in the Lord's Prayer. The crucifixion was, needless to say, an historical event whose violence God did not will but which humanity perpetrated as a result of its deliberate withdrawal from God and to which Jesus assigned meaning. Put even more simply, then, the followers of Jesus will be part of the Kingdom of God and will, in some unspecified way, be protected by the death of Jesus from the ultimate struggle with evil which has already taken place on the Cross. But to say that we are saved as followers by Jesus says nothing about our individual or collective sin; it simply says that just as Jesus died for the "nation" of Israel, under a new Covenantal arrangement, those who followed him would be saved; Jesus saw his death as a necessary precondition but his own statements in no way proclaim a quasi-judicial or quasi accountancy model.
NB, nothing about atonement, substitution, justification or righteousness.
So when Rutledge says that without Paul we will not understand the Gospel that does not give her the right to make Paul the almost exclusive interpreter at the expense of what Jesus says about himself. Indeed, although one can be too fastidious in such matters, recognising that "gospel" can simply mean "good news", Rutledge too often uses the expression "Paul's gospel".
There is much to admire in the book which, in spite of its bulk, simply does not go far enough. For example, the statement that the crucifixion is Trinitarian is both starkly obvious and almost entirely ignored by most Christians, not least preachers, many of whom have a real struggle to say anything about, say, the inhabitants of South America before the arrival of Christians. Those who claim that only those who positively accept Jesus can be saved are imposing human chronology on the Trinitarian economy. Secondly, her conclusion on the related point of who is to be saved is overwhelmingly convincing. Rightly, she says that most preachers (she is one herself) think that Romans 9-11 can be glossed over when it actually contains the crux of the letter, that there is no distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous but that the fault lies within us not between us, that we are all sinners and will all be saved nonetheless. In other words, she follows the logic of patristic Christianity, which was only disrupted by Anselm and his contemporaries, that the crucifixion was a cosmic act with cosmic consequences although she also sees that it does have implications for personal piety. Although she is vastly, not just widely, read, her grasp of Medieval theology is sparse. What happened from the 11th Century onwards, capped by Martin Luther, was the steady move away from the notion of the Church being saved by the crucifixion to individuals being saved, one of the major themes of de Lubac's Corpus Mysticum (de Lubac, Henry (Cardinal) SJ: Corpus Mysticum: The Eucharist and The Church in The Middle Ages: Historical Survey, (trans. Gemma Simmonds CJ with Richard Price and Christopher Stevens, edited by Laurence Paul Hemming and Susan Frank Parsons, Faith in Reason Series, SCM Press, 2006, ISBN 978.0.334. 62994.6).
But in the course of this discussion of the cosmic, Rutledge takes a dark road, claiming that Paul saw the crucifixion as the conquest of "The Powers". I say "dark" because this notion of "Powers" makes very little sense because nobody can account for the existence of evil, simply resorting to the idea that it is negation, a theological equivalent of dark matter in physics.
Indeed, one of the key problems in discussion the cross is the maddeningly weird language. Setting aside the idea of "The Powers", we still have to wrestle with "{atonement", "Justification" and "righteousness". Rutledge, rightly, says that the best translation of the word which usually comes out as "Justification" is "rectification"; Jesus puts right what has gone wrong and, in doing so, God demands more than penitence, 'He demands justice' my inner quotation marks indicating that all three terms are necessarily anthropomorphic. Having got this far, however, she does not go on to discuss the ambiguity in Romans, exposed by Douglas A. Campbell (Campbell, Douglas A.: The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul, Eerdmans, 2013) that we are not "justified by faith but by the faithfulness of Jesus" which isn't the same thing at all.
Rutledge argues strongly that God demands justice rather than our simply saying sorry but her argument, based on Anselm, that only the death of Jesus can grant god the 'justice he requires', again my inner quotes, is the weakest part of her argument because, in turn, it is the weakest part of Anselm's argument. It is hard to see how, put at its simplest, we can be so sinful that it requires the gruesome death of Jesus when our DNA pushes us to be the opposite of loving.
It is difficult now to understand that Christianity did without atonement theology for the first half of its history relying instead on a less focused idea which we would now call "solidarity", a model of the cross which Rutledge sadly only ever implies but which my summary of Laughlin specifies. If we reduce the whole complex set of arguments down to basics, the followers of Jesus are saved by his death from the consequences of human imperfection created in us by God, out of love, so that we might exercise free will. Even put that simply, we have to ask why God played what looks like a parlour game but the answer is surely that there is nothing we can do, including killing God, that will impair his love for his deliberately imperfect people.
In summary, then, this book is crammed with enough raw material for those thousands of sermons on the cross which Rutledge says her people are in want of but in spite of her attempts to be even handed, she is definitely a believer in atonement. For this reason, she should be read with some caution and with reference to the other sources I have mentioned.
In conclusion, however, in spite of the inevitable shortcomings in any book on this intractable area of theology, the one thing I took away was the absolute emphasis on the centrality of collective sin compared with the current maudlin emphasis on individual sins. When I look around my congregation I have to say that I don't see many mass murderers but when I look at the world I can't miss them. It's about time that we kicked the Romanticism which led to all this complexity.
Study Notes
(Page numbers in brackets appear at the end of the notes on each page).
Introduction
"... the central claim of Christianity is oddly irreligious" (1); Paul "not ashamed" of the Cross (2); 1 Corinthians 1.21-25, 4.10. The use of the term "Crucifixion" (3) sui generis. Controversy over meaning of Crucifixion (4) and substitutionary atonement and penal substitution (5-7). Controversy since Anselm (fides quaerens intellectum), and the Reformation; Evangelicals assessed according to a theory; problem as Councils were silent (8); multifaceted, Bible not theoretical (9). Crucifixion is theology not Christology; the challenge of American self-obsession. Who is God: 1 the Creator and God of Abraham (10), god raised Jesus from the dead who raised Israel from Egypt; the God of the great Covenant 2 the God revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus (11); 3 the Triune God (12). 1 Corinthians 1-2 and neglect of the Cross (13); Romans 4.17; 1 Corinthians 13.12 (14). Romans 1.16; 1 Corinthians 1.18-25 (15); Paul humble before the Cross, Philippians 2.7-8 (16); 1 Corinthians 2.2 (17); The Trinity in the "Word of the Cross" (18); The Cross and Resurrection as one event within the Trinity: 1 Jesus Incarnate Word 2 The Word of God in the Bible is dynamic witness to God in Jesus 3 Preaching the Word is Spirit created (19). Bible questioning us (20); preachers and revelation (21); the Bible as literature; plain meaning (22). Evangelist differences (23); John compatible in some ways with Luke but special to itself (24). Paul misunderstood (25) "the focus on the four Gospels to the neglect of the Epistles is an impoverishment so serious as to threaten the theological foundations of the church" (26). "without (Paul's) letters we would not know how to interpret the Gospels" (27). The Jesus of history and the Christ of faith; the Jesus Seminar (28-29); the drift away from the Bible has weakened the church; Galatians 6.14,17 (30). 1 Cross and Resurrection 1 Corinthians 15; 2 Jesus and ministry focused on his self-offering 31); 3 "If God is not truly incarnate in Jesus as he accomplishes his work on the cross, then nothing has really happened from God's side and we are thrown back on ourselves." (32-33). Two categories: atonement; apocalyptic invasion (35). Summary (36). Matthew 5.11-12. (37-40).
Part 1: The Crucifixion
Chapter One: The Primacy of The Cross
Four Gospels structured as prologues to Passions (41); oral tradition, short teaching passages and dramatic passion narratives (42). Moltmann: "The cross is not and cannot be loved" (43); the problem of the cross and "positive thinking"; Bonhoeffer: "when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." "The crucifixion is the most important historical event that has ever happened"; Corinthian problems (44). Gnosticism the main rival to Christianity, to Theologia Crucis (45): privileged knowledge; mysterymongering (46); 1 Corinthians 13 anti-gnostic; special knowledge means hierarchy (47-48); redemptive suffering alien to gnosticism as suffering is unimportant in a spiritual world; "virtually all human religion is gnostic": America's individual spiritual experiences "... a corresponding lack of interest in the human struggle for justice and dignity" (49); the place of suffering for the sake of the kingdom. Gnosticism in the NT: gnosis; hierarchy; devaluation of the physical (50). American Christianity converted to gnosticism (51); 1 Corinthians 6.15-19; gnostic sexuality is spiritual or insignificant, either way tending to libertine (52). Bonhoeffer: god is not a working hypothesis but living (53); "god lets himself be pushed out of the world onto the cross" (54); "gnostic Christianity's studied lack of interest in the cross" compared with Evangelists; 2 Corinthians 4.8-12 (55). Docetism early church enemy, opposite today; creedal word "suffered" for Jesus (56); Feuerbach and Freud (57); moltmann: the theology of the cross is not a chapter but the key signature for theology; crux probat omnia (58). Jesus Seminar (again) kerygmatic preaching (59); Luke 4.16-21 (60). "... a triumphalist form of congregational life that is disconnected from pain, deprivation and the dehumanization that Jesus suffered" (61). Kenneth Leach: "... creation-centred, incarnational sacramental religion" in and of itself is not only insufficient but downright dangerous because it leaves no room for judgment, prophesy, struggle or redemption, the religion of Mussolini, Franco and Stalin; crib and cross stand together (62); participation in the cross (63). False Eucharistic ranking of resurrection over cross (654). 1 Corinthians 11: particularly v26 (66); The body of Christ crucified for you and received in the elements and the body of Christ as the church (v24); fixing the cross prior to Chapter 15 (67); The Eucharist 68); The Last Supper is a resurrection meal impossible without the cross. Paul's use of skandalon or "stumbling block" to point up the difficulty of preaching the cross, a thing so degrading secured the salvation of the cosmos (69-70) parallel fight against docetism (71).
Chapter Two: The Godlessness of The Cross
"... it takes some effort of the imagination to understand the singular degree of public disgust caused by crucifixion ... we must make this effort in order to understand more fully the meaning of the Greek term Skandalon ("stumbling bloc", "pitfall"), Galatians 5.11; it is not Jesus' death but the mode of it (72). The "how" is of unique importance; Philippians 2.8, Acts 26.26; his death was caused publicly by all the best people (73); crucifixion only for the dregs, stigma (74). Religious symbol? "... the cross is by a very long way the most irreligious object ever to find its way into the heart of faith" the suffering and degradation of (our) God (75); Isaiah 53.3 "... the Son of God entered into solidarity with the lowest and least of all his creation", Deuteronomy 21.23 (76); death our taboo (77); Sontag: "It is not suffering as such that is most deeply feared but suffering that degrades"; degradation was the point of crucifixion (78) Deuteronomy 25.3 (79); Bonhoeffer: "... Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering"; the reversal of what the religious man expects (80); Isaiah 52.14, 53.2-3 (81); reversal under Constantine (82) Levi's shame beyond shame (83); Nahum 3.5-7 "When we say that Jesus Christ took upon himself the sin of the world, it means quite specifically that he suffered the shame and the degradation that human beings have inflicted on one another" (84). The Corinthians wanted to pass over the crucifixion to the resurrection: 1 Corinthians 1.18-25 (85); 1.26-31 (86); 2.1-5 (87). The Cross and the Holy Spirit (88). "The disciples could not have seen his humiliating and inglorious death as obedience to God, a vindication of his mission, or a heroic martyrdom" (89). "... no-one expected a crucified Messiah" (90). Comparison with the electric chair (91). Crucified people a different species (92). Mors Turpissima Crucis (Origen); Summum Supplicium (Cicero) (94-96). Rejection and dereliction: the ultimate other (97). Galatians 3.10-14 (98-101) "Jesus' situation under the harsh judgment of Rome was analogous to our situation under sin", Romans 6.16-18 (102); "Jesus exchanged God for Godlessness" (103-5).
Chapter Three: The Question of Justice
Judgment and righteousness (106). The OT reveals the mind of Jesus (107); Deuteronomy 2.3-6, Isaiah 5.16, 2 Chronicles 19.4-7, Isaiah 1.11-27 (108); justice is God's work (109); Deuteronomy 10.17-19, 26.5: our justice is to reflect God's justice; Micah 2.1-3, 3.9-12; Jeremiah 5.27-29 (110); Amos 5.21-24; Psalm 146.5-10 (111). the Messiah brings justice: Mark 1.15; Isaiah 9.6-7; Luke 4.16-21 (112); Luke 1.46-53 (Magnificat) and 1 Samuel 2.1-10 (113); Matthew 10.34. Micah 6.8; forgiveness and justice (114); the injudicious rush to 'cheap' forgiveness (115); "forgive and forget" (116). South Africa TARC &c (117-21). Denial: Amos 4.1; Luke 13.34; James 2.2-8; "happiness" not our natural state (122-23); the Dalai Lama and the cross (124). Justice and mercy (125). Forgiveness too weak a word for what Christ has done and calls us to do (126). "The incarnation of the Son of God should not be understood as the divine benediction on all that is. It was an incarnation unto the cross ... that sets a question mark over against the way things are." Only divine intervention can rectify our state (127). John 11.49-52; Revelation 21.3-4 contrast heavenly serenity with heavenly justice (128); the wrathful God on the side of the defenceless; "where's the outrage?" In the heart of God? (129); God's wrath is pure (130); forgiveness and impunity as 'cop out; Miroslav Wolf: "A non-indignant God would be an accomplice in injustice, deception and violence." We have trouble with this as accomplices (131). Isaiah 10.1-2: "... the wrath of God has lodged in God's own self ... neither victim nor victimized can claim any exemption from judgment on one's own merits, but only on the merits of the Son" (132). Dikaiosyne: justice and righteousness within one Greek and earlier Hebrew word group (133); the power of God to make right; God does his right-making in spite of our resistance; rectification in Paul better than justification (134). Dikaiosyne as pursuit or aggression: Hosea 11.1-9 (135); restorative not retributive; God takes aggressive action (1136); Isaiah 1.24-27; God "does" righteousness or rectification (137). Apocalyptic theology: Ezekiel 37.11, the toppling of the throne of David; Habakkuk 1.1-4; Daniel and the new intervention (138); "The new apocalyptic theology set the stage for the preaching of John the Baptist; it established the framework for the ministry of Jesus and the Kerygma of Paul the Apostle, who recast the whole concept of righteousness and justice in light of the cross." Isaiah 40 and the new beginning; Kasemann: "Apocalyptic was the mother of all Christian theology"; Koch: the recovery of the apocalyptic; news from somewhere else; the cross as an apocalyptic event (139); no more give and take, Isaiah 48.6-7: "There is no way to exaggerate the revolutionary quality of Isaiah 40-55 ... God himself will descend from his sphere of transcendent power ... the coming triumph of God" (Romans 9.11), Isaiah 64.6 (140). NT: a world beyond human resourcefulness; Matthew 13.24-30, the wheat and tares not different people but two sides of ourselves; the cross is for victims and victimisers (141); Havel: people are both (142); "condemned into redemption", Romans 6.5. Summary (143-445).
Bridge Chapter: Anselm Reconsidered for Our Time
Cur Deus Homo? (146) Fides Quaerens Intellectum (147); 1 Peter 3.18 (148). The human race ruined and can only be delivered by God (149); man is both needy if he cannot self-restore and unjust if he does not wish to; pursuit of happiness arises more from advertising than the Declaration of Independence; Anselm: happiness is "... enjoying the supreme good, which is God". (150); happiness requires remission and remission requires repayment; we don't mind sinners like us. Paying for sin according to its extent (151); compassion without atonement or satisfaction contrary to God's justice; rectification. The punishment for sin is sin itself; punishment is constructive and restorative; Anselm: eternal punishment is inconsolable need; punishment is exile from the blessings of God (154). God interested in honour and rationality? (155). Grace and righteousness are ontological. Honour means righteousness (156). Kenosis. The weight of sin is so great (157) it can only be remitted by God. Greek orthodox misunderstand atonement as transactional (158); Anselm's style lends itself to the economic (159); death should be overcome without violence to divine justice (160); human predicament "... guilt requiring remission and captivity requiring deliverance"; the Resurrection vindicates rather than reverses; Resurrection validates the cross. Feminist criticism of child abuse (161); the crucifixion is an event in God's Triune life, John 10.18; death reveals omnipotence (162): "... a world of glad tidings and Nicene truth". God is not reconciled to us but we to him; God does not change; the relationship is changed (163); God's judgment disclosed in love; Bentley Hart: the "filial intonation" of pre-existent divine love; Anselm: "He freed us from our sins, and from his own wrath, and from hell, and from the power of the devil, whom he came to vanquish for us, because we were unable to do it, and he purchased for us the kingdom of heaven; and by doing all these things, he manifested the greatness of his love toward us." (165); Gunton: so big, not confined to Christians. Summary (166).
Chapter Four: The Gravity of Sin
The contemporary denial of sin (167); from sin to sins; sin as a breakdown of relationship, precondition of sins (168). The knowledge of sin as joyful good news; "Miserable offenders" already claimed by the divine light of the Gospel (169). "In Bach's music, the knowledge of sin is encompassed by rapturous gladness" (170). "The church has always been tempted to recast the Christian story in terms of individual fault and guilt that can be overcome by a decision to repent. This undermines the Gospel at its heart" (171). Barth: "... he nails our life to the cross" (172); knowledge of salvation precedes knowledge of sin; Psalm 51; sin is more than wrong-doing, it is "... being catastrophically separated from the eternal love of God." (174). 1 Corinthians 15.3-4, first formulation that Christ died for our sin (175). Jeremiah 2.22, the "you" is plural (176); Amos 4.1 (177); Amos 3.15; Ricoeur: sin as corporate; Romans 5.12-21 (178); captivity and complicity (179). CS Lewis: man needs more than improvement because he's rebellious; Luke 18.11, not a matter of comparison with others; sin is both a guilt and a power; Christus Victor (181). Psalm 51 for Ash Wednesday: God can cleanse from sin; God provides for cleansing (182); sin is against God (183); condemnation and redemption; the note of joy. Biblical elements: 1 Fall, Romans 5.12-21; 2 solidarity of humanity in bondage to sin, Romans 3.10-18; 3 A cosmic struggle between good and evil, post Exilic apocalyptic; the centrality in the cross of overcoming sin: (184-85): Matthew 1.20-21; Mark 2.10; Luke 1.76-77, 24.46-47 (186); Acts 2.38; John 1.29, 8.24; Hebrews 2.17; 1 Peter 2.24 (187); 1 John 1.7, 2.2, 4.10; Revelation 1.5-6. Paul makes sin explicit where Gospels implicit: Romans 5.12-21 (188) death and sin rule after (Milton's) "First disobedience", but the "first obedience" re-tells the story "in the right way", sin and death are routed. Paul says that sin is a power over which the unaided man has no control. Sin is a verb (Romans 3.23) but, more powerfully, a dominion (Romans 3.9); The verb suggests responsible guilt for which atonement must be made; the noun implies an alien power which must be overcome. Sin and the law, Romans 5.21, 7.10-11, 5.12 (189); sin is an infectious disease, an enslaving power; counter Jewish; Romans 6.16-18 (190); OT consciousness of the weight of sin but repentance is not enough as something "has to happen from God's side". For Paul the sequence is not: sin, repentance, grace forgiveness; but: grace, sin, deliverance, repentance, grace; the whole sequence is grace driven and lacks repentance; God's victory is certain (Romans 6.9-11); new creation, 1 Corinthians 5, Colossians 1.13, Romans 8.21 (192). Isaiah 64-6, even our good deeds are like dirty rags (193); Auden: "bred in the bone" (194); "compulsions over which we have little or no control"; we do not commit sin, we are in it. Sentimentality is omitting fall and Redemption (195); sentimentality v Bible (196); "The scandal, the outrage of the cross, is commensurate with the offense and ubiquity of sin ... the alien Power that has lured us into becoming its agents. ... the cross rears up over all human life because it is the scene of God's climactic battle against the power of a malignant and implacable enemy." The discarding of man's inherent depravity (197); Lord of The Flies (198); Carnegie loses optimism (199). Sin and the crucifixion match (200); satisfaction; irredeemable evil (201). summary: (202-4).
Part 2: The Biblical Motifs
Introduction
Difficulty in articulating meaning of crucifixion (207); difficulty of grouping Biblical themes (208); major categories of atonement and deliverance (209); a concept far beyond theories; limited analogical language (210). Against literalism, fundamentalism or inerrantism (211); Ricoeur: the symbol gives rise to thought not emotion; the generative power of metaphor; the cross is not a metaphor but historical (212-13).
Chapter Five: The Passover and The Exodus
The importance of the OT (214); NT will not work without OT but OT servant of NT. Deliverance (215): Exodus defines Israel (216); a memorial is in the present tense (217); the real presence in the Lord's Supper (218); the new Passover and Exodus, first in 1 Corinthians 5.7-8 (219); the audacity of John 1.29 and the concept of Jesus as the Passover lamb; likewise 1 Peter 1.19 and Isaiah 53. Exodus as eschatological; Ezekiel 20.33-36 (220); Isiah 51.10-11, 43.19 (221); "... human activity points to the future reign of God and participates in it prolepticially ... it does not, however, make it come to fruition; only God can complete his purpose." (222). Jews and Christians on Exodus (223); the chosen people are still the chosen people. Exodus as Easter liturgy (224-25) The Exsultet (226). The Exodus the event par excellence for understanding the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah (227); ... and African-Americans (228-31).
Chapter Six: The Blood Sacrifice
Concept out of favour (232); Acts 20.28; Colossians 1.19-20; 1 Peter 1.18-19; Hebrews 13.11-12 (233); blood: "Literal-mindedness is the enemy of vital Biblical interpretation" (234); blood as metonymy (235); Romans 5.9-10; 1 Corinthians 5.7, 10.16; blood of Christ mentioned 3 times more often than death (236); synecdoche in John passion. Blood as life or death: Leviticus 17.11 (237); false distinction; sacrifice as total commitment (238). The concept of sacrifice: something valuable is relinquished; the purpose to gain a greater good (239); Jesus sacrifices (verb) and is the sacrifice (noun). The sin offering in Leviticus (240); laws made for people in strange lands; Christians are in strange lands; Leviticus 18 and the purpose of setting apart (241); Jewish distinctness does not mean foreigner rejection Leviticus 19.34 (242); god is superior, not his people (273); reading the OT like pre NT people read it. The gap between God's holiness and human sinfulness so great that sacrificial offering must be routine; Leviticus 1.3-4, Exodus 29.35-37. substitution, vicarious representation (244); sin and costly atonement; without blood shedding no forgiveness, Hebrews 9.22, the ultimate cost to the giver. Leviticus 5.14 and guilt, relating value to gravity of offence; satisfaction and comparable cost. Animals aren't enough. "One of the simplest ways of understanding the death of Jesus is to say that when we look at the cross, we see what it cost God to secure our release from sin" (245); understanding developing grace in the OT; God's redemptive purpose of election, Genesis 12.1-3, 17.1-27, long before commandments and ordinances; "Covenant security is the foundation that allows us to come before God in full knowledge of our sinful condition." The chosen people stand in grace (246); the offering of God's self is ontological. The scapegoat and atonement in Leviticus: 16.6-10, 16.11-28; one goat to be killed (sin offering), the other sent away (scapegoat) (247); Jesus as a scapegoat obvious but not NT warranted; Rene Girard and James Alison (248); lack of a sense of sin or victimisers tipping into victimology (249). Sacrifice in Hebrews: Romans 3.25, 5.9; 1 Corinthians 5.7; only slight examples of Christ's death as sacrifice for sin (250); Jesus, tempted, can help the tempted 2.17-18; Christ as high priest whose sacrifice is in line with OT; synopsis (251-52); ephapax, once and for all (252); Christ's self-substitution from Isaiah 1 to Malachi (253); priest and victim one; TF Torrance: "We are not saved by the atoning death of Christ but by Christ himself" (254). Lamb of God: John 1.29, 1.35 (255) unite the sin offering and the liberation offering. The apocalyptic lamb: The militant lamb which destroys evil, Enoch 90.38, Testament of Joseph 19.8, Revelation 17.14 (256). The suffering lamb, Isaiah 53, 1 Peter 2.23-24. Paschal Lamb (257), 1 Corinthians 5.7; John 19.36, cf Exodus 12.56. The Lamb and Sin Offering, Leviticus 14: the Lamb as cost to God; the accumulation counts (258). The Binding of Isaac, Genesis 22.1-14 (259); Isaac and Iphigenia (260); "... embodying the entire unconditional action of God in election promise", Romans 4.16-17, 4.20-25, 8.31-32 (261); Abraham's life journey (262) a once-for-all event (263-65). Temple Veil and mercy Seat, Mark 15.37-38 (266); Hebrews (267) 9.2-5 (268); tearing the veil opens holiness to all; the veil as Christ's flesh (269); the end of the old order. Self-Sacrifice (270): advertising from goods to lifestyle; sentimentality over military sacrifice (271). Women's Objections: Rebecca West in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: "... the repulsive pretence that pain is the proper price of any good thing" (272); sacrifice associated with women, weakness (273); Jesus as the alternative model of power, passive resistance; life offered for the sake of others; the cross empowers women (274-75). Sacrifice on Behalf of The Ungodly: 1 Peter 3.18, the righteous and the unrighteous, Romans 5.6-8 (276); sacrificial living and power (277). Hilasterion, Propitiation or Expiation? Romans 3.25 (278); Expiation: barrier outside God, in us; Propitiation: barrier within God (279); propitiation turns God from subject to object (280); NEB: "God's new way of righting wrong" (281); God never was against us. Summary (282-83).
Chapter Seven: Ransom and Redemption
Modern use of redemption as cost free (284); Mark 10.45; Matthew 20.28. Does redemption refer to a price paid or simply deliverance? Early ideas of ransom paid to devil fell away (285). 1 Corinthians 6.19-20 and 7.23: antagonism to a price, blood or substitution; redemption not subject to the same objection as price, blood and substitution; Luke's Benedictus and Psalm 19.14, Job 19.25, Psalm 31.5 (286); to diminish the price is to diminish the cross; Farrar, the "parable" of payment: "God's act of universal forgiveness is the whole train of action he setes working through Christ. ... and of this great process Christ's blood was, once more, the cost" (287). Mark's idea that Jesus gave his life as a ransom lacks an atonement theory; 1 Peter 1.18-19 (288); we dare not lose the idea that Jesus was the price (289). Galatians 3.28: "... fusion: redemption and Exodus, Exodus with Baptism, baptism with Passover, Passover with sacrifice, sacrifice with payment of a price" (290); pushing out price eliminates the idea that God is involved in our deliverance; the principal idea is the cost to God; Lutron in Mark 10.45 and Matthew 20.28 (291) linked with their reporting of the cry of derelection (292); Polutros 3 times in Paul's undisputed letters: Romans 3.23-35, 8.23; 1 Corinthians 1.30; Paul unambiguously says the price is the cross (293). The Trinity buys back lost creation through itself (294) against the unholy trinity of sin, death and the devil (295); distortions of the doctrine: child abuse and barbarity (296); the cross is Trinitarian and ontological (297); Dante right and Milton wrong (298); Revelation 13.8, 1 Peter 1.19-20, Acts 2.23. Wide Biblical use (299): Proverbs 23.10-11; Lamentations 3.58-59; Deuteronomy 24.17-18 (300); Isaiah 60.15-19; Luke 4.18-19, cf. Isaiah 61.1-2 (301).
Chapter Eight: The Great Assize
Tillich: fear of death, then guilt, then meaninglessness (303). Guilt associated with sin against God, Leviticus 5.2-4 (304). The tyranny of anxiety; Auden: age of anxiety; insecurity as fear of judgment (305); our view of our own innocence, Genesis 3.12-13 (306). Romans 7.10-11,, 24. Blaming others (307). Today last judgment suspect but final reckoning not (308). OT God has a case against his people: Isaiah 26.21; Joel 2.11; Amos 5.18-20 (309); like a court: Isaiah 3.13-15; Evangelical emphasis on individual sin, liberals on the corporate (310); Amos 3.2; 1 Peter 4.17; Jeremiah 2.34-35 (311); Luke 1.52-53; Bible much more concerned with the collective than the individual. A cosmic reckoning is required (312) dismissed by churches; but Matthew 7.22-23, in the NT and Creeds (313) Matthew 25; Revelation only concerned with the collective (314). The trial of Jesus the Last Judgment in advance (315). "... God's complete verdict of acquittal is definitive". Why resistance to court motif (316)? God's judgment on sin is an aspect of His mercy; we want to judge ourselves (317). God is the ruler of all, including judge, Colossians 2.14 Jesus nailed the bond that bound us to the cross (318). The cosmological apocalyptic and the forensic both needed. "The apocalyptic way of seeing transcends an individualistic, pietistic, inward-looking 'spirituality' and opens up a horizon of political, social and cosmic implications that has everything to do with the state of our world today and our role as Christians in that world" (319). There are no guilty and innocent; the descent into moralism (320); forensic imagery taken in isolation is inimical to the Gospel (321); the forensic is then part of the whole. Wrath of God: Isaiah 13.11-13; wrath and promise (322); wrath exercised in pursuit of God's good purposes, Romans 5.8-10, not chronological; wrath as an aspect of love (323); hatred of Satan is not hatred at all, Malachi 3.1-4 (324). Moule: sin as a malign force; a dead weight (325). John and Paul less interested in forgiveness than justice (326). OT righteousness is God's; dikaiosyne (327) not an attribute but the power to put right (229).; God's presence in the call and our response. What is faith: Galatians 3.23-26: "... faith, for Paul, is the power of Christ himself making faith happen in us" (330) Mark 9.21-24. Logizomai (331), Romans 4.3-8, the saving word of God; turning the noun into a verb (332); God's Logizomai brings transformed persons into being just as the Logos brings creation into being (333). 2 Corinthians 5.19: "... he has not reckoned our sins against us". OT example of "wording" (334) (The significance of speech acts - KC). NT, John 21.17: Peter is "reckoned" chief shepherd (335). Logizmai and dikaiosyne are eschatological, deriving their power from "God's future". Where does reconciliation (Katallage) fit (336); rectification includes resulting reconciliation, 2 Corinthians 5.17-21; Ephesians 2.11-16 (338); more than reconciliation (339). Not peace but a sword; not reconciling evil; reconciliation only brought about through and after conflict (340). Matthew 10.34, reconciliation as eschatological gift; Malachi 4.5-6 (341). Ephesians 2.8-10, we are passive in reconciliation but activated for a life of service (342), in the context of the cross, Ephesians 2.13-16 (343). Logizomai, dikaiosyne and communicating victory in Martin Luther King (344). Summary: Law court subordinate to apocalyptic victory in cross and Resurrection but must not be ignored (345); God will not tolerate disorder (346-47).
Chapter Nine: The Apocalyptic War: Christus Victor
The bad name of Christian millitarism. "... the truly significant battle is the ongoing one between the Lord God of Sabaoth (Hebrew, meaning armies) and the enemy, who deploys the principalities and Powers (Ephesians 2.2) (348). Apocalyptic: Isaiah 40.55 (349); Zechariah 9-14; Anselm's "... Ponderis Peccatum is not inconsistent with an apocalyptic perspective" (350); "... a God who acts independently of his people's response"; "Seeing the world through the lens of biblical apocalyptic is a transformative way of seeing"; apocalypse as disclosure; Daniel and Revelation (352). Apocalyptic as a key to the NT, Kasemann, Beker and Martyn (353-54); the cross/resurrection is a new disclosure, a first order reversal of the previous, Galatians 6.14-15 (355); there are not two actors in the drama, God and humanity, but three, including the Powers (Martyn); apocalypse as both-worldly (356); Newbigin: "The cross is the place where the decisive battle between Christ and sin took place, where the powers of Satan brought all their strength to the attack, and where they were defeated" (357); 2 Corinthians 10.4). Eschatology and apocalypse (358); discontinuity in apocalyptic, the old age and the new (359); Paul's sharp distinction, Romans 10.5-6; 2 Corinthians 3.9, contrasted with his appeal to Abraham, Romans 4.10-12, 9.11. Aulen's Christus Victor (360): the forensic, subjective and the Christus Victor (CV), over the Powers: sin, death and the devil; Luther and CV (361-62). CV in Romans 5-6 (363): righteousness reckoned to us by grace through faith (or our relationship with God restored through Christ's faithfulness - KC), 5.20-21 (364) antitheses of sin and salvation (365-66). Freedom from slavery (367) to God or the powers (368)? Valjean (369); the close of Romans 8 (370). Gethsemane (371) struggle against diabolical opposition (Brown) "... the fact of the struggle can be taken for granted"; peirasmos, Matthew 26.41, Mark 14.38, Luke 22.40, the "trial" refers to the final apocalyptic battle (372); "God is initiating the definitive apocalyptic confrontation; "agony (combat) in the garden" (373-74). Luke 21.12-19, 1 Peter 4.12-17 (375); Colossians 2.13-15, Hebrews 2.14-17 (376). The Powers: Ephesians 6.10-12, Romans 8.38 (377) Mark 5.9; 1 Corinthians 5.5, 7.5; 2 Corinthians 12.6 (Paul mentions Satan 10 times); 1 Corinthians 2.6-8, 7.31 (378); Volf: from the massacred of innocents to the Battle of Armageddon; John Howard: the War of The Lamb; (379); Powers institutions that have fallen into sin; "... Satan seizes the principalities and powers and manipulates them so they become his servants. ... Volf ... is congruent with the New Testament theology of the Powers" (380); personal as well as corporate (381); Revelation and the sacrifice of The Lamb on the cross (382); misrepresentation of Revelation (383); Revelation and South Africa (384; and Civil Rights (385). Aulen and the agency of God: Matthew 12.29; Mark 3.27; Luke 11.21. incarnation as God's invasion of Satan's territory (386); Medieval carols (387); Mark 13.23, 13.7 giving the Devil his due, 1 Peter 5.8-11 (388) suffering and the fight against the devil, 1 Peter 5.10, Revelation 13.7; hope Romans 4.18,21 (389). Being a Christian means being involved, alongside Christ, in the battle with the demons (390); CV in the context of rectification, against liberation theology becoming detached from its Christological and kerygmatic foundations, resulting in groups setting up against each other (391); the CV problem of exoneration; crucifixion corresponds to the limits the Powers can perpetrate (392). The undermining of the foundations of the Powers (393-94).
Chapter Ten: The Descent into Hell
Prospective summary (395-97). Hell for Sheol, Hades and Gehenna (398). The absoluteness of OT death, Psalm 88, 6.5, 11.17; Ecclesiastes 9.5; Isaiah 6.16; Job 7.9-10; Psalm 94.17, 49.19, 39.13, 49.20 (399); Sirach 17.27-28; the remarkable Jewish adherence, reward irrelevant; Mark 5.1-20. NT conflates Sheol and Hades; Matthew 16.18, Revelation 1.18; Revelation 20.14. Apocryphal period expanded from death to a place of punishment (400); NT hell to be understood metaphorically not literally. Gehenna: the consuming fire to follow the Last Judgment; Gehenna more eschatological than Hades, Matthew 5.22, 23.15,31 (401). The evolution from Sheol to Gehenna after Exile; the enemy personified as Hades, death, Beelzebub (Mark 3.22) or Satan (402). NT descent texts: 1 Peter 3.17-21 (possibly 4.5-6); Ephesians 4.8-10 (403) although this could be a reference to Incarnation ((A bit tenuous - KC((. Hades and death (404); death as a NT hostile power; defeat by the enemy, John 11.33,35,38 (405); escape impossible without active deliverance; Mark 3.26-27, 1.23-27 (406); Christ's 'descent' to a realm where God was not: "God was separated from God while still remaining God"; von Balthasar: Holy Saturday kenosis of solidarity (407). The "ungodly" in hell until the Last Judgment, 2 Peter 2.4,9, Jude 6, 1 Corinthians 5.5, the penultimate state not the final fire of Matthew 25.41, cf. Romans 11.15. Descendit ad Inferna, Rufinus inserts an element of deliverance, 1 Peter 3.18-19 embellished to suggest deliverance (409); Calvin: all the Fathers mentioned it. Iconography in Byzantine art (410); the core is to point to evil (4111). Aquinas: expiation subjective; victory over Satan objective; voluntary (412). Understanding the love of God as violence to conquer violence; descent as an act of aggression: John 12.31, Matthew 12.29, Colossians 2.15 (413). Calvin, Isaiah 53; the "descent took place on the cross"; interwoven substitution and victory (414). Barth takes Calvin further (415); Gethsemane as a preparation for hell (416): "Barth seems to foresee ... signs of moving towards and understanding of hell not only as a symbolic representation of the judgment of God but also as the actual world-historical domain, or sphere, of the devil". Christians need to reclaim hell (417): the descent refers to the cross or the first act of the Resurrection. The origin of evil (418); no satisfactory account of the origin of evil; Genesis does not tell how the serpent got into Eden (419); God created the serpent; the serpent is shrewd not evil (420). Lucifer, Isaiah 14.12, Luke 10.18; the paradox of God creating the devil (421) ((Rutledge, the Biblical adherent escapes to classical theology - KC(). Augustine: Evil is non-being (422); Ricoeur objects (423-24); Russell: "evil exists in the cosmos like holes in a Swiss cheese"; better to concentrate on the concrete like Nazi concentration camps (425); Dante v Milton; Privatio Boni inadequate (426): God did not create nor intend evil; evil is not component of God's being; evil possesses no being but is a negation or corruption of being; god is not powerless but permits it to operate within bounds; our penultimate victory is a sign of ultimate victory over evil which will be ultimately effected at the final judgment. Hart disproves Mackie's famous theory (428); philosophy no help to pastoral care (429). McCord Adams: "Horrendous evils" (430) as life degrading or destroying (430). Lisbon and nature's neutrality; holocaust and the death of improvability (431); constructing theodicies out of human notions of God. Felix Culpa (342); Plantinga and suffering as salvific meaning (433). Evil is "a dead loss" (Clive James); Hart; the difference between hope, Romans 4.18 and banal confidence; more important to see evil than explain it (434). Jeffrey Burton: the centrality of evil in the NT. The difference between evil and wrong (435). The devil's 20th Century return (436); Augustine's Privatio Boni too abstract (437); Satan is not exterior, an active intelligence contending against God with no independent ontological status (438). The falsehood of innocence (439): Christian failure in Nazi Germany and complicity in Rwanda (440). Ivan and Alyosha Karamozov; Hart: whereas Voltaire thinks evil is not morally unintelligible, it would be much worse if it were (441); psychopaths and policy (442); power and evil run on the same track; there is no explanation (443). Job 30.20, 31.35; 25.6, 38.1-3: Job corresponds to God and receives his relationship, 27.5 (444-46) 42.1-6 (447); pastoral silencer. Romans 6.6, Galatians 6.14 and a disruptive God (448); Paul's conversion "violent"; God has the monopoly on violence, without the wrath of God we have no victory; Hauerwas: Christianity without enemies is unintelligible 9449); the battle against evil central to Christianity. The problem of perpetrators (450); the false dichotomy of deserving and undeserving; Christ died for sinners, Romans 5.6 (451); Zimbardo; McCord Adams and participants in evil (452); Auden: "WE shan't, not since Stalin and Hitler, trust ourselves ever again.". The hell of perpetrators (453); "ordinary" people; 1 Peter 3.18-20 (454); dying for all, Romans 4.17 (455); 1 Peter 4.3-6; the resurrection of the dead by the life giving word (456); Christ preaching to the unregenerate in hell (457). "... it is necessary to posit the existence of a metaphorical hell in order to acknowledge the reality and power of radical evil ... Without a concept of hell, Christian faith is sentimental and evasive, unable to stand up to reality in this world" ((having just argued the opposite from scripture - KC)) (458). ((The point is that evil becomes unnecessary once free will is unnecessary - KC)). (459); descent and triumph prefigured in Incarnation (460); Summary (461).
Chapter Eleven: The Substitution
Chapter summary (462-63). Substitution under attack by scholars for a century (464); Christus Victor's attraction its opposition to penal substitution as a way of 'downgrading' sin (465) the: "... confusion of the simple Biblical statement that Christ died not only on our behalf but also in our place should not be mistaken for the various elaborations that have been attached to it." ((that Substitution is in our psyche and the church would be worse off without it is no argument from scripture - Kc)) (466); Anselm fills a gap (467). NT: 1 Peter 3.18; 2 Corinthians 5.21 (468) Huper and peri; 1 Peter 2.24 critical in substitution, Isaiah 53. Romans 5.12-21 (469); Christ for Adam (470); Romans 8.3-4; Jesus giving up his flesh for our corrupted flesh; Romans 6.3,6 (471). Galatians 3.1-14, ref Deuteronomy 12-26, specifically on the stoning of a rebellious son (Deuteronomy 21.21 and following) (473); Paul had no worked out theory of substitution but it underlies his thought (473). Centrality of Isaiah 53 must be used cautiously for its near absence, except 1 Peter 2.20-24 in NT, problem of chastisement; Trinitarian problems "stricken by God" the passage provides NT proleptic substructure (475-76). Substitution not theologically worked out before Anselm; does its absence imply universal acceptance? ; not central to Athanasius (477) Hilary of Poitiers, Galatians 3.13; Victorinus; Ambrose; Cyril of Alexandria explicit; Melito of Sardis (479); Gregory of Nazianzus specific; John Chrysostom clearest of all. Richard of St. Victor, assumed; Aquinas, in the background (481). Luther Christius Victor but ref Galatians much of substitution (482). Calvin as pastoral (483) "wrath" refers to all that would destroy creation (484); narcissists dislike Calvin. "... What God loves is what we will become when he carries out his work of regeneration in us" (485); Ephesians 1.4-5, the loving purpose of God before creation (486). Late Reformed Scholasticism made penal substitution more programmatic than Calvin: we are all sinners and incur wrath; sin must be punished; Jesus took the punishment on himself and underwent God's judgment; Jesus took wrath away from humanity; Hodge; schematic, non-Biblical, use of Anselm (488). Objections: non trinitarian (489); narrow, crude transfer of merit from Christ to us; associated with human judgmentalism (490); culturally conditioned (491); views death detached from Resurrection (492), 1 Corinthians 15.17; an innocent cannot take on the guilt of another, too literal minded (493); glorifies suffering "divine child abuse", but God did not will Christ's death nor execute it, we did (494); too abstract (495), robbing grace of its unconditionally (495), God is not subject to external logic rather than love, not Biblical (496); Vindictive God, theologians ignored Trinitarian approach; violent (497); NT focus on shame (498-99); violence within the Godhead; the enactment in history of an eternal decision; God suffers violence (500); it does not develop Christian character, encouraging passivity (501); too individualistic, God died for "a people" (502); the error of an individualist understanding; emphasis on punishment; the problem of impunity (503-04); forensic imagery excludes the NT, lacks the cosmic apocalyptic (505); apocalyptic and forensic not contradictory, dangers of emphasising the latter. Summary : re-thinking does not mean eliminating (506). Barth: "The judge judged in our place" (507); God in man's place and man in God's place; representative and substitute (508); begins with Logos not fall; the prodigal son as a Christ figure (509); the last word of an old history and the first word of a new; judgment enclosed by mercy; incarnation the original substitution (510); God is the acting subject; God undergoes his own judgment; Christus Victor in Barth (512); Gentiles and the crucifixion (513); substitution "for us" (514-15); penal substitution crowding out other models (516-17); displacement: deposed from our self-made throne (518); liberation and hope (519); from subject to object in Gethsemane: "... a replaying in history of the eternal decision in the Godhead" (520). Where there is no knowledge of God there is no knowledge of sin (521); Christus Victor alone terribly damaging (522). Agency, 2 Corinthians 5.17-19 (523); the Law not God, Galatians 3.13 (524); God is agent. Lancelot Andrewes (525): an hour was the devil's but the day was God's (526); wrath, sin and love; The Messiah should be slain but not for himself, Daniel 9.26 (527); Isaiah 53.4-6 "all"; Dragged out of Egyps, Romans 5.6 (528); for us and for me (529); gratitude. Conclusions: "The apocalyptic drama is the non-negotiable context for the substitution model (530); God chose apocalyptic victory through substitution; correspondence between Christ's death, the Law and the human condition under the Law (531); the death that should have been ours; perdition for Christ, deliverance for us (532). Summary (533-35).
Chapter Twelve: Recapitulation
Little controversy round recapitulation (536); new Adam in Romans 5; the oldest theme (537; Irenaeus (538). Romans 5.12-21 (reprise) (539): Irenaeus: "... what we had lost in Adam We might recover In Christ, ... God recapitulated in himself ... recapitulating Adam in himself" (540); pre scientific NT cosmology; the third party enemy; Romans 5.21, the collision between two kingdoms (541). Baptism in Romans 6: Colossians 1.11-13 (542); objective salvation through Baptism. The obedience of faith in Romans 5-6: the obedience of Christ as a model of our obedience (543) Christ re-writes the history of Adam (544); contemporary hostility to Paul because we do not accept God's potency and Adam’s incapacity; the obedience of faith in Paul; the syntax of proclamation; the Abrahamic not the Mosaic covenant which dominates NT (545); what God will do regardless of our choices (546); crucifixion and Resurrection are the inaugural events of the age to come for baptised people. Christ's obedience: we are drawn into Christ's obedience (547); our misunderstanding of freedom (548); James 1.25, 2.12 in Christ law and liberty are the same thing. Incarnation and crucifixion in Romans 8: Irenaeus links incarnation with Resurrection but largely omits crucifixion (549-50); 2 Corinthians 5.21, Galatians 3.13, somehow relate to Gethseane but we don't know how (551); substitution, representation and exchange overlap; Gospels say crucifixion is the culmination of Christ's mission; Christ incorporates all human history into himself (552). The power of life in the Spirit: Romans 8 and the Spirit; recapitulation through the Spirit (553); Romans 8.11, the Spirit of the Father who raised the Son indwells in the Baptised in the Spirit. Recapitulation as "takeover": being "in Christ" and recapitulation; the eschatological status of the believer (554); "The Christian life of obedience is ... not a pilgrimage toward a goal ... (but) a witness or signpost to that ... end goal that has already been achieved by Christ ... and will be consummated in the last day ... by the action of God"; Romans 6.13-14, from sihn to grace through baptism; Galatians 2.20 (555). Indicative and imperative: being informed: Romans 12 "therefore"; from confirmation to transformation (556); rectification is not a process but exists eschatologically. Recapitulation (or representation) and substitution in Torrance, necessitates, the restoration of human nature (55-59). The invasion of the enemy's territory: flaw, Torrance does not refer to the enemy, the "third party" in the NT drama, Matthew 3.15, first chapter of recapitulation story (560); baptism in synoptics followed by temptation: "... the baptized Jesus steps in between Satan and his prey to confront the Enemy, undergoing all their temptations as their representative and emerging as victor in their place ..." but only provisionally at this point (561); George Herbert (562). The gruesome nature of the crucifixion absent from The Fathers; are we more aware of it in our present age? ((How did Christianity do without this for most of its history? - KC)) (563). We must preach of the gruesome cross (564). Cross constitutes eschatological hope; our incorporation into Christ (565), Romans 6.6, 9.11; Galatians 2.20, 6.17 (566); 2 Corinthians 12.10; Acts 4.5-12; Galatians 3.10-13; 1 Thessalonians 5.9. A misunderstanding of predestination in Romans 8.29 (567); "We are all being changed into Christ's likeness" 2 Corinthians 3.18. Ethical preaching often lacks the underpinning of Christ's blood, 1 John 4.14-17 (568); we hear too much of our own workings and not enough about God's workings (569); the "mind of Christ": 1 Corinthians 2.16; 1 John 3.2; 2 Corinthians 3.18); re-writing the book of love, 2 Corinthians 8.9, Philippians 2.5 (570).
Conclusion: Condemned into Redemption: The Rectification of The Ungodly
"None is righteous, no, not one", Romans 3.10-11,22-23; there is no distinction between godly and ungodly, Romans 4.5, 5.6 (571); Ephesians 2.12 (572). Aquinas and Medieval problems with unbelievers (573); Romans 11; Matthew 20.11-15, followed by 20.17-19 (574). Paradox: "... to speak of the 'ungodly' is already to speak of ourselves under the rule of grace" (575). Romans 4.10-11, Abram brought nothing to the party, not about human potential, Romans 3.22-23; "radical hospitality" falls well short of Jesus (576-77). High handed evil (578): the impossibility of drawing distinctions (579). Rectification as change of regime, Romans 13.12-14, Romans 13-14 (580). True inclusion (581): common plight (582). Psalm 25 (583) and Pelagianism (584). Psalm 69 (586). The impossibility of judgmentalism (586; the need for forgiveness, not just mending (587) global crime; incommensurate punishment; the need for atonement; Luke 18.9-14 (588), what Dikaiosyne can accomplish. Romans 3.9, we cannot separate ourselves from sin (589); Psalm 69: anger and admission; Romans 1.16 (590); Romans 7, 8.3-4 (591).; justice and righteousness identical (592); Malachi 3.2-4 (593). Romans 11.33-36; the Holocaust and collective sin (594); Hitler and Mary Bell (595). 1 Corinthians 15.21-22, 2 Corinthians 5.14-15, Romans 5.15-19, 11.32: the dialectic of judgment and redemption (596); 2 Timothy 2.11-13, penultimate judgment and ultimate salvation. "Nothing is impossible with God", Matthew 19.26, Mark 10.27, Luke 18.27 (597); the centrality of Romans 4.17, Isiah 44.6-8 (598): "... the God who is able to create out of nothing is able to create faith where there is no faith, righteousness where there is no righteousness, life where there is only the finality of death". 1 Corinthians 15.20,22 (599). Miroslav Volf: "The last judgment is a social event; it happens not simply to individuals but between people. Human beings are linked by many ties to neighbours near and far, both in space and in time. We wrong each other and rightfully have cases against each other. AT the Last Judgment God will settle all these 'cases' - which involve all offenses against God, too, since any wrongdoing against a neighbour is also an offense against God. Ultimately God will right all wrongs." (600), Romans 5.12-21. Matthew 28.19, the importance of belief (601); Ezekiel 36.26-28: God's people are condemned to redemption (602-03). Esau in Romans 9-11 (604): Malachi 1.1-5 (605); the line runs through people not between them (606); both reprobate and elect (607); "Paul ... is at pains to show that it is precisely the God of the Hebrew people who is acting in Jesus Christ" (608); Chapter 11, the power of God for salvation, contra American individualist salvation, 11.32 inclusive (609). Summary: the primacy of Romans 9-11; the events of Christ's life have cosmic significance but also individual, Galatians 2.20.