In the penultimate chapter of Humanising the Divine I make a quick stab at the ‘cross’ and what it means. To accompany it, for those on zooms I put up a video today.
Here are some bullet points:
- The idea of a transaction taking place is not the most ancient (post-NT) view(s).
- Transaction begins to gain traction with Anselm (approx 1060AD) with his view that we owe God a debt that we cannot pay, this moving from the feudal system to the law court with the Reformers… hence today our penal substitutionary view; we are guilty, Jesus pays the penalty.
- Human anger is never called righteous anger, so we cannot extrapolate what is the wrath of God from anything human. God’s wrath is not personal.
- The cross does not deal with God’s anger issue!
- God did not turn away from Jesus on the cross, ‘unable to look on sin’. It is not so much a mis-reading of Scripture, but of not reading enough verses!
- The major thrust of the New Testament is to do with the ‘when’ of the cross. If we do not answer that we will not be able to line up an answer to the ‘what’ takes place there and the ‘why’ of the cross.
It is a first stab… I come back to it in book 4 which will be out in the next few days!!
Very well articulated and very helpful, Martin. Abraham Joshua Heshcel has a very interesting perspective (in his book ‘The Prophets’ which is much less toxic than the traditional Christian views.