{"id":3492,"date":"2010-07-12T10:57:32","date_gmt":"2010-07-12T15:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/?p=3492"},"modified":"2010-07-12T10:57:32","modified_gmt":"2010-07-12T15:57:32","slug":"wiw-the-cross-and-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2010\/20100712-3492.htm","title":{"rendered":"WiW: The Cross and Society"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve been reading John Stott’s The Cross of Christ<\/i> and making notes<\/a> over the past few weeks. Then I found a couple of articles that seemed to go along with what I’ve been reading…<\/p>\n

Michael Horton on The Cross in Today’s Discourse<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“In contemporary discourse on the atonement and justification, Hunsinger judges, ‘The social or horizontal aspect of reconciliation…eclipses its vertical aspect.'” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“In much of evangelicalism today, the emphasis falls on the question “What Would Jesus Do?” rather than “What Has Jesus Done?” Jesus provides the model for us to imitate for personal or social transformation.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I can see the growing emphasis on the horizontal aspect of the cross–how the cross impacts our behavior towards others–in much of my reading, blogwise or bookwise. Boyd’s The Myth of a Christian Nation<\/i>, particularly, seems to emphasize this a good deal.<\/p>\n

And it is true that the cross impacts our relationships with others. But is this the whole story? <\/p>\n

C.S. Lewis rightly decries the notion.<\/em><\/p>\n

Screwtape (Lewis’s fictional older demon) on how to tempt a Christian<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy [=God] demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice<\/i>. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist\u2019s shop. Fortunately it is quite easy to coax humans round this little corner.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If the cross becomes merely a means by which society can be changed, the cross loses its power and the enemy has succeeded to a large degree.<\/p>\n

What then is the cross’s impact?<\/i><\/p>\n

Michael Horton (again) on the essence of the cross<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Christ’s penal substitution is not the whole of Christ’s work, but without it nothing else matters.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We cannot primarily look upon the cross as an example we are to follow, but as a completed work, accomplished by Christ on our behalf. We cannot primarily look upon the cross as a means by which to transform society, but as the means by which God the Father and Christ the Son transformed us from sinners to saints, from enemies to friends, from abandoned orphans to adopted sons. <\/p>\n

Yes, we should attempt to take up our crosses and follow Christ. Yes, we should seek to follow Christ’s example in our daily lives. But unless we recognize the accomplished work of Christ on the cross, we will have lost the transformative power of the cross. <\/p>\n

Collect more quotes from throughout the week with Barbara H’s<\/a> meme “The Week in Words”.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been reading John Stott’s The Cross of Christ and making notes over the past few weeks. Then I found a couple of articles that seemed to go along with what I’ve been reading… Michael Horton on The Cross in Today’s Discourse: “In contemporary discourse on the atonement and justification, Hunsinger judges, ‘The social or … Read more WiW: The Cross and Society<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[25],"tags":[1017,1093],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}