Word of Life Church Podcast

How did Jesus understand his own death? What purpose did he see in it? Did Jesus have a "theology of cross"? In fact, he did. A few days before Good Friday Jesus said his crucifixion and death would accomplish three things: 1. Judge the world. 2. Drive out Satan. 3. Reorganize the world.

Understanding that God is like Jesus is essential to our understanding of salvation. We must not think that salvation comes about because Jesus appeases a vengeful God, angry at the actions of sinful man. Salvation comes about because Jesus reveals the Father and does the Father's work. If we believe God killed Jesus for the sake of justice, we have dramatically distorted our understanding of salvation.

God is like Jesus.
God has always been like Jesus.
There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus.
We have not always known what God is like—
But now we do.

The universe has a flow and a telos, a purpose and an aim, a goal and a grain. And the grain of the universe is love. From the heart of God there is an endless flow of love. What wisdom knows is that to flow— and not fight— your way through life, you need to go with the grain. To flourish as a human being you must go with the grain of love. Our capacity to love comes from knowing that we are loved by God. Love of God demands love for the other— be they lover, neighbor, or enemy. The only way to love the other, especially an enemy is to practice the art of contemplation. Contemplation makes the Golden Rule possible.

When we look at the death of Jesus on the cross in the light of the resurrection, we are looking at our salvation. But, what do we really see when we look at the cross? Are we looking at the appeasement of a monster god through barbaric child sacrifice? Or are we seeing something else? Is the cross vengeance or love? When Jesus says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," he is not asking God to act contrary to his nature. He is, in fact, revealing the very heart of God! The cross is not about the satisfaction of a vengeful monster god, the cross is the full revelation of a supremely merciful God! In Christ we discover a God who would rather die than kill his enemies. Once we know that God is revealed in Christ, we know what we are seeing when we look at the cross: The cross is where God in Christ absorbs sin and recycles it into forgiveness. The crucifixion is not what God inflicts upon Christ in order to forgive, but what God endures in Christ as he forgives.

Jesus was faithful. Jesus remains faithful. Jesus will be faithful. This theme of faithfulness is the foundation of Paul's view of how God intends to save the world through sending his Son. To see the the faithfulness of Jesus in the New Testament requires a proper understanding of the big story the Bible is telling, a four-act story of Creation, Corruption, Covenant, and New Creation. With that story in mind, we can see the faithfulness of Jesus in Paul's description of the death of Jesus in Romans 3:21-24. Through his faithfulness, God declares us justified, and thus incorporated into the covenant people of God.

Why did Jesus die? Why was he tortured? Why was he crucified? Why was he murdered? To answer these questions, you must first answer this question: Who Killed Jesus? This much must be made clear: God did not kill Jesus! To suggest God tortured and murdered his Son is to malign the character of God. God sent his Son into a world founded on a sinful and satanic system of blame and violence to bear witness to divine love and to save us from death and the ways of death. Jesus sacrificially laid down his life, but it was not a suicide. At the cross, human religion and politics committed homicide. The sacrificial killing of Jesus is not what God required; it's what we required.

We don’t preach the Bible, we preach Jesus. We use the Bible to preach Jesus. The difference between preaching the Bible and preaching Jesus is the difference between Christianity and Biblicism. The difference between Christianity and Biblicism is the difference between following a book and following our risen Lord. Philip didn’t preach the Bible, he preached Jesus. He used the Bible to preach Jesus. The Bible has never saved anyone. It’s Jesus who saves. The Bible is the means, but Jesus is the end!

We Christians are a most peculiar people. Why? Because we worship a crucified God. Other religions worship a an omnipotent God, a glorious God, a victorious God—
but we worship a crucified God! The death of Jesus upon the cross was murder. It was a lynching. It was a mob killing that God knew would happen because of our sin, but he did not will it. What God willed was that through his death Jesus would save us from sin and death. God crucified. The giver of life put to death. The Creator crucified by his creation. This is the greatest scandal of all time.

The Transfiguration is the high point of the narrative arc in the synoptic gospels. Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus on the mountain where he was praying. This is the moment It is when the divinity of Jesus was revealed to Peter, James, John. The Transfiguration moment is where the Old Testament hands the project over to Jesus, where Moses and Elijah find their great successor, and where the old witness of the Hebrew scriptures truly becomes the new witness of the New Testament.

Special Guest Terry Wildman is a Native American and the head of Rain Song Ministries, a Christian organization ministering to the indigenous people of North America. In this special sermon, Terry Wildman describes the current plight of Native Americans and offers a perspective of an appropriate Christian response.