Rachel’s Reviews > The Cross of Christ > Status Update

Quoting Anselm of Canterbury’s “Cur Deus Homo?”: “‘there is no-one…who can make this satisfaction except God Himself…But no-one ought to make it except man; otherwise man does not make the satisfaction.’ Therefore, ‘it is necessary that one who is God-man should make it.’ A being who is God and not man, or man and not God, or a mixture…and therefore neither man nor God, would not qualify.”

“If we reinterpret sin as a lapse instead of a rebellion, and God as indulgent instead of indignant, then naturally the cross appears superfluous.”

“If we bring God down to our level and raise ourselves to His, then of course we see no need for a radical salvation, let alone for a radical atonement to secure it.”

“We must, therefore, hold fast to the biblical revelation of the living God who hates evil…and refuses to come to terms with it. In consequence, we may be sure that, when He searched in His mercy for some way to forgive, cleanse, and accept evil-doers, it was not along the road of moral compromise. It had to be a way which was expressive equally of His love and of His wrath.”

“…the Passover meal would not be eaten until the Friday evening, which meant that Jesus was dying on the cross at the very time that the Passover lambs were being killed… The central importance which Jesus attached to His death is underlined by the fact that He was actually giving instructions for the annual celebration of the Passover to be replaced by His own supper.”

“The Lord‘s supper, which was instituted by Jesus, & which is the only regular commemorative act authorized by him, dramatizes neither his birth nor his life, neither his words nor his works, but only his death… It was by his death that he wished above all else to be remembered. There is then…no Christianity without the cross. If the cross is not central to our religion, ours is not the religion of Jesus.“

“For there is blood on our hands. Before we can begin to see the cross as something done FOR us (leading us to faith and worship), we have to see it as something done BY us (leading us to repentance).”

“The same evil [of the Jewish leaders] influences our own contemporary attitudes to Jesus. He is still, as CS Lewis called Him, ‘a transcendental interferer.’ We resent His intrusions into our privacy, His demand for our homage, His expectation of our obedience.”