understanding salvation – Jesus @ 2 am blogs and podcast

Why was Jesus crucified? Was the cross an act of God (to satisfy the divine wrath)? Was it simply the inevitable result of Jesus’s challenge to the Sadducees and Pharisees? Was he betrayed by followers who felt he had failed his promises to deliver a political kingdom? Or was this an act of sin itself – of evil making it’s last stand against love?

In this second look at the cross – building towards a theory of the atonement that unifies the story of salvation – we examine the crucifixion from these various angles. Ultimately I will try to make the case that the cross is where the love of God was put to its ultimate test. A sinful world rejected God in every way, and, in that moment, God chose to love his enemies with all his heart.

This is a sermon that was originally presented at Canvas (a Presbyterian church in Irvine, CA), April 13, 2014 (Palm Sunday). To learn more about Canvas, click here!

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Is there such at thing as Evil? Not just as an adjective – describing the character of an act or even a person – but as a thing in and of itself; evil with a capital “E”? From the biblical perspective, the answer is: yes. There is a force, a drive within creation that stands in direct opposition to love and thus to God. This is more than merely the inertia each of us faces in our efforts towards the good. Evil is not simply the resistance to love, but is rather the active work against it. And while the language of demons, satan, exorcisms…is not the most comfortable for thoughtful citizens of the 21st century, it is the language the biblical authors use to articulate the hidden power that seeks to rob humans of our humanness.

In this episode we examine the story of Jesus casting out the “legion” of “evil spirits” driving a man to his own destruction and how his healing demonstrates yet another dimension of God’s salvation (Mark 5:1-20). If Jesus is indeed the means by which God will set all creation right, evil itself must be faced and defeated.

This is a sermon that was originally presented at Canvas (a Presbyterian church in Irvine, CA), 23 February 2014. To learn more about Canvas, click here!

To receive future episodes automatically, simply subscribe by clicking below:

Tag: understanding salvation

Understanding the Bible 29: The Crucifixion – God Loves His Enemies

Understanding the Bible 23: Demons, Exorcisms and the Reality of Evil