Ryan LyttonCrucifixion is at the center of Christianity. Yet Paul calls the cross of Jesus a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. Removed as we are from that culture, we often miss just how shocking crucifixion was. We wear gold crosses as...
Kirk E. MillerThe scene unfolds with stark irony: The innocent is condemned. The inscription nailed above his head declares a charge that belongs to the guilty who goes free. Mark intends for us to feel the perversion of justice. But he also intends for us to...
Michael HortonImportantly, penal substitution is not to be understood as the only aspect of Christ’s work, just as guilt is not the only aspect of our human plight. Jesus came to destroy death, the devil, sin, and human corruption; to give life to the dead, to...
Michael F. BirdI will never forget 2004, the year when Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ came out at the cinemas. Before its release, Jewish groups protested the film on the grounds that it would contain anti-Semitism and amplify anti-Jewish rhetoric from the...
Some describe the Gospels as accounts of Jesus’s death with really long introductions. Statements like this can downplay the bulk of the Gospels’ narratives, as though Jesus’s death were the only point of importance and everything else is just...