King’s Cross 12

For years I’ve taught Jesus of Nazareth, and most years during the last week of the semester we examine the theology of each of the four Evangelists. The Gospel of Mark, in many ways, comes to a crucial pivot in Mark 8–10, and the core idea is this: the Messiah will be crucified in order to liberate God’s people, and that means the cross is also the paradigm of discipleship. Tim Keller, in King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, sketches the heart of this in his chapter called “The Ransom.” A point I’d like to make: to be consistent, to embrace cruciform discipleship requires embracing cruciform soteriology. The cross is the core.

Three times in three chapters Jesus announces his death (8:31-32; 9:30-31; 10:32-34). Jesus came to die. “That sets him apart from the founder of ever other major religion. Their purpose was to live and be an example; Jesus’ purpose was to die and be a sacrifice” (140).

Further: “Jesus came to be a substitutionary sacrifice” — the words are “to give his life a ransom for many” and he sees behind “for” the Greek word “anti” which means “instead of.” [I write about atonement theory in A Community Called Atonement: Living Theology.] And ransom is about a cosmic payment that will procure freedom.

Here’s where Keller’s ideas make an important shift: his contention is that “all life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice.” Surprise? He sees it in care for the needy and in true parental love for children. I would definitely agree that it is sacrificial. He contends, and this he doesn’t discuss, that forgiveness is not just “I forgive” but requires sacrificial love. So that the cross is the self-substitution of God — not just Son’s love but Trinity love. Then this: God “re-created the world on the cross” (144).

Which leads to the cruciform life of discipleship:

The disciples want a glory discipleship but Jesus shows that the essence of life is sacrificial and not ruling. And here he gets to the very core of Mark’s theology: “If at the very heart of your worldview is a man dying for his enemies, then the way you’re going to win influence in society is through service rather than power and control” (149).

The saving cross is the paradigm for the serving cross.