The Crucified God
The Crucified God
Brian Zahnd
“When the crucified Jesus is called ‘the image of the invisible God,’
the meaning is that this is God and God is like this.”
–Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God
“Being disguised under the disfigurement of an ugly crucifixion and death,
the Christform is paradoxically the clearest revelation of who God is.”
–John R. Cihak, Love Alone Is Believable: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Apologetics
“Jesus is the only perfect theology.”
–Brad Jersak
God is like Jesus.
God has always been like Jesus.
There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus.
We haven’t always known this.
But now we do.
–Brian Zahnd
I want to know who God is. I want to know what God is like. So what should I do? Read the Bible? Yes…but. The Bible is a big and complicated book and subject to what Christian Smith wryly calls “pervasive interpretive pluralism.” Smith is referring to the embarrassing plethora of contradictory interpretations from equally qualified and well-intentioned interpreters.
So what do we do? Where do we stand within Scripture in order to interpret the rest of the text? Genesis? Leviticus? Joshua? Revelation? What we need is a way to center our reading of Scripture – a vantage point from which to interpret the whole of Scripture. My humble suggestion is that this place is the cross. Not only do I advocate a Christocentric reading of the Bible, I contend that the cross is the most Christ-revealing moment in the Bible.
If we want to know what God is like, the best thing we can do is look at Jesus upon the cross. God is like that!
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