Many years ago I was asked by the Quaker
community of Pennsylvania, the Society of Friends, to come to one of their meetings
and explain to them the difference between the old covenant and the new
covenant. I talked about the Day of Atonement in Israel and the crucifixion of
Christ in the New Testament. As I spoke of Christ becoming cursed, my message
was interrupted by a guy in the back who stood up and shouted, "That's
primitive and obscene!" I was taken aback, and just to give myself a
chance to think I said, "What did you say?" as if I hadn't heard him.
(Everybody in the room heard him.)
With great hostility he repeated
himself, so I told him that I loved the words he'd chosen. What could be more
primitive than killing animals and placing the blood over the throne of God or
taking a human being and pouring out his blood as a human sacrifice? One of the
things I love about the gospel is that it wasn't written merely for an agnostic
elite group of scholars. The drama of redemption is communicated in terms so
simple, so crass and primitive, that a child can understand it. I really like the
second word he used -- obscene. If there ever was an obscenity that violates
contemporary community standards, it was Jesus on the cross. After He became
the scapegoat and the Father had imputed to Him every sin of every one of His
people, the most intense, dense concentration of evil ever experienced on this
planet was exhibited. Jesus was the ultimate obscenity.
-- R.C. Sproul, from “Proclaiming a Cross-centered Theology”
#4571
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