Book Wrap: John Stott's The Cross of Christ (And only 1,300 words this post!)

                I like to read, a lot. Normally I’ll do my Scripture reading in the morning and then read another theology book for 20 or 30 minutes before I go to bed. I started a word document about a year ago to keep track of my favorite quotes from the books I’ve read. That document has now swelled to 39 plus pages and I think a regular feature on the blog will be me pulling out some of my favorite quotes from there and writing a little bit on them. Another reading related feature that I’m introducing today will be book wrap ups/recaps/reviews as I finish books. It’s my intent to do this not to show off my reading, but to help myself think more clearly about what I’ve read and hopefully increase my own comprehension while at the same time hopefully blessing those who swing by with some of the content I found helpful in the book.

                This post’s book is John Stott’s classic “The Cross of Christ.” Originally published in 1986 it’s a classic in Evangelical literature as are most things that Stott’s written. The book is thick at 342 pages, one of those where you feel like you’ve accomplished something when you’re through with it. All 342 pages are unashamedly focused on examining the Cross of Christ from every conceivable angle. He organizes the book in three main sections as he examines the heart of the Cross, the achievement of the Cross, and living under the cross.

                The Divine Dilemma:

                Time constraints will keep me from being able to do any justice to the book, so I’ll be focusing in on what is both the literal and conceptual center of the book. This center is Stott’s dealing with what he describes as “The Divine Dilemma.” The dilemma is presented in answer to the question that skeptics throughout the centuries have asked of the Gospel story, “Why couldn’t God, if he is as powerful as Christianity claims He is, just forgive people? Why is the brutal and horrific death of His own Son necessary? Isn’t this little more than cosmic child abuse?”

                Stott argues that the reason God cannot merely forgive our sin is that there is an obstacle standing between us and forgiveness. But what is that obstacle? Stott writes, 

“I will argue…that the primary ‘obstacle’ is to be found within God Himself. He must ‘satisfy Himself’ in the way of salvation He devises, He cannot save us by contradicting Himself.” 

             This language of God “satisfying Himself” may be unfamiliar to many of you, I will spend the rest of this post working through Stott’s argument to try and make that phrase clear while at the same time showing the importance of this fundamental doctrine of the faith to our lives.

                The center of the divine dilemma is that because our sin is at its heart a “…inexcusable disobedience of God’s known will [which] dishonors and insults Him,” God cannot simply pass over and forgive that sin without dishonoring Himself. Anselm, , an 11^th century theologian expressed it in this way, “If it is not becoming to God to do anything unjustly or irregularly, it is not within the scope of his liberty or kindness or will to let go unpunished the sinner who does not repay to God what he has taken away.” In other words, God must be consistent with His revealed character. Since we know from Scripture that sin comes with a price God must insist upon the payment of that price if He is to be consistent with His own character. Anselm summarizes, “It is not proper for God to pass over sin thus unpunished.” If God were to forgive sin without demanding the payment of the price He would be being unfaithful to Himself and thus no longer be God. “The way God chooses to forgive sinners and reconcile them to Himself must, first and foremost, be fully consistent with His own character….He must satisfy Himself.”

                God of Wrath, God of Love

This doctrine of the self satisfaction of God through His Son Jesus Christ is far from popular today, even in some Evangelical circles. This is because in order to affirm it one must affirm, with Scripture, that our God is not only a God of love, but a God of justice and of wrath. God’s wrath has become a passé doctrine in most Churches today as it doesn’t fit well with our post modern imaginings of a god who accepts and loves all as they are. Many Evangelicals have followed culture in dismissing the notion of God as having wrath as primitive and incompatible with the supposed “God of love” of the New Testament.

                Stott refers to this Biblical tension between God’s wrath and His love as God’s “dual nature.” He quotes extensively from Emil Brunner’s “The Mediator” in critiquing those who would reduce God’s Biblical dual nature to the single nature of love. Brunner writes that in our world, 

“The idea of the Divine Holiness has been swallowed up in that of the Divine love, this means that the Biblical idea of God, in which the decisive element is this twofold nature of holiness and love, is being replaced by the modern, unilateral, monistic idea of God.” 

               Stott embraces this “vision of God’s holy love,” because it will “deliver us from caricatures of Him. We must picture Him neither as an indulgent God who compromises His holiness in order to spare and spoil us, nor as a harsh, vindictive God who suppresses His love in order to crush and destroy us.”

                The Perfect Mediation of the Cross

                It is only when we’ve come to terms with the Biblical picture of God as a God of wrath and of love that we can come to see the cross in all its beauty and perfection. I’ll close this post out with two quotes; one from Stott and one from John Piper that I’ve found always bring me to worship God for the wonder and miracle of the cross. Describing the resolution of the divine dilemma that took place on the cross Stott writes that on the cross, 

“God through Christ substituted Himself for us. Divine love triumphed over divine wrath by divine self-sacrifice. The cross was simultaneously an act of punishment and amnesty, severity and grace, justice and mercy.”

The cross is the clearest example we’re given in Scripture of the incredibly diverse nature of God, that’s why it’s such a travesty that the doctrine of Penal Substitution which Stott is describing here has been pushed to the periphery in the preaching and teaching of so many Churches. The tragedy is that the casting aside of this beautiful doctrine cheapens our view of both God the Father and Christ. It cheapens our view of God the Father by presenting Him as a shallow and one dimensional “God of love” while ignoring His other Biblically revealed and worship worthy attributes like His wrath and justice. It cheapens our view of Christ by leaving no room for viewing his sacrifice as anything more than a great example of selfless love that we should follow, it is robbed of its atoning significance. Christ’s sacrifice becomes no nobler than Mahatma Gandhi’s.

I’ll leave you with a quote from the man who has taught me more about God than any other man, John Piper. The quote is the clearest presentation I’ve ever seen of how through the cross God’s satisfies all His different attributes and is thus faithful to Himself. Piper writes, 

“The Good news [the Gospel] is that God has decreed a way to satisfy the demands of His justice without condemning the whole human race…[on the cross] the wisdom of God has ordained a way for the love of God to deliver us from the wrath of God without compromising the justice of God.”