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[01:00:10:00 - 01:00:14:09]
Chris
 That's why we've got to know God's word. And my theology really, truly does matter.

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Chris
 Why I love to preach God's word and why I try to do it so passionately, because it's not just facts or things that don't really matter to the day-to-day of our lives. They literally matter in everything we do, every environment we live, every relationship that we are in.

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Brenton
 Welcome back to Further. I am Brenton Grimm. Chris Carr, how you doing this week?

[01:00:40:09 - 01:00:46:04]
Chris
 Pretty good. Looking forward to a big couple of weeks coming up here.

[01:00:46:04 - 01:00:51:05]
Brenton
 For sure. Walk me through it. What are the big things happening here? Well,

[01:00:51:05 - 01:01:11:19]
Chris
 yeah, it's kind of some of the biggest couple of weeks that we've had for a long time. This weekend, Lord willing, we're moving into the new Fort Madison campus. So super excited about that. And I say Lord willing, I mean, I think it's one way or another, because we moved out of the old campus now.

[01:01:11:19 - 01:01:15:07]
Chris
 So officially, they did that yesterday after services.

[01:01:15:07 - 01:01:20:02]
Chris
 But that's super exciting. And then we have Good Friday and Easter,

[01:01:20:02 - 01:01:23:13]
Chris
 which is the biggest weekend of the year for us.

[01:01:23:13 - 01:01:59:16]
Chris
 In between that, next Sunday, we're actually going to talk about it is finished, and really, an entire message essentially around three words. And it's going to be great. Really looking forward to that. And yeah, so and then after that, we'll dive back in before too long into another round of studying the great commandment. And so really, the next couple of months, not just a couple of weeks, but a couple of months is going to be pretty big. So a lot of exciting things to talk about, celebrate, and to consider.

[01:01:59:16 - 01:02:03:08]
Brenton
 For sure. Yeah, as always, a lot going on, but a lot of good stuff.

[01:02:03:08 - 01:02:08:18]
Brenton
 Really excited for Fort Madison campus to get moved into that building. It's going to be a great space for them.

[01:02:08:18 - 01:02:09:05]
Brenton
 Super excited.

[01:02:09:05 - 01:02:09:19]
Chris
 For sure.

[01:02:09:19 - 01:02:11:02]
Brenton
 All right, so we're just going to jump in.

[01:02:11:02 - 01:02:28:18]
Brenton
 This is obviously a heavy topic. There's a lot of different directions we could go. For sure. And this is-- I feel like every topic that we talk about on this show ends up back on this anyway. And so we've covered a lot of it indirectly.

[01:02:28:18 - 01:02:44:10]
Brenton
 But yeah, there's some things to talk about today. So let's just start with you. You emphasize that everything happening at the cross is under God's control. So your first point in your outline was God's sovereignty.

[01:02:44:10 - 01:02:50:06]
Brenton
 And that is even down to the smallest details, like the guards casting lots for Jesus' clothing.

[01:02:50:06 - 01:03:09:10]
Brenton
 How do we hold that together with the reality that there's real guilt on those who crucified Jesus? There was real sin that put him on the cross. And yet, God is sovereign through that, and he had purposes for it. So how should we think about this?

[01:03:09:10 - 01:03:28:00]
Chris
 Yeah, well, you said, how do we hold it together? And I think we hold it together by acknowledging that there are things in this world, and specifically in scripture, that seem to us human beings to be paradoxes,

[01:03:28:00 - 01:03:31:16]
Chris
 two things that we in our minds don't see how they can go together.

[01:03:31:16 - 01:03:34:18]
Chris
 And yet, the Bible teaches them both.

[01:03:34:18 - 01:03:38:20]
Chris
 And that there is, therefore, some mystery

[01:03:38:20 - 01:03:41:21]
Chris
 about how these things are possible.

[01:03:41:21 - 01:03:51:06]
Chris
 And yet, we can go to a passage like Acts 2.23, not Paul, but Peter's preaching that sermon on the day of Pentecost.

[01:03:51:06 - 01:03:56:21]
Chris
 And he says, basically, to the crowd in verse 23,

[01:03:56:21 - 01:04:06:00]
Chris
 he says, "This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men."

[01:04:06:00 - 01:04:10:10]
Chris
 Foreknowledge there means really choosing. By the definite plan and choosing of God,

[01:04:10:10 - 01:04:11:22]
Chris
 Jesus was delivered up.

[01:04:11:22 - 01:04:51:13]
Chris
 And so there's God's sovereignty. But Peter doesn't end there. He says, "You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men." So there's human responsibility, God's sovereignty, and human responsibility. And we see this, of course, in Romans, when in terms of salvation, is like God is sovereign over salvation. He chooses, he elects, is the biblical term, who's going to be saved. But human beings are responsible for whether or not they're going to respond in faith to the gospel or not. And how can both of those things be true at the same time?

[01:04:51:13 - 01:05:13:00]
Chris
 I'm not exactly sure that I can explain that. But the Bible teaches it very clearly. And so the greater minds then that I maybe can give a little bit of a deeper explanation in that, although I've read quite a bit. I'm not sure about that.

[01:05:13:00 - 01:05:24:06]
Chris
 And yet, that's where we have to understand that God is omniscient, all-knowing. He is infinitely more intelligent than we are.

[01:05:24:06 - 01:05:41:12]
Chris
 And so we don't ultimately trust in our ability to understand and comprehend everything, but in the fact that He has revealed truth to us in His Word. And we're going to trust that that is truly the only way we maybe can't figure it all out.

[01:05:41:12 - 01:05:57:14]
Brenton
 Yeah, and even this is probably the most obvious example in Scripture of God's sovereignty, while also the men that were responsible were held culpable for it.

[01:05:57:14 - 01:06:05:17]
Brenton
 What can we take from that today? Like in our everyday life, realizing that God is still,

[01:06:05:17 - 01:06:08:15]
Brenton
 has purposes in the evil that happens.

[01:06:08:15 - 01:06:17:16]
Brenton
 What can we learn from this aspect of the crucifixion story? Especially like you brought up that Acts passage. I think that lays it out very well.

[01:06:17:16 - 01:06:20:12]
Brenton
 But what can we take from that for our lives today?

[01:06:20:12 - 01:06:20:16]
Chris
 Well,

[01:06:20:16 - 01:06:29:09]
Chris
 I would simply say that if God was able to use the worst evil and injustice in the history of the world,

[01:06:29:09 - 01:06:35:11]
Chris
 and second place doesn't even come close, He was able to use that for the greatest good,

[01:06:35:11 - 01:07:24:08]
Chris
 then we can trust that in all of our difficulties and struggles and sometimes unjust and maybe even evil things that happen to us that God intends to use that for good. And I think the story of Joseph is a great picture of this. And it's meant to be a picture of it, quite frankly. And Joseph actually says to his brothers, as the reconciling at the end of the book, what you meant for evil, God meant for good, the saving of many lives. It's easy for us to pass over that, but Joseph went through a lot of suffering because of his brothers, the evil, not only them, but a whole host of people who did him wrong.

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Chris
 Being sold into slavery, spending years and years in prison.

[01:07:27:10 - 01:07:42:07]
Chris
 That's just kind of the beginning of it. And yet in the end, God exalted him to second highest in the land, and then even more than that, used that eventually to save his brothers, his family, and actually the people of God.

[01:07:42:07 - 01:07:48:11]
Chris
 And then of course they end up, because here we are again, we end up then eventually in slavery, right?

[01:07:48:11 - 01:07:53:19]
Chris
 Hundreds of years later, and then God in his sovereignty frees them.

[01:07:53:19 - 01:08:03:07]
Chris
 And again, all of this is meant to be a picture of how God uses the injustice of, and the evil of wicked men to accomplish his purposes. So if it's true,

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Chris
 I mean, this is really, honestly, I think the Christian life is really making it personal, like I was trying to help us to do on Sunday, it's like making the theological, the personal to us,

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Chris
 yeah,

[01:08:16:11 - 01:08:17:15]
Brenton
 okay.

[01:08:17:15 - 01:08:20:19]
Brenton
 Your third point in your outline was suffering.

[01:08:20:19 - 01:08:25:17]
Brenton
 And I think, for us reading this today,

[01:08:25:17 - 01:08:52:04]
Brenton
 this, the crucifixion story, the means of death is gratuitous, and not that it wasn't then, but like, why, is there a reason that this amount of physical suffering was necessary? You know, obviously one aspect of the, is like fulfillment of prophecy, I think that that's significant, but is there anything that was necessary in the physical suffering for our justification?

[01:08:52:04 - 01:08:59:20]
Chris
 Well, I will step back by saying, I kind of separated it out as physical, emotional, and spiritual,

[01:08:59:20 - 01:09:13:10]
Chris
 and I did that in terms, for reasons to help us understand and help us to clearly see them, but that's not really how it works, like there are three separate distinct things, they're all intertwined with one another.

[01:09:13:10 - 01:09:19:04]
Chris
 So Peter says, first Peter 2.24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.

[01:09:19:04 - 01:09:24:20]
Chris
 Okay, so his suffering for sin was an embodied experience.

[01:09:24:20 - 01:09:34:20]
Chris
 It wasn't like, he's just suffering spiritual over here, and then emotionally and physically over here, and those two things were separate, like, from one another.

[01:09:34:20 - 01:09:48:05]
Chris
 His suffering was a bodily experience, and I believe that that includes emotionally and spiritually, and that's, partly that's important because it testifies to the humanity of Christ,

[01:09:48:05 - 01:09:53:08]
Chris
 which is one of the reasons that the physical suffering is important. So we can talk about things like,

[01:09:53:08 - 01:10:02:16]
Chris
 it is part of fulfilling the sacrificial system. Hebrews tells us that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

[01:10:02:16 - 01:10:25:13]
Chris
 That's meant to point back to the Old Testament, and really even meant to point back to the very beginning in Genesis 3, where after Adam and Eve sinned, God, essentially there's a sacrifice of animals so that they can be covered, their sins can be their nakedness, their shame, guilt can be covered, and then we have the sacrificial system instituted through Moses,

[01:10:25:13 - 01:10:33:06]
Chris
 and that's what makes it, we have this concept of atonement, which is making one with God.

[01:10:33:06 - 01:10:36:19]
Chris
 The day of atonement, we are familiar with that,

[01:10:36:19 - 01:10:40:15]
Chris
 which was a yearly, really,

[01:10:40:15 - 01:10:57:18]
Chris
 where the sins of the people were paid for, covered over through the shedding of blood. And so Jesus necessarily needed to have his blood being shed.

[01:10:57:18 - 01:11:30:20]
Chris
 You talk about part of the curse. The curse was the curse of sin included physical bodies, right? The curse of sin includes death, physical death, and so Jesus and his dying, physically defeated sin and death. So there's spiritual death and physical death. This is where it kind of gets confusing, right? It's like the curse of sin is both a physical and a spiritual death,

[01:11:30:20 - 01:12:05:06]
Chris
 and so that's why we need those components to of Jesus' suffering on the cross. And ultimately, I should say ultimately, but the last one I will add is that it demonstrates the depths of God's love for it. It helps us, I think, even to get a visible picture of, you know, the spiritual component is harder for us to get our arms around, so to speak, but the physical suffering is very clear picture of how God demonstrates his love for us and that Christ is willing to die for us.

[01:12:05:06 - 01:12:09:12]
Brenton
 Yeah, I think, you know, to some extent, it's easy to get,

[01:12:09:12 - 01:12:25:04]
Brenton
 like, honestly, the next thing we're gonna talk about is just the spiritual, like the importance of the spiritual side of this, but I think it can be pretty common to get distracted too much by the physical side of it, right?

[01:12:25:04 - 01:12:33:03]
Brenton
 And miss what's actually the actual atonement that he's the actual substitute that he is for us, right?

[01:12:33:03 - 01:12:34:00]
Chris
 Well,

[01:12:34:00 - 01:12:34:14]
Chris
 you know,

[01:12:34:14 - 01:12:36:10]
Chris
 Paul, Galatians 3, 13,

[01:12:36:10 - 01:12:44:03]
Chris
 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, curses he who is hung on a tree.

[01:12:44:03 - 01:13:07:06]
Chris
 And so the picture there is like, Christ is taking the curse from, we are under a curse, and the best way for the Jews to actually see this is by Christ being hung on a tree, because to them that was the most shameful,

[01:13:07:06 - 01:13:11:08]
Chris
 cursed way to die, and God,

[01:13:11:08 - 01:13:16:09]
Chris
 in the summer, and he decided to use the Romans in their form of execution

[01:13:16:09 - 01:13:21:18]
Chris
 in connecting that to the, like, he's weaving all of this together. One,

[01:13:21:18 - 01:13:46:06]
Chris
 this is a little bit of a side point, but I think it's related to one, I had a great conversation with a couple yesterday who, like, they haven't been believers for a long time, really, really solid, know the Bible, and they're like, we never really had heard or understood that when Jesus said, I thirst, what was in view there? And so my response to that is, this is why biblical theology is so important.

[01:13:46:06 - 01:14:15:18]
Chris
 So just a quick aside on that, systematic theology, we've talked about this before, which is a reminder, like systematic theology takes the different doctrines and systematizes, and biblical theology looks at the whole story of the Bible from beginning to end, and biblical theology is so important because it helps us to see these threads that run all the way through, and when we read the Bible in that way, then we can see, I didn't even ring this up, but we've got Psalm 42,

[01:14:15:18 - 01:14:36:02]
Chris
 which actually we're gonna talk about in our series coming up, we're gonna study it, but it was almost the same as the deer pants for water, so my soul pants pants for you. Like there's that spiritual, like a thirst. So when we begin to put that together, and I mean, I quoted Nam, I don't know if I've ever quoted Nam before.

[01:14:36:02 - 01:15:03:11]
Chris
 Okay, and I'd beg to say, or I bet that a lot of people haven't heard Nam maybe referred to in a message, but it's there, and there were definitely other passages that we talked about there, so that's why Deuteronomy curses anyone who hung on a tree, Paul ties that in, and helps us to answer how God maybe used the Romans to make that connection.

[01:15:03:11 - 01:15:14:10]
Brenton
 Yeah, yeah, okay, that's helpful, and I think maybe another important part of that is how shocking would this have been to his followers,

[01:15:14:10 - 01:15:23:19]
Brenton
 to the people around that expected him to be this conquering king still, but he's dying in this shameful way.

[01:15:23:19 - 01:15:24:10]
Brenton
 Yeah. So, yeah.

[01:15:24:10 - 01:15:25:01]
Chris
 Well, I mean,

[01:15:25:01 - 01:15:33:12]
Chris
 just maybe another thing to add here is just made it really, really clear that he was dead,

[01:15:33:12 - 01:15:36:20]
Chris
 which is kind of important for what's coming next, right?

[01:15:36:20 - 01:15:44:15]
Chris
 It's like, it's not a question, you have other stories in Bible, people are stoned, but they're like, Paul actually got stoned and he survived.

[01:15:44:15 - 01:15:46:09]
Chris
 And so,

[01:15:46:09 - 01:15:50:08]
Chris
 this made it without question,

[01:15:50:08 - 01:16:00:03]
Chris
 he's crucified, we didn't see this on Sunday, but take a sword and they pierced his side, and so he was dead, dead, dead.

[01:16:00:03 - 01:16:00:08]
Brenton
 Okay,

[01:16:00:08 - 01:16:11:13]
Brenton
 so moving on to the spiritual side of this, like you had said, you'd split this out into physical, emotional, and spiritual, but clearly elevated the spiritual as the greatest.

[01:16:11:13 - 01:16:17:00]
Brenton
 Why do you think it's so important that we don't reduce the cross just to physical suffering?

[01:16:17:00 - 01:16:19:06]
Chris
 Yeah, this is a very important question,

[01:16:19:06 - 01:16:30:22]
Chris
 and I think it's one that we often miss, but the penalty that Adam and Eve experienced

[01:16:30:22 - 01:16:36:09]
Chris
 because of their sin wasn't even primarily physical,

[01:16:36:09 - 01:16:45:10]
Chris
 it was actually spiritual, they were removed from God's presence, that's what we see at the end of Genesis three, like they're kicked out of Eden,

[01:16:45:10 - 01:16:59:05]
Chris
 which is where they walk, talk, lived with God, and the whole story of the Bible is, from that point on, is how God brings people back in, to relationship with him.

[01:16:59:05 - 01:17:05:21]
Chris
 And so the physical suffering is, again, it's tied in with the spiritual suffering,

[01:17:05:21 - 01:17:26:06]
Chris
 but Jesus needed to experience the penalty, the penalty to be separated from God in our place so that now we no longer have to suffer that and experience that.

[01:17:26:06 - 01:17:32:12]
Chris
 And this is why I quoted the first Peter 3.18, he suffered to bring us to God.

[01:17:32:12 - 01:17:36:06]
Chris
 He didn't just suffer so that we don't die anymore.

[01:17:36:06 - 01:17:37:05]
Chris
 Yes,

[01:17:37:05 - 01:17:40:12]
Chris
 that's part of it, that kinda comes along with it.

[01:17:40:12 - 01:17:42:16]
Chris
 John Piper has a great quote about,

[01:17:42:16 - 01:17:45:17]
Chris
 when he's talking about heaven and if you could have heaven,

[01:17:45:17 - 01:17:47:06]
Chris
 but Jesus wasn't there,

[01:17:47:06 - 01:17:59:17]
Chris
 then you don't really truly understand the gospel. It's in his book, "God is the gospel," and his point is God is the good news because what we get from the gospel is we get God and God gets us.

[01:17:59:17 - 01:18:12:03]
Chris
 And yeah, I think we just like, we just miss that, then if it's just about the physical suffering and it's not about our, this is tied into the I thirst, we actually all thirst,

[01:18:12:03 - 01:18:17:01]
Chris
 we do. And we try to fill that, we try to quench that thirst

[01:18:17:01 - 01:18:30:04]
Chris
 with so many things. I love what Isaiah says, he basically talks about where we've traded in the living water for the broken cisterns that hold no water.

[01:18:30:04 - 01:18:32:07]
Chris
 And so,

[01:18:32:07 - 01:18:34:05]
Chris
 yeah, I guess, I mean, I've kinda hit it there.

[01:18:34:05 - 01:18:34:09]
Brenton
 Yeah,

[01:18:34:09 - 01:18:57:14]
Brenton
 no, that's good. Again, I think it can be easy to get distracted by the kind of gratuitous nature of it, and maybe there's an aspect of like, it doesn't have to get so personal otherwise. Like if we can focus on just like what the Romans did, it doesn't have to really affect, we're not really a part of it at that point.

[01:18:57:14 - 01:19:14:13]
Chris
 Yeah, but I think, I don't know if I explained that well or not, but I think that what we're missing when we do that is what we are truly longing for and what we were made for. The Augustine quote, "Our hearts are restless until we find our arrest in thee."

[01:19:14:13 - 01:19:18:13]
Chris
 And so seeing that Jesus's suffering ultimately

[01:19:18:13 - 01:19:22:22]
Chris
 was a spiritual suffering that he went through for us,

[01:19:22:22 - 01:19:27:15]
Chris
 is in that that is what brings us through faith in him,

[01:19:27:15 - 01:19:41:10]
Chris
 what we, in the deepest longing of our heart and our soul, and what we were made for. And that's why if we just talk about it and think about it in terms of physical suffering,

[01:19:41:10 - 01:19:47:19]
Chris
 yeah, there's great parts of that, but we're missing the ends.

[01:19:47:19 - 01:19:58:16]
Chris
 Like this life is not about physical things, it's about a relationship with God and the physical things are kind of thrown in that cherry on the top, so to speak.

[01:19:58:16 - 01:20:05:04]
Brenton
 Yeah, that's good. I don't know that I've actually heard it communicated like that,

[01:20:05:04 - 01:20:19:22]
Brenton
 like obviously there is a separation between us as unbelievers from God, but that aspect of, he took that separation as well. And so, yeah, no, that's helpful.

[01:20:19:22 - 01:20:54:21]
Brenton
 You made the connection between Jesus' thirst and his separation from the Father, so what we had been talking about. Matthew and Mark record this event a little more clearly when they quote Jesus as saying, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Can you just spend a little, I don't know, you probably can't do this in a little time, but just unpack for us what this separation means and what it doesn't mean, because I think maybe we can go too far with what this means at points, but what should we think of when we think of this?

[01:20:54:21 - 01:20:58:04]
Chris
 So here's what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that this Trinity is broken,

[01:20:58:04 - 01:21:05:04]
Chris
 that Jesus stopped being God. Right, right. It doesn't mean the Father stops loving the Son.

[01:21:05:04 - 01:21:14:23]
Chris
 And this is back to another place where we gotta be really careful and there's mystery to this, it's like Jesus is still God,

[01:21:14:23 - 01:21:20:15]
Chris
 and yet he's separated from God. I think the answer there is the,

[01:21:20:15 - 01:21:36:06]
Chris
 we're talking about the humanity of Jesus, like in his humanity, and this is where it ties into what we were just talking about in his humanity, he experienced, he'd always had the pleasure of God, this is my beloved Son and whom I am well pleased.

[01:21:36:06 - 01:21:38:20]
Chris
 He'd always lived as a human,

[01:21:38:20 - 01:21:52:16]
Chris
 from his conception to that time, he had lived knowing, feeling, experiencing God's embrace. And so now he's like,

[01:21:52:16 - 01:21:54:20]
Chris
 why is that gone?

[01:21:54:20 - 01:21:57:01]
Chris
 Why am I experiencing your displeasure?

[01:21:57:01 - 01:22:03:12]
Chris
 Why is your wrath coming on me?

[01:22:03:12 - 01:22:13:12]
Chris
 And so I think that that's, again, this is deep water, and we gotta be careful. But I think understanding that Jesus has two natures,

[01:22:13:12 - 01:22:24:16]
Chris
 his, a divine nature and a human nature, and that we definitely cannot say that he stopped being God, that would be heresy.

[01:22:24:16 - 01:22:32:00]
Chris
 But we also need to affirm that in some way he did experience a break in his relationship with

[01:22:32:00 - 01:22:44:08]
Chris
 although temporary, and so I would see that the answer there is that is in humanity, and so he was experiencing what, because of our sin, we deserve,

[01:22:44:08 - 01:22:50:20]
Chris
 and so that now through faith in him, we can be brought back to God, that's atonement.

[01:22:50:20 - 01:23:02:04]
Chris
 Second Corinthians 5, 20, God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we can become the righteousness of God, and that's the righteousness just to be thought of as terms of right.

[01:23:02:04 - 01:23:03:17]
Chris
 We can be right with God.

[01:23:03:17 - 01:23:12:07]
Chris
 Jesus was right with God, but he experienced what it meant to be wrong with God,

[01:23:12:07 - 01:23:19:23]
Chris
 not because that's what he deserved, but in our place for us, so that we can now be right

[01:23:19:23 - 01:23:20:08]
Chris
 with God.

[01:23:20:08 - 01:23:22:17]
Chris
 That's my best shot at that.

[01:23:22:17 - 01:23:32:14]
Brenton
 The second Corinthians 5, 21 was going through my head too, because I think that's another point where we can go too far with it, where it says that he became sin,

[01:23:32:14 - 01:23:39:15]
Brenton
 right? So obviously Paul's communicating something there, and that's significant,

[01:23:39:15 - 01:23:48:22]
Brenton
 but there was no ontological change there of who he is, and yet he was in some way representing...

[01:23:48:22 - 01:23:49:23]
Chris
 Yeah,

[01:23:49:23 - 01:23:53:00]
Chris
 we shouldn't read that as he actually became,

[01:23:53:00 - 01:24:03:02]
Chris
 it says became sin, what is meant there is that he took upon the penalty of our sin. God treated him as if he was a sinner.

[01:24:03:02 - 01:24:11:19]
Chris
 I think Isaiah 53 is helpful here. God laid upon him the iniquity of us all, laid on him. That's what Paul's actually saying there.

[01:24:11:19 - 01:24:14:07]
Chris
 Our English translation is not the most helpful.

[01:24:14:07 - 01:24:24:23]
Brenton
 All right, so we'll end with this one. You gave us a John Stock quote that says, before we see the cross as for us, we have to see it as because of us. You also,

[01:24:24:23 - 01:24:30:08]
Brenton
 at the beginning, you pushed us to not be only spectators of the cross, but participants.

[01:24:30:08 - 01:24:36:06]
Brenton
 And you're, you know, boiling your message down, it was centered around the question, what does the cross mean for me?

[01:24:36:06 - 01:24:42:19]
Brenton
 So first, what are some ways that people view and respond to the cross wrongly?

[01:24:42:19 - 01:24:44:10]
Chris
 How much time do we have on this?

[01:24:44:10 - 01:24:50:00]
Chris
 As long as you want. So I'm just gonna kinda list them off here and you can follow up.

[01:24:50:00 - 01:24:53:03]
Chris
 One would be to see it as divine child abuse.

[01:24:53:03 - 01:24:58:01]
Chris
 And the answer to that is that Jesus voluntarily

[01:24:58:01 - 01:24:58:19]
Chris
 went to the cross.

[01:24:58:19 - 01:25:04:04]
Chris
 The father didn't force him to do it.

[01:25:04:04 - 01:25:13:05]
Chris
 He is God again, so they were in on this plan together and always had been.

[01:25:13:05 - 01:25:16:22]
Chris
 And so it's just, that's a charge, that's a levied,

[01:25:16:22 - 01:25:53:05]
Chris
 seems quite frequently these days, and it's just not a fair, accurate response to what the Scripture actually says. For sure. I know the way people will respond to it wrongly as they think it's primarily about us. And it's for us, but it's not about us in the sense that Scripture's really, really clear. I really wanted to talk about this yesterday and it wasn't appropriate too, but it's really about God's glory. Paul makes that clear, especially in Romans.

[01:25:53:05 - 01:26:13:16]
Chris
 And all four of those things, the essays that I listed yesterday, the Sovereign, the Holy Spirit, it was taught yesterday. The sovereignty is, we see God's glory, his sympathy, we see his glory, his suffering, we see his glory, substitution is glory. And so if we primarily see the crosses, it's about us,

[01:26:13:16 - 01:26:27:18]
Chris
 we're missing what it truly is about and that is about guiding any glory through the salvation of sinners and people, showing grace to people who do not deserve it.

[01:26:27:18 - 01:26:33:07]
Chris
 And the magnitude of his love points us to the greatness of his glory.

[01:26:33:07 - 01:26:55:23]
Chris
 And so I would start with those two. I think another way, again, is we just focus on the physical aspect of it and we miss the deeper significance. I mean, I talked about the emotional too. We could talk about that. I think that's a...

[01:26:55:23 - 01:27:09:02]
Chris
 Again, these three things are all linked together, but the shame component of it, because the Scripture does just like makes it clear in terms of that. And we're not seeing

[01:27:09:02 - 01:27:26:10]
Chris
 just all that Jesus actually experienced on the cross in that term. And then, and the last one I'll mention is one I mentioned yesterday, and it goes right into the John thought, along with the John stock quote is like, is we're not recognizing,

[01:27:26:10 - 01:27:46:05]
Chris
 we have personal responsibility in this. And so we just, as long as we just think about something, "Oh, look at, that's a great testimony to God's love. And look at how much he loves me." Yeah. If we don't go to see, "Yes," and you know where you see that the most and the fact that, like,

[01:27:46:05 - 01:27:47:22]
Chris
 you're responsible for it.

[01:27:47:22 - 01:27:51:21]
Chris
 And that's where it's got to become personal. So...

[01:27:51:21 - 01:28:03:22]
Brenton
 For sure. No, that's a good list. Okay. So then, as believers, like, what should a right and, honestly, ongoing response to the cross look like?

[01:28:03:22 - 01:28:20:11]
Chris
 Well, we'll talk about this more this coming week, but I was actually talking to Zane some about this last night, and we recognize, like,

[01:28:20:11 - 01:28:24:14]
Chris
 we're just dependent upon Him,

[01:28:24:14 - 01:28:35:23]
Chris
 not only for our salvation, like, in the past, and for the forgiveness of sins that happened yesterday, two weeks ago, five years ago.

[01:28:35:23 - 01:28:38:13]
Chris
 There's an ongoing, like...

[01:28:38:13 - 01:28:52:12]
Chris
 One of the things that we can often get wrong is thinking of salvation only as kind of a one-time event. And the Bible does not present it like that at all. Salvation is ongoing. Like, we were saved, we are being saved, we will be saved.

[01:28:52:12 - 01:29:11:00]
Chris
 And all of that comes to us through the finished work of Christ on the cross. And so, we never or shouldn't ever get to a place in our Christian life where we move beyond the cross and where we go back and,

[01:29:11:00 - 01:29:19:21]
Chris
 if not on a daily basis, certainly on a regular basis to go back to that place and that there is our justification.

[01:29:19:21 - 01:29:28:16]
Chris
 And, again, we'll talk about this, it is finished, which means that I don't work for my status.

[01:29:28:16 - 01:29:33:22]
Chris
 I'm not achieving. It doesn't to be achieved. It's received.

[01:29:33:22 - 01:29:38:12]
Chris
 And so, where we never really get over the cross.

[01:29:38:12 - 01:29:40:05]
Brenton
 Yeah. Yeah.

[01:29:40:05 - 01:29:43:07]
Brenton
 Well, it's good. Look forward to talking more about that next week.

[01:29:43:07 - 01:29:48:06]
Brenton
 And we'll have Paul in here too, hopefully. So, you guys are both preaching. So, yeah.

[01:29:48:06 - 01:29:57:06]
Brenton
 All right. Appreciate your work on this. If you guys have any questions, ask it for the podcast.com and we will talk to you next week.