A Christian Theology of the Cross: Discovering the Priesthood of Abel

By Allen George

A CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY OF THE CROSS presents three basic standards for discussing the subject and object God. It underscores the connection between Gods approval of Abels offering and the establishment of the priesthood and names Genesis 4:7 as the foundation of the principal doctrines of Christian Salvation. It stresses the importance of Christian freedom and argues that the doctrine of existentialism is rooted in Genesis 4:9b. This book speaks directly to those who are spiritually hungry and thirsty for the Word of God in the twenty-first century. The reader will discover that the author is an analytical thinker. George asserts that the ambiguities of Abels offering dont negate the concept of his priesthood. He champions the belief that the doctrine of the universality of salvation is a crucial divide between Judaism and Christianity. He insists that the Gospel demands that Christians renounce their hate and intolerance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 29, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453528907

Allen George

Allen Sie-Winnie George, an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of New York, holds a Doctor of Ministry (D. Min.) degree from the University of the South—School of Theology, Sewanee, TN. He has served in parish ministries since 1989. In overcoming a personal crisis in his life and ministry, he continues to maintain a strong faith in God and God’s forgiving Grace. His passion for education led him to serve as a substitute teacher in the Port Chester School District, NY.

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Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Chapter Two

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Chapter Three

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Notes

Dedicated to Anthony B. George Sr., my beloved father and all Liberians who departed this life during the Liberian Civil War.

Preface

This Christian Theology of the Cross explores the heavenly demeanor in the character of Jesus Christ, which on every occasion resembles the nature of the sacrificial lamb. That is to say that the veracity of the character of Christ in every way depicts the character of the suffering servant of the Old Testament (OT). To put it another way is to say that the New Testament (NT) informs us that God sent Christ into the world to be the substitute for the sacrificial lamb of the OT, to bring abundant life to the middle of a valley full of bones. Thus, Jesus Christ is the precise parallel of the OT sacrificial lamb. He is the sacrifice for sin, and he is salvation. This is a fond truth, which gives prominence to the fact that it would not be odd to highlight the word sacrifice when one speaks of the death of Christ and to lay stress on the essence of his Incarnation. The word sacrifice consists of the idea of the offering of Christ up to God as the acceptable payment for the sins of the world. This is paraphrased differently and emphatically by Elvina M. Hall (1865), but no less the same in connotation: Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe; sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow, is another way of saying that the Christian understanding of the death of Christ is understood within the context of appeasing God. In a theological sense, the term sacrifice demands preparation. If it were not so, then the Passion of Christ was not divinely ordained. Since preparation can be ascribed to sacrifice, it is not theologically impossible to associate Christ with the sacrificial lamb of the OT. Austerity is another component of sacrifice. Thus, reparation and austerity are linked together in sacrifice.

In saying that the NT links Christ to the lamb of the OT, it is to say that Christ is the only one who can bring God’s salvation to the world; it is to say that there is only one human race in heaven, and it is to say that God put human beings in the totality of Christ’s grace. Our use of the phrase one human race, implies that there is no discrimination in heaven. It means that heaven embraces all races and people; that is, the love of heaven is all-encompassing. Likewise, our use of the term totality, as it relates to Christ’s grace, does not mean restriction; instead, it means unconditional; that is, grace did not come into the world because we did something good in the name of God. This makes grace priceless; it cannot be merited; that is to say that God’s motives for our salvation derived from agape love. Grace, then, implies that God’s love for us is spontaneous; it is altruistic.

It is explicit in all this that it is the death of Christ, which allows us to see the extent to which God has demonstrated His love for the entire world. Hence, the word sacrifice spells death. And where there is this sacrifice, there is a cross placed between earth and heaven. It is obvious, then, that the term purity is divine, and, therefore, the word sacrifice is an indispensable facet of salvation. Thus, one of the leading arguments in this work is the Christology of John the Baptizer in support of Jesus Christ being the sacrificial lamb. I used John’s Behold the Lamb of God assertion as the foundation of all my disputation in support of Jesus as the suitable typology of the OT sacrificial lamb. By implying that I mean eternal life is inseparably tied to the atoning death of Christ. In each Gospel of the NT, the death of Christ provides for the belief that God’s love for the world is sincere—for this truth offers the most passionate fondness that true Christian love has the capacity to endure awkward circumstances. This concept makes a good basis for the words spoken by Christ on the Cross. In truth, the words of the Cross should be emphasized throughout the Season of Lent—for they provide the most infinite blessings and graces of Jesus Christ to every heart that believes in him as its Lord and Savior. It is obvious then that when one believes in and confesses Christ as Lord, one is given increasing grace by the Holy Spirit for the work of ministry. There is more to this. Believing in and confessing Jesus Christ is something personal; it demands having no doubts in the saving power of God. In believing in and confessing Jesus Christ as Lord, there is such a thing as a complete surrender to the will of God.

This book, A Christian Theology of the Cross, is based upon my manuscript The Redeemer and the Redeemed, which is a deep appreciation of what Jesus actually did on the Cross for humankind. It teaches why the mystery of human redemption requires the mystery of Christ’s suffering to explain the mystery of sin. It is implied here that God put the punishment of sin on Christ. In the prophet Isaiah, we read: And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all, which is the description of Christ as the one who alone God has designated to shoulder the burdens of our sins. To designate is to set aside; it is to assign; it is to name; it is to appoint; it is to identify; it is to select; it is to find fit. There is another definition for the word designate, which has atoning significance. The word cast predicates sin’s bearer to Christ. Thus, the term cast is one of the most appropriate words, which fully describes the word designate. The word cast implies that the burden of sin is cumbersome. In redemptive terms, to designate is to put or take on sin. This brings us to another unique term, which puts the word designate in its true salvific context. The word immaculate predicates sin’s cleanser to Christ. Thus, to designate is to make pure; it is to make whole; it is to make perfect; it is to make complete. To say God designated Christ to be the bearer of sin is to say that God cast on Christ the sins of the world; it is to say that God cleansed the sins of the world through Jesus Christ. The term extricate is, in every way and degree, another indispensable component of the word designate. It predicates the world’s Savior/Deliverer to Jesus Christ. Thus, to designate is to free; it is to rescue; it is to remove. Chapter one of this book takes into consideration some basic facts about the history of human salvation. In chapter two, we argued that the labeled carpenter was a deliberate act intended to scout the idea of Jesus’s divinity and the idea of unconditional grace.

There is still another word, which complements the full salvific essence of the word designate. The term acquire is another indispensable component of the word designate. It predicates sin’s purchaser to Jesus Christ, and it consists of the concept that the church’s many people or many faces represent salvation’s universality, an absolute portrait of the face of the one alone who is the Savior of the world, the man Jesus of Nazareth. Thus, to designate is to attain; it is to buy; it is to collect; it is to secure. It means to highlight the power of Jesus’s blood; it means to mold human beings into becoming divine thinkers. Thus, to designate is to win; it is to obtain; it is to achieve. This is to say that the death of Jesus Christ completely invalidated or cancelled out sin’s power/control over you and me. In the word designate, salvation is incognito. In addition to all this, for our sake, Jesus Christ was made a spectacle at Calvary. All this authenticity of Christ’s death, in spite of life’s mayhem, continues in the Eucharist. In this sense, the Holy Communion is the covenant between God and the world that human salvation cannot be inverted; it cannot be rescinded; instead, it is never ending; it is unremitting; it is incessant, and this Eucharist/covenant is Jesus Christ, our Lord. This makes the Eucharist the covenant between Jesus Christ and his church (all believers).

Another major section of this book is my reflection on the fourth chapter of Genesis. In investigating Genesis 4, the narrative of Cain and Abel leaves us with this question: What is the purpose of the offering presented to God? The summons given to Cain and Abel was not a trivial directive, per se. The value of that offering was bound up with their whole responsibility to God and to one another. It was an offering of obedience to Almighty God. In simple words, God demanded the very best from both of them. He demanded their selflessness or righteousness. In essence, then, the offering’s intent was divine; it was salvational in intent. What did that offering mean to God, to Cain, and to Abel? does depend on God’s decision if the answer is purely redemption of the human race. This is an important point. It is a truism that the intent of presenting sacrifice to God was to mollify Him. A Christian understanding of this mollification was made complete in the death of Jesus Christ. In light of this, another principal aspect of this work deals with a startling discovery I made about Abel and his offering. Abel, as I argued, is fit to be considered the first priest of God’s salvific plan. This concept adheres to the truth that God is able to beget priests of His own choosing. In God, we read: Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all people. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation, which started with Abel. His offering is a cryptic symbol of the priesthood; or, to put it into the language of the OT, the term sacrifice makes the case for choosing what God demands over the demands of self. Of course, the word sacrifice has a reputation for repentance and redemption, which makes obedience superior to insubordination. This repentance and redemption make the mercy of God a great monument of heaven’s love for earth. They describe the sacrificial reality one must make to accept God’s love for the world. In Abel, we see the obedience (as a criterion of the priesthood) that God demands from His priests; and in Abel’s obedience, we see the keeping of God’s covenant. So far as I can say, which the reader will discover, I have written an evaluative account of the story of Cain and Abel that is reasonable, thought-provoking, and critical. In the concern to justify God’s endorsement of Abel and his offering, it was very necessary to provide scriptural supports to explain and defend God’s disapproval of Cain and his offering. In my opinion, the narrative has some basic salvific significance, which is linked to God’s plan for the redemption of the whole world. Genesis 4:7, for example, has within it the concept of salvation. Even more significant is the fact that the narrative shows that no form of sin is unique. It is my position that Cain committed a prepense murder.

I argued that by accommodating the plan of God, the Holy Spirit puts the Christian in collaboration with Jesus Christ to continue his mission and ministry in the world. Speaking about mission and ministry, I made the point that the one who chooses the salvation of Christ is the one who puts the good of the soul over the desires of the heart. Only in this way shall we be able to follow Jesus with greater devotion to him and go with Jesus where he leads you and me with the confidence and assurance that he is going with us and that we will go with him all the way. To follow and go with Jesus truly means to be on the side of Jesus; it means to proclaim Jesus to every people and nation, and this book will empower the reader to go with Jesus throughout the way. Go—forward! Go—immediate! Go—today, tonight, not tomorrow, you Christian soldier. Go forth for and with Jesus to the world!

I emphasized the significance of the Christology of John the Baptizer to confirm the truth that Jesus was the divine substitute for the ram, which God provided as a replacement for the life of Isaac, the promised son of providence given to Abraham. In the work of divine providence, we see that God is able to make possible what seems impossible to us. I argued that John’s declaration of Jesus’s divinity, especially in his Behold the Lamb of God assertion, affords the reader the opportunity to understand why the Maccabean concept of the Messiah contradicts the essence of Isaiah’s suffering servant. What I want to say is this: The Maccabean concept, in every sense imaginable, serves as a hindrance to see the incarnate Christ as the promised one, and by this concept, it is impossible to see Jesus as the one who was sent by God to be the Deliverer of the world. Therefore, it is only by faith based on the work and life of Jesus that one can truly believe He is the Savior of the world. In presence of the fact that God truly loves the world, the Cross is the evidence that believing in Jesus Christ is believing in God, and only by hallowing all one’s heart, mind, and soul based on the teachings of the Gospel can one call himself or herself a Christian.

In this book, as I insisted, Cain’s Am I my brother’s keeper? rejoinder is a perfect revelation of the vice of the ego, amid the craving of self-love, which reflects the principality of sin. Vacuous is the single word, which adequately defines who and what the man Cain really was. Thus, to say that Cain was a pococurante person is not an overstatement. Hence, of course, Cain’s sin can be considered an act of transgression against God and against Abel. I affirmed that it was the rage, which girdled around Cain that led him to commit murder. Rage spells vengeance. It has the omnipotence to subjugate the ego. The writer of the story of Cain and Abel makes it very clear that it takes the anger of Cain for one to figure out that rage is the fruit of the devil. In saying that rage spells vengeance, it is to say that anger has the potency to break the bonds of neighborly love. Thus, to break the bonds of neighborly love is to commit murder.

In this respect, this work is a devotion to God’s will as seen through the obedience of Abel. This book accentuates my conviction that Abel was a priest/minister, while Cain’s failure to appease God was his refusal of the priesthood of all believers. It is clear to me, when in speaking about the offering Abel presented to God, he demonstrated to the world that it is the duty of every Christian to offer the best of his or her possessions to God. Abel’s action validates the Christian doxology, for it consists of the idea that God is the giver of all life-giving gifts, that God deserves His due, and that He merits our praises. The reader will discover that the argument I presented in support of the priesthood of Abel is invigorating because it is by ascending one’s thoughts to the affairs of heavenly things that one can discern God’s thoughts and ways by the help of the Holy Spirit. It is my prayer that God will inspire the believer to read the inscription of Abel through the inscription of Jesus who is the Priest of priests—inspiration is divine. Of course, it is the inscription of Jesus which tells us that the deliberate victory which divine life has over death is symbolic of the end-time victory good would have over evil. The reader can see that salvation indirectly implies that there must be a priest on earth if the world is to be exonerated from sin. And I really do believe that there was something divine about the offering of Abel. This is the kind of offering which has the capacity to give God’s salvation to sinners. And this offering is Jesus Christ, our Lord. This supposition is apparent throughout the subject matter of this book.

This book, A Christian Theology of the Cross, is my way of saying that Christianity forbids us to close our eyes to the evil that we do to ourselves and to our neighbors. This, then, makes the Christian faith the conscience of the redeemed heart and mind, which put Abel on a different level than his brother, Cain; that is, given the teaching of the Gospel anent loving God with all one’s heart, mind, and soul, Abel can be regarded as a Christian in a New Testament sense. This truth informs the Christian about the way providence works to reveal the thoughts and ways of God. Indeed, the story of Cain and Abel can be considered a motif of the spiritual battle between good and evil, between vice and virtue, between righteousness and unrighteousness, and between obedience and disobedience, and it reflects the worst and best in us. Thus, Cain is the reflection of the worst in us, while Abel is the manifestation of the best in us; that is to say that there is a twin in everybody, an Abel and a Cain.

I maintained that it is John the Baptizer who accurately reads Jesus’s life inscription to the world from the OT perspective, and it is John alone who had the right credentials to determine if Jesus was really the Messiah sent from heaven to redeem us from our sins. This great truth is based on the fact that in John was the full evidence of the twofold office of God’s plan of salvation: He was a prophet, and he was a priest. In Jesus, we read: All the epic and salvific deeds of the ancient Hebrew prophets combined, the ministry and work of John rank the highest in God’s Sight (Matt. 11:11). This may also be the meaning of this assertion of the prophet Esaias (Isaiah): The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. If John is not the greatest of all prophets of God’s plan of salvation, then there is a rational point of objection to the theology of the OT. But there is another reason why John alone had the right permits to identify Jesus as the incarnate God. John was set aside by God to show Jesus to the world. This is not difficult to see, for it is very clear in John’s testimony that Jesus came directly from God. The phrase Jesus came directly from God means "Jesus is the expressed image of God." It is the NT that tells us about what and who John was and why we can trust his testimony. This kind of testimony is the noblest message, not only about the world’s salvation, but also about the only one who is clothed with both humanity and divinity. Anent the audacity of John, the Bible tells us that he feared no one but God; that is, he was a brave and extraordinary prophet.

In this most eloquent and articulate voice, we hear something heavenly: Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, is the enthronement of John the Baptizer in the realm of angels, anagogically speaking. This is the same voice that John heard during the baptism of Jesus and is now conferring on him a supernal status. This voice is the voice of heaven, and this is the same voice, which the believer will hear on the Last Day saying to him or her, Well done, my good and trustworthy servant; you have been trustworthy in a few things. I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your Lord, is a recognition of merit. This is the voice which said, Apage Satanas (Begone, Satan!). And this voice is Jesus Christ, our Lord. There exists, of course, a valid reason to hear this voice today—and it is true that the Spirit of this voice lives in the Eucharist, and this Spirit is Jesus Christ, our Lord, who continually speaks to us about the things of heaven through God the Holy Spirit. We have only to believe in the ministry of John the Baptist to accept him as the embodiment of the prophetic and priestly ministries of the OT.

In brief: From a sacrificial viewpoint, the prophetic or priestly ministry of the OT is the offering of the invisible God in anticipation of the NT’s offering of the visible God. Thus, when I hear of John Baptist, I think of the prophet Elijah. From this aphorism, For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John came; and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come, is a pointer that John was an Ideal prophet of the OT. And in John’s Behold the Lamb of God assertion, we see the preeminence of Jesus; in it there is a suggestion that we must seek Jesus and pursue him; because of this, this assertion is the proclamation of the story of salvation. An important point: John Baptist was a man without worldly character and spirit. As a preparing and proclaiming voice of the messianic reign, then, John Baptist is one and at the same time the personification of godly fear and ameliorating conduit. His message of repentance is in the nature of God’s power and in the purpose of Christ’s death. This fact compels me to say that the Cross has many parallels to neighborly love, the very reality of which Christ is both victim and victor.

An interesting discussion that the reader will stumble upon is my view on the redemption of the soul, which is found in the very first section of this work. One of the most comfortable thoughts this book offers derives from Psalm 23. In David’s assertion, we see a general and specific revelation that it is God’s task to refocillate the soul. I articulated the idea that the soul is the embodiment of a higher existence and mystery. This existence and mystery is enshrined in God’s own existence and mystery, and because of this, redemption attributes purity to the soul to emphasize the fact that without divine intervention the soul would live in perpetual limbo between good and evil—a reality of the ongoing war between our inward and outward natures. It is for this reason that the church cannot neglect Jesus’s final word on the spiraling of the kingdom of God in the midst of this world as I understand what the Great Commission is all about.

More interestingly, the reader will discover that every section of this book underscores a specific theology of the Cross. This text links every particular presentation on the essence of Grace to the essence of the Cross. To this thought we would add this: Every Christian doctrine of resurrection has its origin in the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Too many people wear the Cross without understanding its cost and appreciating its sacrifice. In order to understand the cost and appreciate the sacrifice of the Cross, it is helpful to examine the scenes of the crucifixion as Jesus faced his foes and executioners. This will bring one face-to-face not only with the agony of Christ, but also with the evil in human nature, in one word, more surprise by the hatred and vindictiveness of human beings.

Thus, recognizing the possibility of ascending to the idea of being the keeper of our brothers and sisters, chapter three, section one of this book contrasts the differences between the cross of the world and the Cross of Jesus Christ; while the last section is purposefully intended to help the reader to see the merit of keeping faith with God, and this kind of keeping is a requirement of Christian believing and a guarantee of eternal life. To keep faith with God is to become a ditto of Christ, and too many people (including my very self) make promises, which they do not keep—reneging promises is human, while keeping or fulfilling them is divine. Here is a promise I would like to make in advance, which I have kept: I will only mention briefly my view on human creation, as I try to give supportive and scriptural facts of my conviction and understanding of God’s plan of salvation for the first human family, and this plan (intervention) is a process that begins in Jesus and ends in him. In the book of revelation, we read: It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty, I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. This has a suggestion of the fulfillment of the promise of Genesis 3:15. The Gospel of John says the phrase, It is done means, It is finished. That is, the Father’s mission of deliverance through the Son is completed.

As to the major subjects of discussion in this book, hope is one of those topics, which will give the reader an interesting concept of the redemption of the soul. What I consider hope’s hope is the Christian belief that even though we may not understand everything now about God’s intervention or the death of Christ, but sweet-by-and-by when we find ourselves on the Sunday Side of the Cross, there we would understand everything about God’s concerns for us. In Christ Jesus, believer, you and I will understand the actual intent of God’s intervention in human history or the full essence of the death of Christ when we get to that peaceful shore, which is called heaven. When I speak of having an understanding of the full essence of Christ’s death, it is more than just saying to someone that Jesus Christ died for you. I personally have more than hope in the saving power of God because I have experienced God’s intervention firsthand. For example, when my guilt almost destroyed me, and when my sin oppressed me, besieged and traumatized by the turmoil of the Liberian Civil War, God interceded in my life in ways unimaginable. I am no longer burdened by the doom I brought on myself. One noticeable feature of this work is the way I alerted the reader to the fact that I fell from grace, but I was able to pick up my life with the help of God. If I had not experienced the loving kindness of God, it would have been impossible for me to approach the study of God’s intervention in human history as His way of redeeming the world from the power of sin. Because of the vulnerability of every human being, God must intervene in life’s storms to save His precious creation—this is the main theology of the Cross. This one thing I know: In life’s storms, God’s help is always available. God’s intervention is coupled with human special gifts to bring about relief. The writer of the story of Cain and Abel is not a stranger to this Christian belief. He was an agent in the giving of salvation to the world by a reconciling Creator. Belief in the doctrine of God’s intervention led him to write an account of salvation history, which is correlated to the theology and doctrine of the Cross. It becomes clear that his authority on divine matters is dependent upon his conviction in the reconciling power of God.

It is very important that I mention this. The subject matter contained in this book is not based on any particular theological or doctrinal research; instead, it is an endeavor (based on scriptural teachings/revelations), which reflects my theology and philosophy of God’s Grace and of the Cross of Jesus Christ. It consists of limited quotations from famous hymn writers, and also from two eminent philosophers namely Socrates and Aristotle; it has several scriptural verses—which are the main sources of the materials used to convey the theme of this book. I also quoted a diminutive section from the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal/Anglican Church of North America to stress the essence and merits of renouncing the works of wickedness.

Most importantly, in an indirect way, this work reflects the teachings and thoughts of those who have inspired me over the years. I acknowledge my dept to the men and women who informed and shaped my consciousness and praise God for imputing wisdom on them. I know they will appreciate this work. To participate in the discussions as well as the arguments in this book is to encounter them as facilitators and advocates of the Christian faith. This does not deny the fact that there are variations in approaches and presentations, which reflect my own thoughts and beliefs about the Holy Scripture. Let me add this note: There is this one oddity about this text. The introduction does not follow the usual pattern found in many books. Instead, it is an essay entitled God-Talk, which offers an unorthodox solution to the present church schisms and disagreements in order to enhance our conversations on church unity. The essay underlines why liberalism and conservatism constantly collide in endless arguments over divine matters. It is very obvious in the introduction that condemnation is the name of the demon of the intolerant heart. It is intended to help the believer overcome the phobia of tolerance. The reader will find genuine differences among the three standards of conviction discussed in the essay God-Talk. The essays in this work are as compelling as they are capacious, and the reader will find them provocative. Also, this book speaks directly to those who are spiritually hungry and thirsty for the Word of God in the twenty-first century. It offers comfort to the brokenhearted and boldly proclaims the love of the Holy One whose voice commanded the prophet Isaiah to cry: All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field: The grass withered, the flower faded. The grass withers, and the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely . . . the word of our God will stand forever . . . Here is your God. This is ultimately the same cry (for repentance) of the prophet John the Baptist. Behold the Lamb of God connotes This is the God Who saves, or, Here is your God. Prophetically, repentance consists of the act of acceding to God’s plan of salvation.

The reader will notice that our thoughts on the subject preaching reveal plainly why God-Talk ought not to be used to promote hate of any kind or presented in a narrowly puritanical sense, and I discussed inspiration, galvanization, and faith, the three basic aims of preaching. In other words, preaching is the means to stimulate a congregation to act in redemptive ways: To preach is to narrate. And since conversation has the capacity to dispel fear and at the same time colligate people, preaching, therefore, is the instrument to negate incertitude. In Christianity, preaching is not only a proclamation about Jesus Christ, but also a conversation about God’s plan of salvation. To proclaim and to converse is one and the same thing. Preaching consists of teaching and speaking with authority on divine matters through the aid of the Holy Spirit. It is simplifying the puzzles of the scriptures. Preaching and teaching, with regard to giving instruction or clarity about particularities, is relatively the same enterprise. In the Christian faith, the task of the preacher is simply to disseminate the Word of God, and it is the business of the Holy Spirit to convert hearts to accept the proclaimed message. Let the preacher remember that Jesus Christ did not practice Puritanism; that is to say that the preacher’s task is not to purge souls; instead, it is to bring souls to God for purging. Let those who preach refrain from playing God in the lives of others.

It is not my intention in this book to animadvert against the belief system of other religious faiths or practices. Animadversion attenuates the authority of believing faith. I personally believe that anything which is of God must neither support animus nor promote enmity, for the Cross is the antipode of everything that endorses hatred. The Gospel is the antithesis of rejection. Let us remember that the Gospel does not witness neighborly love in a pejorative manner. We see in the scriptures the evidence that faith in God can never be based on the anvil of hate and of vengeance, and this faith is the means of presenting neighborly love in its totality. Now I want to emphasize this point: Christian preaching is an activity of the process of salvation that informs a congregation or the people of God about our Lord Jesus Christ by utilizing biblical stories to better understand God’s love for the world. Take for example the story of Cain and Abel. When Cain killed Abel, Cain denied Abel the gifts of life and love. Once God made it absolutely obvious that murder is sin, we perceive immediately from God’s question to Cain, on the subject of the whereabouts of Abel, that life and love are two indispensable features of divine intervention. In this story, Cain is recognized as the first murderer and an adversary of God’s impartiality. And in this story, the writer indirectly suggested that caregiving is an obligatory subject matter of the theology of the Cross. He put caring, sympathy, and charity on the same level.

The final point: The whole aim of a theology of the Cross is to beget other theological insights about God’s divine intervention from the believer’s personal experience, which the believer is spurred to share with others. To share is to witness. To witness is to evangelize. To evangelize is wholly a matter of faith, of sharing the Jesus story, and, thus, of conveying what God has done in our Lord and Savior and continue to do through the church for the wellness of all people and nations—it is clear that such winning of souls for the kingdom of God is the true purpose of evangelism. It is in this sense that I write this book to provide new theological methods to communicate and articulate the Jesus story more effectively in the twenty-first century. In short: Thus, a theology of the Cross is precise, even though it is the Gospel that serves as the good news of God’s intervention in human history, and because of this salient fact, in this work the following vocabulary or theological words are frequently used: Gospel (kerygma), grace (charis), salvation/redemption (soteria (s)/apolutrosis), soul (psuche), church (ecclesia), cross (stauros), forgiveness (aphiemi), ministry (diakonia), reconciliation (apokatastasis), consciousness (ousia), omnipotence (pantokrator), religion (threskeia), revelation (apokalupsis).

Throughout this text, I used the Greek equivalents of the English words listed. I also used Latin, French, Scottish, and Anglo-Indian words to broaden the conversation on the discussion of the subject matter of this book. My theology of the Glorious church is rooted in the Pauline tenet of the Holy Trinity: I believe that the Glorious church is the union of the Godhead, and this union is concealed in the communion between the believer and Jesus Christ; this communion is the one mystical Body of Jesus Christ, and it is this communion, which celebrates and distributes Jesus Christ as bread and wine to the world. The concept here is that the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit is not necessarily how the believer understands God, but how God has manifested Himself in the scriptures in order that the believer might know that He is Three-in-One: God revealed Himself in the Holy Scripture as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This book abounds in salvific concepts based on spirit-ratiocination to help the reader understand the whole meaning of Christian apolutrosis. It has nothing whatsoever to do with achieving satori. Perhaps it will be useful to the reader if I confess here that I am a believer of the Christian faith, and I believe that Christianity is more than a threskeia; it is resurrection and life; it is apokalupsis and kerygma; it is the discovery of God’s tolerance and love; it is Jesus Christ in and to the world. And I also rhapsodized on the subjects of Abel’s priesthood and God’s rejection of Cain and his offering. Given the difficulties of reconciling the apparent ambiguities of the narrative, there is an essential role disambiguation played in this work. Let me say it this way: It is Jesus Christ through his Spirit who can help reconcile our doubts about the stories of the Bible that are incommensurate with noesis. To be a believer of God’s intervention in human history is to trust in the Word of God, and one of the profound ways to trust what the scriptures say is through faith; by this I mean that faith has the capacity to align us with the instructions of the Holy Spirit on spiritual matters. In other words, faith has the omnipotence to articulate the truth of God’s Word. I must add this significant point: Christianity is what heaven is to the world in order to change what we human beings became after the fall of Adam and Eve. Put another way, Christianity is the pantokrator of Jesus Christ, which is intended to transform you and me into what and who God really is. The thoughts penciled/penned in this thesis came all sorts of ways: sometimes in public, in conversation, in meditation; at other times, in reading and studying the scriptures, in listening and talking, and while using the computer to formulate my belief about Christian soteria(s), my thoughts about the Christian faith became infused with the gifts of boldness and articulation. I believe that the ideas in this text will convey something new about the Stauros of Calvary, and because of this, no scruple of hindrance could have held me back from sharing my thoughts with the believer.

Now I can make this point: The views presented in this book are not intended to scold unbelievers or to look forward to biblical serendipities. Indeed, the views are intended to convey the message that you and I must imitate Jesus Christ in order to make this world a better place for all human beings to dwell together in tranquility, to prevent the believer from becoming mum and silent about injustices, to break faith with mumpsimus, and to present a theology worthy of the Cross and of Christian salvation. It is, therefore, my hope and prayer that the thoughts in this work would give the believer a clear and accurate understanding of the Gospel. It is also my hope that the arguments in this thesis are lucid. I impute every sound teaching in this book to God, the Holy Spirit, and I take full responsibility for any oddities in my reflection on the Holy Scripture. One final note: The reader will notice that the arguments in this book are not prosy; instead, they are full of spirit and vitality.

May the reader see in all my arguments the testis of the Holy Spirit within my thoughts and words about the God whose love is all-embracing and the God whom Jesus Christ referred to as the Father of us all! And the God who created some of us black, some of us white, some of us red, and some of us brown is the God whom Jesus Christ said is our deliverer: He is the God whom Jesus asked to forgive us of our sins; He is the God whom Jesus claimed they both share an inseparable substance and nature; He is the God whom Jesus spoke about when he said this: For your Father knows what you need before you ask Him, and is a recognition of divine (God’s) providence. All this makes the case for the Christian belief that God is infinitely wise and kind. In short: Thus, the fact is that God is immutable, and His promises will never fail. All this put together in and through Christ alone makes human beings the very Incarnation of God’s beauty, glory, and image. It is my prayer that the believer will use the teachings in this book to bestir his or her heart to keep faith with God, to sublate any indifference and hate in his or her heart, to overcome prurient desires, to endure the agony of working for God. And the merit of all this is eternal life. To help the believer obtain this merit is the foremost purpose of this book. Koine Theos akouo ōn proseuche (Holy God, hear our prayer). Amen.

Allen Sie-Winnie George

Introduction

God-Talk

God-Talk is not only a challenging endeavor, but it is also an extremely demanding enterprise, for this activity does not permit us to impose our ideology on God or allow us to make God into our image and likeness. This implies that the subject God is far more uncompromising. To put it differently and make it more theological, God-Talk is beyond human finitude. The most convincing evidence of this is found in John 3:11-12. The intricacy I am referring to does consist in our creaturehood or finiteness. In other words, the barrier to particularize the fullness of the nature of God is caused by our creatureliness. To speak about God in either a moderate way or in an insular manner does not deny the truth that God is able to give one the grace to lead others into the path of rightness. By empowering one in this fashion, God can override one’s opinion. For instance, scriptures tell us that God overruled Jonah’s stance regarding the people of Nineveh. In light of the salvation of others, one’s estimation of God could make idols of both liberalism and conservatism. In this sense, one’s viewpoint about God, thus, possesses the tendency to either lessen or add to God’s Word, and it is this tendency that labels God as either liberal or conservative—the truth is that God is neither, nor will He ever be either one of these, and this labeling is a manifestation of human incapacity to fully relate to Divine reality. This is to say that there is a close link between one’s labeling of God and one’s prejudice, and this link determines not only one’s view of other people, but also one’s relationship to them. If this link makes accommodations for objective reasoning, then one will certainly be able to tolerate other people. The question is how one can break faith with one’s prejudice? Jesus answers that question for the believer. John 13:34 is the most effective way of breaking faith with one’s prejudice to accommodate the kingdom of God in one’s heart. In this sense, we believe without any hesitation that John 13:34 is the summary of our infinite obligation to God—to self, and to others, and it is an arduous obligation. It is, after all, the uncompromising commitment of love and the renunciation of atheism and hatred. Note that the word prejudice here means a tradition of ideas being imposed on others in the name of religious truth. Note that one’s judgment of God is palpably a fond reflection of one’s experience of God, which seems largely to embrace those invariably pleasant childhood memories of God rather than the erratic or awkward. God-Talk requires no prejudice and no special interest to articulate the truth that God is love and to bring people to God. In the story of the Temptation of Christ, we read: It is not our obligation as believers to revise the Word of God or impose our prejudices on the scriptures.

Very true: Labeling God is confining God, and labeling as used here is the inability to transcend the limited awareness of one’s knowledge of God. Labeling is deviltry. It spells narrowness, and this narrowness has the tendency to dominate one’s viewpoint about God, or, put another way is to say that this narrowness is another name for prejudice. To make one example: John 4:7-42 and John 13:34 make the case for accommodating God to put aside prejudice. So it is a datum that prejudice is maliciously selective, maliciously unsympathetic, maliciously inflexible, and the truth of the matter is that all human beings are prejudiced, and prejudice resides in the subconscious. What do we say of all this vice, intransigence, insensitivity, narrow-mindedness, and spitefulness? All this is the pattern of prejudice.

We see, in fact, that it is succinct in John 4:7-42 that one’s judgment of God is chiefly contingent upon both general and specific experience. This is enough proof to say that this experience has the capacity to manipulate and monopolize one’s talk about God. Seeing that this experience can paralyze one’s judgment, one cannot insist that one’s stance of God is the most authentic disclosure of who and what God is. In light of this experience, one’s talk of God is based on a consequence of realities—emotion, education, reason, and conversation, and all these practicalities have the potential to impact one’s faith in God. To put it another way is to say that the inevitability of this experience is fundamental to our position about God. It is enough point here to say that our every talk of God is not only based on faith, hope, and love, but it is also based on experience. Thus, God-Talk without experience is superficial—that is, experience is part of our greater subjective as well as objective belief about God. That is why one’s talk of God has the capability to convey God as a Monster or a Savior. This truth is not difficult to excogitate. Thus, to dethrone liberalism and conservatism is to depose those thoughts, which hinder one from embracing all the facts about God’s law and love—which are perdure. In reality, both liberalism and conservatism can be used in various ways to eclipse the message of the Gospel. They love to be hosannaed into the church as Christ was into Jerusalem. They do not only play God in the lives of people, but also pretend to be the God of the Christian faith. They are the dominant principalities of all ages, the natural enemies of Christianity. They put the church in a parlous state.

There can be no nobler understanding of the Gospel when our talk of God does not emphasize this truth—and this makes the point that neither the smoothness of liberalism nor the harshness of conservatism has the power to give salvation to sinners. The God who alone is love is the same God who demands obedience; the God who claims vengeance to be His exclusive business is the same God who brings about liberty, and the God who gives grace is the same God who judges. In fact, the phrase Let all mortal flesh/tongue keep silence has within it the cue that the subject God ought to be approached not only with minimalism and stillness, but also with awe and astonishment. That is, God-Talk ought to be primarily a revelation of who God is and what He did for the world through Jesus Christ. This articulates well the Behold the Lamb of God declaration of John the Baptizer.

John certainly was aware of the fact that without the death of Christ, entrance into the kingdom of God would be impossible. In his assertion of Jesus being the sin-bearer, we see what seems to be a disclosure of a specific sacrifice, which is nothing other than the giving of divine life for the secular. That the exchange of life for death is the perfect example of God’s goodness, where Christ gave up his life that we may live forever, is diametrically the same as divine intervention. Of the intent of that kind of intervention, there can be no rejection of sinners, their coming to God for acceptance and their confessing of sins will lead to eternal life. Insofar as Christ died for the sins of the entire world, so far will the kerygma of God remain the standard of salvation, and it succors sinners in their understanding of the goodness of God.

The shift away from this objective can also make monsters or idols of one’s stance about God, and this shift has facility to formulate a theology capable of eclipsing the Grace of God. It is important, in regard to the Grace of God, to know that pharisaism cannot vindicate sinners from their sins. So we see in Christianity the concept that salvation is grace-action; indeed, this is more than just saying that God is good; it is extending His goodness to all in need. This makes Christianity the typology of divine love; this implies that God’s acceptance of sinners is close to Jesus’s petition for sinners, and Jesus’s acceptance of children is close to God’s love for the world. It is not difficult to discern from the scriptures that a sinner does not need to embrace pharisaism to know that the Gospel is the embodiment of God’s love, which is the symbol of grace-action. It is necessary, therefore, to know that both liberalism and conservatism have no salvation in themselves to give sinners eternal life. That indeed is the purpose of this essay. The concept that one’s stance about God has the capacity to make others helpless victims of theological beliefs is not an opponent of Jesus’s opposition toward pharisaism.

The point I am emphasizing is, of course, overwhelmingly relevant to Christian living. The tensions and contradictions between liberals and conservatives in the church emasculate the work of ministry. We can now take this truism a stage further: Every time there is a discussion on Who’s right and Who’s wrong, in regards to bringing people to God, it is not the world, but the church that becomes the victim of theological and doctrinal disparities—regardless of whatever variations liberals and conservatives may offer in style and mood or word and deed. Liberalism, as well as conservatism, is a typology of a noosphere. I have tried to make the point that Christianity is not a nomothetic or nonethnic religion. Another name for Christianity is salvation or new creation. Take for instance that God’s acceptance of the people of Nineveh gives us a precise picture of the inhabitants of heaven. Is this not a selection symbolic of every nation and people? And is this selection not a paramount parallelism of the Great Commission? In this selection we observe the profoundly unambiguous clue that God’s Grace is unconditional, and this selection is a pointer of the catholicity of salvation. This means no escape from the work of the church in the world, from incorporating outsiders into the life of the church, or from evangelism itself. It meant victory for the people of Nineveh in the face of Jonah’s criticism of them, and it means victory for God in the face of liberalism and conservatism. There is more to this: For Phineus (the blind King of Thrace), it meant victory for the Argonauts in the presence of life’s turbulence; for Moses, it meant victory for the ancient Hebrew people in the face of slavery, and great danger, and the military might of the ancient Egyptians; for George Washington, it meant victory for the people of America in the face of Britain’s dominance over the Thirteen Colonies; for us human beings, it means renunciation of intolerance in the heart, and for our Lord, Jesus Christ, it means victory over the power of sin and death. Thus, in every way, God’s deliverance of the people of Nineveh epitomizes Christ’s deliverance of human beings. And in all, of this victory, we maintain that the considerateness of God is a leading component of Divine Grace. The Christian faith does not support any illusion that self-righteousness or falsehood is a friend of God. And again: The Christian faith does not patronize the philosophy of Jonah. It is of critical importance to insist that both liberalism and conservatism have caused the loss of innumerable souls among God’s people, and they have wreaked havoc on the unity of the church. If we can list all the evils that are done in the name of liberalism and conservatism, our inventory will enable us to see how they are archrivals of God’s victory over sin and death. Only then are we able to be wholly Christlike and are able to live up to the truth and demands of the Gospel.

Now we see, in fact, in God’s victory, a specific revelation of His steadfastness, and it is this victory and steadfastness that debunked the limitations of Jonah’s philosophy. Furthermore, it was Jonah’s philosophy that almost debauched him from fulfilling his infinite responsibility to God and neighbor. Let us examine Jonah’s philosophy. Native to the belief of Jonah is his partial knowledge of God’s plan. His philosophy is emblematic or illustrative of human finiteness. It means literally: Human beings are not the interpreters of God’s Thoughts and Ways. What we do in the name of the Almighty God can only be considered pleasing and pleasant to Him if He puts His signature upon it. In the Great Commission, we read: God does not put His signature upon our liberalism or conservatism. The more we reflect on God’s opposition to Jonah’s philosophy, the more we are able to dissert upon the growth of the baptized membership of the church. In his philosophy, we see the evidence that he tried to laze away his charge by making a frivolous case against the people of Nineveh. In Jonah’s philosophy, too, we discover his intolerance, which communicates a sense of judgment. His philosophy tried to make him oppose God’s will, nay, attempted to defeat his faith in God. It is this kind of philosophy that lacks lenity; it lacks forgiveness; it lacks love, and it is limiting in every sense of the word compassion. It is this kind of philosophy that keeps faith with the naivety and ignorance of unbelief. It is enough here to point out this fact: We see in Jonah’s philosophy the tendency of prejudice to suppress the heart from doing what God requires, and this tendency reflects the weakness of human nature to save itself. On the basis of this prospect, we see that sin resides in our nature and is the reason we need God to save us. Psalm 51:5 and 10 put it like this:

Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

In all this, we see that in God’s Sight, there is no liberalism or conservatism in evangelism. Hence, of course, the Great Commission and tolerance are related in a special way. They both are akin to grace actions. It may be useful here to add this point: One would be misunderstanding the theology and doctrine of God’s imminent Judgment in the scriptures, even if one were to use prophetic warnings in regard to God’s wrath to justify one’s intolerance of others. Intolerance has no compassion; it is insensitive, and it is shortsighted. In intolerance, there is a vanity, which trumpets its own praises; it dances to its own rhythms; it does its own will; it seeks its own glory, and it places self above others. This vanity is the sin of intolerance; it is uncouth; it is despicable. Vanity spells arrogance. And obviously there is in vanity an obstinacy which has no restraint. To say vanity lacks self-discipline is to say that intolerance lacks the ability to accommodate God’s will, God’s love, and His purpose for all people. Intolerance does not know that there is no distinction between vanity and arrogance. Incontrovertibly, we can profess that Jonah’s understanding of right living was contrary to God’s plan of salvation. We see in his obstinacy an attempt to escape his infinite duty to God and neighbor; we see in it his failure to understand that evangelism means to go anywhere and somewhere and everywhere God sends one, and we see in it the resistance of the intolerant heart toward God’s will and Word. There is more: Jonah’s obstinacy could have virtually denied an innumerable multitude of souls the opportunity of being brought to God, and it nearly denied the angels in heaven the joy, which is due them when sinners repent of their sins. In Jonah’s stubbornness, we see his belief that evangelism is inextricably bound up with one’s conviction about God’s intervention; we see the evidence of some inborn obstinacy in human nature. Is personal prejudice the result of genetics or upbringing of biology or ethos? This one thing I know about prejudice: It is a mixture of biology and culture; it is a mixture of arrogance and ignorance. In God’s Word, we read: Inflexibility is not on the side of evangelism. In any case, Jonah did not know that evangelism means to teach all people and nations about God; he did not know that it means to tell friends or neighbors about God’s dealings; he did not know that it means to converse with parents, children, brothers, sisters, and relatives about the Gospel; he did not know that it means to set souls free. Ostensibly, Jonah did not know that evangelism means to offer someone salvation. It was God who taught Jonah what evangelism really means and entails. To evangelize is to inform others about God’s plan for human beings; it is to empower others to see the goodness of God; it is to speak about the intervention of God in human history; it is to help others familiarize themselves with what God did in Jesus Christ and what He is doing through Jesus Christ for you and me. The basic thrust of this essay is twofold: (1) to show the need for a proper interpretation of the Word of God, and (2) to excogitate the best approach in bringing people to God in the twenty-first century.

It is clear that Jonah was not fully receptive to the concept of unconditional grace. He was extravagant in his narrowness of thoughts, words, and deeds. His personal experience of divine providence taught him the power of God’s saving Grace, and he experienced it firsthand. When he reluctantly became an agent of God’s saving Grace, he understood God’s love for sinners and God’s opposition to sin. He learned that God does not cajole anyone into believing in His Word. The story of Jonah shows that if one’s position about God is eccentrically severe, eccentrically unsympathetic, eccentrically cruel, and eccentrically unforgiving, it would thwart the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on all flesh. This outpouring of the Holy Spirit is, of course, a pictogram of unconditional grace. This point seems to me worth expressing: The Holy Spirit and evangelism are linked in a special way. Very significant is the fact that the church must be led by the Holy Spirit in the work of ministry. There are lots of examples in the scriptures, which exemplify the leading of the Holy Spirit: The inevitable and distinct function of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church