Today, we're pleased to share with you an audio essay written and read by Patrick Shiner

entitled, Ten Things You Should Know About the Cross.

Patrick is the author of The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross from Crossway.

Ten Things You Should Know About the cross, written and read by Patrick Shiner.

Number one, the cross is a Trinitarian event.

The Christian faith is distinctly Trinitarian and cross-shaped.

Therefore, the cross must reveal the Trinity. God the Father sent the Son

to save the world, the Son submitted to the Father's will, and the Spirit applies the work of

redemption to Jesus' followers. Redemption is predestined by the Father, accomplished by the Son,

and applied by the spirit. God did not

withhold the son, and the son surrendered to the father. Yet the father is not sacrificing the son.

The father, the son, and the spirit all possess a single will. The sacrifice, while uniquely the

son's work, is also the will of the three persons.

Number two, the cross is the center of the story of the scripture. A Bible without a cross is a

Bible without a climax, a Bible without an ending, a Bible without a solution. The spiral of sin that began in Genesis 3 must be

stopped. The death of Jesus terminates the downward spiral. In Jesus' body, he took on the sin of the

world and paid the price of all humanity. At the cross, the new Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, arises to create a new humanity, family, and kingdom.

That is why Paul doesn't say he decided to know nothing except the incarnation, resurrection,

or ascension of Jesus, but nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Wisdom was not found beyond the cross, not above the cross,

not below the cross, but in the cross. Number three, the cross redefines power in the kingdom.

Jesus' announcement that the kingdom of God has come is conclusively revealed in the Christ

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