The most important aspect of the cross is the incarnate reality of God become the man Jesus. It is the incarnation that seals in a covenant of blood the salvation of humanity with all of humanity.
Incarnation and the Salvation of Humanity
The meaning of Christ is rooted in the transcendent reality of the incarnation. The incarnation is possible in relation to humanity because the image of God is central to our existence. For this reason it is important to provide a basic understanding of the image and likeness of God borne in the consciousness of human beings (even if hidden in the impaired).
In relation to humanity God is a relational redeeming creator who makes and keeps promises. We are as individuals and as humanity relational. We love stories of redemption and to participate in redeeming activity. We are creative in our thoughts, our skills, and in particular through our ability for procreation. We cannot live without ‘promises’ like wedding vows or friendship, or contracts. The first sentence of this paragraph is meant to be a beginning guideline for identifying the image of God. Love is the defining reality that is required for each of these to work in the world. Love, like being relational, acting redemptively, being creative or reproducing, and promise keeping all belong to the image of God in us.
We are like God because we know both good and evil; this is clear in Genesis 3:22. As such we are moral beings, bearing a moral conscience (Romans 2:14).
The incarnation is God joining the creation, it is God’s great adventure! The incarnation is accomplished through God’s omnipotence, each moment withholding from the God Man (Christ) the omnific reality of being God and omnipotently binding Christ (the word of God, the wisdom of God) to the reality of being an individual human being. In the thought and words of Kierkegaard, Jesus was omnipotently bound and unable to escape from what he had done.
The cross is meaningless for salvation if Jesus was not the Christ, the word of God, the wisdom of God, the incarnate God. The cross is a display of the depth of God’s love for all humanity only if the man on the cross is the incarnate God of creation.
The Culpability of God
Considering that we are finite creatures who begin as infants, born into a world, a people group, a family, at a point in history with none of this being of our choosing, that God can be held culpable for our existence. Our moral conscience and intellect that guides our sense of justice requires that God be culpable for our existence. The corrective to our present delimma is stated with simple clarity in 1st Corinthians15:22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.
God’s communicative revelatory act of love for humanity displayed on a cross is also God’s culpability as the one to correct the human condition.
The Unsolvable Problem of Evil
The problem of evil is unsolvable or hidden from us. However, we can explore aspects of the problem. I think we can say that evil is loosed upon humanity in an existential act of violence against one’s self. This is portrayed in the garden story. Eve’s inner thoughts (her imagined dialogue with the serpent in the garden of God) reveal her wholeness. She thinks aesthetically, ethically, and religiously as she considers the freedom she has to choose to eat the from the forbidden tree. Adam joins her in their act of disobedience to the divine voice.
Evil enters the world not through the magic of a tree’s fruit but via a refusal to heed the voice of God. Yet, God put the tree in the garden (and the serpent) and set in place the prohibition. However, the godlikeness of the creature (humanity) refuses the limits of their reality and opens the plague of choice through an act of self inflicted violence that damages their relationship with God their creator. The first act of violence is inward, self inflicted, it is to reject the voice of God. The occasion was provided by God and the outcome already known by God.
The Story
The story of God’s salvation is the most potent story for its origin is written into the life of God as an unexplainable event only love can account for and its sole purpose is to redeem the creation; especially humanity who is the object of God’s hope for a family. The story of Jesus, the God Man who speaks of a world to come, yet present in the hearts of those who hear God. God longs for us to hear his voice. God spoke definitively in the incarnation declaring the value of humanity as equitable to God’s existence. We are born to live forever in Christ.
The Resurrection
The resurrection affirms the incarnation. It affirms God’s sworn to promise for a priest who is known as Yahweh (Psalm 110 particularly verses 1 and 4). God is greater than death, greater than our sin, greater than history, greater than all the violence that has hurt so many throughout history.
Conclusion
Yes, God has become one of us and lifted us up in heavenly places to enjoy the creative works of God. To look upon a human being is to see the face of God in creation. Sadly, there are those who refuse God’s voice and promote violence, hatred, and cause death to reach deeper into reality than old age. The incarnate God upon a cross reveals the utter failure of power in government, religion, and the masses (crowds). Only our surrender to the voice of love and the call to faith in the one who can be seen through the wondrous works of creation, particularly in the human family. When we see every life as sacred and use the resources of the world for the good of all then we will incarnate Christ in us the hope of glory.
