On this day we commemorate the death of Jesus upon the cross.

The crucifixion, is it in its totality the penal substitution, where the cross is viewed as the place where God expended His wrath on His Son as a substitute for the punishment mankind deserved, and through this wrath satisfying His demand for holiness? This is the view that I was taught to be central to the Christian faith even to the point that those who did not embrace this view were not truly Christian.

I now see the cross as more about God expending His wrath on our sin and shame on Jesus as He took our sins upon Himself, to effect a cure for broken and fallen humanity, and by doing so satisfies His LOVE and HOLINESS to bring us into personal relationship with Him. I believe this view does not negate substitutionary atonement but embraces it in its fullest meaning. 

The cross was LOVE initiated not  PUNISHMENT initiated!

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