Thank you for the cross

After all the recent debate over the atonement, sparked by to comments made by Steve Chalke a few years ago, I still find myself in awe of the amazing self-sacrifice God made on my behalf. 

Whether you got hot under the collar about the "cosmic child abuse" comments or not, this much is surely true: if it were not for God's intervention on your behalf you would be facing an eternity dealing with the awful price sin exacts from every one of us. 

That God loves me so much that somewhere in eternity the Father, Son and Spirit resolved to deal, once for all, with sin, my sin, humbles me. That the Son offered himself (and therein lies a crucial truth for the atonement) as the carrier of the weight of the sin of the world and that the Father agreed that this was indeed a sufficient price to be paid, is surely an amazing expression of love and grace.

Reading Hebrews just brings all this home to me once again. The theological arguments may rise and fall, the nuances of language and syntax may continue to challenge and perplex, but the cross stands over all and indeed has said it all. It has the final word. But for the willing sacrifice of Jesus Christ the lost remain lost, and always will until they are found, and I would still be one of them.