Theology of the Cross by Charles B. Cousar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was prepared to have a “so-so” reaction to this book, which I found in a bookstore bargain bin. That wasn’t helped when I found that the writer was only going to deal with those Pauline texts accepted by mainline scholars (leaving out epistles like Ephesians, Colossians, and the Pastorals). Instead, I found this a profoundly helpful book in reflecting on the theology of the cross. In a sentence, what made it so was that Cousar stayed close to the biblical texts from which he was developing this biblical theology of the cross. And as a result, he reminded me of how the cross turns everything upside down.
After surveying the field of research including Kasemann’s work, he begins by considering the cross and our theology of God. He observes that we often simply “infinitize” the attributes of God. Instead, he considers the impact of the cross in revealing the righteousness and love of God in God’s willingness to enter the human condition.
He then moves to the question of human sinfulness and how the cross addresses this and explores the different theories of atonement as well as the elements of participation in Christ’s death found in Romans 6 and the idea of reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5:14-6:2. I would differ with his approach here which seems to hold all on a par. I still believe that the idea of substitution is foundational to making sense of everything else. That, however, is a long discussion and Cousar reminds us that the images of salvation in Paul’s writing are diverse and show us indeed how great Christ’s saving work is.
Chapter 3 considers death and resurrection, and particularly how these two are intertwined in so much of Paul’s writing–together as God’s saving work, our promise for the future, and as a reality in our lives, both dying in Christ and experiencing his resurrection power.
Chapters 4 and 5 shift focus to the significance of the cross in Christian experience. Chapter 4 explores how the death of Christ forms a new people, providing a basis for unity and holiness across our various cultural identifiers. Chapter 5 goes deeper into the experience of identifying with the death of Christ in our experience of weakness and suffering, which the author sees as a major challenge for the North American church, even while this is a comfort to the church in many parts of the world.
His concluding chapter recapitulates the themes of the book, arguing for the centrality of the cross in Christian theology, how this shapes our ideas of God, the church, and the experience of God’s grace and final victory.
This book is part of Fortress Press’s Overtures to Biblical Theology series. I’ve been impressed with each of the volumes I’ve read. This was no exception.