Testing Tradition

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? (Psalm 22:1, ESV) These words are so central to the traditional evangelical understanding of the cross of Jesus Christ that their sentiment echoes in the songs we sing, most notably: How great the pain of searing loss— The Father turns His face away, As wounds which mar the Chosen One Bring many sons to glory. But is this really what's happening on the cross?  The Father turns His face away from the Son?  The Father forsakes the Son?  The Father is considering His Son to be a cursed criminal instead of the apple of His eye?  I want to make the case, on the basis of the Scriptures, that this is not what's happening.  I would submit that throughout Jesus' entire experience of the cross, the Father never stopped viewing His Son as the apple of His eye with whom He is fully well-pleased. Psalm 9 The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in...

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV) This is a lynchpin text for the traditional Protestant understanding of double imputation.  John Piper is just one example of the many who understand this verse as "the great exchange": This is the great exchange. Here it is again in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” God lays our sins on Christ and punishes them in him. And in Christ’s obedient death, God fulfills and vindicates his righteousness and imputes (credits) it to us. Our sin on Christ; his righteousness on us. If I buy an item of clothing from the mall for my daughter and find when I get home that she likes it but it's either too small or too big, I would take it back to the store to exchange it for the same item in a different size that better fits her.  This exchange means that th...