The Two Great Paradoxes

1. Timeless Grace and the Divine Drama
Revelation 13.8: "… the lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world."

There never was a time in the history of human kind when the 'amazing grace' that was accomplished on the Cross in our world of time was not totally available. It is a fundamental error to imagine that only the period after the crucifixion is the ‘age of grace’ and that prior to this time people came to God on a different and inferior basis. This is the major mistake of the evangelical church, and it is largely because of this mistake that evangelicals hold their unfortunate exclusivist views of salvation.

The Cross was the Godhead’s unique ‘passion play’, a quintessential divine drama acted out on the stage of the time and space world of humankind. Its essential purpose was twofold.

Firstly, it was a thunderous demonstration and dramatisation of what always has been the deepest underlying bed-rock of this vast universe. Its ‘good news’ was that God loves the world and that he is, and always has been, reconciled to his creation. Amazing grace has always existed. The crucifixion was God’s masterpiece, designed to express this great truth in a way that would emblazon it on the psyche of humanity for eternity. This time God’s truth would not be expressed through instructions written in ink, through heady and wordy theological ideas, or through the rantings of some wild prophet. This was the divine ‘virtual drama’ like no other, set in real time. The main character was no mere actor playing out a role, but a real person, and the action involved his real flesh, his real blood and his real death. And later, thank God, his real resurrection.

The message that the Godhead was seeking to brand with blood and fire on the psyche and souls of humanity for ever was this:

• The need for physical sacrifice to atone for sin is forever over.
• There has never been a time in the history of the world when God has not faced human kind and his creation with the outstretched arms of amazing grace, love and welcome.There never has been a time when his back has been turned in anger. The Cross was about Divinity striding onto the stage of human history, ripping off the mask forged from centuries of human misconceptions and with indescribable power and passionate love, like some vast Divine Pavorotti with arms flung wide, in full voice, pouring out his love song to humanity, past, present and future.
• The price for our evil and self-rule has always been paid in full. Atonement has always been made.
• Long before God is ever our judge he is on our side. God does not wait with baited breath for our every sin and failure, in order to demand some physical offering to placate his wrath. No, a million times no. The message is, God loves you.
• The timeless Cross is about God saying to humanity, “See this is what I am really like, this is how I really regard you.”

The Cross did not change God’s attitude towards humankind. It didn’t need to. It was not about placating the anger of God in relation to humanity. It was about changing us, changing our perceptions of how God regards us and of how we live in right relationship with him.