Finally, to conclude, the meaning of the cross is the revelation of the divine love in action. Nobody is likely to disagree with that, but if you say this after offering the pagan soteriology, the darkness attains a new bitterness. When an angry, powerful person beats up someone else while saying, “I love you,” this is the stuff of nightmare, of sadism. Of course, what we need is a robust Trinitarian theology, which is what the whole New Testament and all the great theologians have struggled to give us. God was in the Messiah and reconciling the world to himself. “The Son of God loved me and
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