Dear Fellow Saints,
Was Jesus Christ punished for our sins, as we were taught in Christianity, or was He a love offering from God meant to take away Sin itself? The differences between these two viewpoints are monumental.
When I was a kid, I was afraid of God. One reason was that I was taught that God was a punisher and that He hated Sin so much that He wanted to rear back and smack all sinners in the face. And He would have too—were it not for His Son, Who volunteered to step in and take the smack meant for us.
This viewpoint was terrifying. It presented God as angry and miserable unless He could vent His frustration in the form of violence. Poor Jesus—He got the brunt of it. So even with the classic Christian "salvation" account, 1) God is still somewhat dangerous, 2) Jesus secretly can't really like His Father very much for what He did to Him, and 3) we are left to feel guilty for being
partly responsible for the sick violence visited upon Christ.
The good news is that this viewpoint is wrong. Dead wrong. This Christian viewpoint has God and Christ at cross purposes—pun not intended. Christ really doesn't want to get humiliated, beaten, tortured and killed, but His Father tells Him that He has to take it, and so He steps in and saves us from the penalty of sin. No. Rather, Father and Son are on the same page, working together—not
to punish the sinner (or for Christ to be the surrogate sinner), but to take away Sin itself.
I recorded this message in Irving, Texas in 2003. Two of my three sons (Gabe and Luke) were along for the ride. The church were I spoke was called the First Covenant Church (I prefer the second covenant, myself ), pastored by Mike Spradlin, who had heard some of my talks on the salvation of all and invited me to address his congregation. This was my second and last appearance, my first
being the previous year. I had forgotten all about this venture until Rodney Paris produced the video.
And thanks to Rodney Paris for giving us another multi-media masterpiece, weaving together the original audio (produced on a cassette tape) with video and text screens.
This is a powerful message. I, myself, was moved by it, having not heard it in years. Here, indeed, is the TRUE PICTURE of Father and Son working in unison to "remedy" a "problem" that They, Themselves created in order to teach humanity the glories of justification and resurrection via the only means available to the human experience: contrast.
I am remaining yours in Christ from the edge of the bottom of the Floridan peninsula,
—Martin Zender
