58 - Why God Killed Jesus, with Dr. Stephen Wellum

Subscribe to the Think Update: http://thethink.institute/articles/update

Get the complete show notes for this episode at http://thethink.institute. 

If you’ve been around churches, you’ve seen the crosses and crucifixes. The cross is central to Christian theology as a symbol of what we believe. But there’s a lot of debate about what exactly the cross represents, and what Jesus did when he died on the cross. Recently in my own circle, there’s been a lot of discussion on the subject of the Atonement. What did Jesus do when he died on the cross? And if the cross was part of God’s plan, is it fair to say God killed Jesus? So we could phrase the question this way: Why did God kill Jesus?  

Dr. Wellum is Professor of Christian Theology and editor of the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. He and his wife Karen have five adult children. Dr. Wellum has been influential in the development of New Covenant Theology and recently, Progressive Covenantalism, which are schools of thought for interpreting the whole Bible. 

In this episode, Dr. Wellum and I are going to talk about the death of Jesus--what he did, why it matters, what it teaches us about God, and how we ought to respond in light of all this. We’ll unpack some of the competing views that are out there and get to the main idea, which is that the theory known as Penal Substitutionary Atonement is the best way of thinking about what Jesus accomplished. 

It’s going to be a theologically rich episode, with very practical implications, and it will certainly make you think.