11 Quotes by Bradley Jersak

The Cross is God’s eternal love, refracted through human sin. What God’s love looks like now, refracted through human sin, is a crucified Jewish man.

The revelation included: a fresh emphasis on God as the merciful and hospitable Father; who wins us by love rather than threats; who accepts and adores us while we’re still a mess; who sees us as we are and heals us with hugs rather than blows.

We ought to also note the irony and incongruence of the Church utilizing the very place where God became violently offended by the literal burning of children as our primary metaphor for a final and eternal burning of God’s wayward people in literal flames. Thus, God becomes the very Molech who decrees that the angels must deliver his children to the flames, even though this was the very reason he ordered Hinnom to be desecrated in the first place!

When has shame and guilt ever restored someone’s life? When has punishing the victim ever transformed a heart or life? So it is with sin. As a disease, it cannot be punished out of us! We don’t need a punishing Judge, but rather, a great Physician.

God has indeed rendered a decisive judgment through the Cross, and his verdict is “Mercy!

Christ commands us to love our enemies and to overcome evil with good. He calls us to make love our first allegiance – and his love frees us to do so. Freedom in Christ, ironically, is freedom from the tyranny of our own paranoia-producing self-will and fear-driven self-preservation, which we’ve tragically mislabeled ‘freedom.’ But.

In Romans 5, who is the agent of salvation? Whose love is at work? Who is forgiving and reconciling sinners? God! God is the agent of salvation through Christ. And what is God saving us from? Himself? No. In Romans 5, does God say or even imply, “I love you so much that I will save you from myself?” No. God saves us from ‘the wrath’ – period.

Somehow, the early church was able to balance the dire warnings of its preaching with the passionate prayers of its liturgy, embracing hope for God’s mercy even if it required posthumous rescue from judgment.

So while God in his fullness is far beyond our comprehension, who God is can be known through the revelation of the Cross, by which we mean cruciform love, by ‘laying down his life.’ Love is not merely one of God’s attributes. Love is who God is in his very nature. God is Love in a way that exceeds character qualities. God is living love.