To many, many Christians it looks as if the Cross is to be understood as part of a mechanism of injured and restored right. It is the form, so it seems, in which the infinitely offended righteousness of God was propitiated again by means of an infinite expiation....This picture is as false as it is widespread. In the Bible the Cross does not appear as part of a mechanism of injured right; on the contrary, in the Bible, the Cross is quite the reverse; IT IS THE EXPRESSION OF THE RADICAL NATURE OF THE LOVE THAT GIVES ITSELF COMPLETELY, of the process in which one is what one does and does what one is; it is the expression of a life that is completely being for others. ~ Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, pages 281 - 82 (caps emphasis added).
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 16:45:22 +0000