Mind Potter

This is the first post in a series summarizing the chapters of R. C. Sproul’s book, THE TRUTH OF THE CROSS.

Chapter 1 – The Necessity of an Atonement

1Cor 2:2

• “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

Holy God and Sin as Offense: (p9)

• “If people understood that there is a holy God and that sin is an offense against that holy God, they would break down the doors of our churches and ask, “What must I do to be saved?”

Justification by Death: (p10)

• “The prevailing notion of justification in Western culture today is justification by death. It’s assumed that all one has to do to be received into the everlasting arms of God is to die.”

Primitive and Obscene: (p11)

• “It is primitive for a blood sacrifice to be made to satisfy the justice of a transcendent and holy God …. And the cross is an obscenity …. The cross was the ugliest, most obscene thing in the history of the world.”

Augustinianism, Semi-Pelagianism, and Pelagianism: (p12)

• Augustinianism – “salvation rests on God’s grace alone”
• Semi-Pelagianism – “salvation rests on human cooperation with God’s grace”
• Pelagianism – “salvation can be achieved without God’s grace”

Necessity?

• Absolutely Unnecessary – “Jesus died as a moral example for men”
• Hypothetically Necessary – “God could have redeemed us by a host of ways”
• Absolutely Necessary – “If any person was ever going to be reconciled to God and redeemed”

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