The following is the conclusion to a lecture I recently gave, entitled “Parsing the Grammar of Atonement.”

All of the biblical metaphors for atonement are needed.  They serve as necessary imaginative windows into the utterly irreducible reality of the reconciliation accomplished in the person of Christ.  “The metaphors,” Colin Gunton observes, “are the means by which it is possible to speak of the meaning of the gospel narratives taken as a whole.”¹ This quotation from Gunton is helpful as it gestures towards two significant aspects of how metaphors function, both of which are sometimes forgotten when the metaphors are pressed in an overly theorized direction. Continue reading Proclaiming the Crucifixion →