The Character of God and the cross
The character of God is shown in Jesus, and most clearly on the cross, rather than pieced together from scattered verses. Four Dig In guests work on that question: what it means for divine wrath, for the many meanings of the crucifixion, for reading the Old Testament, and for telling real revival from hype.
No one has ever seen God at any time, but God, the only son who's in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.
John 1:18, as Dr. Brad Jersak cites it on the show- Dr. Brad Jersak
- Pastor Brian Zahnd
- Dr. Geoff Harper
- Dr. Nathan Finn
- Dr. Brad Jersak
- Pastor Brian Zahnd
- Dr. Geoff Harper
- Dr. Nathan Finn
In their
own words.
Ten lines from the four conversations, word for word from the episode notes. Step through them, or pick one from the index. Each guest speaks for himself, and they do not agree on everything.
Four hours
on who God is.
Each conversation runs about an hour. Start with Dr. Jersak if the angry-God picture is the thing in the way, with Pastor Zahnd if the cross has only ever meant one thing to you, and with Dr. Harper if the Old Testament is the stumbling block.
- Dr. Brad JersakProfessor, St. Stephen's UniversityReimagining God: Why the Angry God Image Keeps Us From ChristWrath as consent, the cross as revelation and victory, and reading violent texts through Christ.with Dr. Brad Jersak
- Pastor Brian ZahndAuthor, The Wood Between the WorldsThe Kaleidoscope Cross: Why the Crucifixion Has More Than One MeaningNineteen lenses on the cross, a Camino pilgrimage, Anselm to Calvin, and the cross against the sword.with Pastor Brian Zahnd
- Dr. Geoff HarperAuthor, Teaching LeviticusThe Old Testament Reset: Why Ancient Scripture Still Speaks to Modern FaithIntertextuality, the leper in Mark 1, the Day of Atonement in Hebrews, and what in the law still binds.with Dr. Geoff Harper
- Dr. Nathan FinnProvost, North Greenville UniversityWhen Revival Is Real vs. Religious HypeEdwards, Finney, the Moravians, Asbury 2023, and the warning signs of manufactured excitement.with Dr. Nathan Finn
What the four
add up to.
The Dig In reads Scripture as an arc that reaches its full clarity in Jesus, the final and perfect revelation of the Father. Here is how each guest's work bears on that, described in their own terms.
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Read every page toward Jesus
Jersak and HarperDr. Jersak calls the gap between the God of the Old Testament and the God of Jesus a problem of interpretation. Following second-century voices like Melito of Sardis and Irenaeus, he reads Old Testament suffering as pointing to the cross, its victories as pointing to Christ's far greater victory, and the prophets' charges against Israel's kings as pointing to the betrayal that crucified Jesus. He treats some passages as cautionary tales, including what he calls a misreading of God himself in the text.
Dr. Harper comes at it through intertextuality. In Mark 1 a leper asks to be made clean, and Leviticus 13 and 14 never say how to heal him, so Jesus does what nobody in Israel could do. Hebrews 9 and 10 read the Day of Atonement the same way. For more on the sacrificial system behind those chapters, see our temple, sacrifice and purity page.
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The cross has more than one meaning
Zahnd and JersakPastor Zahnd traces penal substitution to Anselm's medieval honor culture and its sharpening by the Reformers, and notes that Eastern Orthodox Christianity never adopted it. His concern is that one theory crowds out the rest: Christus Victor, Mary's pierced soul, Christ in solidarity with every innocent victim, and many more.
Dr. Jersak names two realities at Calvary: God's definitive self-revelation as self-giving, radically forgiving, co-suffering love, and a decisive victory over death. Pastor Zahnd rejects any picture in which Jesus saves us from God. On this site that is the center of the matter. The Father has always looked like the Son.
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Real fruit, not religious hype
FinnIf God looks like Jesus, then a real move of God should too. Dr. Finn finds three marks in every genuine awakening he has studied: believers maturing fast, unbelievers coming to Christ at unusual rates, and an effect felt beyond the church. He follows Jonathan Edwards in waiting to see the fruit six, twelve and twenty-four months later.
His warning signs are just as concrete: excitement without the gospel, celebrity instead of Christ, emotion without changed lives, and leaders building personal followings. For the wider story of Jesus and his first followers, visit Jesus and the New Testament.
The character of God, asked and answered
Short answers from the episodes. The guests speak for themselves, and the site's own framing is marked as ours.
The New Testament points to Jesus. John 1:18 says no one has ever seen God, but the Son has made him known, and Hebrews 1 calls Jesus the exact representation of God's nature. The Dig In's own reading follows that: Jesus is the full revelation of the Father, and every other picture of God is read through him.
Dr. Brad Jersak argues the problem lies in how we interpret, not in God. Reading the wrath and violence of God literally produces an ugly picture, so he reads the Old Testament the way the early church did, as prefiguring Christ. Dr. Geoff Harper shows the Old Testament supplying the vocabulary of covenant, law, sacrifice, atonement and forgiveness that the New Testament uses to explain Jesus.
Dr. Jersak defines wrath as what happens when we defy love. He reads it as God's consent to our choices, pointing to Romans 1, where God gives people over to what they have chosen, rather than as God actively punishing.
Pastor Brian Zahnd argues it does not. In The Wood Between the Worlds he looks at the cross through 19 lenses, from Christus Victor to Christ's solidarity with victims of injustice, and suggests its meanings may be infinite because God is infinite.
Dr. Nathan Finn looks for rapid spiritual maturity, unusual numbers of conversions and an effect on wider society, and he waits for lasting fruit. Warning signs include excitement without the gospel, a focus on celebrities instead of Christ, and no lasting change in people's lives.
See God
in Jesus.
Every Monday at 6:15 AM ET, Johnny sits down with another scholar or pastor who has spent a career on questions like these. Subscribe on YouTube so the next conversation reaches you the morning it drops.
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