“Anyone Hung Upon A Pole Is Under God’s Curse:” Deuteronomy 21:22-23 In Old And New Covenant Contexts -- By: Ardel B. Caneday

Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 18:3 (Fall 2014)
Article: “Anyone Hung Upon A Pole Is Under God’s Curse:” Deuteronomy 21:22-23 In Old And New Covenant Contexts
Author: Ardel B. Caneday


“Anyone Hung Upon A Pole Is Under God’s Curse:” Deuteronomy 21:22-23 In Old And New Covenant Contexts

A. B. Caneday

A. B. Caneday is Professor of New Testament and Greek at the University of Northwestern in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He earned his Ph.D. in New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Dr. Caneday has written many scholarly book reviews and articles in a variety of publications. He is the co-author (with Thomas R. Schreiner) of The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance and Assurance (InterVarsity, 2001), a contributor to A Cloud of Witnesses: The Theology of Hebrews in its Ancient Context (T & T Clark, 2008) and The Faith of Jesus Christ: Exegetical, Biblical, and Theological Studies (Paternoster, 2009), and he is the author of Must Christians Always Forgive? (Center for Christian Leadership, 2011). Recently, Dr. Caneday is the co-editor (with Matthew Barrett) of Four Views on the Historical Adam (Zondervan, 2013).

Introduction

That we might remember his sacrificial death upon the Roman cross in our place the Lord Jesus instituted a simple meal with symbolic bread and wine with instructions to “do this in remembrance of me” and to observe this until he comes (1 Cor 11:24-26). Despite the Lord’s directives concerning this meal, one that inseparably binds together both gospel message and symbol, the stigma of the cross has faded for many western Christians due partly to historical distance from and banishment of

ancient Rome’s form of capital punishment. Religious freedom and the ubiquitous presence of the cross as a ceremonial symbol embedded into church and cathedral architecture, etched into jewelry, or hanging as a pendant upon a chain tends to mask its horrors and repugnance. Offended activist “vampires” who file lawsuits to banish the cross from public buildings and lands ironically suppress the offensiveness of the cross, because Christians who take the bait become preoccupied with rights as citizens of this world. To the degree that our responses allow the cross of Christ to become trivialized, our hearing Jesus’ call to bear our own cross is equally muted (cf. Mark 8:34-38; Matt 16:24-27; Luke 9:23-27). Consequently, apart from our daily taking up of our crosses and our regular and mindful ceremonial remembrance (1 Cor 11:27-29), the scandal of Christ’s cross in both symbol and substance is at risk of becoming trite, not unlike a dead metaphor.<...

You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
Click here to subscribe
visitor : : uid: ()