Episode 71: “The Beautiful Victory of the Cross - Thoughts on PSA and Christus Victor.”

Hey everyone, welcome back to Jesus the Legend.

Today we're going to talk about something that sits right at the center of the Christianity: the cross.

For two thousand years Christians have looked to the cross as the place where God dealt with sin, defeated evil, reconciled humanity, and revealed His love. The cross is central to what we believe.

But while Christians generally agree that the cross matters, they haven't always agreed on how it works or what even happened. 

Many of us grew up in churches where one particular explanation of the cross was presented as though it were simply "the gospel." We were taught that Jesus died to take the punishment that we deserved so that God could forgive us.

For many Christians, that explanation is so familiar that they've never considered that it's actually only one theory among several theories that Christians have used throughout history to explain what happened on Good Friday.

This is called Penal Substitutionary Atonement, often shortened to PSA.

Today I want to talk about another take on the cross called Christus Victor. One that in my opinion is much more beautiful and sits better with the God revealed in Jesus.

Intro/outro music licensed from Soundstripe (soundstripe.com)