Cornerstone Curriculum, Official Certification Edition - Mentor's Guide

M E N T O R N O T E S / 1 1 9

God the Son Jesus, the Messiah and Lord of All – He Died

L E S S O N 3

Welcome to the Mentor’s Guide for Lesson 3, God the Son: Jesus, the Messiah and Lord of All – He Died . The focus of this lesson is to try to help the students capture the data as well as the mystery that surrounds the passion, suffering, and death of our Lord. This need to be aware of the meaning of his death is central to all that this lesson will seek to reveal and make known. What will be immediately obvious for you and your students is the diversity of opinions about the nature and meaning of Christ’s death. What is critical here is to see that the various emphases, while containing elements of truth, must be overruled and understood in light of the teaching of the Scriptures themselves. This is not to be wooden and mean-spirited in our assessment of the various kinds of perspectives which have come to be associated with his passion and death. Rather, it is to say that our lesson will focus more on the plain, transparent meanings of Jesus’ death given to us by the biblical texts themselves. As you walk through the various views with the students, it will be important that you stay as close as possible to the New Testament’s emphasis of Christ’s death, especially with its focus salvifically on his substitutionary (also called vicarious, meaning “in the place of another”) death on behalf of sinners. Texts such as Isaiah 53, 1 Timothy 2.6, and 1 Peter 2.24 emphasize this kind of vision of Christ’s death as a death for us , on our behalf (see also 2 Corinthians 5.21; 1 Peter 3.18 emphasizing his death on behalf of all humanity). Make certain that your own emphasis parallels that of the apostles, who tend to refuse a monolithic approach to the meaning of Jesus’ death. For instance, Jesus’ death provides redemption; we have been bought with a price, purchased out of the slave market of Satan and sin to live free as God’s servants (2 Cor. 6.20 with 1 Cor. 7.23; Gal. 3.13; 4.5; Rev. 5.9; 14.3-4). Furthermore, we have been reconciled to God, restored out of the estrangement and alienation we had with him due to our own voluntary rebellion against his will (Rom. 5.10; 2 Cor. 5.18-21). His death also propitiated us before the Lord, satisfying all the claims of our holy God and making a way for his divine wrath to be satisfied and his compassion to be poured out even on guilty Gentiles (Rom. 3). Through his death we are forgiven of our sins (Col. 2.13) and our sins

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