Cornerstone Curriculum, Official Certification Edition - Mentor's Guide

1 2 2 / C O R N E R S T O N E C U R R I C U L U M M E N T O R ’ S G U I D E

Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.)

The questions below seek to cover the critical claims associated with Christ and his death. The NT exposition of the meaning and method of Christ’s death on the cross includes a wonderful variety of important images which you must help your students both understand and discuss during this section of the lesson. A number of places interweaves and explains these models, including texts such as 2 Corinthians 5.14 6.2 and Romans 3.24-26. Romans 6.1-11 speaks even of our own participation in his death, the killing of our flesh, and our sharing in the resurrection expressed in the living of a new life. What you should seek to do in this discussion is to ensure that the students understand the main outline of the key NT images about the nature of Christ’s death, and the primary benefits that this cursory summary made. What you must help your students understand in this section is the richness of the imagery associated with the work and the benefits of Christ’s work on the cross. The tendency for young theologians to be reductive (boiling everything down to a single point) and uncharitable (failing to respect and listen to those with opposing viewpoints) is one which we must constantly be on guard against. We ought rather to strive to enable them to be open-minded (ready to see more than one side of an issue) and able to suspend judgment (until all positions have been heard and understood). L. L. Morris provides us with a nice summary of the richness of the biblical view of Christ’s atoning work in Scripture. Christ’s atoning work is viewed from a number of angles. Thus sinners are slaves to their sin (John 8.34), but Christ has set them free (Gal. 5.1). They were caught up in the sin of Adam: ‘in Adam all die’ (1 Cor. 15.22). But Christ died for our sins (1 Cor. 15.3) and the effects of

& 4 page 234 Student Questions and Response

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T h e o l o g y a n d E t h i c s

& 5 page 235 Student Application and Implications