Quotes from Fleming Rutledge

The Christ event derives its meaning from the fact that the three-personed God is directly acting as one throughout the entire sequence from incarnation to ascension to Last Judgment.

Thus, in Colossians 1:5-6, the Word is described not as the content of the apostles' preaching and mission, but as the active agent, the subject of the verbs: "the word of the truth, the gospel which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing.

The imagery of rescue and victory places the themes of reconciliation and forgiveness into another context altogether, where they are brought in under the heading of God acting to make right what has been wrong (rectification). Then, and only then, can the whole complex of ideas and images be located where it belongs, on the battlefield of Christ against the Powers. This is the overarching panorama against which to place the imagery of the Great Assize, or Last Judgment.

The Christian life of obedience is, therefore, not a pilgrimage toward a goal, as is commonly supposed. It is a witness or signpost to that telos (end, goal) that has already been achieved by Christ the Kurios and will be consummated in the last day by the action of God

It is the living significance of the death of Jesus, not the factual details concerning it as a historical event, that matters.

The New Testament is from beginning to end a living witness to the apostolic preaching. The cross was meant to be preached.

The well-known passage in Micah 6:8 ('does the Lord require of you?') declares that justice and mercy are two foundational aspects of God's character... forgiveness is by no means as simple or expeditious as is often suggested; it is a complex and demanding matter. The question of forgiveness and compensation really should not be discussed apart from the question of justice.

Indeed, "theory" is a poor word to choose when seeking to understand the testimony of the Bible. The Old and New Testaments do not present theories at any time. Instead, we find stories, images, metaphors, symbols, sagas, sermons, songs, letters, poems. It would be hard to find writing that is less theoretical.

it should now be generally agreed that any concept of hilasterion in the sense of placating, appeasing, deflecting the anger of, or satisfying the wrath of, is inadmissible. The more important, and truly radical, reason for firmly rejecting this understanding of propitiation is that it envisions God as the object, whereas in the Scriptures, God is the acting subject. This is especially noticeable in Romans 3.

The scandalous "word of the cross" is God's own Word. The link between scandal and God is in itself irreligious; this is another aspect of the uniqueness of the Christian message.

Wonders occur in groups that study the Bible together, because the Word has power to create a community of discovery that is much more than the mere sum of its individual parts.

God's justification of sinners is not a forgetting, nor is it simply forgiveness. It is a definitive, wholesale, final assault upon and defeat of Sin, understood as a Power, and the creation of a new humanity.