Study Notes for Chapter 6

The Sixth Word from the cross: "It is finished."

1. This statement should be taken to mean "it is consummated, fulfilled, brought to perfection." (p. 187). The remainder of the chapter deals with what this means. As you read, focus on the material regarding the subject of sacrifice as it relates to this consummation. What has been finished? Why did it require the death of God?

2. What does Neuhaus mean when he says, "The outcome of the human project is incontestable, but it is still contested ........." (p. 191)? How does his phrase "It is finished but it isn't over" affect your answer? (Also see the two beautifully worded sentences near the top of p. 193 which begin, "It is finished" does not mean that suffering and loss.........").

3. Although these words from the cross certainly are triumphant and although they represent a victory by God in behalf of mankind and a world God loves, life on the earth continues to often be a "slice of hell." (p. 194). What does Neuhaus (and by extension Peter De Vries in The Blood of the Lamb) mean in saying that life's realities "mock any response other than rage and despair."? (p. 194). Why did Jesus finished work leave the world in such a tragic state?

4. What do you picture in your mind when you read the words of Peter De Vries (again in The Blood of the Lamb) "..... how long, how long is the mourners' bench upon which we sit, arms linked in undeluded friendship -- all of us, brief links, ourselves, in the eternal pity." How is the cross and Jesus' assertion "It is finished" spoken there to be seen in relation to the mourners' bench and the eternal pity? (Consider the following two sentences from p. 198 as you consider these things: "In the experience of abandonment by God we are most securely embraced in the love of God." "Every heartbroken cry of 'Oh, my lamb" is taken up and finally overtaken in 'Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,' in whom is our peace.").

5. Respond to the following statements from p. 203: "We are participants in this drama, although exactly how we do not know. We have not seen the entire script; our lines are given us one at a time." "Clear laws of cause and effect are thrown into consternation." " .....God's loss of everything on the cross ........ is our only hope that all is not lost."

6. What does the phrase "redemptive suffering" (p. 207) mean to you? As it relates to Jesus? As it relates to us?

7. Neuhaus argues that "Neither the liberals nor the existentialists nor the liberationists do justice to 'It is finished.'" (p. 215). What he believes they miss (and miss greatly and significantly) is the biblical concept of "sacrifice" which he argues is at the heart of this word from the cross. "Remove the idea of sacrifice, the reality of sacrifice, from Christianity and it becomes something other than Christianity." (p. 216). He says a number of things on p. 216 which help us to undertstand the concept of sacrifice. Two are that a sacrifice is "an act of ..... worship" and an "act that intends to change a relationship by way of making reparation or making amends." How did the finished work of Christ, which included the cross, accomplish those two things?

8. What is so-called "critical consciousness"? (p. 217). How does it tend to "deconstruct" everything we believe? What do its proponents mean when they say something we believe is "culturally constructed"? How might they judge believers naive regarding the "primitive" notion of sacrifice? What is the grace of "second naivete" (an understanding reached on the far side of critical analysis and debunking)? (p. 217).

9. Why does God (who by definition is self-sufficient, needing nothing) need us so much that the finished work of the incarnation led Jesus to the cross? Why does he bind himself to his people ........ making himself "vulnerable, as it were, to his own creatures"? Neuhaus says "The only answer is _______" (p. 223).

10. What does the phrase "O necessary sin of Adam" (p. 224) mean?

9.