Michael Bird on the cross - death and resurrection of Christ

Michael Bird's recent post is well written. Here are some excerpts.

"David Bebbington noted that in the nineteenth interdenominational newspaper the The British Weekly the most frequently preached text was Gal 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer life, but Christ lives in me. The life I life in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”."

"Christian discipleship is cruciformity, being conformed to the pattern of the cross, dying to self in service to God. That is is what it means to take up your cross and follow Jesus daily (Luke 9:23) and to be crucified to the world (Gal 6:14)."

"We have to remember, that cross and resurrection are an indissoluable unity. The cross without the resurrection is just martyrdom, at the most an act of solidarity with the persecuted nation, and at worst a wrongly calculate disaster. Conversely, the resurrection without the cross is a miraculous intrusion into history, a redemptive-historical enigma, and a paranormal freak show with indeterminable significance. But together the cross and resurrection constitute the fulcrum upon which God’s intention to repossess the world for himself is launched and enacted."

Click here for Mike Bird's post. (I would like to add that without death there is no resurrection. Both the death and resurrection are important. In fact, his life is also important to our Christian life and faith.)