Lent Day 9

Only one day left of reading week! Well, I've certainly done a lot of reading, but I haven't actually started my essay yet. So par for the course basically.

Started a book last night which I thought would be good Lent reading, 'Once and for All' by Tom Smail. The blurb says :
'Tom Smail takes the connection between the atonement and the Trinity as the underpinning of Once and for All. If we recognise that the work of the cross has to be seen to involve all three persons, and their relationships to one another, we have a structure that enables us to deal with the problems the doctrine of the atonement raises. This presentation of Christ's atoning work in his cross and resurrection both does justice to its decisive character as a once and for all historical event, and at the same time explores the sense in which a long past historical act can be universally relevant to and effective for everyone.'
A snippet I read last night which is relevant to the debate which adrian, sven and richard have been having following the whole Steve Chalke debacle :
'We shall have much to say about such biblical and classical metaphors and models all the way through our study, but at the moment the important point is that the mystery of the crucified Christ surpasses them all. That is why it is always inappropriate to claim to have comprehended that mystery in some all embracing 'theory of atonement' which can then become the sole measure of acceptable soteriological orthodoxy in terms of which everyone and everything that does not speak in conformity with it can be criticised and castigated. That represents a theological arrogance that itself disqualifies its proponents from speaking appropriately about the cross by which all human arrogance is exposed and deposed.'