Look who we killed (!?)
This slogan is popular this week in Chicagoland. I attended the Good Friday service in one of the mega churches in my area, and I was surprised by the theme of the message: ‘Look who we killed.’ The point was that ‘we killed Jesus.’ Is that accurate? No! We never find in the New Testament apostolic preaching of the cross of Christ such an affirmation. The apostles never say that ‘we killed Jesus.’ Apostle Peter says that ‘you killed him’ (as he address the people of Jerusalem, Acts 2.23, 3.15), but he never says that ‘I killed Jesus,’ even if he betrayed him three times.
The New Testament teaching is that Christ ‘died for our sins,’ and that at the cross we see the value we have and the love God has for us. Christ ‘was given for our trespasses,’ but not that ‘we have killed him.’ I understand the rhetoric and the persuasiveness of such type of formula, but you cannot expect to have people open for salvation by telling them something that is not accurate. We should focus on the love of God for our salvation, and on the obedience and faithfulness of Christ, and not on playing with our sense of guilt; it never endures.
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