 Dr. R.C. Sproul surveys the great work accomplished by Jesus Christ through His crucifixion—the redemption of God’s people. Dr. Sproul considers the atonement from numerous angles and shows conclusively that the cross was absolutely necessary if anyone was to be saved. Opening the Scriptures, Dr. Sproul shows that God Himself provided salvation by sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross, and the cross was always God’s intended method by which to bring salvation. The Truth of the Cross is an uncompromising reminder that the atonement of Christ is an absolutely essential doctrine of the Christian faith, one that should be studied and understood by all believers.
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Hardcover 5.25 x 7.25 | 178 Pages
ISBN 1-56769-087-4 | Released July 2007
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Book Info Sheet
Table of Contents and Sample Chapter
High-Res Images: Front Cover | Back Cover
Excerpts
Page 19 - God is loving, but a major part of what He loves is His own perfect character, with a major aspect being the importance of maintaining justice and righteousness. Though God pardons sinners and makes great provision for expressing His mercy, He will never negotiate His justice. If we fail to understand that, the cross of Christ will be utterly meaningless to us.
Page 37 - It is important that we understand that God manifests no enmity toward us. He has never broken a promise. He has never treated a human being in this world unjustly. He has never violated us as creatures. In short, He has kept His side of the relationship perfectly. But we have violated Him. We are the ones who violate the creature-Creator relationship. By our sin, we show ourselves to be God's enemies. Therefore, with respect to enmity, He is the injured party, the violated One.
Page 42-43 - In human conflicts, the mediator stands in the middle in order to bring the two opposing parties together. We call that reconciliation, and that is exactly what Christ does. He reconciles God to man. As the apostle Paul writes, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself" (2 Cor. 5:19a).
Page 95 - We must see that the righteousness of Christ that is transferred to us is the righteousness He achieved by living under the Law for thirty-three years without once sinning. Jesus had to live a life of obedience before His death could mean anything. He had to acquire, if you will, merit at the bar of justice. Without His life of sinless obedience, Jesus' atonement would have had no value at all. We need to see the crucial significance of this truth; we need to see that not only did Jesus die for us, He lived for us.
Page 103 - We need to realize that God did not merely provide after-the-fact interpretations of the crucifixion. For hundreds of years before Jesus was born, He gave His people prophesies about the Messiah Who would come and about the work He would accomplish. The cross was not an isolated event in history that sprang up spontaneously in a particular moment in time. It was the culmination of centuries of redemptive history. God had set certain things in motion ages and ages before, and those processes reached their zenith with the death of Christ. The Old Testament Scriptures pointed toward that zenith.
"The Truth of the Cross is the best book on the cross I have read. It is a 'must' for every church library and a book that I will give away many times to friends. This is so because it is sober (i.e., it contains historically informed reflections on salient biblical texts), sensible (i.e., it is well-argued), simple (i.e., it holds the reader's attention through grabbing illustrations and even a seventh-grader can its substance), and spiritual (i.e., it comes from a heart set ablaze by the Spirit)."
— Dr. Bruce K. Waltke, Professor, Reformed Theological Seminary
"The cross stands at the very center of our Christian lives. Still, many Christians are confused about the heart of the gospel, for many deviant views are in the air. R.C. Sproul blows the fog away in this wonderfully clear, theologically profound, and pastorally rich work. Learn afresh or anew what God has accomplished in the cross, so that you will boast only in the cross of Jesus Christ."
— Dr. Thomas R. Schreiner, Professor, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
"The gospel is a message of good news that something extraordinary has happened. At the heart of that message is that Jesus, God the Son incarnate, has atoned for the sins of all His people, turning away the righteous wrath of God. The gospel is a cross-shaped message. Sadly, in our day, this message is being re-shaped into other forms, and the results are not happy. We can give thanks for this volume by R.C. Sproul, however, because in it he steps into the breach once more to provide a clear, concise, and thoughtful case for the biblical and historic Christian gospel of the cross."
— Dr. R. Scott Clark, Associate Professor, Westminster Seminary California
About the Author R.C. Sproul is the author of more than sixty books and the general editor of The Reformation Study Bible. Throughout his forty-plus years of ministry in the academy and the church, Dr. Sproul has committed himself to clearly communicating deep, practical truths from God's Word. |
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