“You sure use the word cruciform a lot, Greg. Why? And also, what does it mean?”
If you’ve ever had that thought as a reader of this Substack or podcast listener, here is a conversation for you!
It was such a delight to sit down with Dr. Michael Gorman recently. Dr. Gorman’s work first introduced me to the idea of cruciformity (inspiring the name of this Substack and podcast), and his biblical scholarship continues to prove incredibly valuable to my understanding of God's nature and what it means for us to participate in God's life and mission. Our conversation begins with a basic exploration of what cruciform means, and then we wander through scripture, diving into a biblical theology of cruciformity.
“But staying with John, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Well, who is that word? So the word is Jesus Christ. Well, where was that word? That word was with the Father, that word reveals the Father. No one has ever seen the Father. The Son, who is the eternally begotten one, who’s with the Father from the beginning, he has revealed him. And in John 1:18, there is a really interesting word there.
God’s son has explained God, and the Greek word there is the word from which we get the word exegesis. So, in other words, exegesis is the word for the explanation of a text, right? God’s son, Christ, is the self-exegesis, the self-manifestation, the self-explanation of God.
So when we see Christ. We need to see Christ’s love as God’s love, Christ’s self-giving character as the character of God.
Dr. Gorman helps us understand how cruciformity, as a framework, invites us to grasp the empathic and self-giving nature of God, develop a beautiful theology of atonement, and consider how we live out our faith in community and ministry to the world.
As always, I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback!
Resources that we mentioned in the conversation:
Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross
