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Let’s start with a quick quiz: name the theological book blurbed by J. I. Packer (of course, but bear with me), D. A. Carson, Michael Horton…and Tony Jones (of emergent fame) and Shane Claiborne. Answer: John Stott, The Cross of Christ.

Like many of John R. W. Stott’s books, The Cross of Christ is an excellent piece of writing that elicits a wide range of commendations and respect. Blurb favorites like “deft,” “compelling,” “readable,” and “profound” were invented for writers like Stott. His books are well-written, well-researched and well-organized. The book has stood the test of time, with a second edition in 1989 and a 20th-anniversary edition released not long before Stott’s death in 2011 at the age of ninety.

What does the book accomplish?

By the end of his long ministry of preaching, pastoring (All Souls Church in London), writing, and organizing, Stott was one of the most celebrated Christian pastors in the world. In 2005 he was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Throughout the last half of the 20th century he labored to ensure that global evangelicalism would be known for a commitment both to evangelism and social action.

This book is probably best known for Stott’s able defense of the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. With sensitivity to critics and the text of the Bible, he avoids “broken Trinity” or “child abuse” caricatures: “God’s love is the source, not the consequence, of the atonement,” Stott writes, for “God does not love us because Christ died for us; Christ died for us because God loved us.” Perhaps only Leon Morris has done more for the preservation of the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement in the 20th century.

How does atonement connect to other aspects of salvation? What else does God do at the cross? Stott wants us to revel in the full breadth of the God’s work at the cross, which he summarizes it as salvation, revelation, and conquest. He sees “substitution,” specifically “the self-substitution of God,” as the center of the cross’s saving significance in the New Testament. His emphasis on atonement and substitution as the key to salvation is buttressed by explorations into propitiation, redemption, justification, and reconciliation. He also explores the full spectrum of “images” (a label much warmer and more helpful than the usual academic, sterile moniker “theories”) for the work of the cross found in the New Testament: the cross is God’s instrument of divine victory and divine revelation, illustrating God’s character and displaying his power in the defeat of his enemies, sin, and death.

Why is it valuable today?

Stott also takes readers from the cross into the world of life on mission as Jesus’ disciples. Like the New Testament itself, Stott has a good deal to say about our response to the cross. Stott spends four chapters of his book addressing the horizontal implications of the Cross. The New Testament shows us that the cross creates and sustains Christian community. Jesus and the apostles use the cross to teach us self-sacrifice, cross-bearing, enemy love, and the importance of missional suffering. Far too often, reformed pastors and theologians come up woefully short when they attempt to articulate the New Testament message of the cross. We focus on doctrine, and perhaps doxology, but neglect the implications for discipleship. The Cross of Christ shows us how to avoid such egregious errors in emphasis and interpretation. Stott models the practice of Jesus and the apostles, showing that the cross is not just about soteriological principles but about the shape of a disciple’s life.

Throughout his book Stott engages contemporary challenges such as skepticism, materialism, dehumanization, and opposition. Those challenges haven’t disappeared, but they still can be met by the message of the cross. The history and the biblical material employed by Stott haven’t gone anywhere, but they still require a wise guide. Because the cross of Christ endures as the God’s provision for the sin and sorrow of the world, The Cross of Christ remains a classic.


Jason Hood teaches NT at Gordon-Conwell’s Boston campus and serves as director of Advanced Urban Ministerial Education. He and his family live in Boston. his most recent book is Imitating God in Christ.

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