God not other than what we find in Christ

“Every picture people have of God that is other than what we find in Christ on the cross is a mistaken conception of God.” (Greg Boyd)

Forgive me for hovering over Greg for a second post this week. I’ve been pondering this quote of his for days. Not surprisingly, I can’t think of any Christian (broadly defined) who would disagree with his statement, including the most classical of theists. But not all who agree with the statement find the same thing in Christ crucified. A more fundamental question might be: Just what does one find in Christ on the Cross? And granting that God cannot be other than what one finds, a more important question would be: How does one do the ‘finding’ which the Cross inevitably beckons us toward? The point, a bit discouraging if you ask me, is that there’s nothing obvious to find in the Cross even if one agrees with Greg that the Cross is the ‘X’ that marks the spot where the greatest treasure is to be found. Different Christians, all who agree with Greg’s quote, see different things and so find different treasures. I certainly find a different treasure than Greg finds.

Of course Greg doesn’t just say this much. He says a great deal, very capably and passionately, about what he specifically “finds in Christ crucified,” and it is with respect to what he finds that he makes his statement. But all this begs more fundamental questions: Is the truth of the Cross really that obvious? Does its treasure lie casually on the surface? How does one go about finding God in Christ on the Cross?

(Picture here.)