I think D/H has grasped something of the horror of the cross, God’s love and identification with our pain and alienation and the cost Christ paid when left the Father and emptied himself to become a slave. That said, I find it impossible to reconcile his view that God paid for his own guilt when he died on the cross, with Jesus statement “Can any of you accuse me of sin?” John 8:46. D/H apparently can. To put this in the context of “Lamb-centred atonement”, the sacrificial lamb had to be without spot or blemish, If Jesus had been a blemished sacrifice it would never have been acceptable. Such a lamb could not “‘take away the sin of the world’.

About this Lamb-centred atonement, John, I don’t understand your point that the lamb was not being punished for the Rebellious Acts of other human beings; he was, rather, voluntarily bearing the Penalty of Death laid upon Creation. Surely we die for our own sins, not the sin of our fathers Ezek 18:20, however far back. Adam only lead the way for us. “Death spread to all men because all sinned Rom 5:12. If the cross only dealt with the penalty of death from Adam’s rebellion, we would be no better off because we all incur the same penalty through our own actions.

Nice work though, it is good to get the people of God thinking.

Deacon