The Gospel of Christ Crucified

A Theology of Suffering Before Glory

By: John P. Harrigan

Narrated by: Cal Walker

The Gospel of Christ Crucified offers a biblical reconstruction of the principal elements that make up the apostolic gospel. Assuming a first-century Jewish worldview, the apostles understood the death of Jesus primarily in sacrificial terms for the atonement of sins. In this way, their presupposed expectations of the future and eternal life remained fundamentally unaltered - the day of the Lord, resurrection of the dead, and kingdom of God would assuredly come because their Messiah had been vindicated by God. Far from changing, spiritualizing, or realizing their Jewish hopes, the death and resurrection of Jesus amplified them. Moreover, the fact that the Holy Spirit was poured out following Jesus' ascension confirmed this gospel of Christ crucified.

©2019 John P. Harrigan (P)2020 John P. Harrigan

Must Read

This book may be the most important theological work I’ve ever read! It clearly lays out the Gospel and its serious implications as it relates to humanity and all of creation. If you want to have a better understanding of the Bible and God’s redemptive plan for history, as seen in the Scriptures, this is a must read. This book cuts through much of the theological distortions that have entered into the Christian faith over the past 2000 years, and seeks to explain the Gospel through the perspective of how first century believers would have understood it.

Comprehensive dive into the gospel

Loved the historical explication of the Jewish, Latin, and Greek worldviews that have led to vastly different understandings of the gospel. Further appreciate that the gospel is put in context of the story of history, beginning (protology), middle (age of mercy), and end (eschatological day of the Lord). While I appreciate the thorough sourcing throughout the book, it does get a bit tedious to listen to in audible format. If only this was broken further down into Twitter Gen sized shareable pieces. For the youths.

Phenomenal work, such clarity on the over-arching story of God

An excellent systematic theology, I would highly recommend (and already have recommended) it to any of my friends and family. The only issue is that it is not as easy to listen to because of the many verse references. This formatting decision means it would be better read as text (next to an open Bible) rather than listened to. However, I still enjoyed listening and was able to get used to it. I would suggest to the author/editor to include a pdf with this audiobook which would have the verse references in order of mention by chapter. It would be extremely helpful for those wanting to study deeper.

Exceptional

This is the kind of book that will change your life. It would’ve been even more amazing if there was a pdf to download for all the references to illustrations and scripture. It almost feels like I’ll have to buy the book again (a hard copy) to enjoy and understand the full extend of it.