The skandalon of the cross

He wants to emphasize the skandalon of the crucifixion. This was not a popular topic in Paul’s time, and it is not a popular topic today. This is hard to understand, especially in view of Paul’s declarations, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (I Cor. 2:2) and “Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the World” (Gal. 6:14.). It sometimes seems as though the church has willfully decided to ignore the radical content of such passages, concentrating instead on a more generic, less offensive interpretation of Jesus’ death — for example, “Jesus died to show how much he loved us.” That is true, certainly, but it has a bland sound and falls far short of accounting for the particular horror of crucifixion. The question this raises is this: On the cross, was Jesus simply “showing” us something, or was something actually happening?—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 17 (emphasis original)