To their credit the evangelicals stress the cross of Christ. But its divine inevitability is stressed to the neglect of its historical inevitability. Evangelicals will preach, and rightly so, that it was God's intent for Jesus to go to the cross for our sins. This is the divine inevitability, but it is only part of the truth. What is neglected is the means by which Jesus went to the cross, i.e., that the life he lived took him there. This is the historical inevitability which resulted when the righteousness of Christ conflicted with the sinfulness of man. To put it another way: God did not manipulate historical events to insure the cross; rather, the cross resulted inevitably as a result of the life Jesus lived (a judgment itself on the sinfulness of man).

To follow Jesus truly, therefore, is to live a lifestyle that results in the cross. "If any man wishes to come after me, let him take up his cross daily and follow me." Celebration because "Jesus took my place" (the divine inevitibility) misses the call in obedience to a life full of crosses to bear (the historical inevitability). The evangelical church all too often seems to offer the good life to all who follow Jesus and is therefore not troubled by the good life that its members are privileged to live. The thought is that Jesus suffered on the cross so that I don't need to. What could be better than having it all in this life and the life to come?

What about the "abundant life" Jesus promised? If it is a life that flows from him, then it must include the concept of a cross; otherwise it is foreign to any life Jesus knows. The abundant life is not the epitome of the American Dream, where everyone has everything they want or need. It is, rather, life in the midst of death, joy in the midst of sorrow, hope in the midst of struggle. "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross."