Questions for Reflection and Discussion:

1.    Christian theology allows for many answers to the question: “Why did Jesus have to die?” Keller posits one answer – that “In the Christian account, Jesus dies so that God can forgive sins” (p. 187). What have been your assumptions about the reason for Jesus’ death on the cross? Are they different, or more varied, than that which Keller represents as “the Christian account”?

2.    Keller sets up the argument that without forgiveness the desire to see evil punished becomes simple vengeance. “A cycle of retaliation will begin” (p. 190). As a former lawyer, I’m keenly aware that it is virtually impossible for a victim and a perpetrator to agree upon the proper punishment for a wrong. A third party is needed. In the Psalms, the Hebrew people cry out to God for their vengeance – but then are willing to leave the matter in God’s hands. At least at first blush Keller doesn’t seem to make any allowance for a third party (judge, arbiter, God, etc.) to decide proper punishment? Is this criticism of Keller unfair? Is a third party even needed, if there’s been, as Keller asserts “true forgiveness”?

3.    “No one embodied the costliness of forgiveness any better than Dietrich Bonhoeffer” (p. 190). Later, Keller writes that “Forgiveness means bearing the cost instead of making the wrongdoer do it, so you can reach out in love to seek your enemy’s renewal and change.” Bonhoeffer, of course, was a Lutheran pastor who returned to Nazi Germany in an effort to kill/assassinate Adolf Hitler. How did Bonhoeffer’s decision to take another’s life without benefit of trial or hearing constitute “embodying forgiveness?” In other words, did Keller simply choose a bad example?

4.    Keller asserts several times in this chapter that Jesus had to die in order for our sins (“debts”) to be paid (see, eg, p. 193). Keller places great emphasis on the necessity of Jesus’ death. What significance  does he place on the Resurrection? St Cyril of Jerusalem once said: “I confess the Cross because I know of the Resurrection.” Can the same be said for Keller? That is, for Keller, would God’s forgiveness of our sins have been completed on Good Friday, even without a resurrection on Easter Sunday?  Was Easter Sunday simply a nice addendum to the story of Jesus’ death?

5.    In the section entitled “The Great Reversal” Keller says that “all life-changing love entails an exchange, a reversal of places” (p. 195). Do you find this to be as true as Keller does?

6.    One criticism (from reformed theology) leveled at Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ was that it tended to place undue emphasis on the physical suffering of Jesus (and as a result, Jesus’ death and resurrection become less important by comparison). Does Keller’s insistence on a Jesus who “knew what it was like to be under the lash” (p. 195) lead to a similar pitfall – placing the focus on Jesus suffering, instead of the fact of his death and resurrection?