Yeshua, The Crucified Serpent by Rowland Stenrud will be displayed in the Tucson Festival of Books on March 12-13, 2022, at the University of Arizona Mall, Tucson, AZ.
San Diego, California – WEBWIRE – Friday, February 25, 2022
Yeshua, the Crucified Serpent begins with the truth that all human sin represents a failure to love. This book is about how Yahweh God has saved human beings from this failure to love one another and their Creator by his work done through the human being, Jesus of Nazareth. Salvation is Gods creation work in which he re-creates human beings in the image of his beloved son, Jesus. Jesus, in going to the cross out of love for and obedience to the Father (John 14:31) perfected this love and obedience through his suffering (Heb. 2:10; 5:8-9). Jesus was perfected on our behalf, not punished on our behalf.
The book shows how the early Church confused the issue of how Yahweh God saves his human creatures by declaring that Jesus is God, the Second Person of a Trinity. In truth, Jesus had to be a human being and only a human being in order for God to use him as an instrument for saving us human beings. Jesus is Gods prototype for the new humanity. He is the New Adam. The Old Adam was made of dust and was spiritually naked. He and Eve at their creation were incapable of loving their Creator and loving one another with a perfect love. As Jesus clearly stated: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6). Surprisingly, this no one includes Adam and Eve at the moment of their creation. The Serpent in the Garden was Eves own wisdom, a wisdom that led her and Adam to disobey their Creator. In a sense, this book is about Gods re-creating human beings in his perfect image by having the Spirit of Jesus living in the human heart (see Jer.31:31-34). We human beings are thereby able to walk in the Spirit even in our earthly lives. Because the salvation of human beings is a creation work (2 Corinth. 5:17), the Creator has the ultimate responsibility for the salvation of human beings. Salvation is not about the Father solving a crime and punishment problem. Therefore, it follows that, in the end, all will be saved (Isa. 43:11; 45:23; Rom. 5:18-19; 1 Tim. 4:10b).
The title of the book, Yeshua the Crucified Serpent, was suggested by these biblical passages: John 3:14 and Numbers 21:4-9. Jesus was sinless but he was a human being with a human wisdom that tempted him to not follow the path that God laid out for him. The bronze serpent that Moses set on a pole was symbolic of Jesuss wisdom, a wisdom that Jesus crucified in going to the cross. The wisdom of the Israelites was prompting them to speak against both God and Moses. This sin, which was symbolized by the fiery serpents biting them, led to the death of many of them. But, If a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live (Num. 21:9b).
Lastly, the book argues against the theology of substitutionary atonement wherein Jesus pays the price of our salvation by his suffering. In this false theology God, forced to meet the requirements of his justice, had to damn somebody who was innocent in order to forgive the guilty. And that somebody was Jesus. This is theological nonsense. The Father was always able and willing to forgive us, sinners, out of pure mercy without any price being paid. But forgiveness would serve no purpose as long as we human beings were spiritually broken and incapable of loving the Father and one another. Jesus came as a physician to heal us human beings of our spiritual brokenness and to make us human beings in the Fathers perfect image and, thereby, making us one with Jesus and the Father and one with one another.
Want to learn more? If so, grab a copy of Yeshua, The Crucified Serpent by Rowland F. Stenrud available at Xlibris Corporation, and visit the upcoming Tucson Festival of Books 2022.
Yeshua, The Crucified Serpent
Author | Rowland F. Stenrud
Genre | Christian Theology
Publisher | Xlibris Corporation
Published date | 11/29/2012
Author
The author grew up in a Catholic family although his father was a Pentecostal before converting to Catholicism. He studied to be a Maryknoll missionary priest at the Maryknoll College Seminary in Glen Ellyn, Illinois earning a B.A. in Philosophy. He did hospital work while in the Army. This work plus his brothers forty-four-year life as a quadriplegic gave him experience in the world of human suffering. He left the Catholic Church and for a short while belonged to a Reformed Church. His many years of personal Bible study were guided by his desire to find the truth rather than confirmation of his beliefs. His primary areas of theological interest are the problem of evil, Christian non-violence, creationism, Gods mercy and sovereignty, and Christology.