Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle's senior elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experience shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
Did my voice break there? Just a little bit sounded
like it. Maybe it's an adolescent hitting me once again.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is doctor Kenneth Calvert, professor of history
and director of the Oxford Program at Hillsdale College. We
discuss the good news of good and just what it
means today to millions and millions of Christians in the
world at large. Good afternoon, sir, Thank you so much
for joining us in this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
Thank you, Matt, great to be here. Well you heard
my squeaky voice. I'm just telling you how excited I
am to talk about this issue. It's great, this story,
this good news, and of course this is Holy Week,
so we begin Holy Week according to scripture with this
great celebration on Palm Sunday, the Son of God on
the back of a donkey that someone has, well one
could say stolen, but but somebody in town, you know,
said yeah, sure ahead, go ahead, take my donkey. The
Lord says that that's a good idea. And and then
you have this triumphant experience Hosanna, Hosanna, and in the
alms and the people shouting their Messiah is here, it
is now. And by the time you move just a
handful of days into Thursday night and into Friday of
that week, you have a total reversal of mood. You
have a total reversal of sentiment from the people of
Jerusalem and the surrounding areas at that time. Let us
begin there, how do we get from that absolute joy
to that dark despair? And then let us not forget
why we call this the good news, the.
Speaker 2: Rolling of that stone, right right?
Speaker 3: So I think we have to go back and look
at Jesus' ministry, and he says over and over again,
you know what must happen. In fact, when he establishes
the church Matthew sixteen upon the rock of the Gospel
and the proclamation that Peter gives you know that the church,
he is the Messiah. He says, just a few verses later,
what it is that he's going to have to do?
And Peter, Peter is just shocked, and you know, opposes
Jesus on that, and Jesus says, get behind me, Satan.
And the idea here is that, you know, through this
ministry pointing ahead to this week, Jesus knows exactly what he's.
Speaker 2: Going to have to do.
Speaker 3: And you have in the various gospels this notion. You know,
in Mark he focuses the abandonment of Jesus by his
disciples during this week. And you know, not just Judas.
Judas is a traitor and turns on Jesus. Judas has
all kinds of motives for doing this, likely just the
gold and silver that's involved, but his his other disciples
also abandoned him. You know, it's it's it's about suffering.
In the in the Gospel of Mark and in the
Gospel of Matthew, all of the Old Testament points ahead
to this. In the Psalms to the suffering Servant and Isaiah,
you know, the idea that he's going to be the
suffering servant. It points ahead to him there's there's no
disparity between what is said about Jesus and the Old
Testament and what is fulfilled in his life, and particularly
in this week in the Gospel of Luke, you know,
there's a there's a focus on his on his innocence,
but there's also this triumphant notion. Even when he's on
the cross, the good thief, you know, proclaims faith and
Jesus says to him, today you will be with me
in paradise. Now that doesn't mean the thief gets off miraculously.
Speaker 2: He has to fulfill his.
Speaker 3: Punishment and he dies on that cross. But Jesus has
promised him because.
Speaker 2: Of the faith of that of that of that thief.
Speaker 3: And then of course in John, just the the wonderful
high Christology of John, that this is God, this is
God dying on the cross for us, you know, and
this is this is one thing that we just cannot
ever forget. And all all the gospels proclaim Jesus as God.
He's the evidence is there. But this is God atoning
for the sins of his people. You know, all through
the Old Testament, that salvation history unfolds from the beginning
from Genesis, you know, all the way on through to
the gospels. It's it's a beautiful fulfillment. It's it's awful,
it's horrible within some churches and and their services. You know,
the Liturgy of the Catholic Church calls this a happy fault,
that the fall of Man in Adam and Eve that
that fall. It's it's not the end, that there's going
to be a sacrifice made by God himself for his people.
And this is what we sell break, this is what
all Christians celebrate when we're looking at this week that
begins with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. If I
can talk for a moment about Palm Sunday, I think
this is really important, you know, and Zechariah tells us
that he's going to come into the Messiah will enter
into Jerusalem on the cult of a donkey. And so
what happens there when he sends his disciples to go
and and to borrow this donkey is you know, he's
fulfilling scripture. And there again, all the Old Testament is
fulfilled in Jesus, and particularly in this week. And if
there's sometimes you hear scholars and people talk about, well,
did Jesus really know who he was, and I would say,
of course he does. All through the gospels, you can
see that. But if you have any question about who
he knows himself to be, it's in that entrance into
Jerusalem on the cult of a Donkey. You know he is.
He's showing himself that, you know, the world, to his people,
to Jerusalem, that he is the Messiah, and he's come
into his capital as the Messiah, just as Zechariah had
had prophesied. And of course we see in the Gospels
that that's the moment in which the leadership of both
the Jews and then also with poncherous pilot, they begin
to conspire against him. And I think too, it's important
for us to remember that Jesus is not crucified because
he's a good guy, because he teaches people to love
is their neighbor, because you know, he tells us to
you know, to to to pray for one another. He's
killed because he says, I am I am who I am,
you know, I am God, I am one with God,
if the Father and I are one. He uses this
kind of language, which in their their minds is blasphemous.
They also know that there have been other quote unquote
Messiah's out there, and every time one of these guys
shows up, there's bloodshed and there's just absolute mayhem. And
they're afraid because Jesus is so popular. Thousands upon thousands
are are following him. He's got a tight group around him.
He's a threat. He is a threat, and they believe
that if they don't do something about him, there'll be
another some sort of revolution or civil war. Of course,
they don't understand, and even even the disciples are confused
as to what you know, he's really about. He's not
here to overthrow the Romans. This is a much bigger,
much more important, much more eternal message. And so what's
going on in this week? You know, he's in the
he's in the temple preaching, and they're they're very unhappy,
and they're afraid to touch him because of how many
people are are following him. But they know that they
want to get rid of him. And today, on Wednesday
of Holy Week, we remember the moment in which Judas
goes and collects his thirty thirty silver pieces to be
a traitor to Jesus.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know so much to look at an examine
in all of these different days, but all of these
days tied together by the ultimate covenant, isn't It's the
ultimate covenant with God and his people and the people
of the world. Because, as you know, so many times
I've thought about just what you mentioned before, that thief
on the cross. Jesus, remember me when you come into
your kingdom and scolding the you know, the atheist if
you will, or dying on the other side, you know,
all of the doubt, more doubt maybe than the voting Thomas.
But thinking you know, that is the ultimate symbol of
all of us, no matter how good we think we
are at times. You know, It's what Paul would write
about later in Romans and talking about you're not going
to get this by the things you do in your life.
You're going to get this promise, the fulfillment of this
covenant by giving your life to Christ, who is the
Son of God, who was, is and will ever be.
But you mentioned the disciples, and there are all of
these signs that these guys have read over the years
from what is the Old Testament. Of course, all of
these prophets who have told them, Jesus himself tells them repeatedly,
I am not here for long.
Speaker 2: There are so.
Speaker 1: Many different examples. Why don't they ever fully understand that?
Speaker 3: Because well, I often call the disciples a bunch of underheads,
and I think that there's something to that. You know,
what is truly miraculous?
Speaker 2: I love that term. By the way, is it a
theological term? It is thunderheads.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a very.
Speaker 2: High level theological term. Sure, that's right.
Speaker 3: But you know, Matthew twenty eight. At the end of
that gospel, we're told that he calls the disciples together,
and they gather together, and it says there are eleven,
which means Judas is gone by then, and this is
after the death, this is after the resurrection of Jesus.
And then it says in Matthew twenty eight seventeen they
worshiped him, but some doubted. And you know, frankly, that's
the whole history of the church right there, among those disciples.
What is truly beautiful, what is a great blessing, is
that in spite of every effort on the part of
Christians to put an end to the Gospel, its message
and it's spread, it's still there, and the Lord is
going to make sure. And then it says in Matthew
twenty eight and he said, go into all the world
and preach the gospel. Just preach the Gospel. And then
he says, do everything that I've told you to do.
Baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
You know, he puts into the hands of these apostles
his work, and then he of course works through them.
But they are called to do the work, the apostolic work,
and He works through them. And I often remind my
students that each of the books of the Bible, each
of the books of the New Testament, are not written
by perfect individuals. They're written by fallen individuals. I mean,
Saint Paul is so clear about this. But it's what
the Holy Spirit is doing through them, that is and
in them that is really the miraculous part. And that's
the way it is with the Church too. And here
at the atonement of you done for our sins by
God himself, by the God of the universe himself. What
we have here is this is truly powerful, miraculous event.
And then working through his church of proclaiming that atonement,
and then of course the wonderful resurrection from the dead
of Saint Paul, you know, talks about the resurrection if
if if it didn't happen, we're fools. Right, But he
also says, I boast in nothing but Christ and him crucified.
That's one of the wonderful just ideas that we constantly
have to remind ourselves of that there's nothing we can
boast in but his crucifixion, his atonement. And then if
he doesn't rise from the dead, you know we're still dead.
That's right. He has congered death. And so this week
it's a difficult thing. I mean, we call it Holy week,
or we call it Easter week. Actually Easter if you
want to talk about that word, I'd love to. It's
not a particularly good word in my mind. But anyway,
we talk about the Passover in the passical feast is
really what we should call it. It's you know, this
is what happens. This is week, this week, this is
always celebrate and all of time, all of salvation history
points ahead to this week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well, and you're right, I mean, this is
the Passover week. That's what Jesus and his followers were celebrating.
And they were celebrating. Now think about that, Matthew, Matthew
twenty six. Now, as they were eating Jesus took bread,
and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to
the disciples and said, take eat.
Speaker 2: This is my body.
Speaker 1: And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks,
he gave it to them, saying, drink of it, all
of you, for this is my blood of the Covenant,
which is of the New Covenant, which is poured out
for many, for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you,
I think I will not drink again of this fruit
of the vine until that day when I drink it
new with you in my father's kingdom. Those words, of course,
have resonated through times since that very moment. What is
what does all of that mean? Because you know, for
those of us in the you know, the secular world,
we think of that and we go, what is what
is Jesus saying? What is he talking about? This is
my blood. Drink my blood, you know, take that this
is my body. But this is as as we talked about,
This is the Covenant. This is exactly what he is
about to do for mankind.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: And John the Baptist proclaims him before he baptizes Jesus
as the Lamb of God. This is the Lamb of
God who takes away the sins of the world. What
an amazing and remarkable message. And then on the other end,
during you know, Paul's work with the Corinthians, he says
in First Corinthians eleven, you know, if they don't know
the meaning of this meal and they don't give it
the highest of regard, their souls are in danger. So
it is it is at the center of this is
this meal that had been prophesied from the time of
the exile or the exodus excuse me, from Egypt and
then up to the time of Jesus and beyond. And
we are told do this every time you meet, to remember,
you know what Jesus's message, what this meal, what this
New Covenant is all about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, very powerful.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned before the term Easter, right, same, there
are these terms, and I'd like you to go into Easter,
this term coming up for the day of Passover, which
we in the in the Christian faith referred to as
mandi Uh Thursday. And then there, of course is the
day of the Crucifixion is Good Friday. And again it
sounds you know, it's such a violent moment in time.
How can that be good. It's why this is being done,
and what happens next is why it's.
Speaker 2: So good, right, right?
Speaker 3: And so you know, we live very much in a
time in which, you know, we want everything to be
happy and wonderful and easy. Right, what is what is
really interesting? And you see this in literature, you see
this in the movies, that the the idea of something
being being easy is really not part of the heroic
And I'm not trying to put Jesus as just simply
a human heroic.
Speaker 2: Level, but that.
Speaker 3: Suffering and struggle on behalf of something, on behalf of someone,
say a soldier on behalf of the United States, who
suffers and struggles and dies for the United States. You know,
you have this in scripture. There may be someone who
would die for a good man. There might be someone
who would die for someone who is noble, But who's
going to die for a bunch of evil people?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Who's going to die for a bunch of sinners? And
this is the idea in scripture that while we were
yet sinners, while we were really without knowledge, God does
this on our behalf. And so this is where many
call it this week, Holy week, all it good, Friday,
good Friday. Why good Friday, because there was you know,
God suffered and bled and died on our behalf. He
made that good right in his suffering, in his struggle.
He made that a good day for us. Mandy Thursday
the idea in which really Mandy comes from the word
mandatum or mandate or command. And he gives this command
a new commandment. I give you that you love one another.
And this, you know, really being fulfilled in the work
of Jesus. That Mandy Thursday is in the in the
minds and in the practices of many Christians, Anglican or
Orthodox or Catholic. It's the first of three days Thursday,
in which that new commandment is given and Jesus goes
to suffer. Is is uh tortured, put on trial by
these earthly powers, you know, the Sanhedrin or herod Antipas,
who's kind of a knucklehead, and say there's that, you know,
another theological term, and uh and and and ponscious Pilot
who really he's an interesting story too, as a Roman governor,
just kind of an interesting life. He's already in trouble
with the imperial powers, but you know, he's not really sure.
Speaker 2: What to do.
Speaker 3: With this guy, right, and so he bows to the
the proclamation of the local rulers who want this man dead.
And let me throw in one other little part here
that people sometimes overlook. There was another guy on trial
who was in prison named bar Abbas, right, who was well,
so that's the thing. Who is that third cross for
before gees As comes along? Before they put him on trial?
And many theologians believe that that third cross was actually
for bar Abbas. Now bar Abbas the name means son
of the Father. Is this a guy who was one
of these pretend messiahs? And likely he was, and they
were going to kill him. And you know, the irony
of this account in the Gospels is that the false messiah,
bar Abbas, gets off. The true king of the universe,
the true King of the Jews, is sacrificed, is crucified.
And so that's another part of this whole kind of
very beautiful but complex set of accounts that brings all
of this together, the rejection of God, the rejection of
the true Messiah, and in favor of a false Messiah.
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Speaker 1: Our guest today is doctor Kenneth Calvert, Professor of history
and director of the Oxford Program at Hillsdale College. We're
discussing the good News of Good Friday. You had, you know,
these disciples, and I think about so many interesting lives.
I only wish the Gospels would give us more light
into these people, because they're so fascinating to me reading,
you know, reading the New Testament. And then you know,
we've seen the movies and the shows over the years,
and of course they try to fill in the details
that we don't necessarily have. But I think about the
disciple who is best known, arguably best known, and that's Peter.
Just what a complex guy he was to build a
church upon, right, I mean, this is the guy who
loved Jesus. He was so special to Jesus. Yet by
the time the crow or the cock crowed three times,
he denied him. Right, I mean this, this guy is
all of these these people are illustrative of our own
faults and failures. And I think that's one of the
really compelling and beautiful arts of the greatest story ever told.
Speaker 3: Right, So, you know, you begin with Eliakim in Isaiah,
who is given the keys of the kingdom by Hezekiah.
Eliakim has chosen as the prime minister of Hezekiah, and
anyone hearing Jesus say to Peter, you know I give
you the keys. That what he's doing here is making
Peter his his his prime minister. And in every list
of the disciples, Peter is always first. But what's very
clear is that it's that doesn't mean that Peter is
perfect in everything he says, right, Jesus says, get behind me, Satan.
Peter gets himself, he's impetuous, gets him self in trouble
all the time. And at Jesus' crucifixion, it's not it's
not Peter at the cross. Peter has abandoned him. It's
John who follows Jesus to the cross. John and Mary
and Mary's sister also named Mary. There are a lot
of Mary's flying around in that whole whole family.
Speaker 1: It's like the Bob Newhart show, you know, And we
got my I'm Larry and Larry.
Speaker 2: This is my brother. I'm Daryl.
Speaker 1: This is my brother Larry and Larry. Yeah, because it's
Mary and Mary. That's exactly right, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: But and then you know, at the end of the
Gospel of John John twenty one, Jesus sits down with
Peter and this is he's the only one that Jesus
talks to like this. He says, Peter, do you love me?
You know, feed my sheep? Do you love me? Feed
my sheep? Do you love me? Feed my sheep? And so,
you know, there is a reconciliation that takes place after
Peter's fall away and rejection of Jesus and his abandonment.
I don't know if it was a rejection, but it
was an abandonment of Jesus. And then in the Gospel
of Excuse Me, in the Book of Acts, I believe
it's in chapter five we find Peter, you know, passing
judgment on two people who Anonias and Saphira, who lied
to them about, you know, giving things to the church.
And in the Book of Acts you see the beginnings
of the leadership of the church and the the laying
on of hands to establish new leadership. But you don't
you're right, you don't have the story of these disciples.
We know about Peter, we know about Paul. Both die
at at at Rome during the time of Nero, and
that's that's a you know, some very strong evidence there,
including the bones of Peter and Paul. And then we have,
you know, some evidence of Thomas going as far east
as India, Mark at Alexandria, Andrew in the east in Turkey.
So there's there are some stories that have some good
evidence in them. And then finally John the gospel writer
who ends up near Ephesus and down at Patmos. I
think I would argue it's the same John as the
John of the Apocalypse. But whatever the case, he goes
on to teach a number of people. A man named
Polycarp of Smyrna, ignacious of Antioch. A number of early
leaders are taught by John, and we have their writings,
and so we have some understanding of who they are. Well,
getting back to Easter, all of them and all of
the writings of these early Christians that we have, whether
it be Clement of Rome or Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignacious
of Antiochy, guy named Irenaeus of Leon and France or
Gaul in those days, another guy Justin of Neneapolis, often
called Justin the Martyr, all of them point back to
the centrality of that Pascal week, of that week in
which Jesus dies and rises from the dead, and the
central meaning of that for the Christian message, that is
the proclamation that he died and he rose from the
dead for us, just just and and you know, these guys,
if they're making this up, Matt, if this is just
a story that they're making up, how is it that
they would go to this the ends of the earth.
And oh, my goodness, yes, you know, they they believed
that what they saw was true. And because they do,
I do too. I also believe because I know Jesus.
But uh, you know, there's just so much good evidence
there for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll tell you what if if if they didn't
believe this, you know, And again they tell the story.
They are witnesses, and so they are witnesses to us
for you know, for forever. But these these guys died
some horrible deaths. If I'm not mistaken, and please correct
me if I'm wrong. Wasn't it just John was the
only one who died of natural causes?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: All of these, all of these disciples were martyred in
the most horrific ways you can possibly imagine. And and
that was their full understanding. Is they wandered, you know,
around the world to bring this good news to the people.
That was their full recognition, their full experience of what
it means to live the life of Christ. And then
to do this, And this is what I wanted to
ask you. This is that that Monday Thursday commandment that
mandate love one another as I have loved you. Right,
we always fall? How how do you do that? How
do we even get close to that?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: It means an abandoned band of our pride and abandonment
of our narcissism or of our self serving narcissism. It
means loving others in the way that Christ loved us.
And how did he love us, he served us, he
died for us. You know, this is true in Ephesians five.
With a husband and wife. You know, how is a
husband to treat his wife as ch he's to love
her as Christ loved the church? And what does that
mean that a husband dies for his wife?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: And it is It is a self giving I think
we often forget that. Again, this is the God of
the universe, not just some local Jupiter or Zeus. We're
talking about the God of the universe, across the span
of timelessness and eternity that we are just beginning to
touch on in our in our sciences. Right, this is
the God of the universe who has done this, who
has died for us. In my in my Christmas lectures,
I often talk about that baby in the manger was
also still a member of the Trinity, you know, which
which was not only continually creating but also keeping in
good order all of the universe. What a what a
wonderful idea, what a wonderful truth. And that's true for
the Atonement. And so what are these men dying for?
You know, they're dying for that. And I don't think
there's anything better that you can actually die for. And
so many of the Christian martyrs down through the ages,
and even in the modern day. We've had huge, huge
numbers of martyrs in the modern day, all of them
dying for the truth of who Christ is and what
He's done for us. And this Tweek is all about that.
And again it's it's not a it's not a tragedy.
It's not a tragedy. It's a comedy. And what I
mean by that not haha comedy, but in the trial
term of comedy, that it has a good ending, a
good and glorious, heavenly happy ending, and it can only
have that because of the work of Christ, the work of.
Speaker 1: God, the happiest of all endings, no doubt about it.
So I want to talk about that in relation. Today
we've gotten a survey, a sense of this Holy Week,
and obviously through that the mission of Christ on earth
in the what short three span of three years in
which he took his ministry. Obviously we don't know much much,
not much is written about, you know, his early life
in the intervening time period. But what does what does
Good Friday? What does Holy Week mean to us today?
And I say that in context, we're losing so much
of the reason this great Republic and it's two hundreds
the years was created and how it was created, it
was the life and times of people for the last
two thousand plus years have been made immeasurably better because
Christ walked the earth, he fulfilled the prophecies, he fulfilled
the Covenant, and he lives and reigns now and forever.
But it's such a secular world. Does how does that
story still communicate to such a secular world?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, you know, we talk about this. I have
a very strong feeling that we don't know even a
tenth of what the Lord is doing right now. You know,
our press, with present company excluded, of course, our press,
our media, they don't like this story. They don't like
to pay attention to it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: You see sometimes these these athletes who praise Jesus for
what they do and they get they get you know,
they get punished for that. Yes, you can say anything else,
but you can't say that, right. And so I think
that there is a a kind of radio silence of
sorts out there, of people trying to inhibit the message.
But Jesus can't be stopped, right, God can't be stopped
I'm at a college where I see just hundreds of
great Christian kids who are motivated, are intelligent, and are
ready to get out there and do the good work.
I support a number of organizations across the country who
at colleges and universities across the country are just just
going gangbusters. I think that, you know, Charlie Kirk with
someone who really hit a nerve, you know, he really,
he really druck a chord, and young people were ready
to listen to that. There's all kinds of numbers of
young people coming into the church, whether it be Protestant
or Catholic or Anglican. There's kind of a renewal all
over the place. I just came back from Europe and
I could see it there. The church I was at, well,
the two churches I attended were packed front to back,
and they were packed front to back not just with
old gray heads like mine, but with young families and
young people, and they're enthusiastically worshiping Christ. So you know,
it's not over, and there's a lot more that's going
on and going to happen. And you know, again the
Lord is just not going to let his church go
away and die, and his message, go away and die.
Speaker 2: But do you think we're in the middle of a reawakening?
Speaker 1: I asked that as I was in Phoenix recently, surrounded
by some very faithful people, and one of the questions
that came up in our conversation was, there is a
belief that we are in yet another We haven't had
too many of them. Then, you know, we can define,
but we're in a modern day reawakening of the importance
of all of that.
Speaker 2: Do you believe that to be the case? It could
very well be the case.
Speaker 3: You know, again, I'm not even going to pretend to
know what the Lord is doing. Only I can only
judge on my on my perceptions and what I see
and hear and read. And I have to say, I
think I agree with that. I think there's something going
on here. And you know, for for young people, there's
so much confusion, you know about you know, are you
a man or a woman? What is marriage about? What
are children about? I mean children are our future, and
everybody kind of loves and desires to have children, but
we're told that, you know, they are a hindrance to
our happiness or something. When you know I have I
have three children and now three granddaughters, and that's not
a hindrance to my happiness at all, you know, just
love them to death. And I just, I just I
have to tell you, I think that there's a natural
as well as just a god given response to all
the negativity that's out there, particularly regarding family. You know,
people desire to have family, and so I think that's
part of it as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I never did understand I still can't understand people that
don't want to have children and dogs around.
Speaker 2: Both. Just it's hard for me to imagine.
Speaker 1: I have three children myself, and you know I have
made I think I can count six good decisions in
my life, and they know four of them involved my family.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: So let me let's let's go to that dark hour
as we close, Okay, As Mark tells us, and when
the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the
whole land until the ninth hour.
Speaker 2: And at the ninth.
Speaker 1: Hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: What do you take that to mean? Because there's been
a lot made of that is this is this the Christ,
the son of God, the son of man, doubting.
Speaker 2: God, his father in heaven.
Speaker 1: And I know the answer to that is is no.
But you can understand where the question comes up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, And you know, there's so much in the
Gospels that point to perhaps a moment or statement that's made,
or question that's given where Jesus does not give an answer,
you know, when when will all things come to an end?
He says, only the Father knows that. And so the
idea here is that this is God in human form,
and so you see both his divinity and his profound humanity. Yes,
you know, he was.
Speaker 2: He was.
Speaker 3: He was given flesh by his mother, the same way
that all of us are given flesh by our mothers.
And what is really important in that is that he
also has all of the same emotions, the feelings that
the hurts, you know, that come with being a human being.
We are told that he was tested and he didn't
fail in any of that. And I think even on
the cross, you know, why have you abandoned me? I
think that in that moment he experiences as the human Messiah,
a human Christ. What he is experiencing is the full
weight of all of the sins of the world that
are coming down upon him and for which he is paying.
In that moment, you know, you think about all of
those sins, just and just even my sins. You know,
I'm thinking, wow, that would be a lot of pain.
But in all of that, in that moment, he cries out.
You know, it's interesting that one of the Roman skeptics
of Christianity, guy named Kelsus of Alexandria, he says, because
he believes that the God, you know, the high God
of the universe, has no feelings, has no emotion, has
no jealousy or hatred or love, that this God is
beyond all of those things because he can't feel those things.
You know, he has to be perfect and unfeeling. And
what we see here on the cross is God incarnate
actually showing his pain, his suffering, his love for humanity,
and you know, his sense of abandonment that only he,
only he could pay the price that he's paying at
that moment, it could only be Christ, right, and so yeah,
he's all alone up there and he's paying the price
that only he can pay. And so it's a it's
a remarkable moment that the Romans and this guy Kelsus,
saw this as showing that he was weak that he
was somehow weak, that he cried out, because Kelsu's has
a stoic believed that God would never cry out like that.
But Jesus is crying out because he does indeed have
the weight of all human sin upon him, and he
is suffering for them for us. Kelsius just doesn't understand
what this moment means. And you know, quite often we
don't understand it. And you know, I think that if
we look at that and say, you know, maybe he
wasn't God after all, I think we have to understand
that as God incarnate, as God, as a human being, yeah,
he's going to feel all of that, and it makes
it makes him.
Speaker 1: More God to me. I can't begin to, you know,
explain how others feel about it. They tell me, but
that's a very personal thing to me. That moment makes
him more holy to me. And in fact, if you
think about that moment, and we should reflect upon that
moment during this Holy week, it breaks my heart to
think about how much he endured for the sake of
the sinner, all of us, and that is the good news.
Speaker 2: Of Good Friday.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, well, another extraordinary conversation. I very much appreciate
your time, and I always enjoy our conversation.
Speaker 2: Happy to do it, I enjoy it too.
Speaker 1: Thanks thanks to my guest today, doctor Kenneth Calvert, Professor
of history and director of the Oxford Program at Hillsdale College.
You've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
I'm Matt Kittle's senior elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll
be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of
freedom and anxious for the frame