{"id":7819,"date":"2026-03-05T03:48:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lutheranquarterly.org\/?p=7819"},"modified":"2026-03-05T03:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:52:07","slug":"caught-in-the-act-reflections-on-the-work-of-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lutheranquarterly.org\/?p=7819","title":{"rendered":"Caught in the Act: Reflections on the Work of Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"7819\" class=\"elementor elementor-7819\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-f599d24 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default qodef-elementor-content-no\" data-id=\"f599d24\" data-element_type=\"section\" data-e-type=\"section\" data-settings=\"{&quot;background_background&quot;:&quot;classic&quot;}\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-a880903\" data-id=\"a880903\" data-element_type=\"column\" data-e-type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-ebc3265 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"ebc3265\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><em>by GERHARD O. FORDE, <\/em><em>Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota<\/em><\/p><p><em>Published by Word &amp; World 3\/1 (1983) Copyright \u00a9 1983 by Word &amp; World, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p>Already in the 12th century Peter Abelard put the question to which we must at last attend in our thinking about the work of Christ, a question almost totally ignored by subsequent centuries:<\/p><blockquote><p>If [the] sin of Adam was so great that it could be expiated only by the death of<br \/>Christ, what expiation will avail for the act of murder committed against Christ, and for the many great crimes committed against him or his followers? How did the death of his innocent Son so please God the Father that through it he should be reconciled to us\u2014to us who by our sinful acts have done the very things for which our innocent Lord was put to death?1<\/p><\/blockquote><p>In a moment of candor rare in the tradition, Abelard sees the death of Christ as a murder in which we are implicated. He wonders how such an act could be considered so pleasing to God as to \u201csatisfy\u201d him.<\/p><p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lutheranquarterly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Caught-in-the-Act.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>HERE<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by GERHARD O. FORDE, Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota Published by Word &amp; World 3\/1 (1983) Copyright \u00a9 1983 by Word &amp; World, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. All rights reserved. \u00a0 Already in the 12th century Peter Abelard put the question to which we must at last attend in our thinking about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutheranquarterly.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutheranquarterly.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutheranquarterly.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutheranquarterly.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutheranquarterly.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7819"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutheranquarterly.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7826,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutheranquarterly.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7819\/revisions\/7826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutheranquarterly.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutheranquarterly.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutheranquarterly.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}