Wide-angle view of the cross (part 2)

He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. Colossians 2:15

In the cross Christ has disarmed the powers. . . . The death of Christ was the unmasking of the powers — Caiaphas and Herod and Pilate were not uniquely wicked men; they were acting out their roles as guardians of the political and moral and religious order. They acted as representatives of what the New Testament calls the world, this present age. When God raised the crucified Jesus, this present age and its structures was exposed, illuminated, unmasked — but not destroyed. Cross and resurrection seen together mean both judgment and grace, both wrath and endless patience. God still upholds the structures; without them the world would collapse and human life would be unthinkable. But the structures lose their pretended absoluteness. Nothing now is absolute except God as he is known in Jesus Christ; everything else is relativized. That is the bottom line for Christian thinking and the starting point for Christian action in the affairs of the world.

Quote from The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989) as reprinted in Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian: a Reader (p. 45)