the At-one-ment
For a long time I’ve had questions about the atonement (how Christ makes us at-one with God). The simple black and white approach many evangelicals take towards the atonement has been off-putting to say the least. Thinking about and studying the atonement really only leaves me with more questions and a deeper mystery, not more certainty. Many Christians approach the atonement; God made Christ died on the cross for me because this was the only way for me to have my sins forgiven. That approach (which dips heavily into the penal substitution model) cannot be the whole story and perhaps isn’t any part of the story.What seems clear is that somehow the cross is intimately tied to our salvation. But how?
Some think that God was offended by our sin, and his wrath had to go somewhere. Like a grenade with it’s pin thrown away, there was no turning back, someone had to die and Jesus either voluntarily takes the brunt of God’s wrath, or God forces Jesus to. Besides the problems these pose to a Trinitarian theology they seem so contrived and tied to a feudal understanding of honor and offense (although many disagree). But seriously, this seems to put a system of honor and offense over and above God as something he couldn’t control. Perhaps by biggest problem with this approach is the lack of gravity given to Christ’s life, as it quickly becomes a means to an end. And in this tradition we get quotes like Mel Gibson’s tag-line to The Passion of the Christ - “He Came to Die.” Thus it is really easy for those in this camp to write off Christ’s humility and non-violence as not a part of his eternal character, but merely the best and quickest way to “get crucified” since that’s what his whole life was about anyway.
Another approach seems to go off-course in the other direction. Some Christians want to take Christ’s life and teaching very seriously (as we all should) but make his reconciling work between us and God just about being a role model and dispenser of wisdom, so salvation is really about the quality of your response to this prophetic information. In this (as well as the previous) model it doesn’t really matter whether or not Jesus was actually human. The first boils down to God committing suicide and then calling things with you good again. The latter comes down to your response the truth that Christ preached.
Yet another model says that Christ won a victory over evil/satan either by paying a ransom to the devil (as if the devil and not God had the final say on creation) or by defeating the power of death in his own crucifixion and resurrection (as he no doubt did).
I don’t think that any of these work by themselves (and most thinking Christians agree), but I’m not so sure that I like the hodge-podge of take the best from this and leave the worst from that I’ve seen either. And I’m sure that this will continue to be a mystery, but I’ve still got some questions. So please feel free to jump in the conversation.
Is there really anything specific about Jesus getting crucified that saves you?
Does the incarnation play a major role in our redemption? That is, does Jesus taking on our human bodies and our fallen nature matter in his reconciling work? Does Jesus make reconciliation possible by cleansing and redeeming us by becoming like us?
If so, what role does the Crucifixion play? How does that work towards our reconciliation, or is it just that Jesus had to experience death to redeem it, and therefore could have died of disease or old age?
What about Christ’s radical obedience to God? Does radical obedience to God inevitably end in death/martyrdom anyway, thus tying the incarnation and crucifixion together as part of the same reconciling act?
I’ve got some hunches, but I want to hear your thoughts.
Labels: Theology
posted by Charlie at 11:46 PM
8 Comments:
i have always understood the whole work of christ; birth, life, death and reserection to be the whole story. it was a work of love on the part of the whole God head.
in covenant theology the idea is that we are covenant breakers (the cov with adam, with noah, abe, moses, israel, etc) and in his life christ fulfilled the covenant between human kind and the Godhead because we are unable to, and in his death he took the penalty for our covenant breaking.
so in covenant theology it isn't just atonement/propitiation but it is that. it isn't just a moral example (think C.Finney) but it is that as well. it is those things and more.
i think our aversion to the idea of substitutionary atonement is more about our high mindedness about violence and how we want to craft God in our image (a modern/postmodern kinda guy, left of center and above such base ideas as a penalty for sin).
we are uncomfortable with it, but that doesn't make it untrue.
i am uncomfortable with it at least. but when i read the book that is a major theme. and i can't get rid of it or redact it or reduce it from the story without ruining the story.
Charlie, if you stop asking questions I think there will be something wrong with you.
The problem with any one model, is that none of them really include everything about salvation. So you are right it is some sort of combination. But just like we didn't create ourselves, we also didn't save ourselves, so we don't just get to take what we like from each model and make that true to salvation.
Theology is our best attempt to talk about what we (think) we know about God. It sounds easy to always chalk it up to mystery, but the more we know, the deeper we become encompassed by the mystery that is God.
I know at some point you'll have to write a paper or two on this stuff and make it sound like you have something concrete to say. Sometimes I think the best we can do is be humbled and full of awe, and let it be.
I like Noble's visual representation of the life of Christ. I know that I was supposed to write about salvation and demonstrate some sort of understanding but at some point in that process it seemed to cheapen salvation. Drawing parallels, conforming metaphors, juggling every viewpoint presented in scripture hurt my head. I just quit. Literally. My paper was only a draft when I turned it in.
This might seem hoaky but I do much better when I keep the story on my tongue, and the pictures in my brain and stop trying to make it all fit together. I let each piece inform the other pieces and be thankful that every single part of me is saved by Christ's life, death and resurrection. It's not any one part but the whole. Maybe God could have made salvation some other way, but God didn't. Because it is this way, it had to be. It is what it is. The incarnation, the crucifixion, the transfiguration, the ascension, the promised return...every piece.
Salvation is granted, but the fullness of it is yet to come, right? Or did I miss something? When God entered time and space we encountered God in a way that helped us to understand what God had been doing all along. Jesus Christ coming and the whole story that we know is just the piece of the "puzzle" that God let us in on. But it started at creation really and has been continuous throughout eternity. So of course we can't separate the incarnation from the crucifixion from the resurrection to attempt an explanation or understandingof what God did in Christ to bring salvation to the Creation including humanity.
If we isolated just one piece as being "the act" of salvation, we miss the fact that God has always been working to reconcile us, Christ is the way we were told of it and so we could in some way experience it and be assured of it. So if you really must say something concrete about salvation and narrow it to the life of Christ, you have to include each part of the encounter of Christ with us.
Does that make any sense at all?
Mike, you said,
I think our aversion to the idea of substitutionary atonement is more about our high mindedness about violence and how we want to craft God in our image (a modern/postmodern kinda guy, left of center and above such base ideas as a penalty for sin).
The reason I don't get the penal substitutionary atonement model is because it seems to contradict the character of Christ. A lot of people chalk up a disatisfaction with the penal substitution model to "liberal" or "modern" sensitivity against violence. First, modernism abhors religious violence, but is addicted to national violence. So let's not assume that pacifism is a "modern" trait or instinct. Hans Boersma had the same critique in Violence, Hospitality and the Cross and I found it really lacking.
No, I reject the penal substitutionary atonement because it makes the Trinity both obedient humble non-violent servant and divine child abuser. When I read Revelation I see that Christ was and remains the crucified Lord. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah is revealed as the slain lamb. To put it in Steve Long's words, "How on earth does God killing his son let you off the hook?
I understand the crucifixion as both Jesus' obedience to God to continue to live out the peaceable Kingdom, rather than resort to violence. So much of what we see in the NT is the unmasking of the Kingdoms of this world. Christ unmasks the Roman powers and death itself in his death and resurrection. Christ gives his life away for the world on the cross, as always taking the lowest most humble road. God killing Jesus so he doesn't have to kill us... just doesn't make sense to me in light of the rest of the New Testament. Again that puts some kind of feudal code over and above God.
Mike,
All that is to say that I'm not opposed to a covenant substitutionary model (like the one you mentioned). Or even better, the Recapitulation of Israel/Adam model that N.T. Wright and T. F. Torrance suggest. That kind of substitution seems very necessary! I think I'm starting to understand Christ's reconciling work more and more located in his redemptive incarnation (everything he experienced as a man, including death), rather than just in the crucifixion.
Emily you said,
Christ is the way we were told of it and so we could in some way experience [the fact that God has always been working to reconcile us] and be assured of it. So if you really must say something concrete about salvation and narrow it to the life of Christ, you have to include each part of the encounter of Christ with us.
I think that Christ is much more than an assurance of what God has been doing all along though. I think that Christ is the culmination of what God has been doing all along. Christ's life, death and resurrection is the climax of the divine drama with creation, not just the "director's commentary," if you will.
I have to agree with Charlie's problem with Emily's language. The coming of the Christ wasn't a Sunday School skit meant to "show" us what God was actually doing behind the scenes. Christ was not a metaphor, nor one part, but THE full revelation of God and his inbreaking will for all of creation. I hope Jesus didn't die just so we could be sure that God was still God and had not forgotten us. Surely there would've been a better way to do that.
My two cents...
i agree with you guys. I just didn't say it very well. you are right that Christ is not just a symbol. And Christ is more than assurance of salvation.
No, guys, not to just show us that God was still God. To show us that God would do what God had to do, in Christ, to deal with sin, to be near us, reconcile all things. I did not mean to imply that God was just telling us a story in Christ. I did say experience, right? I meant know. When I say know, I mean "having knowledge of", and that implies something deeper than just being able to hear and replay the story. I mean to really KNOW God in Christ. And yes to know death as a consequence of sin, and to know that Christ had to live, die and resurect for us to know of reconcilliation. But, in order to know, and to live into it, do we have to explain how? Do we really have enough to go on to decide exactly how our models of salvation explain the real thing? I think the further we explain our models, the more devisive they are. penal substitution has its value. but Charlie thinks it goes against the nature of God. i'm sure in some ways it is hard to see the entire model equal to the entire nature of God, yet the discussion of taking the penalty for breaking the covenant is valid based on revelation in scripture. questions are good, seeking is good. do we always have to have the answers? can't it just be?
Charlie,
Have you read David Bentley Hart's treatment of Anselm on the Atonement in his Beauty of the Infinite? I just read it a few days ago and it's a really, really good reading of Anselm, I think. If you don't have a copy, maybe I'll make a photocopy of that section when you're in town in a couple weeks ;)
Peace,
Eric
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