LESSON 6

THE CROSS (CONT.)

Theories of the atonement have abounded for centuries and include such descriptive names as the moral view, the representative view, blood atonement, etc. My object in writing is not to critique the various views but present briefly what I consider to be of chief importance. In my two previous blogs I discussed ethical dimensions arising from Jesus' life and death. On this blog I hope to present the salvific aspect of the cross: how does the cross bring salvation?

Very simply, Jesus "died for us" and it is through our looking to the cross in faith that we are saved. We trust that in his death our sins are forgiven. We cannot hope to understand fully the mind of God but can trust with the earliest Christians that through the death and resurrection of Jesus we are able to experience the forgiveness of God. Theories of the atonement that seek to emphasize the moral influence of the cross on our lives to the exclusion of any satisfaction or substitutionary aspects ignore scripture to the contrary. He died "as a ransom for many." "He, who knew no sin, was made to be sin for us." Opponents of satisfaction and substitution aspects of the cross attempt to deliver Christianity from what they consider to be unthinkable characterizations of God as "blood thirsty," relying, they say, too much on Old Testament rituals of blood sacrifice.

However, to be true to scripture one must not sever the life and death of Christ from his Jewish roots. And, modern sensibilities aside, the relationship of his death to that of the sacrificial worship found in the Old Testament cannot be authentically denied. Old Testament sacrifice may be seen as a type of Christ's death, foretelling it and preparing us for it. That said, the whole of the meaning in Christ's death could not be contained in the type. Christ's death completes and fulfils the message found in the type. Old Testament sacrifice tells us many things about God, among these things is that God is holy, that no human instrument or goodness can rise to the level of God's perfection, that God desires righteousness or goodness, and that God himself must provide the means whereby he may receive us without compromise to his holy nature. Blood sacrifices were a means whereby God demonstrated to his people, and ultimately to us, that his forgiveness came at great cost, ultimately to himself.

Jesus entered into our history to live a life a obedience to God, to establish historically the righteousness of God and to suffer the consequences of that righteous life. God did not deliver his own Son from the consequences of his obedient life, hence Jesus' refusal to Satan to employ any supernatural means to avoid historical reality. Otherwise, he would not have truly been our brother. Jesus lived his obedient life through faith, the same as we are called to do but at which we fail. The result of Jesus' life was that humankind crucified him, the certain indictment of humanity: in our sinfulness we slew the only righteous life that ever lived.

The murder of Jesus is the ultimate indictment against humanity. When we look to the cross we see our sins, we see our own solidarity with those who slew Jesus. In faith we repent. We begin to see that Jesus included us before God in the righteousness of his life and included us in his death and resurrection. This is what might be called a representative view of the atonement. Humans slew Jesus and in so doing brought judgment on themselves. God accepted the judgment as complete and demonstrated his acceptance through the resurrection of Jesus.

This is an incomplete and wholly unsatisfactory treatment of something which we can never fully understand until we see Jesus. However, the responsibility we have is to believe in what God has done and seek our entire lives to understand it more fully. Fides quaerens intellectum: Faith seeking understanding.

If then you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

[Thanks to Laura for showing me how to space between paragraphs!]