Sin is condemned

In Jesus ‘sin’ is condemned. It is certainly not that Jesus dies as a sinner; he is holy, separate to God throughout his life and death. It is not that God killed Jesus, for the continual phrase in Acts is ‘you put him to death’. He is killed as an act of corporate humanity, poignantly with religious and political powers finding their way of colluding together. In that situation Jesus does not resist the inevitable path, but embraces it. There is a submission to the hostile powers. Submission to the powers that we could describe as human, but in reality they are non-human powers for what is taking place is simply an ultimate demonstration of dehumanisation. Those non-human powers we can describe in terms of ‘principalities’ or we can describe them under the heading of ‘sin’ and the partner / consequence to sin, the power of death.

Sin, a way of living, in alienation to God, in denial of the God-path for humanity is condemned in Jesus (Rom. 8:3). Sin could not reign over this man. It is condemned as his life is poured out like a cleansing agent and the poison is pushed back – not only into every aspect of human life on earth, but even into the very heavens (Heb. 9:23-28. The Hebrew writer continually uses the sacrifice / cleansing paradigm for the work of Jesus. Perhaps what we read here of ‘the heavenly things themselves need better sacrifices than these’ is a way of saying the death of Jesus reaches into all creation, but perhaps it is also saying that the heavens were touched by the sin of humanity?)

Why such a radical effect? Yes the innocent doing something on behalf of the guilty, a theme that was very Jewish indeed, with the remnant doing something for the whole, or the (Maccabean) martyrs giving their lives and the vindication of God will be manifest in the nation. But something more than this is going on, for ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself’.

The effect is so powerful because of the ‘when’ and the ‘who’. It occurs at the fullness of time, when the domination of that one-world government and the fall of Israel has reached a point that the whole world is in the hands of the evil one, the one called the prince of this world. The poison in the wound cannot be healed, the situation is terminal, not meaning that all are condemned, but we are all condemned to live under the domination of ‘sin’ (NB the singular use). The when.

The life of God is poured into the situation, and not from the outside but the inside. A deliberate embrace of whatever the powers can summon, and a submission to those powers. Sin and death; devil and demons. That level of powerful coming together of hostile powers though cannot overcome love. Death cannot overcome life, not the kind of life that has eternally been poured out (hence we can read of the cross ‘being before the foundation of the earth’).

Jesus submits to powers: the ‘human’ or better the ‘non-human’ powers.

He also submits to God. The human Jesus submits to God. It is far to crude to say he is submitting to the Father, rather he, as human representative, is submitting to the God-flow. Not my will – human will, and a very real will that was – but yours, and perhaps if I take a liberty, he could have said ‘but our will be done’, other than he is speaking as the Son of Man, the human representative.

In submitting to God he is not submitting to the punishment coming from God, he is submitting, as human, to the God-flow.

The when… the who – this is the act of God in humanity. The cross is for us. Sin cannot survive in that environment, regardless of what form that sin takes. Sin is condemned in the ‘flesh’ (humanity) of Jesus.

All sin was gathered to that place, for that place (the cross) was where the literal outpoured life of God was focused. In that sense we can suggest Jesus was made sin for us (perhaps could be ‘sin offering for us’), not made a sinner. Sin is fully manifest, the totally innocent one, the one who never wavered in pulling for the future of humanity, that flesh becomes the place where sin is condemned.

Can God forgive without the cross? Absolutely. He has no issue with forgiveness. There is no need for payment. Can the power of sin be broken without the cross? No, for God does not come with power to remove what has been chosen by humanity; other ‘gods’ might do that. But he will come in human likeness, when the powers are at their maximum, and he will demonstrate that he was always journeying eastward from Eden. ‘In the day that you eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil you (and I will be counted among you) will surely die’. From Eden to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, to the cross where those full of knowledge crucify him, but life calls for a forgiveness pleading that they don’t know what they are doing. But that is OK from God’s perspective. I’ll submit, is Jesus response. This is the moment of glorification, this is the hour.

Creation responds, earthquake, tombs open, darkness. Sin is condemned.

Now comes our grateful response. Not to fear of judgement, but to love. If he died there for me, I died. I died with Jesus. I can begin a path, begin with repentance toward God. A change of mind, a change of mind about God, for the cross reveals who God is (no one comes to the Father except through me). A repentance for sin committed. A cleansing from the pollution that we have both experienced and contributed to. An imperfect journey in that new way, for the powers are defeated, yet remain present. The cross is not about transaction, it is about transformation; transformation of the whole of creation, and about personal transformation.

God does not seem to be looking for perfection… just too realistic for that. Genuineness, openness, receptivity, and a faltering ‘let your will be done’ response. That response takes faith and trust that God is for me, that a submission to God is not about killing me (!) but bringing me truly to life, to a fullness of life.

As a Gentile I gladly affirm that ‘even to us Gentiles God has given the gift of repentance that leads to life‘. For the Jew, as those ethnically descended from the patriarchs, so loved because of that, a repentance toward God, no longer looking to defend themselves because they have names they can call on, for now ‘there is only one name under heaven by which we can be saved’ (a Scripture directed to an exclusively Jewish audience). To all, whether Jew or Gentile, for we both have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, the good news is that at the cross, the male Jew, in whose person the life of God was present in fullness, went there for us. Surely this is what gripped the Jew of all Jews (Paul) to become the herald of good news, to glory in nothing but the cross, a herald to all of creation. He knew a new time / creation had come. The old had passed away; sin had been finally not simply confronted nor simply contained, but condemned. He died for us. So in him now we all have died. He was raised for us. So in him we become witnesses (based on what we see) to that resurrection.

Foolishness to the Greeks, a stumbling block to the Jew, but to those of us who believe it is the power of God for salvation (Rom. 1:16).

For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength (1 Cor. 1:22,23).

Finally let me finish this short series with a suggestion. Theories will take us so far, but something beyond theories is at work in the cross. The heart is touched, and touched deeply. The men disappear from view. The women stay, they see. Along with one man, John, who was marked by love. Maybe defined as ‘with special needs’ (after all he leans on Jesus at the Last Supper), so a little bit on the outside of the acceptable. Hearts open at the cross; minds offended. Perhaps we should read the narrative that way. Certainly I will not be closer to God the more I understand, but the more open I am will make all the difference. Maybe if I open myself I can be one of those who see that he is raised, and gladly think that the one raised is the Gardener, returning to the place of work, encouraging me to find what part of the ‘garden’ I too can tend to, and in that part if my heart is open I will find there are trees of life for me to take of the fruit and to give to others. Yes there will always be present that other tree, the result might be that my eyes will be open… but open to the shame that comes.

He has died. He is risen.

Sacrifices

I never enjoy getting to Leviticus in any systematic reading, just too much weirdness going on for me, and far too many questions that I have no answer to. I am ever so glad that we have a New Testament! Sacrifices are very central in Leviticus, and it could be easy to read the instructions there as informing us that God demands sacrifice otherwise there will be no forgiveness, maybe even to push it further in our thinking that God needs to be appeased. That is a not uncommon perspective in religions that are outside of the Judeo-Christian faith, and probably sneakily creeps into our own hearts at time, with a ‘how will I get on the good side of God’.

Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me;
in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure (Heb. 10:5,6).

God does not desire sacrifices! It is certainly possible that God never put in the sacrificial system that we read of in Leviticus (we do not have ‘I command you to do this…’ but a more gentle ‘when you do this…’); it is possible that given the ancient culture God is accommodating what they were already expecting culturally to do, thus with that reading God would be using something already in place but adjusting the content in a direction more fitting. We see this with Paul’s use of the patterns from the day of the ‘household codes’, where he addresses (as other authors do) the male head of the household who is the husband, father and master. He does not abolish the culture but injects meaning into the structure that was already culturally set for every household. If this be so we can go a little easy on ‘God demands sacrifice’. (The Septuagint, in use in Jesus’ day, has in Leviticus 4 the introductory word ‘if’… if anyone brings a sacrifice, suggesting that an offering will be brought, and any instruction that follows is to modify and clarify, rather than to stipulate that an sacrifice is to be made.)

Most of the sacrifices have nothing to do with any form of ‘appeasement’ for sin. They are celebratory of fellowship with God. We do come across, though, the sin offering in Leviticus. The sin offering that Mary, mother of Jesus made in the Jerusalem Temple! A sin offering by the mother of our Lord, that sin offering being prescribed for post-birth (Lk. 2:24; Lev. 12:8). Where is the sin that needed to be forgiven in the conception, carrying of and subsequent birth of the Holy One? That should alert us somewhat that we should not be thinking ‘bad deed done’, God not happy, make an offering, God now happy again!!!!

Many scholars, and now a few translations, move right away from the word ‘sin offering’, and go for something along the lines of ‘purification / cleansing offering’. Ancient worlds are not our world, but it would seem cleansing is the real issue. Child-birth is messy, it is bloody, and common with all bodily discharges there was the need for some cleansing, almost some ‘spiritual detergent’ needs to be applied.

Jumping to the New Testament we read that the Gentiles received the Holy Spirit through being cleansed:

And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us (Acts 15:8,9).

Peter was no longer to call unclean what God had cleansed and his fellow-Jews rejoiced that,

God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life (Acts 11:18).

What a lovely phrase… a repentance that leads to life. Cleansing meant that they could receive the Holy Spirit and come on to the life path. No more labouring unsuccessfully on the ‘right / wrong’, ‘I will do better’ path. Life is opened up for the Gentiles also… the necessary element being that of cleansing.

Hebrews 9:22 read a little more carefully lays this cleansing element as being necessary and that blood was (is) the way for that cleansing to take place. If not read carefully we read that forgiveness is not possible without blood, and that can lead us down the line of ‘God demanding sacrifice’. Forgiveness (and here I pull on the ‘being loosed from something that ties us down, refusing to allow us to progress’) requires that we are cleansed. Here is the text:

Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

No forgiveness of sins, without blood… but why? Because blood purifies. The Old Testament use of blood has a cultural element to it, but the purification through the blood of Jesus goes ever so deep:

For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God! (Heb. 9:13, 14).

How does the blood of Jesus purify? That might be something very hard to grasp but the depth of the cleansing that comes through the cross is very real. The blood of goats and bulls purified the flesh, the blood of Jesus purifies the conscience. A deep cleansing, a healing of the soul, something that offers us a new heart, a new core to our being, the Holy Spirit within, a door open to walk the path of life.

He died that we might live, truly live. God does not demand sacrifice in order to forgive; we need the sacrifice, the self-giving of Jesus, the self-giving of the Triune God to break the cycle of death and sin, we need that sacrifice to cleanse us within.

Substitutionary?

We all struggle to get terms that work and the word ‘substitution’ with regard to Jesus’ death could work to some extent. For there is a strong ‘in our place’ element within passages, though the over-individualisation of that concept does not do the NT justice. He tasted death for everyone; he dies for the Jewish nation. In both of the previous statements we have a corporate element, a participation by Jesus in a corporate journey, with the end result that something corporate might come forth, a royal priesthood, a new people, indeed new creation. This corporate rather than personal element is visible (I suggest) in all passages, it only being our individualised West that somehow sees death for ‘sins’ being some crude accumulation of my sin + yours + this person + that person… all of which can lead to an idea of Limited Atonement, seeking to answer the question of whose sins did he die for. That is the world of simple transaction – x amount paid for, those whose sins are paid for go free.

A big challenge to ‘substitution’ if defined in too tight a way can be illustrated by 2 Cor. 5:14,15 (emphases added),

For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.

‘For all’ could be understood as ‘in our place’, dying so that we do not die, but the latter part says he was also raised for us (same term ‘for’: huper). If we press the term ‘substitution’ with the clear meaning of something replacing what would have taken place otherwise (I order a product from the supermarket and when it arrives the product has been substituted / replaced by another product) we run into huge problems with the statement regarding that Jesus being also raised ‘for us’. This would imply that Jesus is raised so that we will not be raised? I think not!!!! We cannot press the language to be ‘in our place’ in that strong substitutionary sense.

We have to move beyond the ‘for’ word and not reduce it to mean a rigid ‘in my place’ and if we insist on using the ‘substitution’ word we have to use it carefully, and I suggest that probably we should rather think more along the lines of Jesus participating in our journey, going there for us, on our behalf. This for me is consistent with how I understand the activity of God… God travels with us, walks our journey (three leave Eden, three again visibly pick up that journey on the road to Emmaus). Jesus does this for us, both in terms of death on our behalf for that is our journey and then opens up the future (through resurrection) so that we can follow his journey, he being the guarantee for our future. Indeed it is not simply he dies our death, but opens the way so that we can die his death, and as a result experience his resurrection – crucified with Christ, buried and raised with / in him. He does this for us, so that we can die with him. That is not substitution but an invitation to an identification and participation with him, all made possible because he identified and participated in our journey.

I certainly do not see any traffic moving in the direction of Jesus punished in our place, but the Triune God willingly taking on the consequences of our rebellion. Identification with us; participation in our journey; but substitution – no; and penal substitution a definite no!

The big issue with the idea of God punishing Jesus is what this would reveal of God. Restorative justice (as opposed to punitive justice) is not something that has been recently invented, but seems to be the very heart of God with respect to justice. Punitive justice calls for ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’, it calls for the death penalty for the murderer, yet God comes to protect the murderer (Cain), in spite of all that we read of the punishment fit for the murderer in the later books of the law. He likewise does the same with regard to Cain #2 (Barabbas), allowing him to go free, with the blood of Abel #2 calling out for forgiveness. God is not looking to uphold the law as if we are guilty and Jesus satisfies the requirement of the law. God is looking to heal, to restore the relationship. The law remains broken in that sense, but the guilty go free, forgiveness being the label over the door that leads to freedom, not ‘paid for’.

This is probably where the more eastern expressions of the church have a huge advantage over us. We have so focused in on the individual, law and guilt and the solution we come up with is the law is upheld with Jesus dying in our place. If we think more relationally and turn a focus on shame and sickness of soul we will press in deeper to areas of cleansing and restoration; after all the Scriptures seem to focus in on that the first humans felt ashamed, knowing they were naked. It does not come across as guilt being the central issue. Restoration of relationship not restoration of God’s honour, not a visible demonstration that law, right wrong has to be upheld.

Shame means we cannot turn our face to God. Something deep inside has to take place. Guilt (which is present in the Scriptures) emphasises the falling short of what we were meant to be, and I essentially would wish to suggest that the falling short is centred in on a failure to be truly human, and as a result not to treat others as human (we should also add in a reference to the planet, the habitation for humans, and for them as stewards of it). The glory of God is revealed in the cross, for there we see God unveiled; the glory that could be seen in Jesus, glory full of grace and truth, was revealed publicly at the cross. In stark contrast the falling short of the glory of God – failing to be human – is revealed there too, for it was we who killed the Author of Life.

Thus shame and guilt are dealt with at the cross as we respond by faith that he dies for us.

The resurrection is not about ‘raised back to the previous state after a temporary kenosis‘, the Jesus who died is the one who is raised, establishing in the face of death, indeed through death a path for all who wish it to travel, a path to true humanity, or as Paul says ‘one new humanity in Christ’ no longer defined by any previous category. ‘In Christ’ says it all, and ‘in Christ’ cancels all other previous categorisations. Those in Christ no longer will claim any definition as giving them a place of power and superiority (Gal. 3:28), and they will live that out ‘no longer seeing anyone according to the flesh’.

The resurrection of Jesus is God’s affirmation that the first-born of all creation, the forerunner for us all has overcome. Never succumbing to any level of ‘falling short’, yielding his spirit to God, praying forgiveness for us. The resurrection is not a return to superior power way of living, it is the affirmation of an unbroken way of living, the God way, of outpoured love.

Through the cross we begin to tread that path. Sanctification is the onward journey, not one of conquering all the right / wrong rules, but the path way of love. (Future) resurrection will make that all permanent.

Substitutionary? Not in the classic sense of the word. Only in the sense that the cross opens a path that can be substituted for the common path of humanity (new path for old). He died for (huper) us.

Universal or particular

Jesus died for all (Universal). Thank God. I also think Jesus died for males and for Jews (particular). We all betrayed Jesus, but the Scriptures and the creeds (not many names in there) tell us that Judas betrayed Jesus. Both are true, and in that sense Judas ‘acted for us’. Judas is the particular betrayer; we all universally betrayed Jesus.

Jesus was male, born of a woman, born under the law… so that he might redeem those who were born under the law… This makes his death have a very specific application for Jews. Now let me add what certainly is not explicitly written in Scripture, so I am going beyond Scripture (more of that below), to redeem males, masculinity, or maybe the perverted form of masculinity exhibited in patriarchy and dominance.

Why born a Jew? Because Jews were the problem… hang on, nothing anti-Semitic there, just hang on. They were the problem simply because they failed to be the solution. If we had a camp of people who were sick but there were no doctors able to come, we might well say the problem is ‘we have no doctors’… but the real problem is that sickness has gripped the camp. Sickness has gripped the world, a contagious disease, a pandemic is present throughout creation, and we can call it sin. The doctors though are not available… don’t blame them, they too are sick. Their (Israel’s) sickness was to make chosen to mean ‘them’ and ‘us’, to transform ‘life’ into ‘separation’, to failing to see that ‘we want to be like them (give us a king)’ means we are also ‘them’, that there is no effective ‘us’ but we are all in a mess together, hence Paul’s words ‘all (Jew and Gentile) have sinned and fallen short…’ of being truly human.

That is the strong ‘when’ to the cross. The Jews have to be set free, and the grace of God was to give them a clear generation gap to get on board with such statements as (to Jews) ‘there being no other name under heaven by which you may be saved’ – not Abraham, nor David, nor ‘I am of Israel’. Only in Jesus, the one who died for Jews. ‘Save yourself from this crooked and perverse generation’. There is salvation – in Jesus; salvation from the Romans and salvation for the sake of the world. A restored Israel and we have hope for the nations (Gentiles).

And I also think Jesus is male. Certainly not because of some superiority or creation order. And although I do not read the early chapters as history, history bears witness that the patriarchal nature of the fallen world is a source of deep distress. Maleness, as patriarchy, goes to the cross – maybe the last to be seen at the cross, the first to see the resurrection pushes us to consider that perspective? Jewishness goes to the cross for all divides are nailed there, with the biggest of all divides being revealed as an ultimate wrong (or at least inadequate) perception when the Temple curtain ripped in two. God is not behind the screen. God is with us. Emmanuel. The divide does not exist, and how could it for the two were united in Jesus, fully God, fully human?

Jesus came to his own, but his own did not receive him… yet a few chapters later we read that Jesus sat down with his own and ate with them; he put a towel round his waist and got down… washing the feet of his own. God with us, with those who can receive this God.

Yes, I do believe Jesus died for all. Yet there he is – male, Jewish flesh on the cross. He died that there might no longer be the divide that we who had the power to draw the lines that divide can continue to make. The sharp end of the cross should not be ignored, for in it is salvation for all.

Beyond Scripture? Not in the sense of seeking to understand a story that is unfolding, a story that takes us from Creation to New Creation. A story that presents the cross as the roadblock to total destruction; a halt in that path, and the opening of a new path, a new creation that we are not simply walking toward but one that is coming this way. Beyond the pages but within the story of Scripture.

A new creation is here. God is with us. Always was, was present in the cross, identified and embodied sin, embodied it in a concrete way, embodied flesh that used (fallenly created) privilege to exclude and divide, embodied that flesh in order to include and unite.

He died for Jews and males; he died for all.

Cannot look at sin

Jesus was a friend of sinners, not simply a friend of ex-sinners. Paul was a friend of those who had not responded to the Gospel he was passionate about (or at least had not responded to the ‘personal salvation’ part of it). But God? And Jesus was like God but God was not like Jesus? Really?

He cannot look at sin, he turns away, we see that ever so clearly with the cry of Jesus:

And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  (Matt. 27:46).

God-forsakeness. Psalm 22:1 being quoted by Jesus, the words of David. So God abandoned David? David certainly had many moments when that is exactly what he felt but God did not abandon him. Jesus certainly felt and expressed that on the cross, the cross where God was (present) in Christ. Thank God for Scriptures that mean we are not alone. Scriptures that even indicate we have been abandoned by God, but then we discover that others have gone this way before, and they have found that God was with them. There is a cloud of witnesses that testify to the ever present Presence of God, in and through all circumstances. Indeed we need to keep reading the Psalm, for almost certainly Jesus is using that Scripture while on the cross. Read on, read on… Come to verse 24:

For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.

He did not hide his face from me. Did you feel abandoned? Yes, desperately… the feeling was real, it was overwhelming, but the reality is the cross is not an evidence of a divided Trinity but of a Unified Trinity, unified for humanity. Human experience and despair (abandonment) meeting Trinitarian undivided commitment and love to go through whatever is necessary to achieve reconciliation.

It is possible that those final words on Jesus’ lips ‘It is finished’ is his reflection on the end of Psalm 22:

his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.

He has done it. He, the God in Christ, has done it, has brought deliverance to a people yet unborn. It has been done, it is finished. Whether Jesus words are reflective of that final verse or not, we rejoice that God is the friend of sinners. No appeasement necessary. Only humanity needs to turn their face to God, for his face has always been turned this way.

Afflicted by God, punished even by God, is a common understanding of the cross. But Isaiah 53 a chapter that was taken up in the New Testament of being totally exemplified in the death of Jesus said that this was our perception, not the reality:

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.

We saw this as God afflicting the Servant, this is how we reckoned it, how we saw it… ‘yet’ shows how it was understood, but the reality is something is going on for us. Jesus is not killed by God – the universal witness of Acts is that ‘you crucified him’. Sin, in all its forms, crucified Jesus. This does not mean that I am suggesting the cross is not an act of God, but it is not the anger of God in any personal sense that sends Jesus to the cross, it is our sin, our estrangement from God, our inability to know him, hence our failure to represent him, to be the glory of God.

It might be a simple way of putting things. Sin brings about God’s anger; we can do nothing to pay for the sin(s) committed, Jesus pays and takes the rap. Believe in that substitution in your place and you can be forgiven, never needing to pay. Simple to present. Simple does not mean either adequate nor right.

Back in the day

It is often assumed that any view of the cross must have at the centre the idea that the human race is to be punished, Jesus took the punishment, and so we go free (penal substitution). It works as an explanation though it raises serious questions if it is not nuanced extremely well about the inter-relationship of God (the Father) and Jesus (the Son). At worst it gives us a loving Son and a more-than-overbearing Father; a loving Son and a holy God who cannot look on sin, who turned his face away from his Son, abandoning him on the cross (thus ‘My God, My God why have you forsaken me’). It divides the Trinity. Not only do I distance myself from such views, even the more nuanced ones, it might come as a surprise that the penal substitionary view is not the most ancient view – unless one ascribes it to the pages of the New Testament itself.

The two oldest views (developed soon after the NT period) seem to be what could be termed ‘Recapitulation‘ and ‘Christus Victor‘ (the defeat of the powers, though that term really owes itself to a certain Swedish Lutheran theologian / bishop who published a book with that title in 1930). Recapitulation was simply that Jesus assumed every aspect of humanity, ‘retraced’ the steps of Adam, so he redeemed what was lost, and sin was killed in the Son. There is a great emphasis on the reality of the humanity of Jesus, and also on the nature of two humanities – one in Adam and one in Jesus. The conquering of death for all is essential.

With Christus Victor we see how they wrestled with the idea of ransom. For those who suggested the ransom was paid to Satan, there was an acknowledgement that the devil had certain legitimate claims over humanity. The debt is paid for the release of humanity, and now with Jesus in his grasp the overwhelming goodness and holiness of Jesus just proved too much to hold and the devil having already lost the hold over humanity just could not hold on to Jesus – hence salvation for humanity and resurrection for Jesus.

In neither of the above views – which I consider historically are the two most ancient strands – are there any discussion of Christ appeasing the Father nor of the Father punishing the Son. Those discussions come later.

A big shift takes place with a certain Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm (1033-1109) who using the framework of his day put forward the ‘debt’ that is owed due to the universal failure to honour God, to pay him what is his due. The debt is paid by the one who honoured God, all offence is removed. The culture of the day is the background, with landlords and serfs, and in the case of God a supreme king. The debt is one that can never be paid. With Anselm there is a shift, and a further shift comes as the culture moves on to the time of the Reformation. Debt language can continue but justice and guilt become central. The innocent one dies in the place of the guilty, so the guilty go free. This shift has essentially made this, or a modified version of this, the central understanding.

As I consider further aspects in future posts here are a few thoughts:

  • Does God need appeasing? Can God not forgive without someone (Jesus) standing in the gap? Is forgiveness from God to be understood along the same lines as we understand forgiveness? In one of my books I suggest that ‘wrath’ when applied to God is righteous in Scripture, but we do not find such a description of human anger – thus we should not look to human anger to help us understand what the Bible means when it talks of the ‘wrath of God’. Likewise with forgiveness… Forgiveness at a human level is ‘I choose to let the offence (and therefore the person) go’, ‘You owe me nothing’. If we can do that without asking for recompense, why can God not do that… And if forgiveness is to ‘let someone go’ (the Greek being also a term used for example of untying a ship to let her sail) what is being forgiven, from what are we being untied? Untied from God and the need to pay back… or untied elsewhere?
  • Assuming we want to avoid an automatic Universalism, we will find it harder to do with the concept of a payment, or any ‘in the place of humanity’ as they seem to me the most likely follow through. If it is ‘the cross’ plus repentance in what sense is it ‘the debt paid in full’? Of course there are universalistic texts and one might be happy with that understanding. The solution of a ‘only died for the elect’ of course does not do it for me… hence I find debt payment, universal guilt condemnation not to wash.
  • Any view of the cross must take seriously the unified work of the Trinity. ‘God was in Christ‘ Paul says… God is not apart from Christ, and the work was one of restoration, for ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself’. The cross does not reconcile God to the world, it does not change God (wrath to acceptance) but it changes the world. It restores a broken relationship, it restores all breaches, hence the ‘restoration of all things’ is the hope. In Genesis the issues are relational breakdown and alienation.
  • And finally (but far from the final post) the cross will never be worked out theoretically. Maybe the men are not seen at the final scenes of the death of Jesus (other than one… who was characterised by love) because it is the heart, the emotions rather than the head and logic that will grasp what takes place. That for me is sure, for something of heaven and earth meet, history and new creation, humanity and divinity all meet there.

When might help us understand why

Sitting here with some thoughts buzzing through my head I plan to start a slow set of posts on the cross. I plan to start – will I finish? They will be slow, cos I got a lot to think about.

Understanding what took place at the cross is gladly beyond every theory, and there is not a single theory that can adequately sum it up. The New Testament employs metaphors, different metaphors, and because they are metaphors we cannot treat them as literal. The ‘ransom’ metaphor is drawn from the slave market, but is situated within the ‘ransomed from Egypt’ (in the Exodus) narrative. In that narrative there is no payment made… indeed the Egyptians ‘paid’ Israel to leave! Some early church fathers wrestled with the payment, asking to whom was it paid. To God? Or to the devil, and as a sort of trick payment, with the devil grabbing the payment (life of Jesus) and finding that this was simply his downfall. There is no need to go for the payment at any literal level when considering the ‘ransom for many’ texts.

I think a starting point is to ask ‘when does the cross take place when it does?’, for if we can get some sight on the when it should open up some ideas about the why.

Paul, quite a thinker that guy!, suggests that Jesus comes in ‘the fullness of times’. Although I take Adam and Eve as mythical (no literary reason to suggest otherwise, though I think Paul probably thought they were literal, or like me, consider them theologically as real) why do we not have the cross at the time of the fall? Why all the sacrificial system, the law, all of which are rendered redundant post-the-cross?

The cross is central and we often reason that Abraham, et al, is saved through the cross, though I think that can be questioned, for we can legitimately ask if God needs the cross to forgive. Without exploring the finer points let us accept the centrality of the cross. Why the delay? Why the thousands of years before the Incarnation?

In short we have to assume that before the time of Jesus we were not living in the fullness of times. So to my read…

Israel is not chosen to be saved and by contrast all Gentile nations to be damned. Israel is chosen to come into relation with God for the sake of the Gentile nations. If we borrow Adam and Eve language (and a number of Rabbis saw the creation story simply as an Israel story – fruitful garden, promised land flowing in milk and honey, expulsion from the Garden, expulsion from the land in the Babylonian exile) Israel is uniquely in the image of God, an all-but replica of God. What is God like? Look at the image, placed at the heart of the temple, placed within creation for the heavens are the place where God sits, and the earth the place where his feet are displayed.

I read a fall, a series of falls in the life of Israel. In brief, a nation that was to be a priestly nation for all others, adopt a priestly tribe for themselves; a nation who had no king but God rejects that path and asks for a king to be like all the other nations; this leading to a building of a Temple that really weakened the image that was then visible of the God who does not dwell in houses made by hands. By the time of Jesus we read,

Pilate asked them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but the emperor.” Then he handed him over to them to be crucified (John 19:15,16).

No king but Caesar… just like the other nations. Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. what a strong word ‘then’ can be. The extent of the fall is revealed: no king but Caesar. The good news (euangelion: gospel) of Rome; the kingdom (basileia) of Rome; the peace (shalom / eirene) that Rome brought to the world through military rule etc… The image has gone, or the image of Rome has now come to bear on the nation that was to be set apart. Then… if Jesus is not crucified we can say ‘good-bye’ to any hope for humanity. The ‘then’ signifies also that in a very real sense Jesus is dying for the nation of Israel. How ironic is the ‘prophecy’ of Caiaphas:

So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. So from that day on they planned to put him to death (Jn.11:47-53).

If Jesus does not die (is not sacrificed) they will lose the Temple and the nation destroyed. Jesus is sacrificed for the nation and for those beyond… and within 40 years the Temple is gone and the nation dispersed.

If the nation that was to be the image of God, the priest for the world, the ‘redeeming’ nation has fallen to the extent it is now one of the nations we have a problem! We can summarise this as Israel being under a curse, a theme that was familiar from Deuteronomy (I set before you blessings and curses) with the rabbis. I consider that is exactly the view that Paul shows in Galatians 3:13, 14.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

He redeemed those under the curse of the law – this has to refer to the Jewish people and explains why a crucified Messiah was a stumbling-block. A ‘cursed’ person as the Messiah? Yet without that intervention from heaven the Gentiles could never be included. They will be blessed through the blessed nation (Abrahamic promise), but the nation is cursed, under foreign rule.

The when, the fullness of times, for me, then is the ultimate time when there was no hope. No hope for the Gentiles because there was no hope for Israel. Jesus travels Israel’s path, just as they were condemned to 40 years in the wilderness because the refusal to go into the land when the spies had been 40 days in the land, so now Jesus will travel 40 days in the wilderness. Thrown into (same word as casting out demons) the wilderness he confronts the three powers – economic, political and religious – as summed up in the temptations that came from the adversary. He binds the ‘strong man’, the one who by now had become the ruler of this world.

The when… when there was no hope, when the world lay in the grip of the evil one. when there was no hope for the fulfilment of human destiny (read Rev. 5 in this context). At the full height of demonic power Jesus comes. If that is the ‘when’ a strong indication of the cross has to be to set us – Jew or Gentile – free.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father (Gal. 1:3,4).

To set us free…

The location of righteousness

Reconciliation... the manifestation of righteousness

Following on from yesterday’s post where God and Jesus are one, they are kenotic, self-emptying; Jesus never acts in a way that is ‘although’ he was God but because he was God, I am coming today with a quick look at the cross and one of the central passages that suggests that righteousness is ‘imputed’ to us (so central to Reformed theology).

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21).

Lest one think I understand all this, let me return that I had feedback that the chapter on the cross in Humanising the Divine was the ‘most disappointing chapter’. Ah well!! So with that as background you now will have to take what I write seriously, pressing on…

  • Two locations: Jesus at the Cross, and ‘we’ in Jesus.
  • Two contrasts: ‘sin’ and ‘righteousness’.

I will try and hold those two in the forefront.

The wider passage is about the ministry of reconciliation given to Paul / the apostles / and I think by implication to the body of Christ. The message of reconciliation is based on God’s act in Christ – he was ‘in Christ’ reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19). There is no sense that at the cross God turned away from Jesus, forsook him, could not look on ‘sin’. He was present there, the cross is not about the separation of the Trinity but about an incredible expression of the unity of the Trinity. (And to push it home Jesus was not reconciling God to the world!)

I think to gain some understanding of what takes place at the cross it is helpful to quote the same writer (Paul) in one of his other letters, Romans 8:3,

by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.

Sin is condemned, has its final judgement at the cross. It is not that Jesus became ‘a sinner’, or that something was imputed to him (Reformation theology) and then on the other side something is imputed to us. Jesus is not condemned, sin is condemned.

Sin (singular – as a power, a dominating ruling force) is condemned at the cross, it is dealt with. As a result we can be released from that power (release being the root of forgiveness, and I do not think we should project from us to God our understanding of forgiveness… that he holds something against us until… another discussion). It is for this reason I think the ‘made to be sin’ is using the word ‘sin’ in the (not uncommon way) to mean ‘sin-offering’, a way the word is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. I appreciate there is a lot of discussion around this, so this is not convincing to all. However…

Add in the second part of the verse, the part where we have the result of the cross, the contrast of ‘righteousness’ and ‘sin’. It does not say that we will understand righteousness, we will receive righteousness or that we will be declared righteous, with it being imputed to us, or something of that order. It says so that we might become (in him) the righteousness of God.

  • The location: ‘in him’.
  • The people: ‘we’.
  • The manifestation (not the status): righteousness.

The cross brought an end to the rule of sin, so that a new people could be formed. And here is the challenge. A new people where the righteousness of God could be made visible. God is righteous? How do we know that? Look here at these people! That is somewhat beyond imputation. And a most provocative challenge indeed. Talk of a high calling!

In contrast to this we declare that sin has been judged. How do we know? Look at the cross. The one who knew no sin, who was not ever under its power, became the location where it was judged.

  • He became the place where it was judged / the sin-offering.
  • So that there might be a place where righteousness is manifest.

What does that righteousness look like? Well at the heart of this passage is reconciliation, bringing together what has been divided. If righteousness is revealed then reconciliation will be there fruit. How can there be a people who carry out this work, that proclaim this message, that embody this message? There has to be a people who know that an old system (the domination of sin) has gone and that they know / see that there is a new creation, that something has appeared before their eyes that has totally changed the labels, indeed the labels have gone:

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

The Cross Revisited #3

Metaphors – no debt paid

A common description of the cross in the Gospels is of Jesus’ death being a ransom for many. Behind this is a slavery image. This led to many discussions in the early church as to who the debt was paid to. Paid to God? Paid to the devil? But the language is a metaphor and is rooted in the Exodus story where the people were ransomed from Egypt (Mic. 6: 4; 1 Cor. 7: 23). No payment was made to Pharaoh,4 but the people were redeemed, ransomed. The reality is that they were delivered, that Pharaoh no longer had ownership of them, the people going free from bondage.

Jesus does not die as a sinner

The verdict of the powers was that he was a sinner. A blasphemer (Jewish view), an anarchic insurrectionist against power (Roman view). Those accusations covered the reality of their positions. He exposed the supposed understanding of right / wrong that the Jews had to offer, and of the benefits that the Empire claimed to bring to all the citizens. He made an open show of the hostile powers. He might have been condemned and hung there stripped naked, but truly the powers that exercised their rule through religious and social constructs were the ones being exposed.

He is no sinner dying. God has another verdict. He dies as an innocent one, and is not judged by God. We have to stay within the bounds of biblical language, and Paul is very careful to state that it was not Jesus who was condemned by God at the cross, but that sin was condemned.

And so he condemned sin in the flesh (Rom. 8: 4).

The cross is not some pagan ritual but the act of a Tri-une God to deal in history with everything that stands in the way of humanity finding the path to truly reflecting the glory of God. It is not that my sin plus your sin plus… is put on Jesus, raising of course the question for whom did Jesus die (‘only the elect?’, or ‘for all’ and we all go free), but sin as the dominant power, sin as devouring lives, as transgressing boundaries, as scapegoating others, sin as religion, sin as division is judged in that event. Truly the tree of knowledge of good and evil does not need to be eaten from ever again. The tree of life, the tree that counteracts death is open.

We can theorise about the cross, we can elevate one metaphor above another, but we also have to recognise that no one metaphor will make plain what took place. I wonder whether there is something reflected to us in the description of those who are still present at the crucifixion that encourages us to be like them and that if we are that we might just have greater sight into what took place. The men had gone. The women remained. John remained. Maybe the one who saw love at a deeper level than others, perhaps due to his simplicity by male standards, perhaps the one who exhibited unique responses, leaning on Jesus’ chest (exhibiting behavioural or emotional ‘special needs’?). The heart, not the head is the means to understand the cross.


4 Ironically not only was there no payment made for their release, the Egyptians ‘paid’ them to leave!

The Cross Revisited #2

God did not kill Jesus

In an anti-Semitic way texts have been construed to mis-align Jews as being those who murdered Jesus. That is not the case, for ‘we’ all killed Jesus. The historical and geographical context, and the spiritual context of the redeeming nation (now simply ‘as’ one of the nations) however means that there are many, many Scriptures that lay at the feet of that generation the culpability for the death of Jesus. One of many Scriptures in Acts can illustrate this,

This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him (Acts 2: 23-24).

‘You put him to death’. God did not kill Jesus, though the plan of God is outworked through the activities of humanity.3

What a journey from the garden of Eden to the cross. In the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, take on a path that draws lines, you will indeed surely die. Death was the result, not to be understood primarily as punishment but consequence. Israel encouraged to choose life not death, given laws to guide in the path of life, reduced those laws to be a means of excluding all others, read the law but without realising it the very letter of the law was bringing death to them.

[F]or the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor. 3:6).

But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 4: 14-18).

Death held sway over one and all. The consistent choices from the Garden onwards that led to the cross, not the inability of God to forgive without the shedding of blood. There are so many graphic examples of the life that comes through the death of Jesus. Original humanity exits the place of wonderful bounty eastward. Ezekiel carries a vision of a cleansed temple, where the water flows eastward, bringing life wherever it went. Wherever humanity has gone the life that flows from Jesus has gone.

He appears to a husband and wife on the road to Emmaus, a small village outside of Jerusalem. As the evening draws in so he reveals himself to them. The re-enactment of the Garden is clear. They have left Jerusalem where death has taken place, the death of their leader and the death of their dreams. They saw (once their eyes were opened) the resurrected Jesus, the original couple never saw that God had trudged eastward with them away from the place where they had brought in death. He carried that death from Eden, until at ‘the fullness of times’ there was a concrete manifestation that it had been carried to the place where death was given the death sentence, the place where Jesus ‘tasted death for everyone’ (Heb. 2: 9).

God did not kill Jesus, but was in Jesus bringing the rule of death to an end. Choose life, was indeed his choice. Choosing life for humanity meant embracing death. Like the true mother who chose life for her son in the Solomonic story meant that she had to embrace death. That is sacrifice. That is a sacrifice that can cleanse.

Not just the Jews

The early chapters of Acts are historically situated in Jerusalem, hence the consistent references that they (Jews) were the ones who crucified the author of life. Yet there are so many elements that come to put Jesus on the cross. Jewish religious power (the final manifestation of those who insisted on the right / wrong divide), the acquiescence of a crowd, the betrayal of Judas, the denials of Peter, the abandonment by the disciples, the Roman imperial power that controlled one and all. And we can add beyond that the spiritual powers that seem to dominate the very ‘air’ around us, the toxicity of a system that is not bent toward finding the path of life for people. And then we have to add the glad submission of God, who takes this all in, to end an era and open another one, a ‘new creation’ era.

Life is more powerful than death. Death was overcome, for it is not stronger than life. When Moses told the people that there were two options before them, that of life and death, they were not instructed to avoid death, but simply to choose life. Life could not be chosen by avoiding death; rather death would be overcome if they chose life, for in the very choosing of life death would lose its power. Life and death are never presented as two equally strong opposition forces. God raised Jesus from the dead as a confirmation that we are not still in our sins, and the early chapters of Acts says that death could not hold the Author of life. There is life in God, abundant life, that overcomes death. And as a result of the cross is an invitation to live from that same life source.

Prior to the cross Pilate offers the people a way out. I can hand over to you the one who is truly guilty, Barabbas (Aramaic: son of the father) or Jesus. Echoes here of Cain and Abel. Abel’s blood speaks from the ground (Heb. 11:4, 12: 24), probably calling for justice. God’s response was to protect the guilty one, the one who sacrificed his own brother. Now the people are given the choice. Yet again the choice is to kill the Abel figure. Protecting the guilty one but by sacrificing the innocent one. God protected, damaging his own reputation in the process, the guilty one through self-sacrifice, thus offering the path of transformation for the guilty one. The cross touches the mind and emotions, and in doing so can bring about a transformation, but there is something even bigger taking place where the powers that previously ruled are broken and there is a doorway from death to life (Col. 1:13).

Peter explained that life was no longer something that was open only for Jews to choose, but that ‘God had granted repentance that leads to life also to the Gentiles’ (Acts 11: 18). Such an easy door, the door of repentance, the door of a mind-change. A change of perspective primarily about God, about oneself. A perspective that sees the cross as the place where a transaction took place, not between us and God, but between God and us, a transaction without any small print. If, I come with guilt, the innocent one has taken the consequences of my guilt; if I come with shame, he has endured the shame because the other side of the cross is joy, joy at seeing the door opened for the very real start of true humanity to be expressed; if I come with a sense of sickness there can be healing for my soul. All three elements, guilt (the over-emphasis of the Western church), shame (the issue that seems to plague eastern cultures) or sickness (the Orthodox church) come together at the cross, the fullness of times, where they are dealt with once and for all, for it was at that time there was no hope to be found of finding a solution. We live from that time, pulling in the future into this time and place. A firm historic foundation opens up levels of creativity and diversity.


3 Other Scriptures that state this directly in the early encounters between (Jewish) Christians and their fellow Jews are: 2: 36 ‘whom you crucified’; 3: 13-16 ‘you killed the author of life’; 4: 10-12 ‘whom you crucified’; 5: 28-31 ‘you… are determined to make us guilty for this man’s blood’; 7: 52 ‘you have betrayed and murdered this him’; 10: 39 ‘they killed him’.

Perspectives