Musings: Notes From My Daybook

Thanks to my friend Don who passed along a link to the following website.  Richard Beck writes a perceptive piece on how defining our theology through the lens of death distorts our faith and practice.  So much of the time the conflict we have with others does not rest in the actual issue but rather in the assumptions and convictions that lay underneath the surface.

We must begin with a loving revealing God who meets us in the story of Israel and in the incarnation and who continues to live among us in the Spirit if we are to have any real hope of finding our way to Him and to each other.  And if such a statement raises concerns about the Bible I would suggest that if our task is listening to God, then the value of Scripture is only heightened when we stop thinking that the Bible is  statue and case law to be assembled to prove a point.  We honor Scripture when we allow it to do exactly what God intended it to do--point the way to Jesus Christ.

A good friend wrote over the weekend asking about the meaning of Christ's death.  Here was my response:

Thanks for your letter.  I think that you raise a very important theme in Christian faith.  Through the years Christian people have wrestled with the question, "why did Christ die?"

You also raised some threads of thought that I would largely concur with.  Namely, that Christ's death is a demonstration of God's love and that it also made it clear, even to Satan, of God's agenda and power.  And, it is quite true, that in ancient cultures, the primary way in which wrong or sin or transgression was mitigated was through sacrifice.

The church has, over the years developed three major responses to the question.  In the earliest centuries, the church, living in a world of superstition and darkness, saw the world as the domain of Satan,  Paul reflects that view of the world in his well-known remarks in Ephesians 6.10ff.  In such a world, good and evil are at war with each other.  And, with the death of Christ, it appeared as though evil had won.  But death's triumph and evil's celebration was short lived.  With the resurrection, Christ arose victorious over death and evil.

This view is known as "Christ as Victor."  And, in that sense, the idea of ransom comes into play.  Human beings are held "hostage" by the forces of evil.  Jesus' death was to be the price paid for humanity.  However, the surprise is that Jesus "outwitted" Satan by not only freeing humankind, but be beating death himself.

A second understandiing of Christ's death (or the big word for the question of "why did Christ die" is atonement) was developed--finding full flower in the reformation of Luther and Calvin (1500's).  Focusing on the legal language of justification or righteousness (different words in english but they are the same word in the original greek).   In a nutshell, human beings were created to live in relationship with God.  However, sin has marred humankind.  And since God is perfect and holy, then some legal distinction, some action needs to take place.  Through the death of Jesus, a transaction takes place.  He takes on the sin of humanity, thus satisfying the legal demands.

This second understanding is often called the "substitutionary theory" of atonement--Jesus substitutes himself in our stead.  Because of his actions we are now justified or made righteous.  Because of his actions, we are now complete and can enter into a full relationship with God.  Paul uses a lot of this sort of language in Romans 3.  Or, we can also find the idea of Jesus being both that which is offered for us and language of Jesus acting as our attorney or advocate for us.

A third understanding of the atonement began to develop--with a 12 century person by the name of Abelard.  He was a rather famous character on several counts but for the present  I would focus on his attention on, not unlike some of your comments, how he saw in Jesus' sacrificial, innocent death, a unequivocal demonstration of God's love for humanity.  Again Paul himself would say in Romans 5 that God showed his love toward us that while we were sinners he died for us.

Great debates have often taken place about which of these three points of view are the right one.  I am more inclined to believe that the truth of Jesus' death is so great that a single explanation would simply be inadequate.  It would like to trying to describe the Grand Canyon with only one sentence.  And that is why many theologians would suggest that each of these three points of view affirm something true and important to remember.
1.  Christ as Victor reminds us of the reality of good and evil and that even though we do not fully know or understand the evil in the world, God is victorious over evil and evil's chief weapon--death.
2.  Substitutionary atonement focuses on the objective realities of our relationship with God.  It is true that we are in no shape to enter into a relationship with God.   God demonstrates that he is a righteous being by dealing with sin and he makes us righteous in that act.
3.  Understanding the atonement as a demonstration of God's love for us focuses on the subjective realities of Jesus' death.  It has a persuasive effect of waking us up and calling to us.  Jesus comes not only as a victorious warrior (beating up on evil) and as the one who takes on our sin, but he also comes as a lover--wooing us into a relationship with him.

All three views have something to commend to us and all three reflect the witness of Scripture.  I don't know if I have been helpful with this or if I have only managed to muddy the water.  Let me know what you think.

In working on some text for a paper on baptism I found myself reworking through Paul Fiddes book, Past Event and Present Salvation.  His work on salvation and how to understand the atonement is a wonderful resource in living with a series of tensions that exist in how we understand salvation.

Huge debates have occurred through the years arguing in various ways that the atonement was an objective reality that occurred in the past.  A minority voice has offered an alternative, namely that the atonement was a subjective reality that impacts humans in some life-changing way.

Hence, objective atonement thinking focuses on substitution (Christ died for us) or victory (Christ overcame Satan) or satisfaction (Christ paid our debts).  Subjective atonement thinking  focuses on persuading power of God who demonstrates his love toward humankind through Jesus’ death.  And so people take up sides and find necessary scripture to back their positions and the debates continue.  Indeed, as any student of scripture can see, all of these themes are present within the Bible.

So along comes Fiddes and his proposal. His proposal seeks to integrate both objective and subjective understandings of God’s action.  He points out three levels of the tension or polarity between objective and subjective understandings.  The first level focus on what is within human experience and what stands outside of human experience.  Or, to say it another way, what is present and what lies in the past.  The objective approach emphasizes the past, while the subjective approach emphasizes the present.

A second level identifies the tension between a divine act and human response.  Again, the objective dimensions of atonement pay close attention to God’s actions while subjective dimensions of atonement pay attention to human activity.

The third level of marks change—change in God and change in humankind.  The objective theory notes the change that occurs in God; the subjective theory reflects on the change that occurs within humans.

Thus, rather than moving to one pole or the other, Fiddes encourages engagement with the tension and mystery of both poles.  To affirm both God’s decisive action in order to alter our status and to affirm our devoted response to Him because of God’s love is to live out the broad witness of Scripture.

Some of my colleagues are working on some material to foster spiritual growth.  Of course, just writing some paragraphs isn't necessarily going to form Christian people.  However, writing paragraphs does force one to think deeply about what you really  believe and how you might persuade others to give a hearing to your beliefs.  And one of the things that is emerging out of the conversations is that discipleship is a process.

It doesn't happen overnight, or in the twinkling of an eye.

This probably isn't a new or radical thought for most folk.  But a related theme might be.  If following Jesus isn't a one time event, then salvation may not be either.

What do I mean?  What I mean is that rather than think that salvation is a momentary event that comes upon us during a special prayer or when you were baptised misses the rich diversity and texture of the word salvation.  Deliverance, or salvation, is not a one time event; it is the process of God who "delivers" us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.  And frankly, the path between the two is not negotiated in minutes--but in lifetimes.

That is where the questions about baptism begin to emerge.  Often baptism is seen as a symbolic relic of the past--beautiful and and touching--but irrelevant  to Christian practice.  Or, on the other hand, baptism is  an almost magical event that places you into a safe place so you don't have to worry about hell--fire insurance, someone once called it.

But is being formed into the image of Christ is a lifetime of Spirit-powered work in the life of the believer, then both views fall short.  There is more to faith than jumping through the baptism hoop and there is more the work of the Spirit than to blow baptism off.

Both viewpoints suffer from the same lack of theological vision.  Baptism is only getting wet, a washing of the body, unless we understand its connection to the person and message of Jesus.  This connection is a vital one as nearly every New Testament text on baptism makes clear.   “Baptism now saves you. . . . .through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3.21).  The powerful and gracious action of God is brought into particular relationship to a person through baptismal waters.

Thus baptism is more than symbolic, though it is symbol.  Yet baptism is not magical, though mystery is attached to baptism.    Baptism is the sign of God’s action in the life a believing person that ushers one into Jesus Christ.

As G.R. Beasley-Murray, a noted New Testment scholar, states:  "As truly as Christ was the object of the working of God's almight power in the resurrection, so is the believer the object of that same working of God in baptism.  The sacrament is the occasion of God's personal dealing with a man in such  fashion that he henceforth lives a new existence in the power and in the fellowship of God.  The death and resurrection of Christ are not alone the acts of God for man's redemption, they are the pattern of the acts of God in man's experience of redeeming grace."

 More later.