This is post is part of a series of posts as I blog through the book Simply Jesus by N.T. Wright. Feel free to join in at anytime.
In 1991, the Perfect Storm (aka as the Halloween Nor’easter of 1991) hit the North East Coast of the US. It was the storm behind the popular movie of the same name. In chapters 3 – 5, Wright uses the image of the Perfect Storm to describe both the modern culture wars as well as the historical situation in Jerusalem during the first century. Continue reading
Tony Jones, a self proclaimed ‘ecclesiologist’, asks progressive Christian bloggers to tackle the question – why a crucifixion? as part of his #progGod challenge. What makes a Christian progressive? That itself could be a topic worth exploring. When it comes to the cross and its purpose most progressives dismiss the penal substitutionary atonement.
Here is how one blogger put it:
as powerful as the idea of unworthy sinners being saved by a loving Jesus may be, the corresponding idea of an angry God so unwilling to forgive that he has no choice but to murder His only son causes many of us some problems.
Another blogger had this to share:
First of all is the deeply disturbing (and some would say heretical) idea of a God that would NEED a sacrifice of one innocent to pay for the sins of the rest of our sorry asses. A blood thirsty God is frankly a warped vision of the Divine cast in our own vengeful image.
Now I would not categorize myself as a progressive Christian and I doubt many other people would either. For starters I accept the penal substitutionary atonement view. However I do sympathize with progressives in calling for followers of Jesus to be more willing to serve and help others (social justice), I just don’t agree that large government programs, nor debt and deficits, are the way to do that. However, the cross and the subsequent resurrection are central to Christianity so this is a crucial question and I thought I would work through that answer.
The cross is necessary
The first thing to keep in mind is that the Cross was necessary. After Jesus was identified as the Messiah He told His disciples what the future held (Mark 8:31).
Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law,and be killed, and after three days rise again.
And when Jesus returned from the dead He reminded the disciples that this was necessary so that all that the prophets said would be fulfilled (Luke 24:26,44).
If the cross was necessary then the next logical question is why was it necessary? Why did God tell Israel through the prophets that Jesus must die on the cross?
Here the Scriptures offer numerous ways to explain why the cross was necessary. The word pictures used by the different authors include being bought out of slavery (redeemed), acquitted in a legal proceeding (justified), satisfying the wrath of God (propitiation), restoring a broken relationship (reconciliation), as a sacrificial lamb that takes away the sins of the world, and as a means to establishing the new covenant. Rather than look at these in detail, we can look at Jesus final night on earth with His disciples as recorded by John and find two reasons why the cross was necessary.
Jesus tells the disciples on that night that there is no greater love than laying down one’s life for their friends. But no one would choose to lay down their life for another person unless there was a reason. A reason that goes beyond being a moral example. There must be some imminent danger that threatens another person that you can spare them from or some great advantage that you can give them. So why did Jesus lay down his life on a cross for us?
Jesus wants you to live for Him
That night started off with Jesus taking a towel and a water basin and washing the disciples feet. The disciples are told that this is an example to remind them to serve others. This act is followed by Jesus giving a new command to love others as Jesus has loved. This call to love others and bear fruit will be repeated throughout the night. The love for others will be the telling mark of a follower of Jesus.
But the cross was not just an example of God’s love for us to follow. Jesus knew that we would need help to live out new command. So He wanted to give us an advantage in this life to do just that. That advantage was sending the Holy Spirit who would give us a new heart (Ezek 36:26). However this Helper could not come until Jesus went to the Father. And the new heart was a provision in the new covenant which Jesus established through His blood.
Jesus wants you to live with Him
During that last night Jesus tells the disciples that He will be leaving and where He is going they cannot come. At least not yet. This leads to the questions – where are you going, why can’t we come, how will we know the way? Jesus replies that He is going away to be with the Father but promises to come back for them. In fact He is going ahead to prepare a place for them in His Father’s house. And He would not prepare places for them if He had no intention of returning to get them so that they can come live with Him.
Having told them that He will suffer, die (a little while, and you will not see me), and be raised (a little while, and you will see me) numerous times He reminds them – because I live, you also will live. The cross was necessary because Jesus saw it as the only way for death to be conquered and for people to be able to come and live with Him.
John, later in his ministry, captures this idea that Jesus and the cross were necessary for us to live when he writes (1 John 4:9):
By this the love of God is revealed in us:that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him.
This is followed by the statement:
In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
It was not only an incredible example of love, even if it was that, it was an incredible act of love that allowed eternal life to be given to people.We could not live with Jesus until something was done about our sin.Whether one accepts a substitutionary atonement or not, the fact is sin and death were barriers to living with Jesus that had to be dealt with. And the cross was the means to destroying that barrier and establishing the new covenant. A covenant that promised to forgive iniquity and remember sins no more (Jer 31:34).
So why was it necessary for Jesus to lay down his life on a cross for us?
So that we can live with Him and live for Him.
The Atonement by Leon Morris
Ever wonder what lies behind the meaning of words like “redemption”, “reconciliation” and “propitiation”? Curious about how the Passover, Day of Atonement, and the Mosaic sacrificial system all relate to Jesus’ work on the cross? If these are questions you are asking then I recommend The Atonement.
I will share one of the things that stuck with me as I read through it for class.
On the idea of reconciliation Morris reminds us of an important truth.
[Reconciliation] implies three states: first friendship, then a quarrel, then friendship again. [p 133]
The use of the word reconciliation reminds us that we started off as friends of God. In the world we live in with all the pain and brokenness, it can be easy to forget that fact. Friendship did exist until its bonds were broken. This “quarrel” finds its start in the Fall (Gen 3) and carries on in the sin of all mankind (Rom 3:10-18,23). Like any broken relationship there is now a problem that needs to be dealt with so that the parties involved can enjoy a renewed relationship.
There is no ignoring reality. A barrier remains a barrier until it is taken away. At the heart of the idea of reconciliation there is the thought that getting people together means dealing effectively with whatever it was that was keeping them apart. This way of looking at the cross then reminds us that there can be no fellowship between God and men unless and until the barrier of sin has been taken out of the way. [p 146]
But we don’t usually see it this way. At a time when “live and let live” is the motto of the age, tolerance means acceptance of everything, and problems are solved by kicking them down the road it is easy to see why people wonder – what is the big deal? Why does God really care about my issues, if nobody else does? I thought God was supposed to be loving, so why do we need Jesus?
Morris pours water on these ideas:
[the barrier] will not go away by wishing. We often seem to act on the assumption that, if we sit quietly and wait, any unpleasant thing will go away. It will not. It does not happen in the ordinary affairs of everyday life and it does not happen in the matter of the sin that separates us from God. Modern man finds this difficult to accept. [146]
Why is this difficult to accept:
Sinful man is always ready to let bygones be bygones. He is not greatly concerned by those small sins he perceives in himself and he cannot imagine why God should be. He is quite ready to let the past remain in the past and simply be friends with God in the present. There is nothing from his side that demands there be enmity. [137]
Man from his side of the relationship might downplay the barrier, but that is because he is responsible for creating it. No matter how we feel about our sin and God, we have to remember it is God that has been wronged, not us.Since God is the wronged party it is up to Him to determine if and how the barrier to the relationship will be dealt with.
God’s character, particularly holiness, would not allow the issue to be ‘swept under the carpet’. However, His character of love would not let the barrier remain in the way of the relationship either. No, God loved us enough to deal with the issue directly and in a way that was permanent. And that was only done through the cross.
[For the NT preachers], Christ’s death on the cross was the central thing. That death dealt effectively with sin so that it no longer features as an obstacle. [138]
With the barrier removed there are no obstacles left to a restored relationship (2 Cor 5:18-19).
God reconciled us to himself through Christ, … not counting people’s trespasses against them …
But when only one party acts we still don’t have a restored relationship. That will not happen until both parties work through the problem. We must still do our part to ‘be reconciled to God’ (2 Cor 5:20). And that is to approach God through faith in Jesus.
Dead Heroes Don't Save 