Atonement and the Mystery of Self-Giving Love Please read the great hymn of love in chapter 13 of the First Letter to the Corinthians of the Apostle Paul. Our English word love gets used in a variety of ways and with a variety of meanings. It is instructive to note that other languages have more than one word for love. Greek, the language in which the New Testament is written, has four. One is storge, the love for members of one s family. Another is philia, the love of friends for each other as in Philadelphia, a city name that means literally brotherly love. A third is eros, the love of desire -- to possess something that is attractive, including love for a person, an art work, a piece of music, etc. The fourth, rarely found in Greek literature outside the New Testament, is agape, pronounced a-gaw-pay. Agape is selfgiving, even self-sacrificing, love. Agape is the word used in the Greek text almost everywhere that the word love appears in our New Testament. So Paul s references to love in 1 Corinthians13 are all to agape. And when the First Letter of John says in 4:16b, God is love, again the word used is agape. The New Testament authors use agape advisedly because they are referring to God s love as revealed in Jesus, and pre-eminently as revealed in his passion and death. As John says: God s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:9-11) As is evident in these verses, the outcome for our lives as members of a Christian congregation here and now is that we should strive to love one another -- in the profound way that God has loved us. These verses also make clear that the basis and power for such love is the initiative of love that God has undertaken in Jesus Christ. The claim of the New Testament is that a great transaction has been accomplished in Jesus Christ, and that through him a reconciled relationship now exists between God and humanity, and among people, for all who are in Christ. The technical word for the action resulting in this changed relationship is atonement, a concept taken over from the Old Testament. To make atonement was to offer a sacrifice to God that freed one from the guilt and punishment of sin. Atonement results in reconciliation. Jews today still observe an annual Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), though, of course, without animal sacrifice. In contrast to a repeated annual occasion of atonement, the message of the apostles is that the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ is once for all, an event that has permanently changed our relationship with God, and is unrepeatable. As the Letter to the Hebrews says of Jesus: For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he 1
has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once for all when he offered himself. (Hebrews 7:26-27) The New Testament generally regards the death of Jesus as the pivotal point of his ministry of reconciliation, and as an atonement for sin. The following passages illustrate how consistently the concept Christ died for our sins appears throughout the New Testament: Matt. 26:26-29 (Parallels at Mark 14:22-24 and Luke 22:19-20) While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father s kingdom. Mark 10:45 For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. 1 Cor. 2:6-8 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 1 Pet. 1:18-20 You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. John 3:14-16 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Rom. 3:21-26 But now, irrespective of law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all 2
who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. Romans 5:8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 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; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Rev. 5:9-10 They sing a new song [to the Lamb]: You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth. And then there is the remarkable passage from Isaiah that Christians cannot read without thinking of Jesus: Isa. 53:1-6 Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; 3
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Theories of the Atonement Many of us have simply accepted that the cross of Jesus is an expression of unfathomable love, and that, because of such love, we experience forgiveness of our sins, and are given confidence to live fully in that freedom. Many Jewish people died on Roman crosses. What makes the offering of Jesus unique, and uniquely availing for the forgiveness of sin, is not the cruel suffering of crucifixion, but the identity of the One who suffered. Jesus death is a saving event because of who he was and is Son of God. Through the ages theologians have attempted to say exactly how the death of Jesus on a Roman cross, works out a reconciliation between God and sinful humans. The earliest of these is the ransom theory, according to which Jesus offered himself up as a hostage to the power of evil, thus freeing us from the power of evil to which our sin has made us forfeit. On the cross Jesus drew the sting of evil, bearing its destructive power and then overcoming it because of who he is. The Son of Man, apparently vulnerable to death and the destruction of his ministry, is also Son of God and so triumphs over death and the devil. Three of the Scripture passages above are sources for this theory Mark 10:45, 1 Cor. 2:6-8, and 1 Pet. 3:18-20. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe C.S. Lewis presents a literary expression of this theory as Aslan willingly exchanges places with the boy Edmund, whose traitorous deed has made him the captive of the White Witch. Aslan suffers torture and death in Edmund s stead, but triumphs on the third day. In the Middle Ages, Anselm of Canterbury developed the satisfaction theory. According to it, the obedience that took Jesus to the cross was an offering to God on behalf of humanity to satisfy the divine honour for the grievous insult of human sin. If someone were to think that the death of the sinless Jesus is too high a price to pay for the offence 4
of sin, then Anselm believed that one had not sufficiently considered the awesome weight of sin. At the time of the Reformation, a refinement of Anslem s theory was developed by Luther and Calvin. 1 According to the penal substitution theory, Jesus on the cross actually bore the punishment for sin that we humans deserved. Imagine, then, Barabbas, a guerilla leader released because Jesus has been condemned in his place, contemplating the cross of Jesus: You took my cross! Still a further theory comes from the Middle Ages, articulated by Abelard, of Abelard and Eloise fame. It has been called subjective because Abelard did not regard the reconciliation achieved through the cross to be an objective and universal alteration brought about because of a change in the heart of God. He saw the change as one worked in the hearts of individuals. It also has been called the moral theory because the change worked in believers hearts moves them to turn from sinful to restored relationships with God and neighbour. Conclusions The great contribution of Abelard s theory is that it makes clear that God s heart did not have to be changed. It asserts that the work of the cross is possible only because God has never ceased to love a humanity whose need for reconciliation is great. If the New Testament speaks of God s anger or wrath against sin, it is good to remember that it is a lover s quarrel with the world. 2 From the beginning of Jesus life and ministry, it is God s love that is pushing things forward. Abelard s theory also allows us to take seriously that the movement of the atonement is not from humanity to God, but from God to humanity. It is not that Jesus is offering himself as a sacrifice to God on humanity s behalf, but that God is offering divine, transforming love to humanity in the open arms of Jesus on the cross. The action in the passion (suffering) is all God s. The selfoffering of Jesus is at the same time the self-offering of God. In Trinitarian terms, God is present at Golgotha on the cross, as well as beyond it. In understanding the atonement and its goal of reconciliation, it is also important to take into account the full scope of Jesus ministry. John Calvin speaks of both the passive and active obedience of Christ. The passive obedience is expressed through his passion and death; the active obedience through the teaching and action of his ministry. Thus, the self-offering of Jesus may reach its climax on the cross, but it has been growing in meaning and power throughout the entirety of his life, teaching, and actions. During the course of his ministry Jesus is not only presenting encouraging ideas about God s sovereignty and love, but also offering his own person as a refuge of grace. Take my yoke upon you... Jesus death on the cross is not an ending 1 Martin Luther ignited the Protestant Reformation when he posted the 95 Theses on the door of the Castel Church in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517. John Calvin was the Reformer of Geneva, Switzerland, whose teaching was adopted in the Reformed, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist churches throughout the world. 2 The American poet Robert Frost suggested this for his own epitaph: Say I had a lover s quarrel with the world. 5
unrelated to the rest of his ministry, but is a direct result of his faithfulness to it. There is a continuity that shoots like an arrow from his baptism to his death. He is put to death through collaboration between the political and religious authorities who cannot tolerate what his ministry and personal presence have come to signify freedom under a sovereign Love. From A Song of Faith : Because his witness to love was threatening, those exercising power sought to silence Jesus. He suffered abandonment and betrayal, state-sanctioned torture and execution. He was crucified. But death was not the last word. God raised Jesus from death, turning sorrow into joy, despair into hope. We sing of Jesus raised from the dead. We sing hallelujah. By becoming flesh in Jesus, God makes all things new. In Jesus life, teaching, and self-offering, God empowers us to live in love. In Jesus crucifixion, God bears the sin, grief, and suffering of the world. In Jesus resurrection, God overcomes death. Nothing separates us from the love of God. 6