I was prevented from getting to the London School of Theology’s symposium on the theology of atonement today by the bomb blasts in London. I got as far as London Bridge and had to turn back. The atrocity, however, comes as a blunt reminder that ‘sin’ is not an abstract theological category: it is socially and personally devastating. The BBC, probably inadvertently, showed live footage of a man on a stretcher receiving CPR as he was wheeled from the ambulance into the hospital. So we need to remind ourselves - we theologians - that ‘salvation’ must also not be managed as an abstract theological category; it cannot be less real than the pervasive, sometimes petty, sometimes terrifying, atrocity of sin.
Last night at the symposium Joel Green from Asbury Seminary gave a keynote address in which he expressed his concerns about the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. He made three general points. First, the theory neglects the historical context of Jesus’ death and life. Secondly, it has been incubated in an intellectual environment prejudiced in favour of individualism and mechanistic explanations of reality. Thirdly, it has proved inadequate to motivate the social and cosmological dimensions of salvation: it has for the most part failed to get the evangelical church constructively involved in ethical and environmental issues. It has generated only an ‘anemic salvation’ that offers no real hope to the world.
Green did not offer much by way of an explicit alternative. My own view is that we need to understand salvation much
more now as incorporation into a set-apart community that is already actively demonstrating and exemplifying the
fact that God is compassionate, righteous and just. This is a community that has benefited historically from the
fact that Christ took upon himself the wrath of God against Israel - and perhaps we still need to say personally that he
died for us. But the theology is irrelevant if all we have to offer in the face of devastation is sympathy and prayers
for those caught up in it. Show me that we love more than they hate. Show me how we embody the hope of a new creation.
See also:
Atonement for a ‘Sinless’ Society
A “Lamb”-centred atonement theory
The Atonement
Poetry
Thanks, Andrew.
I stand with you as a representative of The Alternative to that which Al Qaida has offered.
You and the UK are in my prayers.
Matt Westbrook
The reality of war
Andrew,
I am so glad to hear that you were not a causality of the devastation this morning. My heart sunk when I heard the news on my way to work. These events show us the casualties of war, both physical as well as spiritual, are all too real.
My prayers are with all of you in the UK as you begin to deal with the emotional and spiritual ramifications of the bombings. I pray God’s abundant grace will spill from you to the wounded.
Blessings,
Kurt
Terrorism and atonement
Likewise wishing to add my relief that you didn’t get caught up in the bomb attacks, Andrew. This attack is so much about the response of powerlessness to power, anger with ‘injustice’, and an ideology of hate which has all kinds of feeders in terms of personal, racial, religious and national searches for significance and self esteem. The BBC’s ‘Question Time’ programme that evening (from Johannesburg) showed something of a ‘black/white’ divide in the audience between those who supported George Bush’s approach, and its reflection in Tony Blair and the representative of the UK government, Baroness Amos, and those who felt there needed to be a better understanding of the roots of terrorism in order to address it more effectively than we are doing at the moment. Meanwhile thousands suffer - those who have died, were injured, and all the networks of relationships and relatives who are personally or indirectly affected by their loss and suffering, and not just here - but in Iraq and across the world.
I hope the outcome of the seminar on the atonement will move beyond the ‘false antithesis’ of setting a ‘penal substitution’ view of the atonement against other views. But Andrew - was the atonement simply ‘Christ (taking) upon himself the wrath of God against Israel’? I agree we need to be able to offer more than sympathy and prayers - but I’m just not sure I can see in the atonement Christ taking on himself the wrath of God against anyone. On the other hand I do see Christ taking on himself, as God (which we have discussed before) the combined weight of humanity’s sin through all the ages - and its consequences in terms of the combined weight of pain and devastation it has produced - with God as its primary victim. And this so that we might not have to suffer the wrath of God. Somehow this seems even more starkly appropriate at times like this.
Sin and judgment
Peter, I hope this isn’t too rushed. I must say, I’m not entirely confident with the argument, but it seems to make sense to say that if Christ took upon himself the sin of Israel as a nation under judgment and facing death and destruction, he unavoidably took upon himself the consequences of that sin - the destructive force of divine judgment, the wrath of God. This should not be interpreted in strongly personal times - God angry with his Son - but in religious-political terms: Jesus stands in the place of the whole nation which is God’s ‘Son’. This seems to me to avoid the moral problem of ‘cosmic child abuse’.
I don’t have time just now to think this through properly, but doesn’t Isaiah 53:5 suggest that the suffering of the servant is the result of bearing the ‘chastisement’ due the people because of their ‘iniquities’? Jesus’ word about the cup in the garden strongly invokes Old Testament notions of judgment:
The crucifixion anticipated in a very real way the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, who crucified thousands of Jews during the war, which was a decisive manifestation of the wrath of God. And generally, the biblical connection between sin and judgment seems too strong for it suddenly to break down when it comes to Christ bearing the sin of the people on the cross. Judgment is destruction. Jesus suffered destruction so that a remnant at least of the people might live for the age to come. This is the context, it seems to me, in which penal substitution makes sense. Whether it still makes sense beyond AD 70 is another question.
Sin and judgement
This may be developing into a rather tedious repetition of views - a dripping tap/creaking gate? The difficulty I have with the view of the atonement you describe Andrew, (which of course fits with the narrative view of the people of God you are holding to) is that it doesn’t take account of the divine nature of Jesus - which is just about everywhere in the gospels (as part of the narrative approach). Once you build this into the picture, the atonement becomes infinitely more complex, and wide-ranging, than a simple, historical restriction of its relevance to Israel. You also need to include the Genesis 3 narrative, the Exodus narrative, with the exile/return narrative. Incidentally, the limited view of the atonement which you seem to be wanting is emphatically a ‘penal substitution’, which is fine up to a point, but if the crucifixion has no other significance, we are indeed left with ‘cosmic child abuse’. I haven’t found anything yet which convinces me that a combination of fairly traditional views of the atonement does the greatest justice to the whole scope of the biblical story, and to the character of God.
Theology - a tedious repetition of views? Never!
OK, let’s get this clear. I am not arguing that a theology of the atonement should be limited to an account of Jesus’ death as part of the story of first century Israel. My point is that if we don’t first properly understand the significance of Jesus’ death within this rather narrow historical framework, there’s a good chance we will misunderstand the development and expansion of the idea. It seems to me that we are on safer ground methodologically if an emerging theology sets out from here (accepting that we perhaps only have an imperfect idea of where ‘here’ is) rather than from developed, traditional views of the atonement.
I would also suggest that before we attempt to take account of the divine ‘nature’ of Jesus we need to take into account the divine ‘narrative’ of Jesus - perhaps that’s the implication of your parenthesis ‘as part of the narrative approach’. I have problems with the traditional reading of the gospels on the basis of an ontologically framed christology - too often this approach has obscured the historical thrust of the Gospel stories. I would not say it is entirely irrelevant, but I think at least that ‘narrative’ provides a helpful mediating position. So it is precisely through the particular story of Jesus and Israel that God gets involved in the world. The whole question of Jesus’ ‘divine nature’ needs to be discussed separately. All I wish to point out here is that I don’t think the question is precluded by an initial focus on the narrative-historical significance of Jesus’ death.
My repetitions tedious, not yours
My point is that it’s impossible to restrict the story in the way that you want to. I’m not entirely sure what you mean by your comments on the divine nature of Jesus. For me that nature emerges overwhelmingly clearly through the narrative - you just can’t have one part of the narrative and not the other in this respect. Consider Jesus taking on himself the functions of the temple, just for one example. The picture we have of Jesus in any case isn’t a purely historical one - it comes to us mediated (in the gospels) in four highly theologically edited accounts.
Likewise one could try to limit an interpretation of Jesus in history to the specific concerns of the 1st century - but 1st century Judaism, in my view, was also concerned about the whole sweep of its history, and Jesus came to be viewed in this way by his New Testament contemporaries. So to exclude these views of who Jesus was is like modern attempts at focusing on the humanity of Jesus: seeing him purely, say, as a charismatic teacher, whilst excluding everything else about him. It is very difficult indeed to make that work, as Dennis Potter demonstrated, you just end up with a composite Jesus who doesn’t really make sense.
Anyway, what are we doing sitting in front of computer screens on a day like this? Personally, I have finished a long lunch on the patio with my family and guests, and I have emptied the pond and refilled it with fresh water, as the goldfish looked as if they were getting a bit hot.
On the really important matters...
On the really important matters: I drove my wife to Stansted Airport, sat on the balcony reading the paper, went running in the park, chatted with the neighbours, cooked dinner, watched the Simpsons with my daughter, and thought vaguely about doing the ironing.
On the other matters…
Peter, surely I made the point clearly enough - it is emphatically not my wish simply to restrict the story to the specific concerns of first century Judaism; I agree with you there. All I am saying is that in order to understand how the story about Jesus bears universal (and indeed divine) significance, we need first to understand his significance within the historical story of first century Judaism according to its own terms, not according to the terminology and thought-forms of a later christology.
Not sure about the significance of Jesus taking upon himself the functions of the temple. Does this in itself demonstrate his divine nature? The temple was a place where the Jews gathered in the presence of God, where they performed the ritual functions that would maintain their relation to God. For Jesus to take over that role would mean, therefore: i) that it is gathered around or in Jesus that we encounter the presence of the living God (the church is therefore a temple in which the Spirit of God dwells, but the church does not have a divine nature); and ii) that it is through Jesus’ death that the (new) covenant is established and maintained. All this points to an extraordinary reorientation of the people of God in a way that, crucially, would survive the destruction of the physical temple. Does it mean, though, that in order to understand the gospel narratives correctly we must suppose that Jesus intended himself to be understood as having a divine nature? Do the gospel writers expect this? Certainly they have a theology, but I question whether at this point their theology is driving in this direction. We really must think more carefully about these issues some time. Perhaps we should save them for a rainy day.
More creaking and dripping
I’ve been out in the sun too long. But I’m not accusing you of the things you think I’m accusing you of, Andrew. (I’m not actually accusing you of anything!) I’m meeting your position on precisely the same terms with which you are setting it out. My point is that attempting to understand the significance of Jesus within the historical story of 1st century Judaism (on its own terms) does inevitably lead us to the conclusion that Jesus was the Lord, Jahweh, the God of the Hebrew Scriptures. It’s clear enough in the gospels - though the subtlety with which they are written means that they do not come out and state explicitly what is overwhelmingly obvious (especially to a 1st century Jew!) implicitly, especially if you take the historical narrative path to interpretation which you advocate (and I agree with!). Paul comes to the same conclusion again and again - seeing Jesus through the grid of 1st century Judaism - yet seeing God when he sees him! I simply don’t think you can have a historically contextualised Jesus without coming to that conclusion. A historical contextualisation that seeks to limit Jesus only to certain aspects of the concerns of 1st century Judaism and not others produces a historical caricature.
Hence the gospels - in their uniquely nuanced way - read back into the life of Jesus an understanding of his divinity, but in such a way that they also reflect the fact that his closest associates couldn’t see it at the time. It’s a standing joke throughout the accounts. But we can - although the art of the story teller is that we may also share the same blindness as the disciples, unless we are awake to all the clues which should have screamed at a first century audience that Jesus was Judaism’s God on earth. Maybe that’s the standing joke of this discussion!
For instance, in including (through the miracles) all those of every category who had been excluded by the levitical code, Jesus was fundamentally rewriting the holiness rules which were the cornerstone of temple worship. Who had the right to do that?
Jesus claimed to forgive sins, to have the right to reinterpret the sabbath (as Lord of the sabbath), and as you say, he gathered worshippers around himself - which is still the function of the church. However, there was a short period in which Jesus in himself became the temple, (as shown in his deeds): the place and person, as John had it (from within a 1st century perspective) where God tabernacled amongst us. Jesus became the temple, as the place where the glory of God was manifested, just as he became the true Israel, so that he might fulfil the destiny of both. I don’t think that is disputable, historically, from the records we have of him.
Jesus also provided the one sacrifice which sealed the new covenant, prefigured in a passover meal which in itself was a summary of the story which underlay the old covenant. But just as God provided the Mosaic covenant, so God provided the new covenant. Once again, we are within the thought forms of 1st century Judaism - with the unique conclusion that everything we see of Jesus leading up to this surprising action suggests that it was as God himself that he made the sacrifice and offered the new covenant.
Was Jesus conscious of his divine nature? Did the gospel writers expect this?
I think yes to the first question - but not in a simple ‘I am God’ kind of consciousness; again - it was more subtlely interwoven into the grid of understanding of God which 1st century Judaism would have held.
The answer to the second question depends a little on what precisely you mean - but the disciples clearly did not expect a crucifixion of Jesus to provide the sacrifice which would fulfil God’s destiny for Israel and inaugurate the new covenant; neither did they see what is very obvious to the gospel writers (disciples,their amanuenses or interpreters maybe, but still in the 1st century)in the way they have written and structured the gospels - edited Jesus’s life if you like - that Jesus is divine.
It comes back to the question of whose 1st century perspective you are taking - but it’s all in the 1st century, all in the mind-set, narrative and historical awareness of 1st century Judaism. What I don’t think you can do is say there is a 1st century understanding of Jesus which excludes his divinity from within the (1st century) accounts we have of him.
Anyway, you seem to have had a more interesting day than me. Except that my older daughter drove us to church this morning. She’s a learner driver, and that was enough excitement for me for a lifetime.
does God need a sacrifice?
Hi Andrew, Hi Peter. My name is mathias; I am German but I live in Prague, Czech Republic. I have been reading your postings and, if you don’t mind, I would like to contribute some to it. The reason for this is that I might not fully agree with you, Peter, about the comment you made that God sacrificed his son. Jesus is our sacrifice and he died for our sins - but out of biblical reasons I strongly feel that God did not initate the sacrifice of Christ. Here are some reasons, and I am happy to give more:
1. since Abraham the sacrifice of human beings is banned. God couldn’t possibly act against that.
2. Jesus himself in his parable IN Mark 12, 1 - 10 makes it very clear that he was sent from the owner of the vinyard to talk to the unfaithful workers of the vinyard so that they might listen to him - being the very son of the owner. Ok, they killed him - but this was the risk Jesus was taking for the purpose of reaching out to God’s people. And the stone that Jesus is talking about in verse 10 that became the cornerstone - isn’t that an amazing picture of the cross? God send his own son to us because we became unfaithfull. What did we, the people do? Killed a member of God’s family. WE crucified Jesus, the beloved son of God. But now God takes this very act of terror against his own family and makes it to the biggest sign (cornerstone) in history: God accepts us through and even though we killed his son. And by his resurrection he confirmed it and showed, that death hasn’t the last word anymore. But no: God did not kill Jesus. He did not intend to kill him. He didn’t even secretly hope that the people would do it for him to fullfill some kind of ‘law’ from the Old Testament. Because there is no such law that Jesus would have to die for. He did die for US, not for a OT law. Hebrew makes that so clear: Jesus is a high priest according to Melchisedek, - and NOT according to Levi and is therefore not a part of this tradition of sacrificial laws and therefore NOT the fullfillment of Levi’s law. And look at the parable of the lost son: On the basis of which sacrifice did the father take back his lost son? Which blood was shed? Didn’t he just take his son back because he repented? For forgiveness, God doesn’t need a tool. He can forgive freely.
And something else: So often when we read in the Bible that Jesus gave his life; we read in it that he died. But we should read it more like it is written: he gave his Life, his thoughts, his joy, his love, his rightousness….. When Paul asks us to give our life as a daily sacrifice he doesn’t ask us to kill ourselves. But to give our life. A death Messiah wasn’t what we needed. We needed a living Messiah. And yes, death is part of life.
Paul in Romans 5.18 makes it clear that sin was conquered not by the death of someone (according to other biblical traditions you might as well argue that way), but by the rightousness of the one. And here Paul does certainly not refer to Jesus’ death.
Saying all this this is not just a merely theological matter for me. this is an amazing message of God’s mercy and grace to our postmodern world. The death of Jesus is not caused by some cruel God, or by some ancient law. There is no law Jesus had to die for - except the ‘law’ that people that are not part of the corruption of their society but are just and do not compromise will have to suffer and die for their cause. The death of Jesus is the strongest sign of God’s love and forgiveness. Even though the human race killed God’s beloved son - he does not condem us, but offers us a new start. Adopts us in the place of his son, that we killed. Isn’t that amazing?
That’s all for now. Sorry for just popping in.
And now the important matter: I am going to have lunch now with my fiancee on our day off.
take care and let me know what you think and excuse my germaned english. Mathias
does God need a sacrifice?
Mathias - my personal view is that an explanation of the crucifixion of Jesus cannot be summed up in one simple theory - and mainly because it was God dying on the cross, not simply a ‘representative’ man (which was the thrust of my previous post - to see Jesus as God from within the mindset and interpretive grid of 1st century Judaism and the narrative history of the gospels).
Or let me put it this way. Jesus’s death on the cross was, to me, the final stage and ultimate consequence of all the wounds of sin which not only Israel, but the whole world has inflicted on God by its turning away from him. The final logic of sin is extraordinary, unimaginable wounding inflicted on God - which Jesus demonstrated, in a historical time and place, through the crucifixion. And yet, in one of those incredible turn-arounds, in which there do not seem to be greater depths to which we can sink, God uses this event to consummate his purposes - but at huge cost to himself.
To say that Jesus was offering a sacrifice that satisfied God is a very simple and highly inadequate shorthand for a profound complex of issues. However, while I take on board the thrust of your remarks - especially that we crucified Jesus - I think it is also true that Jesus died as part of God’s set plan and purpose; eg Jesus prays that “this cup may be taken from me”, and then “nevertheless, not my will, but yours (ie God’s will) be done.” - Matthew 26:39. Or what do you think he is referring to here? Then again in Acts 2:23 - “This man (Jesus) was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge.”
By handing Jesus over, “wicked men” have a part in his suffering (Acts 2:23), and so do we (John 1:29 - the lamb of the passover whose sacrifice was causally connected to the condition not just of Israel but the world). God willingly offers the thing closest to his heart, but also inseparably a part of his own being.
If you like, this is the horror of what was done to God - and what it cost God to bring redemption to Israel, and as an accomplice in sin, to the whole world.
There is also a rationale of suffering which is less accessible to those who have never known suffering personally. Suffering has its own language - and this is true of the crucifixion.
I am with Andrew, in that I want to approach things from the mindset of 1st century Judaism, within a narrative/historical framework. But I think that this tends to lead us not to a different understanding of the atonement, but to a re-emphasis of atonement explanations which have been elaborated historically, coloured as they have been by different cultural and historical contexts, notably:
Example (Discipleship) – to show us the cost of discipleship
Battlefield (Victory) – to overcome evil
Law Court (Punishment) – to satisfy God’s justice
Temple (Offering/Sacrifice) – to make worshippers of sinners
Ransom (Slave Market) – to redeem us from slavery of sin
Family (Love & Reconciliation) – to show us His love
But in the end, I think the atonement of Jesus defeats us all in our attempts to explain it as objective theology, as logical theory or as historical narrative. How can a man dying on a cross be interpreted in a cool, analytical way? How can a man like Jesus be interpreted in this way? The important issue is that the ‘atonement’ stands as God’s way of bringing us into the fulfilment of his plans - redeemed people for a redeemed community, characterised by the life of the Spirit.
I hope you enjoy your day off and lunch with your fiancee. I wish I was in Prague. Your English is fine - apologies that this is written in English when I could have used anglicised German.
I’m also hoping for a reply from Andrew to my previous comment.
God and sacrifice
Thanks, Peter for your reply. I agree with you that Jesus’ death on the cross doesn’t fit in a single theory. And saying this is saying a lot, I think.
But since you asked me about my view of Matthew 26:39 and Acts 2:23: First of all: I don’t know. Secondly: If it would have been exactly clear and planned what Jesus now had to do there would be no need to question God at that moment. Obviousely Jesus was wrasseling with what was to come. That Jesus was ‘handed over’to wicked men is scary. And if He was handed over to them and therefore to their will - and if this is the will of God - then this could be no less than fatal. But: could be, not necessarily must be. In my mind Mark 12.6 is happening: the owner of the vinyard send his son to them. Not planning or hoping that they would kill him, but that they would listen to him and repent. But of course the risk they might kill him is great. And if Jesus is afraid here and asks if this cup might be taken away from him then I suggest the cup he is talking about is to be handed over to people rather than being handed over to his father.
But again - what am I to know of the mysteries of God at that moment? But how do you understand Mark 12.6? What does this parable refer to, if not God’s sending of his son to the world?
And then to Acts 2:23: this goes in the same direction: Yes, God has handed over Jesus to the people. (see also Mark 12.6). the question is what the people did with that. And in the second part of verse 23 it reads: …and you, with the help of wicked men put him to death..’Yes, the handing over part was part of God’s plan. But then the people killed him. And in this very text it appears as Peter makes his hearers actually responsible for this and gets upset about it with them.
Again. If Jesus ‘had’ to die and God planned it but didn’t want to do it himself but did it through humans so that he can stay pure - this wouldn’t be believing in a God of integrity. It doesn’t seem right to me to make people kill Jesus and then later make them responsible for it.
Saying all this I also understand that not everything has to make sense to me in order to be true. Most things are beyond my understanding anyway - especially things related to God. And I also understand that there might be different traditions in the New Testament regarding Jesus’ death. But I just think that the formula that also I grew up with ‘Jesus came to die’ is heavily one-sided. Also: how am I to understand Mark 12.6 : He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying: They will respect my son…’?
God & sacrifice
Maybe God planned that there had to be a fulfilment of the sacrificial aspects in the temple ceremonies; all the atoning sacrifices were provisional until the death of the Son; maybe the nature of that atonement had in some ways to reflect the nature of sin and its consequences (its cruelty and ugliness; its pain and suffering); maybe God did not desire in any sense at all the death of his Son; maybe the responsibility was on the heads of those who did these things; maybe the responsibility was on the heads of Israel and a sinful world which drew Jesus to that death; but what they/we did to the Son of Man, they/we did to God; the godhead was fractured - not just the Son; and in it there was a purpose - which God could have halted at any stage - giving us the possibility of sins atoned for.
Maybe God is throwing dust in all of our eyes as we try to understand the meaning of the death of Jesus on the cross.
Sacrifice, Temple and Moltmann - theology after too much sun
Thanks, Andrew, Peter and Mathias for this discussion. I’m tring to keep cool while running the URC’s training centre in the Lakes and wishing I was sitting in a pool in a river somewhere! Three random thoughts:
1. Moltmann’s Crucified God stuff insists that the divinity of Jesus be taken absolutely seriously and as central to the event of the cross. At the risk of sounding like teaching grandmother … (I’m not - just bringing out the relevant points) he wants to understand the crtoss primarily as an event between God and precisely in order to maintain no clash of wills/attitude between God and Jesus. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to God’s self” Paul insists. For Moltmann, whatever sacrifice was involved on Jesus’ part is paralleled by the self-sacrifice of the Father. So, as Jesus sufferes the death of his own sonship (the cry of dereliction) so God suffers the death of his fatherhood. These are fundamental identities. Moltmann wants to insist that the most serious problems in atonement theology arise when you have Jesus suffering while God does something else. He’s repristinating patripassianism, but in order to insist on a divine unity of the salvific will and saving suffering that the cross entails.
2. I’m intrigued by the idea of understanding Jesus as the temple. I’m not sure how far I want to take it (probably not too far at all) but it put me in mind of the way in which Luke’s passion narrative locates God not in the temple but on Calvary. Or at least, I read it that way. Luke alone has the words of forgiveness, so that Calvary becomes not a place of godforsakenness (as it is in Mark and Matt with the cry of derelcition) but of unity between Father and Son and a place of grace, forgiveness and reconciliation. The tearing of the temple curtain I read as Luke telling us that God is not to be found in the tremple but on Calvary, in the events of the Passion. So there’s something very important about alternative temple stuff going on here.
3. The last point: I find myself thinking rather impressionistically rather than rigorously (bad, I know) about the sacrifice involved in the cross mostly in terms of God’s entry into human experience, lostness and death-dealing. My own shorthand for how atonement “works” is that, in some sense, all the destructive powers and implications of human rejection of God (sin) were played out and they ran their course. They did their damndest. They killed Jesus. But, when everything was completely and utterly destroyed - eschatologically - God still has a word left - the word of resurrection. So the new creation emerges out of the ashes of the old, indestructible because the old has played its last card.
The sacrifice isn’t therefore about Jesus pleasing God, or anything in that line. It’s about the divine entry into and experience of sin and its consequences; about divine suffering and divine victory.
Of course, CS Lewis said this far better in the account of the slaying of Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe …
Not necessarily "dereliction"
Lawrence, you might want to do some re-thinking about what you call the “cry of dereliction.” I see it as a rather positive—perhaps even triumphalist—proclamation. Not yet having chapters and verses for the Hebrew Bible, it was common to cite psalms by quoting their first lines. Here, consider that Jesus may be citing Psalm 22 by quoting its first line—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
This psalm, in which mockers say “He trusts in the Lord, let the Lord rescue him…” in which people “divide my garments among themselves and cast lots for my clothing,” goes on to claim that:
Ps 22:26-31 26 The poor will eat and be satisfied; they who seek the LORD will praise him— may your hearts live forever! 27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, 28 for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations. 29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him— those who cannot keep themselves alive. 30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. 31 They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn— for he has done it. (NIV)
The cry of dereliction was derelict!
Chris, I’ve sat through numbers of Good Friday services where Psalm 22 is quoted. But I just don’t buy the notion that Jesus, in his final moments on the cross, quoted the psalm. You’re on very dodgy ground both textually and theologically.
Textually, you’re doing precisely what Luke does (John has his own theology of the cross which is not engaging with the Markan textual tradition) in wanting to soften the obvious harshness of the text as it stands. It is simply not Mark’s style effectively to prompt the readers with the beginning of the psalm and then say “Right, you’ve got it - you fill in the rest!” especially when what stands in the text is so shockingly harsh. Mark would have taken any opportunity he could to have made clear that he was not leaving his readers devastated but themselves triumphant. I don’t think it’s credible to change the whole thrust of the text as it stands by assuming the presence of another text.
Theologically, it is clear that Mark wants to leave us as readers precisely where he does. The cross is, in Mark, a smashing of the father/son intimacy which is otherwise so strikingly present throughout the gospel. Consider the use of “Abba”. That this was Jesus’ distinctive (and shocking) designation for God is beyond any doubt. Look at Mark’s Gethsemane. The last time Jesus uses Abba is the prayer to avoide the cross: “Abba Father, if it is possible …” When faced with the divine silence, Jesus (in Mark’s gospel) resigns himself to complete abandonment. The disciples run away. Jesus is left utterly alone. And it is the last time he uses the “Abba” formula. The cross costs Jesus his relationship with the Father (and the Father his relationship with Jesus). Mark’s gospel gives no hope on Golgotha. Contrast that with Luke, for example.
Moltmann’s contention is that the task of all Christian theology is to restore Good Friday in all its godlessness and horror. The cry of dereliction is the specifically Christian starting point of all theology because it shows us what the cross meant for God.
Whether or not you find Moltmann’s theology of the cross helpful, I think there’s no doubt that he is right about the texts he is using. The cry from the cross was one of utter dereliction and brokenness.
Isn't part of the amazing
Isn’t part of the amazing humility displayed in the atonement than Christ willingly laid down his divinity? Didn’t He experience the crucifixion as the son of man - in his humanity? Was God hanging on a cross or a man? I’ve always interpreted Christ’s words from the cross “My God! Why have you forsaken me?” as an indication that the Father severed the connection between Himself and Christ at that moment. The penalty of sin is separation from God, right? So wouldn’t Jesus have to experience separation from God if He “became sin for us”?
As far as God sending Christ - scripture explicity says that He did. How can we get around verses like “God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son…”? I don’t think that speaks of child abuse, but of sacrifice - love. He loved us to the fullest extent of the word. In the story of Abraham and Isaac, I love the translation which reads “He will provide himself a sacrifice.” Indeed, God did provide Himself (in the person of Jesus) as the payment for our sins. Could attempts to downplay the “penal substitution” of the atonement undermine our understanding of the seriousness of sin?