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4 SPRING 2023
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the first Christians made a pro- foundly theological statement about the cross: Jesus died ac- cording to the will of God to re- claim a world in the throes of sin and death. In his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, Jesus set things right. But how?
Through the history of the church, the cross of Christ has been explained in different ways. This led to so-called theories of the atonement. It is interesting (and important!) to note that the church never adopted just one of- ficial position on what the cross means. Here are some of the main theories.
Recapitulation: In the second century, Irenaeus taught that through his death on the cross, Christ reversed the curse of sin brought by our first parents and restored life. Jesus lived the life we were originally intended to live, and by his death and resur- rection he rebooted the human system. Put in other words, Jesus does life over for us, the way it is supposed to be done, so that we can begin again and do life with him. We get a fresh start.
Ransom: In the third century, Origen pointed to the ransom motif of Mark 10:45 and the triumph motif of Colossians 2:13–15. According to Origen, the souls of humanity for feited by sin, were held hostage by the devil. By his death, Christ paid the ransom price for our release and gained the victory over the evil that had enslaved humanity in sin and death. Jesus defeated the evil one. The end of crea- tion’s story turns out well, as de- scribed in Revelation 21 and 22.
Satisfaction: Near the end of the 11th century, Anselm wrote a little book called Cur Deus Homo?—Why Did God Become Human?—in which he tried to demonstrate the reasonable- ness of the Christian faith. The problem, as Anselm saw it, was that human beings had offend- ed God’s honour by their sin. Through his death on the cross, Christ repays the honour that hu- man sin robbed from God. Jesus stands in our place and offers the satisfaction we owe to God be- cause of our sin. For Anselm, this was both logical and just.
Moral Influence: Unimpressed by Anselm’s focus on logic and justice, however, his antagonist Abelard tipped the balance back in the direction of love. Anselm’s view, he argued, placed too much emphasis on God’s wrath and holiness. The suffering of
Jesus on the cross does not serve to satisfy divine justice but to reveal divine love, to soften human hear ts and to lead them to repentance.
At the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther picked up Origen’s theme once again by remind- ing Christians that, on the cross, Christ is victorious. But it was the Reformed view shaped by Calvin and his successors that came to dominate Protestant theology. Calvin began by emphasizing the role of Jesus as the Media- tor. Since the gulf between God and ourselves was so great, due to our human sinfulness and our creaturely finitude, only one who is truly God and truly human could bridge that chasm. Building on the ecumenical Christology of the early church, Calvin empha- sized that Jesus is the Mediator through whom God has come to us and through whom we come to God. Jesus the Anointed One is truly God for us and truly human before God. He stands in the gap, so to speak.
As the Mediator, Jesus exercis- es a threefold office as prophet, priest and king. As a prophet, Christ teaches us and reveals to us, by his word and Spirit, the will of God for our salvation. As the royal one, Jesus has been ap- pointed by God as Lord over all so that the reign of God might be a reality in our lives. And as priest, Christ is the Mediator of redemp- tion through whom this salvation is accomplished.
This saving work of Christ is centred in his radical obedience.
For Calvin, Jesus is the obedient one. In his life, Jesus actively obeyed God, fulfilling all that was required of him as the Mediator, living the life that we could never live. In his death, he passively and willingly bore the penalty of sin, dying our death. Or, as Karl Barth later put it, on the cross, Jesus was the judge judged in our place. The one who was appointed as Lord and Judge over all submitted to the judgement that rightly be- longed to him to exercise. He was the innocent one who bore our condemnation on the cross. Put simply, Jesus was our substitute and representative who stood in our place and acted on our behalf.
The Westminster Confession picks up this emphasis when it states: “The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of the Father; and purchased not only reconciliation, but an ever- lasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom the Father hath given unto him” (WCF, VIII.5). Living Faith sets forth the heart of the Reformed understanding of the cross when it reminds us that:
Jesus is the Mediator
through whom God has come to us
and through whom we come to God. (3.4.1)
Christ died for our sins.
The innocent one bore our con- demnation on the cross.
He suffered and was put to death
for the sin of the world (3.4.2).
To be sure, since the time of Calvin, Christians in the Reformed tradition have continued to work out the implications of his teach- ing on the cross and the meaning of salvation in the light of bibli- cal motifs and contemporary is- sues. It didn’t take long for some to point out that Calvin’s view of penal substitution made God ap- pear harsh. Was the cross meant to express God’s love or appease God’s anger? If sin is really pun- ished on the cross, as Calvin argued, is it really forgiven? Is this story a case of divine child abuse? In what sense, if at all, does Christ’s death provide an example of faith and obedience to inspire us?
In recent years, the church has been reminded of another impor- tant dimension of the cross of Christ: the suffering of a sovereign but vulnerable God. Reformed theologian Jürgen Moltmann em- phasizes the Crucified God. On the cross of Christ, God experi- ences our pain and suffering. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it is in weakness that God helps us. When viewed from this per- spective, we see the Son of God descend to the depths of a suffer- ing world. God identifies with us and bears our sin and guilt and shame. Christ is present in the darkness where the demons of destruction seek to destroy us. Jesus stands with us, invading our fallen world and striking “in desperate anguish at the heart of evil.” As Philip Yancey puts it: “Power, no matter how well-inten-
tioned, tends to cause suffering. Love, being vulnerable, absorbs it. In a point of convergence on a hill called Calvary, God renounced one for the sake of the other.”
Those of us who have been raised in western Eurocentric Christianity must remember that for many the cross is a symbol of human power. It has been used by church and empire to op- press and to dominate others. We should never tire of listening to the voices of followers of Jesus in the global church and people on the margins. Many live in situations of suffering and poverty where the cross of Jesus looks very dif- ferent. Indigenous peoples, sexual minorities, persecuted Christians, Black and people of colour, the poor, the homeless—they know what the cross is about. They see themselves suffering with Jesus, and they see Jesus suffering with them.
In his powerful book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, the late American Black theologian James Cone provides an extend- ed reflection on the connection between the cross and the lynch- ing tree as instruments of torture and death. How is it, he asks, that white Christians in America did not make the connection between the crucifixion of Jesus and the experience of lynching for Black lives? How is it that white Chris- tians lynched Black lives without ever thinking about the central symbol of their own faith?
Cone’s work, perhaps more than any other today, reminds us that the cross of Jesus calls us to repentance. Repentance is sor- row for sin. When we repent, we seek the forgiveness of God and the forgiveness of others we have harmed.
The real test of what we be- lieve about Jesus and the cross is how we love God and others. It is reflected in the way we follow Jesus. It is seen where God’s peace and justice flourish. It is known in the hope we have for the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. The mystery of the cross is lived. That’s why N.T. Wright says, “On the night before he died Jesus did not give us a theory; he gave us a meal.” At the Lord’s Table we eat and drink with the risen and ascended Jesus. We remember his death on the cross. We ex- perience God’s dying and undy- ing love. We cannot fully explain it, but God’s grace, received by faith alone, pardons and justifies, redeems and reconciles (Living Faith, 3.4.3).