Restoration: Jesus' death and resurrection

When God brings us to new life, it is the word of God that is the seed growing in us; yet that is closely related to Jesus in his death and resurrection (some would say it is the same thing). Consider first that the apostles speak of Jesus as actually being the Word of God:

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. (John 1:1)

Jesus is the living word of God, being made man to live among us.

Jesus also speaks of himself as a seed that is planted, as he speaks about his upcoming death:

The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Truly, truly I say to you: Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains but a single seed. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. (John 12:24)

So the renewal of the world began with Jesus. Our rebirth, our renewal, is tied to Jesus' death and resurrection.

The apostles taught that we participate in Jesus' death and resurrection -- particularly in our baptism:

So we are buried with him by baptism into death ... (Romans 6:4)

Can you drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? (Mark 10:38) (which Jesus spoken in reference to his upcoming execution.)

Likewise baptism does also now save us -- not by removing dirt from the body but the answer of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Christ. (1 Peter 3:21)

The Scriptures speak of new life as part of what it means to be Christ's people. We are taught that we must be "born again" (or "born anew", for those who would rather avoid the connotations of the American "born again" movement). The theme of new birth runs steadily throughout Scripture: "flesh gives birth to flesh, spirit gives birth to spirit", or (with ties to baptism again) "the washing of regeneration" (where "regeneration" means new birth). Peter and Paul both refer to new Christians as "spiritual infants", having started the new life but needing to grow into maturity.

The idea of growing to maturity and bearing fruit is also a steady theme running through the pages of Scripture, with teachings that "By their fruit you will know them", "Does a good tree bear bad fruit?", and "The fruit of the spirit is love, peace, patience, kindness" (etc).

We are even said to be "branches that were grafted into the tree" (Paul, to the Romans), drawing on the ancient theme of the Tree of Life -- and of the shoot springing forth from the stump of Jesse.

The point? Our atonement involves more than just the canceling of a debt. It is a transformation, the beginning of a literally new life. Throughout Scripture, we are given pictures of a new life that is lush and thriving.

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One reason that some avoid talking about the new life is that this subject has often been used the wrong way. It is too easy to lose the focus on the lush and thriving new life given by God. Too often we look away from God's overflowing generosity towards us. We want to measure our progress -- or, worse, someone volunteers to measure it for us. There comes a temptation of faking spirituality by trying to perform our way into the favor of God. Some are tempted to do "good" works for public show, to earn praise and recognition -- or, worse, the right to boast. And some who volunteer to judge other peoples' spirituality are possessed by cold, narrow, or arrogant natures.

Here St Paul set a great example of spiritual leadership by boasting about how awful he had been, to put the best light on the mercy of God rather than on himself. We are most Christlike when we join him in accepting humility (or worse) for ourselves, for the sake of proclaiming God's goodness to others.

God restores us: Atonement and new birth (part 3)

Salvation runs far deeper than settling accounts with God. In addition to God's forgiveness, we are given new life. If our problem were only a debt, that could be settled by accounting. But our hearts and minds become corrupted and need to be re-created. God gives us new life that is a re-creation as the persons God intended us to be.

Some speak as if the "new life" comes mainly through the Holy Spirit. But Jesus is also part of how we receive new life.

I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)

This idea of new life is part of Jesus' teaching to us about the kingdom of God. Over and over as he explained what the kingdom of God is like, he often started by speaking of a seed, a new life that grows:

The kingdom of heaven is like a man who cast seed on the ground. (Mark 4:26)

It is like a grain of mustard seed. (Mark 4:31)

A sower went out to sow his seed (Luke 8:5)

Christ gives us the picture of growing things -- things started by seed and maturing to bring fruit -- as a way to understand how the new life leads to growth and maturity:

Other seed fell into good ground and brought forth fruit. (Matthew 13:8)

Every good tree brings forth good fruit. (Matthew 7:17)

Jesus and his followers speak of the last judgment using the same "seed" theme, speaking of a harvest of the good that the earth has grown:

When the fruit comes forth, then he gathers with the sickle because the harvest has come. (Mark 4:29)

Thrust in your sickle and reap, for the harvest time has come; the harvest of the earth is ripe. (Revelation 14:14)

If Jesus says new life comes as a seed, where does it start? What is the seed?

Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God. (Luke 8:11)

Being born again, not of perishable seed but imperishable, by the Word of God, which lives and remains forever. (1 Peter 1:23)

Peter's proof that our new life is imperishable is this: the new life comes from the Word of God, and the Word of God is imperishable, therefore the new life is imperishable. It is more than a figure of speech to Peter when he says that we have new life by being born again from the seed of the Word of God. He pictures the word of God as living and active -- able to bring us to new life and cause us to be born again.

To be continued ...

God restores us: Atonement and new birth (part 2)

If we see our main problem as our guilt before God, then we look to Christ first of all for forgiveness. If we see our main problem as our defeat by sin and death, then the good news of Christ is that he conquers sin and death. But we have other problems that Christ addresses, and other needs that Christ fulfills. If our problem is that our souls have been vandalized by sin -- sometimes with our own willing help in destroying our own heart, mind, and soul -- then the good news of Christ is that he restores our souls.

Often when we speak about atonement, we separate the work of God so that the work of Christ is said to be limited to paying our debt and suffering our punishment -- that, and being a great teacher. We often speak as though the work of restoration and new life belongs to the Holy Spirit apart from Christ.

But in the writings of the apostles we see that Christ does more than fix a balance sheet between us and God; he also makes us new creations and draws us into fellowship with God. He renews the original work of creation, what we were originally designed to be. He works to make our souls whole again and restores us to the image of God.

This is not a exactly a new perspective on our redemption. The writers of the Bible spoke this way, focusing on our renewal as part of our redemption. Here, in this post, I'd like to show how the earliest Christians saw Christ as being a vital part of our renewal. I will not set out to make a complete catalog of something that a reader could search out easily enough in a Bible; this is meant more as a survey of the kinds of things the writers of the Bible said on the topic:

That our redemption involves our being restored in the image of God:

You have taken off the old man with his acts and have put on the new, being renewed in knowledge after the image of him who created him. (Col 3:10)

That this image of God comes to us, first of all, through Christ:

Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him were all things created, whether in heaven or on earth, visible and invisible. (Col 1:15)

That our renewal is a kind of reprise of creation, as Paul compares Christ, the "heavenly man", to the first man or "earthly man":

As we have borne the image of the earthly man, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man. (I Cor 15:49)

(Next in this series: how speaking in terms of the image of God can help us explain Christ's work to people from other cultures.)

God restores us: Atonement and new birth (Part 1)

There are different ways to understand what Christ has done for us. Among those who teach in the seminaries and train our pastors, there are theories to explain what Jesus did and how it relates to us. They often wonder why the people in the pews show so little interest in what they have to say. On the other hand, there are those who sit in the pews in church and go out into our daily lives to follow Jesus as best we can. We sometimes wonder how the other group gets so far removed from daily life.

So among the academics, a long-running debate just keeps on going: What is the right way to understand what Jesus has done for us? What is the best way to think about it and explain it? Some favor the "penal substitution" theory of atonement, focusing on how Jesus takes our place as sinner to receive punishment and fulfill justice. Others favor the "Christus Victor" theory of atonement, exalting Jesus for having won the victory over sin, death, and hell. There has been debate -- sometimes heated argument -- about how it all works, about what each theory explains better and what the other leaves out. Some would say there is some distortion of God's character if the wrong understanding is accepted. Others say that these two theories can both be true, and can both explain part of the picture.

But while we're on the subject of things that are left out by these different views of atonement, it bears mentioning that both of them leave out how God restores us, and how we come to lead new lives. These are seen as a different topic. Some questions aren't really addressed, questions like:

• What does baptism have to do with the forgiveness of sins?
• How do we come to new life?
• What does it mean to be children of God?

These questions are on the sideline, not part of the main discussion when we focus on Christ as our substitute or Christ as our champion.

If one or the other of these theories -- or even the pair together -- is taken as the whole of what the Bible says about our being reconciled to God, then certain parts of the Bible do not fit comfortably. If the whole picture of judgment is that Christ is our substitute, then there is not really much point to Jesus having told the parable of the sheep and the goats as a picture of the last judgment. If the whole picture of forgiveness is a matter of trading places, then how best can we explain the apostles' call, "Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins"?

Many are drawn to speak of Christ as victor and Christ as substitute because these keep the focus on Christ. Help comes from God, not from ourselves. Goodness comes from him, and we depend on his mercy. The risk of focusing only on God is that we can lose sight of what it has to do with us; but the risk goes both ways. As soon as we look at ourselves and how we fit into the picture, we start sounding as though it depended on us, our efforts, our goodness. We easily lose sight of God. Some people, focusing on the human side, have entirely lost sight of God's forgiveness.

At this point I hope I've explained why I think there's room for more to be said about atonement, about the questions left open or left on the sidelines. There are topics that are treated as if they don't belong in a discussion of the atonement, when clearly they're part of the picture of forgiveness and reconciliation with God. And the Bible as a whole has some prominent "leftover parts" when viewed only through those lenses. In my next post (not counting the "prayer" series) I hope to introduce a "restoration" perspective on atonement.

Atonement and Forgiveness

This is a continuation of a response to Michael Martin's article, "Why the Resurrection is Initially Improbable," Philo, 1, no. 1 (Spring-Summer 1998): 63-73.

Here I would like to quickly review the two complaints Mr. Martin specifically mentioned about various views of atonement: "that they either fail to explain why God sacrificed His Son for the salvation of sinners or else make the sacrifice seem arbitrary."

When we look at our own guilt for various things we have done, we know that our simple regret – as genuine and miserable as it may be – neither works to destroy the evil that is in us nor satisfies those we have wronged. While on the surface the idea seems attractive that God might forgive us without any punishment, if that had been the case then we would have concluded that wrongdoing was not really that serious. And we would have concluded that wrongdoing was not very serious based on what (in that case) would have been fact – that God simply shrugged and forgave. Now, shrugging and forgiving may be fine for a small and accidental thing where no real harm was meant and no real harm was done. But there is a lot worse going on in this world than small and accidental things, and a notable percentage of people are involved at least sometimes in these more destructive and more deliberate wrongs.

Given that God has the power to heal all the harm done and restore peace and cleanness to all the souls (both the wrongdoer and the wronged), it would be arbitrary if God chose a line of badness and said "beyond this, I will not forgive." But what if God opens his power for all people who turn to him, not just those who were not that bad in the first place? (I expect that many who read this may not suspect that there is much wrong within their own souls, so I write as to those who consider "the worst of sinners" to be someone else. Those of us who follow the example of Paul should hesitate to think that the worst of sinners is anyone but ourselves, as Paul said of himself.)

If God only forgave those who were not so bad in the first place, then how could we escape the view that he saved those who were good enough? How could we deny that they owed their forgiveness in part to their own goodness – or worse, to their superiority over those who were lost – as much as to God’s mercy? But if God was willing to redeem anyone, no matter how serious the offense, then how would could we keep any idea of justice, that thing had genuinely been wrong? If God chose to merely overlook a sin, no matter how serious, then what about the harm that had been done and the vileness of some of the actions that were forgiven?

So we begin to look at justice rather than merely overlooking the wrong. What is the worst punishment that justice can ask? There is no crime for which justice may ask a worse punishment than death, especially the slow and painful death of the cross. Jesus’ punishment – the extreme punishment of death, reserved for the worst of crimes – is sufficient to satisfy justice for the most serious of offenses. In this way our atonement has left no doubt that the wrongs being atoned are not a slight matter but are in fact dreadful. In this way our fear is quieted as to whether our particular sin is beyond the price that was paid. In this way our atonement increases the disgust for wrongdoing, rather than decreasing it, in those who understand their forgiveness.

The question implied at one point of Martin’s article is, "Why Jesus? Why the Son of God?" First, it would need to be someone sinless; otherwise we could never be certain that this person did not simply pay for his own crimes. Notice also that the atonement would leave us in the unique debt of the one who atoned for us, as much to that one as to God. It is fitting that the payment should be taken on by God himself. If our debt had not been taken by God himself, then we would have had cause to honor another as much as God, and cause to doubt God’s love of us, if he had created us but left it to someone else to redeem us. In providing for all wrongdoers, our atonement makes plain that we are indebted to God’s goodness rather than our own. It demolishes boasting about our own goodness and restores us to humility; all alike are in need of mercy. And in God’s providing atonement himself, our atonement restores our trust in God rather than sending us to look elsewhere for our redemption.

Atonement Theories; What does atonement do?

This continues a response to Michael Martin, previously posted at CADRE Comments in spring of 2005.We have already looked at the resurrection's value as a sign; this value alone is enough reason for the resurrection to have occurred. But the matter of our atonement still needs to be discussed because of the resurrection’s role in it. Martin, oddly enough, discusses in detail only Origen’s primitive ransom theory -- a view that Jesus supposedly paid a ransom due to the devil, a theory which is not fully Scriptural. Martin passes over other theories of atonement just by listing a number of them and giving a blanket statement that he finds "all the historically important theories" do not explain some aspect of the atonement to his satisfaction, referencing his book The Case Against Christianity.

This response will not review every theory of atonement or respond to an entire book. For the moment, let us give Martin the benefit of the doubt and suppose that with every given theory of atonement, he has found some major point that is not addressed by that theory. But in his approach of taking each theory of atonement singly as if it could and should stand alone, it seems likely that Mr. Martin does not appreciate that the different theories of atonement are complementary. That is to say, the different theories do not necessarily compete with each other but instead work together to explain different aspects of our atonement.

On a Christian view, the whole of atonement requires a number of things. Here are some things that atonement involves:

• satisfying both justice and mercy
• causing us to despise evil
• humbling us
• leading us to trust in God by demonstrating God's trustworthiness
• cleansing us from the stain of past sin
• cleansing us from corruption and the desire to sin
• establishing a covenant (binding agreement) between us and God as the basis for becoming God's people
• planting the beginnings of eternal life inside us
• making us children of God

On a Christian view, accomplishing all that involves Jesus’ incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Holy Spirit.

There is a lot going on with the atonement. It is not a legitimate complaint to take one theory that explains one thing in particular, and dismiss it because it does not explain something else. It was probably never intended to. For example, Martin mentions the Christus Victor theory – that Jesus has won victory over the adversaries of mankind (for example, death). Given the sign value of the resurrection, the resurrection makes it plain that Jesus has won the victory over death; this is most certainly true. That one theory does not address a number of other points that need to be discussed, but that does not make it untrue. It makes it only one part of the whole picture.

Athanasius, a prominent early Christian writer, wrote a great work on atonement that is still studied today, On the Incarnation of the Word of God. In it, he refers to a number of different theories of atonement and different aspects of atonement; he does not confine himself to an either-or view of atonement theories. Mr. Martin's blanket dismissal of all atonement theories rests on a view that one view of atonement should be the whole picture, and is not allowed to be only a part of a bigger picture. My response here is that the only thing required is a simple change of perspective: the atonement accomplishes more than one theory may discuss, and it's appropriate to discuss them separately.

Was Adam's Sin Imputed To Us?

Adrian Warnock has been blogging his way through Romans demonstrating why he believes in penal substitution as the right model of atonement. I've commented a few times that Christ is surely our substitute, but taking that alone leads to a diminished view of atonement. I'll explain more fully what I mean. I would like to begin my response focused on one key assumption of Adrian's:

The point is clear — just as Adam’s sin was imputed to us, so Jesus’ righteousness is also imputed to us! (See all of Adrian's post)

This leads directly to the question: Was Adam's sin imputed to us? This is the passage being discussed:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned -- for before the Law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those not sinning in the likeness of Adam's transgression, who was a pattern of the one to come. (Romans 5:12-14)

This passage is at the heart of the question: exactly what do we mean by "original sin"? There is more than one view of it. I know that some read this and see something along these lines: "Adam sinned. His sin was accounted to us: in Adam's one particular sin, everyone was accounted sinful."

I would like to point out a few things in this passage that make me consider the "imputed sin" interpretation to be an unlikely understanding of original sin. First, the passage does not focus only on the primeval sin at the dawn of human history, but takes into account the broad sweep of human history full of sin and death: "before the Law was given, sin was in the world", and "nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses". Also the passage seems to indicate that everyone else sinned in their own rights. It makes the distinction between Adam's trangression and the sins of the rest of the people who lived before Moses, that while Adam had a commandment and transgressed it, the others did not have the same transgression in that they had no explicit law. Paul had developed an argument from the natural law and human conscience earlier in the letter. So while the sin of others was not accounted because there was no law, death still reigned.

On the view that the whole discussion is really about one primeval sin that is put to our account, there would be no need to argue the status of peoples' own sins up until the time of Moses, or even whether the other people had sinned at all. The passage does not say that Adam's guilt was imputed to others; it says that all sinned and references the broad sweep of history.

The view of imputing one primeval sin has never been accepted among Christians as a whole, but only regionally. There has always been at least one dissenting voice within the church: the Eastern Orthodox. Some Eastern Orthodox theologians I've read say that Rome based her view of imputation from Adam based on a faulty Latin interpretation of the Greek. The Eastern Orthodox hold a view of original sin which may possibly be more ancient than Rome's, where each of us is held responsible for his own sin, not for Adam's. If this is the case, then Adam's sin was worse than "imputed"; it opened a door so that sin and death became a part of the fabric of the world, and each of us participated in the guilt of the world by our own sins.

Death and sin enter the world not by mere imputation that leaves us unaffected and untransformed, but in reality so that even the thoughts of our hearts turn to evil. The Calvinists in particular tend to emphasize that our sinful condition is not a matter of imputing a sin to us that we did not commit, but that there is a deep-seated sinfulness in us that affects everything we do. The Calvinists write about TULIP and have much to say about total depravity and the sinfulness of our lives; in this context it is especially surprising to arrive at a conversation on atonement and see original sin referenced as a matter of imputation rather than a matter of depravity. Atonement also tackles mankind's depravity, our evil inclination. By the nature of the problem, atonement must cause the death of our evil inclination, must cause our return to God, must effect the reversal of our depravity: our repentance.

The catastrophic effects which Calvinists so eloquently describe in their doctrine of Total Depravity are not really consistent with a view that Adam's sin comes to us only by imputation, that we are affected only by representation. We ourselves are direct participants in the fall of the world. And as redeemed, we are direct participants in the new creation and the healing of the world.

If we ourselves participate in the fall of the world, if our evil inclination and our depravity are considered part of the problem, then that leads to a different view of the nature of the atonement. The atonement involves more than substitution, more than representation, more than imputation; the atonement also brings about a new reality, makes us part of a new creation.

Please note that I have never argued against Christ being our substitute. There is a very real substitution that is part of the atonement. The problem comes only when we try to make it the whole; for that leaves everything else -- the defeat of depravity and the evil inclination, repentance, faith, the new creation -- out of the atonement. If you'll pardon a bad joke, it's a view of atonement which is very limited.

Atonement: The Incompleteness of the Penal Substitution Model

There have been discussions around the 'net of understanding our atonement. Particularly, the discussion has centered around the place which penal substitution should play in our understanding of atonement. Here is a brief overview of why penal substitution cannot stand alone as a theory of atonement:

• "Transaction theology" at its worst ends up taking the holiness out of our redemption;
• Focus on atonement-as-substitution removes or displaces the discussion of our transformation;
• Focus on the "transaction" aspects also obscures the active role of Christ in being the agent of our redemption not just the price tag needed for some other effective agent;
• Focus on substition also turns the cross of Christ into an event at which we are spectators or beneficiaries but not participants

These are not minor points of the atonement, and we cannot afford to have them displaced by giving center stage to a theory which pushes these things onto the sidelines. As important as it is to understand that Christ died for us, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring us back to God, we must not forget that "atonement" is not fully satisfied until our fellowship and communion with God Himself is restored.

Omnipotence, Weakness, and the Cross of Christ

"The weakness of God is stronger than man's strength." -- I Cor 1:25

Every school of theology starts somewhere. Some schools of theology begin with God's omnimax characteristics as their most basic foundation: Omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence. It's assumed that, from there, someone can logically determine what should be known about God.

This approach eventually runs up against the cross of Christ, which neither omnipotence nor omniscience nor omnipresence could ever have predicted. God does not present himself to us in omnipotence but in weakness. Would a theological school do better to have a foundation of God's omnipotence or a foundation of God's weakness as shown in the cross of Christ?

Paul lays out his vision of the good news: "I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (I Cor 2:2), and "No one can lay any foundation other than that which is already laid, which is Jesus Christ." (I Cor 3:11).

To begin with anything other than Jesus is to miss God's cornerstone, Christ, who is "a stone that causes men to stumble, and a rock that makes them fall." It is much, much more "sensible" to follow God's omnipotent strength by a path of logic, and to base our ideas of God on his sovereign power. The problem is basic: that is not the thing upon which God bases his relationship to us; rather the cornerstone of our relationship with God is Christ's weakness, even his suffering and death.

What, would I do away with teaching God's omnipotence? Not at all, but I would put it in its place. When omnipotence did not suit God's purpose, he cast it aside in favor of the weakness of the cross. Neither did he make the fact that he could overwhelm us the foundation of his relationship with us. It is very tempting to make God's awesome power the foundation of our relationship with him, his sovereignty the foundation of our thoughts. But God instead chose to approach us in love and humility and weakness, considering these to be greater. A theological school with a foundation of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence may manage to appear very wise. But one that has a foundation of the cross of Christ understands that God approaches us through Christ; that omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence are not actually God's greatest attributes; that God's power just as logically leads to despair as to hope, and that God's power only leads to hope if it is directed by his love; that therefore God's greatest attribute is love.