Monday, August 21, 2006
Causative versus transactional.
Have grappled for years with the terminology describing Jesus' death as being substitutional in nature -- for the sins of mankind. This is such a huge, symbolic concept that I think a lot of people who otherwise would come to Christ stumble over it.
Recently, I have begun thinking more of Jesus' death as being caused directly by man's sinful nature. Using this as a logical stepping stone, I think it is easier to see the substituional nature of the event.
After all, why did Jesus die? He died because man is full of pride, and we like to be called rabbi, teacher, priest, emporer, ruler. We like to have the illusion that we have power over others and over our own circumstance. A prophet calls attention to the fact that all of these things are meaningless -- illusions of our own making and products of our own attempts to put ourselves in the seat of God. There is but One to whom we should bow down before. There is One who wields real supreme power.
The fact that Isreal tended to kill and persecute its prophets is a consistent theme in the Old Testament. How much more quick and certain would be the death of the one who is transparent to God -- the doorway, the Lamb. This One so directly called into question the common, secular order -- and the secularism of the Temple order -- that he called immediate attention to the depth of human sinfullness.
And this sinfullness reared its head, and struck out and killed Him. Jesus' death was substitutional because in the inward struggle between that of God and that of Satan, one must ultimately win -- it is a them-or-us confrontation. Our collective evil killed Jesus, so by virtue of this, Jesus died for our sins. Our sinfull nature thinks of and can see only the carnal -- the outward -- and that is what of Jesus we managed to kill. The Indwelling Power of God that was in Jesus -- the Christ -- is everlasting and could not be killed. We destroyed the giftwrapping and left the precious gift for all of humankind.
The transactional nature of the cross flows from this causative relationship -- but is not a mere intellectual argument but rather something that must be known experiencially. The fact that the crucifiction can work in our hearts to cleanse us of the very same sin that lead us to kill Christ -- that is an element that can not be explained in some awkward fashion by a layperson like me. Others as well can do a better job of pointing out the relationships between events surrounding Jesus' death and prophetic passages in the Old Testament. Others can make a hard theological case for the redemptive nature of the Cross.
I can only point in the direction my heart has wandered ...
In the Light of Christ,
~ Charles Rathmann
Have grappled for years with the terminology describing Jesus' death as being substitutional in nature -- for the sins of mankind. This is such a huge, symbolic concept that I think a lot of people who otherwise would come to Christ stumble over it.
Recently, I have begun thinking more of Jesus' death as being caused directly by man's sinful nature. Using this as a logical stepping stone, I think it is easier to see the substituional nature of the event.
After all, why did Jesus die? He died because man is full of pride, and we like to be called rabbi, teacher, priest, emporer, ruler. We like to have the illusion that we have power over others and over our own circumstance. A prophet calls attention to the fact that all of these things are meaningless -- illusions of our own making and products of our own attempts to put ourselves in the seat of God. There is but One to whom we should bow down before. There is One who wields real supreme power.
The fact that Isreal tended to kill and persecute its prophets is a consistent theme in the Old Testament. How much more quick and certain would be the death of the one who is transparent to God -- the doorway, the Lamb. This One so directly called into question the common, secular order -- and the secularism of the Temple order -- that he called immediate attention to the depth of human sinfullness.
And this sinfullness reared its head, and struck out and killed Him. Jesus' death was substitutional because in the inward struggle between that of God and that of Satan, one must ultimately win -- it is a them-or-us confrontation. Our collective evil killed Jesus, so by virtue of this, Jesus died for our sins. Our sinfull nature thinks of and can see only the carnal -- the outward -- and that is what of Jesus we managed to kill. The Indwelling Power of God that was in Jesus -- the Christ -- is everlasting and could not be killed. We destroyed the giftwrapping and left the precious gift for all of humankind.
The transactional nature of the cross flows from this causative relationship -- but is not a mere intellectual argument but rather something that must be known experiencially. The fact that the crucifiction can work in our hearts to cleanse us of the very same sin that lead us to kill Christ -- that is an element that can not be explained in some awkward fashion by a layperson like me. Others as well can do a better job of pointing out the relationships between events surrounding Jesus' death and prophetic passages in the Old Testament. Others can make a hard theological case for the redemptive nature of the Cross.
I can only point in the direction my heart has wandered ...
In the Light of Christ,
~ Charles Rathmann
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Charles,
I really appreciate this description, and I have thought of it often since you first posted it. I must confess some personal difficulty with the idea of the transactional nature of the cross in terms of it being an atonement for the sin of mankind. I have difficulty understanding how we got from "I demand mercy not sacrifice" and "or if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you" to a demand for a blood sacrifice. The causitive description makes much more sense to me.
With love,
Mark
I really appreciate this description, and I have thought of it often since you first posted it. I must confess some personal difficulty with the idea of the transactional nature of the cross in terms of it being an atonement for the sin of mankind. I have difficulty understanding how we got from "I demand mercy not sacrifice" and "or if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you" to a demand for a blood sacrifice. The causitive description makes much more sense to me.
With love,
Mark
Mark --
I, too, have struggled with the sacrificial terminology used in some Christian scripture. I think it is interesting to contrast the Abraham and Isaac story with the passion. Some will point out elements of the former that preframe us for are preophetic of the latter.
But even today, we must sacrifice for God. We must sacrifice our pride, our sin, our vanity, our self-centered natures. We must sacrifice things that keep us from the Father.
~charles rathmann~
I, too, have struggled with the sacrificial terminology used in some Christian scripture. I think it is interesting to contrast the Abraham and Isaac story with the passion. Some will point out elements of the former that preframe us for are preophetic of the latter.
But even today, we must sacrifice for God. We must sacrifice our pride, our sin, our vanity, our self-centered natures. We must sacrifice things that keep us from the Father.
~charles rathmann~
You remember all that Christmas stuff about "Glory to the newborn king" & so on? That isn't just some modern notion; that goes back as early as it gets.
Trying to find an explanation for "What was Jesus doing, anyway?" I arrived at: "They were calling him the Messiah, son of God, etc, because he really was King of Israel, in the same sense that anyone annointed by a prophet with sufficient authority was king." We even have that one case where [Elisha(?)] sends an assistant to annoint the next king in secret, whereupon said king gets right to work massacring opponents.
When Jesus goes into the Temple and starts evicting the money-changers, when the chief priests want to know where does he get his authority, all this is because he has a lot of people there following his orders rather than theirs. (They won't call in the Roman troops because everything is orderly and they don't want to do anything too embarrassing; their reputation as collaborators is already bad enough.) Jesus won't answer their questions until they tell him whether John the Baptist had authority from God...
A military (or even a non-violent) nationalist revolt against Rome was well within God's power. Subsequent revolts came very close, even though in the first one the Jews were fighting more effectively againt one another than against the Romans.
Instead of success, we are given this enormous political failure. No triumph, just a man led to do God's will even if it killed him, as it did. And somehow God's will being done and continuing to be done, despite overwhelming appearances otherwise.
This wasn't God saying: "You owe me a death, so I'm going to take this innocent man and kill him in your place." This is more like: "You all can do any fool thing you want, and I'm not going to stop you by force and violence. But I will conquer your violence, even though you won't have a clue how I'm doing it."
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Trying to find an explanation for "What was Jesus doing, anyway?" I arrived at: "They were calling him the Messiah, son of God, etc, because he really was King of Israel, in the same sense that anyone annointed by a prophet with sufficient authority was king." We even have that one case where [Elisha(?)] sends an assistant to annoint the next king in secret, whereupon said king gets right to work massacring opponents.
When Jesus goes into the Temple and starts evicting the money-changers, when the chief priests want to know where does he get his authority, all this is because he has a lot of people there following his orders rather than theirs. (They won't call in the Roman troops because everything is orderly and they don't want to do anything too embarrassing; their reputation as collaborators is already bad enough.) Jesus won't answer their questions until they tell him whether John the Baptist had authority from God...
A military (or even a non-violent) nationalist revolt against Rome was well within God's power. Subsequent revolts came very close, even though in the first one the Jews were fighting more effectively againt one another than against the Romans.
Instead of success, we are given this enormous political failure. No triumph, just a man led to do God's will even if it killed him, as it did. And somehow God's will being done and continuing to be done, despite overwhelming appearances otherwise.
This wasn't God saying: "You owe me a death, so I'm going to take this innocent man and kill him in your place." This is more like: "You all can do any fool thing you want, and I'm not going to stop you by force and violence. But I will conquer your violence, even though you won't have a clue how I'm doing it."
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