More about Jesus' death... still thinking...

After posting a few days ago on the Beautiful Gospel, under the heading "Why did Jesus die?" I thought I should say something more...

Because I feel as though the explanation of Jesus dying on the cross I gave, is true but it is once again not all of the truth.

Christianity is a mystery, it is not easily explained. And we have tended as humans to want simple, clear, step by step explanations - largely especially in western Christianity because we like things clear and logical.

So when I read through my last post, it seemed that I had done away with a belief in the idea that Jesus sacrificed himself for my sins (known as the penal substitution doctrine.) But, there is a lot in the Bible about the idea of Jesus being the sacrificial lamb, whose death paid the price for our sins. I do not believe we can actually write that out of the explanation. But that aspect is the one that western conservative Christianity has focussed on: the metaphor of God as judge but sending his Son Jesus to take the punishment for us. And I think that Brad Jersak, and many many others, have wanted to show that this is not the only way of seeing the cross, this is not the only truth - although it is true. But by emphasising this metaphor, we may have ended up showing God as an angry judge/headmaster, requiring appeasement, sending his own son to pay the penalty on our behalf - and not giving enough weight to the other sides of the story, such as God's love.

There are various different facets of Jesus' death and resurrection in the Bible, and I think they all partly explain what happened there on the first Good Friday. I don't have time nor probably the ability to do justice to this. But I wanted to point out that there are lots of ways of viewing the cross.

For example, John in his gospel compares Jesus being lifted up on the cross, to the bronze serpent which was set up on a pole in the wilderness for the sake of the Israelites, who were being bitten by poisonous snakes and dying. God told Moses to make a bronze serpent on a pole, so the Israelites could go and look at it when they got bitten, and be cured of the snakebite and not die. John says that Jesus was to be lifted up like the bronze serpent. In other words, we look to him on the cross for healing, and for life - not in this case for absolution.

Also, Jesus is likened to the Passover Lamb - well in that case, the Israelites did not kill the lamb to pay a substitutionary penalty for sins (that was a different sacrifice altogether) - but at the first Passover, it was so that they could paint the blood on their doorposts as a sign - so that the angel of death would not enter their houses but pass over them. So if Jesus is the Passover Lamb, it means he dies so that we, as believers, can be protected/saved from death - again, as a way to life.

When Jesus died, the veil in the Temple was torn in two. This symbolises that the barrier between God and human beings was ripped apart through Jesus' death - so that we can now have direct access to God in prayer, and know his presence, and as it says in Hebrews, approach his throne unafraid. So here Jesus' body being broken, is shown to mean that he opened the way for us to God.

Dan is good at putting things into diagrams to help him figure them out. After reading my last blog post, he showed me this diagram he had come up with:



Father...................Son                                                                                

           JUSTICE                                                                            

Words like sacrifice, substitution,                                                                         
propitiation, expiation        

Christ......................Satan

                                                                                                                                     VICTORY

Words  like defeat over demons, spiritual powers,

                                                                                                   crushing the serpent's head, defeat of evil etc.



                                                         

    

                                                           Jesus.............................Me
                                                                             LOVE

   Words about restoring me to God, reconciliation, 

giving me eternal life

So there are many ways of looking at the cross. Whilst I would wish that we didn't have a crucifixion at the heart of our faith... I am at the same time grateful for it - how could I not be. Thankfully, it was a death followed by a resurrection! Jesus didn't end up dead, but alive. So we don't have to stay grieving, we can look on to the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances, and to how Jesus speaks to us today in our hearts. Thank goodness for that!