In my last post, Why Jesus Died, I argued for a different -- and more historically robust -- understanding of the crucifixion.Another problem with PSA, it seems to me, is that there's really no reason for the resurrection. It's little more than Jesus, "Ta-Da! See, I told you that I was divine!" (Which, by the way, Jesus attests only ambiguously, and primarily in the Gospel of John. Take a deep breath, people. I'm not questioning Jesus' divinty; I'm just saying that Jesus himself wasn't particularly adamant about it.) There must be more to Jesus' resurrection than another proof of his divinity.
So, why a resurrection? More importantly to me, as one who is increasingly shunned by evangelicals and in the same room with liberal mainliners (and Catholics), why a real, historical, physical resurrection?
Well, if you found some resonance with my previous post on the crucifixion, then the resurrection of Jesus is all the more important. In Jesus, God identified with humankind in an unprecendented way -- this is why the divinity (i.e., non-mortality) of Jesus really matters. So deeply did God enter into the uniquely human experience of godforsakeness that God even died. God experienced grief in the shattering of the eternal relationality of the Trinity. Yes, God really died.
So, when Jesus rose from the grave, it was more than the resusitation of a corpse (hell, I've seen Criss Angel do that!). Instead, it was a foretaste of the eschaton. I described Jesus' miracles in the last post as significations of the new, eschatological age that Jesus the Messiahinaugurated. The resurrection is the capstone event in the inauguration.
Since Adam, death has been the primary definer of mortality and, as far as we can tell, the one thing that differentiates human beings from god(s) -- thus the constant tension between human and mortals and their frequent stories of romantic love for one another in ancient Greek and Roman mythology. Death was the one thing that God didn't experience, and it was the one inevitability of human existence.
So, for God to experience death -- especially a death that was sacrificially important -- is
pivotal. For God to conquer death and invite all the rest of us humans into immortal existence is even better.
In other words, Jesus' resurrection confirms all of his teachings about the Kingdom and all of the miraculous healings with which he is credited, for it is the ultimate signifier of the new, eschatological age. Jesus is, as Paul wrote, "the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep." (Paul wrote thus because he was attempting to convince Corinthians who believed in Jesus' resurrection to also believe in their own future resurrection.)
What I'm saying is that Jesus (God) really, materially healed people -- if he hadn't, then the miracle stories are without worth.
Jesus (God) really, materially died.
And Jesus (God) really, materially rose from death.
It's only in his resurrection, his victory, that his death has any meaning at all.
Happy Easter, everyone.
So, when Jesus rose from the grave, it was more than the resusitation of a corpse (hell, I've seen Criss Angel do that!). Instead, it was a foretaste of the eschaton. I described Jesus' miracles in the last post as significations of the new, eschatological age that Jesus the Messiahinaugurated. The resurrection is the capstone event in the inauguration.
Since Adam, death has been the primary definer of mortality and, as far as we can tell, the one thing that differentiates human beings from god(s) -- thus the constant tension between human and mortals and their frequent stories of romantic love for one another in ancient Greek and Roman mythology. Death was the one thing that God didn't experience, and it was the one inevitability of human existence.
So, for God to experience death -- especially a death that was sacrificially important -- is
pivotal. For God to conquer death and invite all the rest of us humans into immortal existence is even better. In other words, Jesus' resurrection confirms all of his teachings about the Kingdom and all of the miraculous healings with which he is credited, for it is the ultimate signifier of the new, eschatological age. Jesus is, as Paul wrote, "the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep." (Paul wrote thus because he was attempting to convince Corinthians who believed in Jesus' resurrection to also believe in their own future resurrection.)
What I'm saying is that Jesus (God) really, materially healed people -- if he hadn't, then the miracle stories are without worth.
Jesus (God) really, materially died.
And Jesus (God) really, materially rose from death.
It's only in his resurrection, his victory, that his death has any meaning at all.
Happy Easter, everyone.
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Just because a theory wasn't officially named and then coined until the 16th century, it doesn't mean that this concept was created then. Paul writes as early as AD 57 that "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21)."
Just because somebody discussed it and gave it a name later doesn't alter it's historicity.
Grace and peace,
Scott,
I wasn't aware that all illumination had to be found complete within the first century, lest it be untrue. If this is the case, we are now without a Pope. If this is the case, we are now without the majority of our doctrines in the Christian faith. Though I believe we must have a basis for our belief dating back to an earlier time period, so we can maintain unity with all believers, past and present, it is a fallacy to argue that for something to be true, it must be traditional in its complete form. If this were the case, hardly anything in Christianity could be believed.
Regardless, we never see any theology hammered out in the early church. There is no organized Thomistic cosmological argument - but there is an early form of it. Likewise, with penal substitution the early church fathers consistently spoke of how our sins were taken upon Christ on the cross. Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Trypho, points out how absurd it is to question God for offering Christ as a sacrifice (Dialogue with Trypho, XCV). Or what of Eusebius of Caesarea when he said that Christ took upon our sin, that He became a curse for us (Proof of Christianity)?
There are others I can turn to, but often times people re-read these men under a grid where we refuse to believe in penal substitution. However, it was clearly taught if you read their work straight-forward and without a bias. Considering I accept a multitude of views on the atonement, accepting penal substitution was not central to my beliefs - so I had no problem going back (a few months ago) and exploring the issue. The evidence for it is overwhelming. So much so that I think it becomes the predominant view because there is so much scripture on it and it was taught in the early church.
You're also making an appeal to the consequence of the belief (or possible consequences) - this is a logical fallacy. A belief taken too far or a belief not logically followed says nothing to the truthfulness of a belief. If we were to follow such logic, we could say that the Catholic Church should abandon a belief in a Pope since such a belief has been used to justify heinous crimes. Or we could say that Calvinism leads to murder since John Calvin burned people at the stake.
Looking to the consequences of a belief doesn't do much, hence the logical fallacy.
Joel, I read many of the ancient writers to try to understand Christianity long before I encountered even modern Orthodoxy or anything 'emergent'. I read them fully and in context. Unless you bring a lens already shaped by enlightenment style natural law and the penal substitution ideas that flowed from it, there is no thread of penal substitution to be found. The elements of substitution that are found pretty clearly fit under ransom. Most of the remaining threads (and really the predominant one) are recapitulation. Together, those are typically called 'Christus Victor' theories today. There are variations among them and in the discussion and both developed a great deal over the centuries. But that was pretty much the scope of the theological exploration of the atonement for the first thousand years of the church. That's simply a historical fact and one attested by a broad spectrum of church historians, many of the more modern of whom do and did personally hold to the validity of the penal substitution or satisfaction views. Obviously you have convinced yourself otherwise, but it's not a particularly disputed historical fact in the development of atonement theories in the church.
In fact, you can't really find any thread that ascribes a problem to God until you get to the thread that is typically attributed to Anselm, the satisfaction theory. Penal substitution is at its heart just a reworking of satisfaction using the tenets of enlightenment-style views of natural law binding God to replace the feudal honor/shame tenets which bound God in the satisfaction perspective.
Your attempted point about judging a perspective on its consequences is simply nonsense. By that logic we would be unable to call the principles behind Nazism or Marxism morally bankrupt on the basis of the consequences of their application. I think most people would reject that idea. I don't attribute the specific examples you cited the outworking of any particular theological view. They are simply what happens when people have and are corrupted by power, regardless of their theology, religion, or lack thereof. Whereas Nazism and Marxism are explicitly political ideas so the political outworkings or consequences are relevant. It's particularly sad when this happens in the church because it's so clearly not the way we are supposed to live or exercise any power that may be granted us. As a result of the corruption of power we have Orthodox pogroms, Roman Catholic inquisitions, Protestant tortures, executions, and even massacres, anabaptist shunnings and all the rest. None of those are particularly related to theology, per se, though of course it's always cloaked as such. They are all ways to exercise political power.
My examples have been the consequences of the things people say and believe about God (and also what it means to be a human being - a closely interrelated idea). Those consequences are directly related and relevant in judging a theology about God. Having read The Shack yesterday, I understand now why so many of the more strongly Protestant in conscious theology reacted so strongly against it. The God in that novel is not a God who has any place in that strain of theological thought. (I hadn't really planned to read The Shack. A Buddhist friend of ours bought it for my wife and told her that book really helped her understand Christians and why they even want to believe in their God. With that sort of introduction, I had to read it. [g])
God died! Of course he did. He promised he would.
Normally in a covenant-cutting ceremony, Abram after cutting each animal in two pieces would have walked between the halves in order to confirm his oath. He would have intoned a formal imprecation against himself, "May this happen to me (may I end up like this animals!) if I don't keep this agreement." However in Genesis 15, something utterly startling and without precedent happened. Instead of Abram walking between the halves of the animals, God did (taking the form of a miniature cloud and pillar of fire). In this action, God takes upon himself the inferior covenant position in his promise with Abram. God implicitly answers Abram’s question in Genesis 12:1-3:
“If I don’t make you a great nation and give you this land as I have promised, and bless you as I promised, and bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you, and bless all the nations through your seed, then may I be sundered like these animals.”
And when that didn’t happen, God became like those animals, as promised.
God’s death on the cross ended the Old Covenant. The end of the Old Covenant became very public 40 years later (Biblically speaking) when the Temple came down and when quite literally no stone was left upon another (except, ironically, the wall of the Court of the Gentiles which was not measured for destruction and still exists today). Jesus replaces the Temple. His perfect sacrifice replaces the imperfect system of morning and evening sacrifices. His Spirit, as it lives on within us, replaces the Law. God’s death means Life within us. God’s death means He lives on through me … if I let him.
I can love a God like that! And I can love my neighbor with a Love like that … and I am still working on both. Happy Easter everyone.
Tony, sounds like you and my husband, David, have more in common than I thought. :-D I will be sure to share this post with him. Peace to you my friend!
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