Tag: legal theories of atonement

Practical Universal Salvation Through the Church

The disconnect from and justification of the blatant evil in Gaza by many American Christians reveals the dark side of a faith, apparently open to genocide.[1] Rather than heightening empathy and taking up the cause of defenseless women and children and a starving population, could it be the faith enables support of mass slaughter, as it did in previous colonizing tendencies? The forced resettlement and genocide carried out on the American native population (in the name of America as the new Zion) is being repeated and consciously embraced in modern Christian Zionism, or simply evangelical or Christian nationalist sensibilities. The incapacity to recognize annihilation cannot be “deserved,” no matter the evil that may have been perpetrated or the “practical necessities,” demonstrates not only a mental but a moral failing. The question is, how is it that the Christian faith, as it is commonly practiced in this country, has become a force for evil?

Jesus Confrontation with Evil is Displaced by Legal Theories of Atonement

While there is probably no singular reason, what is clear is that Christianity as the defeat of evil has been displaced with a religion focused on individual salvation and legal justification, allowing evil to run its course. Rather than seeing the cross as a defeat of Satan and the inauguration of the reign of Christ over evil, the satanic is left undisturbed. This church is not a counter kingdom deploying the nonviolent ethics of Jesus in his reign over evil, but is a waiting room for saved souls. There is a complete disconnect between the cross and the kingdom, as the work of the cross provides legal benefits rather than constituting a real-world defeat of evil. The captivity to sin, death, and the devil, is not addressed in legal theories of the atonement, and the the cross is emptied of its kingdom purposes.

This is evident in such theories as Christian Zionism, premillennialism, and dispensationalism (see here), but all of these theories arose in the vacuum created by legal theories of atonement such as penal substitution and divine satisfaction, which displaced the New Testament understanding that Christ releases from captivity to sin, death, and evil. Legal theories deal in the theoretical realm of imputed righteousness, and what is lost is the need for a kingdom of atonement, a counter kingdom to the kingdoms of this world, in which a people can be shaped and redeemed in a practical sense (rather than in a legal or theoretical sense). The embodied, social, and practical nature of redemption means salvation is corporate and by definition a community of practice, but legal theories fragment salvation into the particular, the individual, and the disembodied, leaving aside political and social practice. Where salvation is not real-world redemption, evil is a practical necessity to participate in the politics of the kingdoms of this world. Christians are taught they must be violent, they must participate in the killing machine of nation states, as the practical necessities of this world demand wielding the sword. Enemies must be excluded and slaughtered, not loved and ushered into the kingdom. The evil of the world is too great to lay down the sword.

Sin is Participation in a Counter-Kingdom

What is missed in this worldly Christianity is that sin is participation in a kingdom. The kingdoms of this world are in rebellion against God and in league with evil, not in some abstract legal sense, but in the deadly sense of being willing to destroy the other. Salvation and safety require that the stranger, the foreigner, the enemy, be excluded, and when they encroach on “our land” or presume they can gain citizenship in our country they must be taught a lesson. Crosses outside the city, walls of exclusion, Alligator Alcatraz’s, ice agents in masks, will save us from being the door mat of the world. Where the church is a universally open kingdom, and for this reason is not a kingdom of evil, the kingdoms of this world are exclusive and this exclusion is definitive of the kingdom of sin.

While we might refer to the church as a “spiritual kingdom,” what is meant by spiritual has come to mean not embodied or practiced, and thus is a means to not love the enemy, to not turn the other cheek, or to refuse taking up the cross. These are “spiritual” and other worldly and not meant for kingdoms of practice. In other words, sin is rebellion against God (not just weakness or sensuality), a defiant will to power, in which we would live from our resources, from our strength, from our kingdom, and not God’s. Spiritualizing the commands of Jesus and his kingdom is one way to remain good citizens of the kingdom of sin.

To continue to bow to the “god of this world” and submit to the idolatry of Mot (the god of death) the realm of this aeon must maintain its integrity as a kingdom unto itself. It cannot be perceived as a counter-kingdom, dependent upon separation, rebellion, and alienation from God. The demonic servitude, evident in pro-genocide policies, can endure only where the power of the cross is evacuated by refusal to recognize the monstrous evil all serve in the kingdoms of this world. Sin is dismissed as “error” or “weakness” or “legal guilt” and the demonic delusion Christ exposed and defeated is allowed to continue.

To transfer our allegiance out of the kingdoms of darkness into the kingdom of Christ, we have to recognize Christ, the Lord of history, has defeated the principalities and powers. The old aeon of sin continues, but the reign of Christ has begun, which is not to say it is the consummate kingdom but it is the inaugurated kingdom of the new age (now and not yet). The reign of God in Christ is a present reality in which new birth, heavenly citizenship, new creation, resurrection life, is entry into this kingdom. Where legal atonement theory can hardly be connected to the kingdom, Christ’s defeat of evil can only be understood in a kingdom context. Exodus is not only for ancient Israel, but the cross means all are released from bondage to the Pharaohs of this world through serving a new King and kingdom.

Jesus is the Presence of His Kingdom

The passage from John the Baptist to Jesus, is from one of preparing for the kingdom to announcing the kingdom has come. “The time has come, . . . the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (1:15). Jesus “went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people” (Matt 4:23). In Paul’s view Christ has undertaken “an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things” (Eph 1:10). This administrative summing up is not a delayed or future reign. As Jesus says, “The kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt 12:28; Luke 11:20).

According to Leslie Newbigin, “If the New Testament spoke only of the proclamation of the kingdom there could be nothing to justify the adjective “new.” The prophets and John the Baptist also proclaimed the kingdom. What is new is that in Jesus the kingdom is present.”[2] “Jesus came into Galilee announcing the good news of God and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, the reign of God is at hand: repent and believe the good news'” (Mark 1:14-15). Jesus proclaims the message of the kingdom and he does the work of the kingdom as in him the kingdom is dynamically active and present.[3] He said, “If I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt. 12:28). He casts out demons, and this is the sign that Satan is bound: “Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house” (Matt 12:29). As Paul describes, “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way” (2 Thess 2:7). This is enacted at the cross, “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself” (John 12:31-32). 

In addition to casting out demons and binding Satan, the third mark of the presence of the kingdom are the miracles of Jesus. Jesus replied to John the Baptist’s question about the coming Messiah, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (Matt 11:4-5).  These are signs the kingdom of salvation has come: the healing of the blind points to Jesus power to heal spiritual blindness; the healing of the lame means Jesus can heal spiritual disability; the healing of leprosy testifies Jesus can purify; the healing of the deaf shows Jesus can penetrate obtuseness and deception; and the raising of the dead demonstrates Jesus’ power over death and the capacity to give life. This sign points to Jesus’ resurrection and the resurrection already available in Christian baptism (Rom 6:1). According to John (in Revelation 20), the resurrection from the dead has already occurred, and we need not wait on the millennium. According to Paul, we have already been raised up and made alive together with Christ (Eph 2:6; Col 2:12-13; 3:1).

Matthew provides a fourth indicator of the presence of the kingdom in his record of Jesus answer to John: “the good news is preached to the poor” (Matt. 11:5). The good news of the promised kingdom is specifically for the poor, the broken, and the enslaved (Is 61:1). A fifth sign of the kingdom, also predicted in Isaiah (as well as Jer 31:34; Mic 7:18-20; Zech 13:1) is the forgiveness of sins: “The people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity” (Is 33:24–Is 34). Jesus heals the paralytic to demonstrate he can forgive sins: “‘But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—He said to the paralytic, ‘I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home’” (Mk 2:10–11).

The sixth mark of the kingdom’s presence was Jesus new teaching about its internal realization: “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21). To say it is internal does not, of course, exclude its corporate and embodied nature. His is a spiritual kingdom in that it is not the nationalistic kingdom Israel expected – a caution to those who would equate Christ’s kingdom with territorial or material kingdoms. As Paul says, “The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17).[4]

Universal Salvation Through the Church

As Newbigin sums up, in Christ “we are talking about the reign and the sovereignty of God over all that is, and therefore we are talking about the origin, meaning, and end of the universe and of all human history within the history of the universe.”[5] The Bible describes the blessing of all nations, not just one, and the completion of God’s purposes in all of creation and not just some part, as the history it records is bringing all of creation and history to its divine end. The body of Christ is the means of an all-inclusive salvation: “there is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph 4:6).

According to Sergius Bulgakov, “One should not diminish the ontological significance of this unity by transforming it into merely a figure, a simile: like a body or similar to a body. On the contrary, the apostle speaks precisely about one body (Eph. 4:4–6), in direct relation with the unity of God. The Church is not a conglomerate, but a body; and, as such, it is not quasi-one, but genuinely one, although this unity is not empirical, but substantial, ontological.”[6] The unity increases in and through God as it “grows with a growth which is from God” (Col 2:19). It is the realization of the ontological unity of the Trinity, the experience of the foundation of creation experienced in the perfection of creation. This unifying work has no limit: “Christ is the head of humankind and therefore lives in all humankind.”[7] Bulgakov ties this universality directly to the church: “The Church is the general foundation of creaturely being, its beginning and goal. The problem of the Church is posed here outside of historical concreteness, outside of the limits of space and time, outside of specific church organizations.”[8] There are no limits to the church mystically or ontologically, anymore than there are limits to the incarnation: “the incarnation of the Lord as the divine-human person of Christ consisted in the assumption of the whole Adam, “perfect” humanity. There are no limits to this assumption, either external or internal.”[9]

Christ is the goal of all humanity, and thus all humanity “belongs to the Church.” The good tidings are for “all people” (Luke 2:10–11) and the salvation is “before the face of all people: a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel” (vv. 30–32). “The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men” (Titus 2:11). God “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). Those who would limit the number or who would divide the means, contradict the identity of Christ. There are no limits to the Logos’ assumption of humanity (“becoming flesh,” in John 1:1) or limits to the Holy Spirit. As Peter says on the day of Pentecost, quoting the prophet Joel, ‘it shall come to pass in the last days, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh’” (Acts 2:17). The “whole universe belongs to the Church. The universe is the periphery, the cosmic face of the Church.”[10] To put a limit on the work of Christ, by means of Israel or an institutional church, or to imagine the purposes of God can be delayed or thwarted by human means, or that God is only concerned with some of creation or some people is to refuse the “all in all” work of Christ.

Conclusion

How does the kingdom of God come if not in the incarnation? If it is dependent upon physical and political Israel, or on the kingdoms of this world, it will come through killing, (killing Palestinians, starving their children, killing their doctors, destroying their water, blowing up Iranians, assassinating nuclear scientists, committing murder mayhem and bloodshed). Christians who reject the cross as the reign of God demonstrate their worldly citizenship in their commitment to violence. Christians who follow Christ practice the way of the cross, not by putting people on crosses but by taking up the cross, knowing this is the cosmic reality unfolding in His millennial kingdom.

[1] There is no possible debate about the facts, or about the use of the term genocide, as this is the term chosen by two Israeli human rights organizations and by multiple Israelis. The New Yorker this week cites Moshe Ya’alon, former defense minister under Netanyahu calling it “ethnic cleansing.” Omer Bartov, a leading historian of the holocaust and a veteran of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, says what is happening in Gaza is not a war but “genocide” – “it is the attempt to wipe out Palestinian existence in Gaza.” Ehud Olmert, a former Prime Minister of Israel, says “What we are doing in Gaza is a war of devastation: indiscriminate killing of civilians. He calls it war crimes.” He says, “It is not a few bad soldiers, but government policy knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated.” Two hundred and fifty former officers in the intelligence establishment, including three ex-chiefs of Mossad, signed an open letter of Protest. A thousand Israeli Air Force veterans signed a letter describing it as a useless political and personal ploy. 

[2] Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,1978) 44.

[3] See Kim Riddlebarger, A Case for Amillennialism: Understanding the End Times (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2013) 122.

[4] I am following Riddlebarger, 122-124.

[5] Nebigin, 32

[6] Sergius Bulgakov, The Bride of the Lamb (p. 258). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Kindle Edition.

[7] Bulgakov, 261.

[8] Bulgakov, 265-266.

[9] Bulgakov, 266.

[10] Bulgakov, 267.

“Jesus Came to Fulfill the Law”: The Deadly Misunderstanding of the Pharisees and Penal Substitution

Legal theories of the atonement, such as satisfaction theories or penal substitution, not only preserve violent notions of God and allow for human violence (as in just war, capital punishment, self-defense, etc. etc.) but keep alive Zionist notions of Israel and nationalism (e.g., the United States is a Christian nation etc.) through preserving the primacy of the law given to Israel. Not only the violence of God, the violence of humanity, and violent nationalism, are preserved but the cancer afflicting the depths of human interiority are unaddressed in legal theories of the atonement. This conception leaves human desire, rivalry, jealousy, anger and need for violence, undisturbed. Worse, legal theories, such as penal substitution, serve to aggravate self-punishing oppression, as it is presumed human conscience is the voice of God. If God would torture and kill his Son, no wonder that this violent force is unleashed in self-apprehension.

Whether or not the interior and exterior can be separated, what is clear is that legal theories, in preserving the primacy of the law, leave the human disease (exterior and interior) untouched. The war rages within and without and the predominant understanding of the cross adds fuel to the fire – providing a religious confirmation for the worst forms of evil. This dark prognosis is evident at a time when some of the worst actors on the national and world stage are evangelical Christians (e.g., with the promotion of ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the denial of the environmental crisis, the promotion of right-wing racism around the world, and the looming crisis for democracy in the United States).

The New Testament converges on the human predicament, the war within and the war without, in what it does with the law – but it is not that Jesus satisfies the law, affirms and maintains the law, or confirms the eternal purposes of the law. Jesus introduces something new. Which brings us to the exegetical contention over what it means, in Matthew 5:17, that Jesus came to fulfill the law.

Doesn’t this mean, as many contend, that Jesus is the correct interpreter, putting the final exclamation point on the commandments, forever confirming the validity of the law – and isn’t this what it means that he fulfilled it and did not abolish it? Afterall, doesn’t Jesus go on to affirm that every “jot and tittle” – the “smallest letter and stroke” – must be preserved? It all has to be “accomplished” and this accomplishment will mark those who enter in to the kingdom Jesus is proclaiming. It is clear in Matthew 5, the law is not fulfilled and its purpose is not accomplished apart from the person and teaching of Christ, who does not simply confirm the law, but brings forth something new. This new order and new kingdom Jesus describes (throughout chapter 5), was promised and anticipated by the law, but it was not contained in the law. The law of love, or Jesus statement of a new ethical order, is not a restatement of the Mosaic law, but an abrogation, deepening, redirection, and contradiction of the law, all of which is aimed at Jesus and the new kingdom he is ushering in.

Perhaps the most telling point, indicating Jesus’ intent, is the final verse of this thought: “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:21). Apparently, those most attached to law-keeping have not achieved the righteousness for which the law was intended and toward which it pointed. This indicates that “fulfill” cannot simply mean that Jesus fulfills the law as in accomplishing what it foretold (as what is missing is righteousness). Certainly, he fulfilled certain predictions and filled out certain typologies, but this verse speaks of “fulfilling all righteousness.” He is ushering in a righteousness which the law could not accomplish and which the harshest advocates of the law completely missed. How did they fail and what did the miss? What is the substance of the righteousness which they could not grasp? Is it that Jews could not keep the law, and Jesus succeeds (as in legal theories of atonement), or is it that they have missed the significance of Jesus?

It is not simply that the scribes and Pharisees fail to obey the law as their problem is more serious: “For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in” (Matt. 23:13). In this passage, Jesus lays at their feet, in their attitude toward him, the history of murder: “So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets” (Matt. 23:31). They would murder the Messiah, just as their fathers did the prophets. Their problem is more serious than hypocritical showmanship or a legalistic failure. In their clinging to the retributive system of the law (which seems to promote hypocrisy), they reject and kill the Messiah. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling” (Matt. 23:37). They have stumbled over Christ, rejecting him and in so doing imagining that they were thus upholding the law and the temple.

If we imagine their problem was primarily the law, the danger is we commit the same error. In penal substitution, it is taught they could not perform the law adequately and Jesus performs it and thus fulfills it. But what this misses, is that the law always pointed beyond itself, to Jesus. Just as Jesus is the point of the temple, the sacrifices, and the priesthood, so too he is the point of torah. The scribes and Pharisees were pretty good at understanding and doing law, but what they missed was Jesus. They did not stumble over the law; they stumbled over Jesus. They clung to the sign and missed what it signified, but so too modern Christians who imagine that penal substitution – Jesus’ performance of the law and his bearing its penalty – is his fulfillment of the law.

Israel, the law, the temple, all looked forward to what they did not contain – a living temple, a peaceable kingdom, a new creation, a new birth, and a new form of humanity. As Jesus indicates, the purpose for which he came was to fulfill the law; that is to usher in righteousness and the kingdom of righteousness. In this kingdom it is not simply murder, but murderous anger that is outlawed; it is not simply adultery, but adulterous thoughts that are to be brought under control; it is not simply false promises but the very need for swearing, selfishness, or revenge that are precluded. In the bluntest manner, Jesus abrogates the law, setting forth its inherent inadequacy as an end in itself.

Throughout the passage (Matt. 5), Jesus is making direct reference to torah. “But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise” (Ex. 21:23–25). His summary of the lex talionas (“an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”) is not a gloss, interpretation, or oral tradition. Jesus is referencing the heart of the law. “You have heard that it was said, ‘AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also” (Matt. 5:38–39). The law is specific and Jesus quite specifically overturns it.

The law allows for and calls for vengeance, but in the kingdom of God there is no retribution. Jesus references the decalogue and the Mosaic law some six times only to overturn it each time. This is brought out in Jesus’ sharpest example, the passage from hatred to love: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:43-33). As David VanDrunen argues, “Many claim that ‘hate your enemy’ is a clear example of an oral tradition or contemporary teaching that illegitimately added something to the Mosaic law. On the contrary, ‘hate your enemy’ summarizes a line of Old Testament teaching. In fact, ‘hate your enemy’ was such an important part of the Mosaic legal order that no one could be a faithful Israelite without doing it.”[1]

While fellow Israelites were to receive special consideration, certain alien persons were to be hated, obliterated and shown “no favor” (no compassion, mercy or love, Deut. 7:1-2). “Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with the utmost hatred; They have become my enemies” (Ps. 13921-22). Jesus is not saying they have heard wrong (when he says, “you have heard it said”), he is saying you have heard it read from the law, but I am saying something different (Matthew 5:22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44). “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (5:45). Keeping the law, by definition, is to fall short of the kingdom of God ushered in by Jesus.

Jesus does not question the interpretation of the law given by the scribes and Pharisees. It is true, as the Pharisees point out, one should not normally associate with sinners (Psalm 1:1), one should normally obey the rules regarding fasting, and one should not work on the Sabbath – this is all according to the law. What the Pharisees failed to recognize is Jesus as the purpose, fulfillment and accomplishment of the law. Jesus’ purpose was to heal the sick and to save sinners: “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick” (Matt. 9:12). He is the bridegroom and “The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they?” (9:15). The Pharisees lack mercy and demand strict adherence to the law, and in so doing they break the law and miss its purpose: “Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent? But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,’ you would not have condemned the innocent” (Matt. 12:5–7). Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath (12:8), he is greater than the temple (12:6), and he is greater than Moses and the law (Heb. 3:3-4), but all of these are indicators of who he is.

Jesus’ fulfillment or accomplishing of the law is no simple confirmation, nor is it simply a tighter or inward confirmation rather, Jesus sets up a direct antithesis between his teaching, his kingdom, and his law of love, and the Mosaic law. It is not that the Mosaic law is abolished, but its significance is now apprehended through Christ. Just as the temple and its sacrifices take on their fulfilled meaning in Jesus as true temple and true atonement, so too all of the Mosaic law is significant in its bearing witness to Christ. The Mosaic law remains significant, as it points to this new ethic and new kingdom, with its more fulsome commandments and holistic fulfillment in Christ.

This is not an ethic for worldly kingdoms (such as Israel), grounded as they are in retribution, but the “heavenly kingdom.” Jesus came announcing this kingdom at the beginning of his public ministry, and the beatitudes (meekness, peace, love, going the second mile, etc.) mark the righteous nature of this kingdom’s citizens. It is not that these kingdom members accomplish this apart from Christ, but this is what it means that he would save his people from their sins. This kingdom ethic flows from its founder, creating a new people. Jesus is the fulfillment of all righteousness and being incorporated into his kingdom means embracing his eschatological and cosmic fulness. The law is not accomplished or fulfilled in perfect performance of its strictures, but in the appearance of its purpose.

If the scribes and Pharisees can be said to have missed Jesus by clinging to the law, so too legal theories of the atonement make the same mistake. They both miss how it is that Jesus “will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). They miss the very meaning of his name (the name “Jesus” or “Joshua” derives from Hebrew roots meaning “the Lord is salvation”) and they miss the fact that Jesus is the salvific point of the law, and the law has no point (no salvation) without him.

[1] David VanDrunen Jesus Came “Not to Abolish the Law but to Fulfill It”: The Sermon on the Mount and Its Implications for Contemporary Law, 47 Pepp. L. Rev. 523 (2020) Available at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/plr/vol47/iss2/17