There’s a natural follow-up question that surfaces when you start poking around at penal substitutionary atonement: “Well then why did Jesus die?”
It’s important that I say something upfront here: I have no idea. All of this is, of course, my own wrestling and questions and opinions. I have no idea why Jesus died – that alone feels scandalous to type out, because, of all things, you’re supposed to know that. Goodness, I’ve been shamed as mother because my kindergartner did not have that on lockdown, so needless to say, you’re expected to KNOW, and to know confidently.
But I don’t. How could I? I wasn’t there, it happened over 2,000 years ago, the Bible says different things about it and leaves some question marks, and such knowledge is ultimately outside of my reach. I have thoughts, but I do not know. I offer only musings about what’s beyond the realm of knowing.
Maybe Jesus died because he was a revolutionary and he subverted the Roman Empire and powerful governments tend to kill prophets and revolutionaries. Maybe Jesus died because everyone was crying, “Crucify him!” and Pilate was a coward and a pushover. Maybe Jesus died – maybe God died – because we bloodthirsty humans tend to demand violence and he’d rather do violence to himself than hurt any of us. Maybe Jesus died – God died – to rescue us from ourselves, because he wanted to show us another way, the way of self-sacrifice and radical compassion.
Maybe God didn’t die to save us from what God was going to do to us if God didn’t die.
I think it’s easy to forget that when Jesus died on the Cross, that was God dying on the Cross. As Christians we believe that Jesus is in fact God, but we rarely frame the Cross this way – we don’t say that God died. We generally talk about it with God and Jesus in their distinct Trinity roles, with the Son submitting to the will of the Father, the Son absorbing the sin of the world as the Father turned his face away.
Also, that whole Father turned his face away thing – I don’t think anyone believes that Mary, Jesus’ mother, turned her face away. Do we think she loved her son more than his Heavenly Father did? Does Love turn its back on its beloved? Does God the Father react to sin with disgust while God the Son befriends sinners?
Is Jesus God or not? Are all members of the Trinity the same in essence or not?
Isn’t Jesus God incarnate and precisely how we have any conception at all of what God is like? If we believe Jesus is God, then why do we think of the Cross in terms of God and Jesus being so different, with one the enforcer and the other the wrongfully-charged victim, one the Abraham and the other the Isaac? Why don’t we talk aboutGod being on the Cross? I mean…wasn’t he?
Maybe Jesus wasn’t a scapegoat. Maybe God died, God rose, God loves, God forgives, God endures.
It’s puzzling that evangelicals tend to insist that God had to have justice in the form of Jesus’ blood in order to haves relationships with us, like God would never consider getting on our level because “holiness,” like God could never accommodate human limitations because “righteousness.”
I’m really sick of this perception of God. It’s the bratty kid at school who’s so impressed with himself that nobody wants to play with him. It’s the snooty coworker who lets you know she’s better than you. Is God better than me? Let’s hope so! But what makes an entity better than another isn’t whether or not it’s objectively superior; it’s whether or not it views itself as superior. Humility makes us better, not haughtiness.
But besides the fact that this notion of God is off-putting and makes God into a narcissist, it’s also completely contrary to a slew of examples of God’s behavior in Scripture:
“God stoops. From walking with Adam and Eve through the garden of Eden, to traveling with the liberated Hebrew slaves in a pillar of cloud and fire, to slipping into flesh and eating, laughing, suffering, healing, weeping, and dying among us as part of humanity, the God of Scripture stoops and stoops and stoops and stoops. At the heart of the gospel message is the story of a God who stoops to the point of death on a cross. Dignified or not, believable or not, ours is a God perpetually on bended knee, doing everything it takes to convince stubborn and petulant children that they are seen and loved.”
–Rachel Held Evans, Inspired (emphasis mine)
To insist that a holy God couldn’t possibly accompany us, befriend us, forgive us, love us, see us, become us, is to utterly disregard the incarnation and to miss the point of the crucifixion.
What is holiness anyway? Is it purity, separation, spotlessness, and refusal to engage what is deemed inferior? Or is it squatting to speak to a child eye to eye, touching diseased bodies, dining with society’s bottom-dwellers, weeping over the dead, feeding the impoverished, dignifying the disabled and the female and the foreigner, washing dirty feet, and cooking breakfast for your friends?
Maybe holiness means moving toward instead of moving away.
Maybe Jesus died – God died – to convince us that his love is even bigger than death. Maybe the Cross was a fusion of love and holiness: I love you this much, and I’ll move so close to you that I’ll endure floggings and thorns and nails and suffocation as I hang from a tree. There’s nothing I won’t give or do to convince you you’re loved, and that I’ll always come near. That I always HAVE been near.
Maybe God had to die to get through to us, and being Love itself, God was willing to do that.
Maybe grace is really grace. Maybe forgiveness is freely given. Maybe we’ve been separating ourselves from God more than he has been separating himself from us. Maybe he simply loves us more than we can fathom. Maybe he was never going to condemn us, and we were always going to condemn him. Maybe he’s always been near.
Bono was once asked about his album title, “So how do you disassemble an atomic bomb?” He answered, “With love.”
I think humanity can be a lot like an atomic bomb. Packed with destructive potential, and primed to explode, if not handled tenderly and reset for a new purpose. Jesus disassembled our atomic bomb. He said, I imagine, “You want blood? Here, have mine. Poured out for you. PS – I love you.”
“So let’s be clear, the cross is not about the appeasement of a monster god. The cross is about the revelation of a merciful God. At the cross we discover a God who would rather die than kill his enemies. The cross is where God in Christ absorbs sin and recycles it into forgiveness. The cross is not what God inflicts upon Christ in order to forgive. The cross is what God endures in Christ as he forgives.” — Brian Zahnd
For additional reading:
- How Does “Dying For Our Sins” Work? by Brain Zahnd
- The Need for a More Christlike God: An Interview with Brad Jersak conducted by Pete Enns
“The cross was not God’s invention—it was ours. The cross was an instrument of torture, a method of intimidation created by an empire that needed to keep its conquered cities in check. In all our need for an eye for an eye, I have to wonder sometimes if Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is an answer not to God’s wrath, but to ours. I have to wonder if God, having listened to us cry for blood, decided to offer his own. Perhaps Jesus hung on a cross to demonstrate the inevitable outcome of retributive justice in the face of an empire that used violence to expand, that survived only by placing societies under its oppressive heel. Jesus didn’t hold up a sword in response to a sword. He took the sword into His side, and in doing so, revealed our brutality for what it was.” – Mike McHargue, Finding God in the Waves
Photo credits in order:
- Photo by jennifer Martin on Unsplash (Library in Ancient Ephesus)
- Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash
- Photo by Rachel on Unsplash
- Photo by John Salzarulo on Unsplash
- Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash
