Sin, Salvation, and The Savior
April 23, 2010
Memo to Self:
Skip the witty lead-in.
Pass on the relevant but lengthy personal anecdote.
Don’t bother with an introduction that ends up longer than the actual post.
For once would you just get to the point. These people have other things to do, you know.
Memo back to Self:
I know I know I know.
Quit nagging me already!
Oh. Hi. I’m sorry you had to hear that.
I’ve been telling you for the last week that I don’t believe in the concept of eternal damnation, fire and brimstone, or that anyone will spend all eternity in perpetual time-out for their sins, so now seems a good time to take that a little further as to how believing all that impacts how I believe about sin, salvation, and Jesus as Savior.
Sin. Salvation. Savior.
Here is me stating the obvious: as long as children die of starvation in a world where others live in abundance, as long as anyone hates another, as long as even one living being is treated with indignity, until everyone is valued equally, and until all oppression and violence is wiped from the face of the earth, any arguments about our enormous capacity for sin seem unnecessary. Call it spiritual brokenness, the actions of a wounded soul, wrongdoing, transgression, sin, it makes no never mind. These things that we do, by whatever name we call them unleash injury on others, damage ourselves, and grieve the heart of a God who desires so much more for His creation.
Christian teaching refers to the presence of sin that covers our world as original sin, the idea being that the most holy, righteous and adorable among us are sinners to the core. Adam and Eve sunk their teeth into a crispy morsel of forbidden fruit and at that moment humanity was sunk, so that on all our human resumes were stamped the words, fallen being and the only means by which that label could ever be replaced with new creation would be through the salvific work of Jesus on the cross.
In Christ’s death on the cross, sin and salvation collided and in that moment something so extraordinary took place that we’ve spent our lives as the church trying to make sense of it all, yet despite the best formulated ruminations of theologians and doctrinal decrees, we’ve hardly scratched the surface of all the mystery held in that one eventful day that unfolded in the course of human history. Even so, we can’t leave it alone. We keep coming back and trying to unravel more and more of it because we’re drawn to the cross like moths to a flame. And what a radiant flame it is.
Christ’s atoning work on the cross, the way of salvation provided, is understood and described in a variety of ways within the Christian tradition, each providing a different angle on what salvation and Jesus’ role as our Savior means. Two of the more familiar theories, and ones that many of us in the church tend to overlap and meld together are the ransom theory and the theory of satisfaction.
Ransom Atonement
Mark 10:45 tells us that “Jesus came to be a ransom for many,” which I understand to mean that we were under the control of sin; in essence sin had taken us from God and now we were owned by sin. So that we might be returned and reconciled to God, Jesus paid the ultimate price as a ransom that bought us back. In this way we doubly belong to God; both in that we were born of God and were then bought back by God.
Satisfaction Atonement
In Romans 6:23 Paul warns that “the wages of sin are death.” In our sinful condition we have dishonored God as His creation, and having caused such damage to all humankind through our sin God requires that a penalty be paid. We owe a debt for the wrong we’ve done but the only way to satisfy such a debt must come through the offering of a perfect sacrifice. The irony and poignancy of the story is that it is God alone who can provide the debt that must be paid, that being through the gift of Jesus, who as fully God and fully man can be the only true and perfect sacrifice.
This is atonement as I understood it for much of my life but in time I found them to be problematic in that both of these theories portrayed God in a way that doesn’t ring true for me by offering the image of a God who demands human sacrifice and the literal shedding of blood to move him to forgive sin. The gods of mythology and religious cults predating Christianity demanded human sacrifice but then they were vindictive gods, temperamental, arbitrarily ticked off by humankind, cruel and at times little more than a ramped up version of the neighborhood bully. None of them were the God who is Love. None of these were the God of whom Jesus proclaimed; the God who is a loving shepherd, a widow searching for her lost coin, a mother hen who guards her children, a father rushing to the side of his wayward son, a creator who feeds the birds of the air and clothes the flowers of the field.
Let me be clear about something. At the moment of Jesus’ death, I unequivocally believe the earth and all creation were changed to the core in a way that best be described as supernatural mystery. Even though I don’t believe the spilling of blood was required by God, it’s still true for me to to say that Jesus brought salvation for all and everyone. The Savior of the world had come and through him God’s saving presence entered our dusty little planet and washed over it like a tsunami in an arid desert. I kid you not. The world the second after Jesus died was a completely different world than it had been only one second before. The veil was torn in half. The death of Jesus broke through the darkness and three days later Jesus’ resurrection brought forth new life and the end of all hopelessness and for this one stone in the wall of my faith I’d take a bullet.
I’m so failing here at saying what I want to say and never will be able to say. I have no words nor voice to speak of it. Not in a way that’s worthy of it. Okay, continuing on.
Listen, as much as I believe that something utterly glorious and mysteriously divine happened on the cross that altered this world as we know it and set us free from a destiny never meant for us, I no longer believe that God sent Jesus to die. God didn’t demand someone die for us. God purposed that someone live for us. The Son of God was sent to embody and reveal the true nature of God. Not the God of law and retribution. Not the God who slayed all who opposed the children of Israel. Not the God who demanded sacrifice. Jesus came to bring the Good News and the Good News was that we had it all wrong; God was loving, compassionate, and of tender mercy. A God of holiness who could be touched by the unclean and not be defiled. A sinless and pure God who could break bread at the table with the sinner and unclean. A God of judgment who was swift in bringing justice to the oppressed. A righteous God who was quick to humble the self-righteous. God sent Jesus to demonstrate his love for us and the demonstration of that love was so great, colliding so fiercely against the God who was portrayed by the religious leaders of the day that Jesus was killed for it. He was murdered on the cross for speaking and living out the love of God and refusing to back down, refusing to shut up, and refusing to stop rattling the temple doors.
So what does the cross mean to me? Oh, it means everything. Salvation entered the world that God knew from its very foundation was his intention to provide, not through Jesus’ death but through his living and his dying. In the cross Christ demonstrated the extent of God’s love for us, not that he was destined to die, but that he would choose regardless of the certainty of death to proclaim the Good News, eat with the sinner, touch the unclean, free the captive, and give sight to the blind even on the Sabbath. In this demonstration of giving up his life for us humankind responds and is transformed. We see there is a different way to live. There is another option for us beyond sin and self. In Jesus’ witness of forgiveness for what he suffered on the cross we have the model to forgive and be forgiven so we can be set free to love.
I realize I’m not inventing a new view of the cross. It’s an old one that’s been around for a really long time and a position in which many liberal theologians place themselves. Originally it was known as a healing view of the cross; by our witness to the events of the cross we are healed from the wounds and brokenness of humanity. Rene Girard called it the mimetic desire theory in that we are compelled by Christ’s example to imitate him. A more recent theological position knows it as the theory of moral influence, that Jesus’ example influences us toward moral living, but before I knew that others had boxed it up and labeled it something, I just knew that for me the cross was transforming, altering the world and re-shaping how I could live if left to my own devices.
Jesus is my Savior beyond one single great act of salvation two thousand years about but every single day of my life, hour by hour, minute by minute. God’s love spared me from an eternity in hell, and Jesus saves me from myself every time I’m confronted with a choice to hate or to love, to retaliate or to forgive, to grab or to give. Every time I look toward the life of Jesus I’m challenged to live in the way Jesus modeled empowered by the Holy Spirit. When I think of the cross and remember Jesus’ forgiveness for the robber at his side and the soldiers at his feet the way is set for me to receive God’s forgiveness and extend forgiveness to others, including myself. That is the power of the cross.
Jesus saved me and is saving me.
And I am and forever will be in his debt.
Thank you.
After all I’ve said I know that those who scratched their heads and flipped their Bibles over my view of hell (and the lack there of) are still scratching and flipping more than ever. And that’s okay. This is my faith. My relationship with God. My human understanding of the divine Creator, the loving Savior, and the eternal Spirit. I shoot, I score, and sometimes I miss. Like you I’m just trying the best I can to live as faithfully as I can to what I best understand. It works for me.
Posted in Engaging Conversation, Faith
April 23rd, 2010 at 6:21 pm
April 24th, 2010 at 12:01 am
… so here I am, reading this and simultaneously trying to “get” the opening chapters of Romans.
Like you, I *don’t* see how a truly loving God would need – or want – such a terrible price, and a death.
But … there must be very real reasons for Jesus’ having made himself – having deliberately chosen to be – the Lamb that was slain.
My mind boggles when confronted with the possibilities (especially this late at night!)
btw, how do you see passages like the parable of the wise and foolish virgins in light of your current beliefs?
April 24th, 2010 at 8:47 am
Anita, this series you’re doing is awesome. I just came back to it after missing for a week or so to find this post. I came looking for the series today because of a revelation I had yesterday.
*Every knee shall bow* I remember as a youth hearing those words used in church as an ominous threat of condemnation of non-believers. Yesterday, it occurred to me that those words are not a threat but rather a promise of great hope. If God wills that none should perish, as the Bible says, then “every knee shall bow” simply reveals another layer of God’s ultimate plan for universal redemption.
Thank you for your continued sharing. It’s a blessing.
April 24th, 2010 at 9:45 am
When in bible college a prof – who got nicknamed ‘Heresy’ by many – challenged us to think outside the box. He challenged us to view not only the death of Chirst as our salvation (as so readily done in the western world) but to see His whole life as salvation. What about His birth, His life, His forgiveness, His healings, were they not all His Salvation?
It was a stretch but we could not deny that ‘unto you a Saviour’ has been born, or Zechariah’s statement that his ‘eyes had seen the salvation of the Lord’; nor could we deny that forgivenss of sins was offered before the cross by Jesus.
For me, salvation is a story – it is a story of God’s love to the world from the very beginning of time itself – and one that continues into eternity.
Thanks for your insights Anita – but more than that thank you for sharing your faith. I have learned so much in the last year or so here and have discovered a love beyond all measure.
Shar
April 24th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Anita – I am *so* going to be pulling out Robert Farrar Capon’s books on the parables – and…
I know you’re from a Pentecostal background. That makes me wonder if the church (and denomination) you grew up in has a basically Calvinist view of many things – Original Sin, for example.
[pause to breathe}
Because... that whole "total depravity" biz is not part of many other mainstream Christian traditions.
[a second pause]
I can see where your reasoning is going, and I empathize – and agree especially on the fact that everything Jesus did was/is part of his redemption, from the moment of his incarnation up until the moment of his death – and then, of his resurrection and ascension.
Earlier, i was trying to take a nap, and daggone it if this post of yours wasn’t stuck in my brain! Because….
There are things about a Calvinist interpretation of the Cross that I believe are basically off.
I know that you’ve heard this one before, but I can’t help joining the chorus: What if God, in his infinite love and mercy – and in order to respect the free will he/she gave us – chose to be incarnate and take upon himself the consequences of some very bad decisions we humans made?
What if the only merciful thing to do was to become incarnate – to become like us and as us – and then, to choose to die for us – not to pay some sort of penalty that the Mean God in the Sky (read: misconception of God the Father’s nature) demanded, but to die to release us from sin and death? (y’know, to die redemptively.)
What if there are consequences of our wrong actions that even God himself cannot undo, because he will not violate his own created order – and us – in so doing?
As a sort of an aside, I’m fascinated by the newest version of “Battlestar Galactica” and its companion series, “Caprica” precisely because both grapple with a lot of the Big Questions *and* because there’s a lot of moral ambiguity in both series – in other words, even the best characters sometimes make bad, bad choices that have a profoundly negative impact on the lives of those around them (including those they love). It’s a lot closer to “real life” than most TV shows and movies, because the writers don’t flinch from portraying both the best and worst – the kinds of things we don’t want others to see about ourselves….
Back to topic: What if the way many Protestants (and others) conceptualize things is a shade too black and white? What if there’s a lack of wrestling with the hard questions – all those difficult, morally ambiguous things that plague us – and a falling back on a kind of out-of-context ultra-literalism that actually misses both the context and the point in much of the NT? (OT, too.)
Because I have to believe that the Suffering Servant of Isaiah and Ps. 26 is real; that Christ himself is the suffering servant – and that the reconciliation he effected by his death is real, too. (Not that you’re saying it isn’t; i kind of have to read some of the stuff you’ve been reading and pondering to get a better idea of why a lot of liberal Protestants struggle to grasp the idea of sin, atonement, etc.)
if you’d like to throw some titles on the table, I’d be most grateful for them!
PS: I’ve also just read – and intend to re-read – Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning. There’s so very much in there about the redemptive possibilities of suffering that it just makes me stop and hush my mouth, so to speak.
April 24th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
e2c–>Okay girlfriend, you’re making me think WAY too hard for the weekend! No, I wasn’t raised in a Calvin tradition. In my tradition (conservative, evangelical, pentecostal, charismatic, fundamentalist, blahblahblah) salvation was for those who acknowledged Jesus as their personal Savior and confessed/repented of their sins and gave their lives to God. But of course, even though that was the teaching, it actually required more than that if someone was to be seen as really a Christian and really saved. Your faith was in question if you, for example, drank alcohol or voiced disagreement with church doctrine or lived in a way or believed in a way that was out of the norm of the rest of the church. Salvation was actually quite tenuous despite all our talk of the assurance of our faith and though we talked about salvation resting fully in faith in Christ, in reality works were more critical to the equation than was admitted.
The only way I would hold to the Calvinist viewpoint of predestination would be if you were to extend that to include ALL people rather than a certain segment. Rather I believe in some form of “universal salvation,” and that just as original sin is applied to all people whether they are the most depraved or the most righteous among us, so the saving work of Christ on the cross applied to all people whether in this life they receive such a great gift or they do not.
You asked “What if there are consequences of our wrong actions that even God himself cannot undo, because he will not violate his own created order – and us – in so doing?” I understand that question and consider it an important one to consider. It also happens to be the very thing I believed for a number of years but I struggle with that now because in essence it’s saying to me that God tied his own hands and limited his own power. This of course takes us into the whole area of the omnipotence of God and most of those who would affirm the position of the question you pose would also at the same time say “God is omnipotent” and in doing so a conflict arises.
You’re right in that I most certainly see Christ as the suffering servant and that his death brought reconciliation. I don’t know about others but I don’t struggle with the concept of sin but I am still working through my understanding of atonement along with so much else I hold dear to my faith. As to books I’ve read that have influenced my faith exploration, there’s been a few books I read years ago on process theology and others on grace (Martin Luther included), but I must admit that in the last four or five years, I’ve read little that’s had much to do with the direction I’ve been moving in. This really is something I’ve been ruminating on in the quiet of my heart and in prayer. That’s not to say I don’t have a stack of books on topics of theology I keep meaning to get to and as yet haven’t
As to the parables you mentioned in an earlier comment, I know I need to deal with them in the context what what I’ve been saying but I admit I haven’t gone there yet but I will.
April 24th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Well hey, I’m thinking way too much for the weekend, too – and see, you go and post about this stuff and it makes people think and then you complain about too much thinkin’ goin’ on?!
(sorry, I just couldn’t resist.)
Now, I was raised Lutheran (which I think you already know), and then hung with Catholic charismatics for quite a while before ending up in evangelical-charismatic-type churches with Calvinist leanings, so I didn’t have the kind of things hammered into my head that you did… but i got a lot of it later on. (“Live up to our absolutely impossible standards of behavior or else!”)
The reason I mentioned Calvin and Calvinist views on original sin has a lot to do with their take on that (total depravity) – nothing to do with predestination. I have this sneaking feeling that a lot of folks who’ve never heard Calvin’s name uttered have ended up adhering to a lot of Calvin’s ideas. I am deffo *no* theologian (and my eyes tend to glaze over when i try to read theological tomes), but I just wonder if, in the history of Foursquare/AOG/etc., there’s some “Oh! look at what this Swiss guy said!”-ishness.
As for God’s hands being tied, I kinda guessed you’d bring that up…
But still, is it a cse of his hands being tied, or of choices people make *plus* his choice to become incarnate and die for us/as us?
I think you can probably tell that I hold both the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds dear… but in the meantime, I certainly am wondering why God had to allow the whole nation of Egypt to be ravaged by plagues when it appears to be Pharoah who was being difficult? (maybe some of his advisors, too.) it’s such a strange thing, coming after the whole redemptive suffering/grace and mercy for all aspects of Joseph’s story….
April 25th, 2010 at 8:38 am
Yes, yes, yes! You may be “so failing here at saying what [you] want to say” but what you are saying is so what the world needs to hear: the good news of a God who loves us and lives for us. Thank you.
On the hell debate: maybe you’ve come across this book? Even the evangelicals are coming round: The Evangelical Universalist: Author Interview.
April 25th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Phil–> Thank you for mentioning the book “Evangelical Universalist.” I had it in my library a few years ago and while I remember it being a very interesting read I don’t remember the details of MacDonald’s approach to the subject. That says less about the impact of his writing and more the limitations of my foggy mind
April 25th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Phil – thanks! Now there’s yet another book on my very long list of things to read…
April 25th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
Okay, so I have been really following all that you have been saying. And have to say, I have struggled with it a bit. But this got me — “salvation was for those who acknowledged Jesus as their personal Savior and confessed/repented of their sins and gave their lives to God. But of course, even though that was the teaching, it actually required more than that if someone was to be seen as really a Christian and really saved.”
That is exactly what I was taught to believe. I have even heard a former pastor state that if your life didn’t show a complete turn around, or you went back to any thing out of the norms, you must not have really turned around, because Jesus told the woman at the well, Go and Sin no more — and that is what conversion is.
So, this week, I went for a walk with my dog and my son was on his bike. That same pastor and his wife (who once upon a time discipled me) had stopped to talk to one of my neighbors. My son pulled up to them on his bike, they said hi and nothing else. Saw me coming down the street, and promptly turned and walked off. No wave, no hello. And I remembered another friend who left our church for a different one who said they won’t even say hello in the store to her.
And then I realized that this notion of salvation that rests on our behavior is wrong. It builds walls. It divides. It tears down. And that doesn’t mean I have a license now to sin just because I recognize my freedom, but I am so in love with Jesus now that I want to walk with him. Hmmmm…. you have given me more to ponder. Thanks.
I want to know, how can anyone be a pastor and called to shepherd, and then not say Hi to someone who gave to their church for 12 plus years, didn’t come and go — led ministries. I shared this in my new Sunday School today, I hadn’t come out to some of the people in there. Especially the elderly women, but I was tearful about the hurt, and they reached over and gave my hand a squeeze and said I was welcome there and thanks for sharing. Okay, probably just ranting now… thanks.
April 26th, 2010 at 3:04 am
Anita, again you give me a different perspective and make me think outside of the box of conventional beliefs……………
God didn’t demand someone die for us. God purposed that someone live for us.
you have given me something to think about. Interesting, challenging, soul expanding……….this is not human wisdom but revelation from the spirit……….I hope you understand this is a compliment.
thank you for keeping yourself open and true to channel the revelations of the spirit.
April 28th, 2010 at 9:26 am
woooohooo. thanks for sharing. the more i read your blog the less i know and the less i know what i believe…and the more i truly trust god is okay with that.
April 28th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Amy–> I’d be sick at heart if what I shared had led your words to end before the ellipsis (…) but more grateful than I can say for what followed them. That any questioning or uncertainty leads us to a place of greater trust….ah….the wonder and mystery of FAITH.
April 28th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
RDM—> As my life has moved on, I’m finding myself reflecting more and more on Jesus’ living even while I hold his dying and resurrection foundational to my faith. There’s so much to be learned from the way Jesus lived and to challenge us and to encourage us and to strengthen us, direct us, nudge us….
April 28th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
TDK–> The answer to your question, of how anyone could be a pastor and called to shepherd and then say hi to someone who gave to their church for more than 12 years is simply this ……I don’t know, and I can’t even imagine. I find it just so very heartbreaking that you would have encountered that kind of rejection from someone (a pastor no less) who represented such a significant period of time and commitment in your life. I know that rejection through being unseen and unheard is so painful and suffered by so many and all I can say is THANK GOD for those gentle squeezes from compassion elderly hands. Thank God that His hands are sometimes weathered, wrinkled, and covered in age spots.
May 1st, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Ooh, Anita -> have you seen this?
I just ordered a used copy from a seller on Abebooks.com and am very eager to read it!
May 2nd, 2010 at 12:00 pm
e2c–> Nope, I haven’t seen that one! Thanks for the mention. Do me a favor. Read it and then let me know what you think. I’d like to wait in hopes that it comes out in digital form. As much as I love holding a book in my hand, I’m trying to minimize the sense of living in a library instead of a home these days
May 4th, 2010 at 6:07 am
A beautiful post!People have differed over their conclusions on details of scriptures forever, but one thing is clear…Jesus changed the world and our lives forever with His selfless sinless stand on the cross. You have captured the beauty and awe of that magnificently.
So glad my friend referred me to your Blog!
May 4th, 2010 at 8:19 am
Will do, although Eerdmans titles are only sporadically available in digital form – and they’re extremely pricey. (IKWYM about .not adding to the stacks of physical books; have had a Kindle for a little over a year now and love it! Though i *definitely* don’t buy much from Amazon.com, as there are lots of other sources + good free/legal file conversion programs out there.)
The newer edition of Capon’s parables books (and all-in-one) costs something like 25 $ in Kindle format. (It’s an Eerdman’s title, too.)
June 11th, 2010 at 2:56 am
Hello Anita. Don’t worry about hell; it has been misunderstood for centuries. It was gehenna, a burning trash dump outside Jerusalem. Because it had been used for child sacrifice at the end of Judah’s dynasty, it was associated with perpetual fire.
But the nt knows of no such place; and why did not God tell us about this? Death is sleep awaiting the resurrection by Jesus at his coming; Jesus has conquered death; it no longer rules over us.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob understood Sheol to be a place of rest until the final act of God. The resurrection.
The rich man and Lazarus was a story; Jesus based his story on the Pharisees tradition to show that even the resurrection of the son of God would be ignored by many. Sad.
God bless. And he will too!
June 11th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Dave –> Thanks for your note and I appreciate what you shared….all the more so of course because I agree with you!