On Sunday I expressed that if I only had the orthodox version of substitutionary atonement to believe in it would be hard for me to be a Christian. This doctrine states that since Adam and Eve we have all fallen from God. Since God is a God of justice and wrath and his honor has been assaulted, he demands payback. Since we are so sinful and cannot provide enough sacrifice to reconcile the books, God sends his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us instead.
I hoped to refute this doctrine, claiming that God is not a God of wrath but a God of love and forgiveness as expressed in Jesus Christ, God’s Word made flesh. The attributes of God are no different than those of Jesus who said, “you’ve heard it said, and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say… forgive 7 times 70.
I also questioned the orthodox view that the Adam and Eve story is about a fall. While the orthodox Christian church claims it so, the Hebrews didn’t seem to see it as such and since they wrote the story maybe we ought to pay attention to them. I suggested that maybe the story was about the existential condition of all humans, who have been created with an insatiable appetite. Could it be that our insatiable soul is not a bad thing as it drives us to evolve and grow and mature. It becomes a bad thing when we devour every thing in our path in order to feed it, harming our planet, our neighbors our selves and disobeying God in the process, but the appetite is not the problem, our refusal to live with some hunger pains, and with uncertainty is the problem. Maybe the story of Adam and Eve and their exile from the garden is really a gift as it forces us to grow up and leave the perfect world of certainty and protection. Anyway this was the jist of the sermon. Any comments?
Steve,
I had never thought of the story that way, but your interpretation made a lot of sense to me. Could it have been a gift as we learn to live in the imperfect world of uncertainty and freedom and push us in our quest to seek or reconnect with the perfect world of God?
By: Dave Pierson on February 19, 2008
at 5:41 pm
Thanks for pointing that out. These seem to be what we hunger for the most, security from uncertainty and reconnection to God’s perfection-neither one accessable in this world. Our insatiable hunger can take us south or north: can lead us to do bad things in our devouring of each other and our planet, or to continue to evolve to more emotional, moral, and spiritual maturity- to become more Christ like. Fear brings on the first and love the second which is why Jesus said I think, perfect love casts out all fear.
By: Steve Goyer on February 19, 2008
at 8:45 pm
Somehow (this is why I’m not good at this computer stuff) a questiona and my response ended up in the About page. Go to the top of the page and push About, scroll down and find the question from Lisa and my response. UGH!
By: Steve Goyer on February 20, 2008
at 6:01 pm
Steve,
In my reflective practice work at the Foundation I always point out that Eastern Cultures have a 5th direction and that is Center–probably the hardest to find and most difficult to follow as unlike the others, Center frees us from distraction. Centering moves us away from fear and also from materialism towards a oneness with God. I am certainly much better at talking about it than doing it.
By: Dave Pierson on February 20, 2008
at 10:35 pm
Steve,
I can’t believe it took me this long to get to this blog, but I find this pretty interesting. I hope we will continue to do this for subsequent sermons.
As I see it this whole substitionary atonement thing is really pretty primal. Many primitive cultures developed some form of human sacrifice on the basis that God or Gods need to be appeased time to time. If bad things are happening to you, it must be because God is angry over something you did and a sacrifice is demanded to appease them. The more dramatic the sacrifice the better the appeasement. This is the concept we find still at play in a biblical text like Proverbs – but that whole approach gets finally overturned in Job, in which the actions of God and a person’s fate are no longer correlated directly to his or her righteousness.
You are wise to say it is we who demand the sacrifice, not God. We still do it today. (Witness those who content Katrina was just God’s wrath for homosexuality.) In this model sacrifice is always the answer, but who is really the target of such appeasement? Is it only our own sense of self-righteousness that finally gets appeased? And in the process aren’t we just casting God in our own image, as though He thinks just like us? Isn’t that the basis of all forms of idolotry?
Thanks, Steve, for another thought provoking Worship experience.
By: Charles Cooper on March 16, 2008
at 8:26 pm
Charles, I’m fascinated by how entrenched substitutionary atonement is in culture, especially in cultures that see violence as the solution to our problems. What’s even more fascinating is how the church benefits from this as the priesthood gets to set all the rules about sacrifice. Maybe this is what it meant when the gospels proclaim that when Jesus was crucified, the curtain in the temple- the ultimate place of blood offerings- was torn from top to bottom.
By: Steve Goyer on March 17, 2008
at 5:49 pm
Good stuff, guys. I read an article a while back by Walter Wink in which Wink argues that this myth of redemptive violence is actually the dominant religion in our society today. I’m not sure he’s too far off. It’s clearly evident in a lot of the stuff we see at the movies and on TV – and is even ingrained in us from a very young age in cartoons – Wink points to Popeye as one example. Dare I say that you can even catch a glimpse of it in some of our current foreign policy? What I’ve never understood is how the reformed churches can reconcile the substitutionary atonement theory with our trinitarian understanding of God. Doesn’t that theory make Jesus something less than God? It reminds me of the TV commercial where the boss is telling his subordinate about how taking advantage of some new corporate perk is just the boss’s way of “sticking it to the man,” to which the subordinate replies: “But you are the man, sir.”
By: Jamie Hoener on March 18, 2008
at 9:37 pm
The other side of the atonement coin is reconciliation – God’s reconciling work in Jesus Christ. And if we think about the story of Adam and Eve as reflecting our existential condition – well, no amount of sacrifice can sate us. But to be reconciled, brought back in, reconnected – not to a perfect world but a perfect love – that can’t sate us either actually, but it can put us in a place where we can be transformed. And that is the essence of grace.
I’m wondering what the “gift ” is – is it the story explaining our condition or is it the actual event of leaving a perfect world? Because presumably we will eventually go back to that perfect world, where the lion lies down with the lamb and plowshares are beaten into pruning hooks.
I find the ancient Hebrews interpretation of the Genesis story so interesting – Steve, what can I read to find out more?
By: Kae Harding on March 31, 2008
at 11:48 pm
Jamie and Kay I’m wondering if you two would like to preach? Both of your responses reflect very thoughtful issues. The thing about our existential condition is that it’s just too, well, existential- so to speak. Jesus seems to know it too, which makes his incarnation and the issue of the Trinity Jamie raises all the more powerful. However, the why if it all remains unanswered.
By: Steve Goyer on April 7, 2008
at 4:57 pm
I agree with the part about God’s love and forgiveness, but reconciliation assumes a need to be reconciled in the first place. What exactly would have been the result of Christ not dying? If one believes in a literal hell and that we all would have ended up there, then the wrathful part of the orthodox view of God’s nature stands. If one believes that God is merciful and would have found a way to excuse us from hell anyway (or that there isn’t a hell to begin with), then his death was superfluous. (Muslims, in fact, believe that God, being God, can forgive anyone he likes and doesn’t need to kill his son to do it.)
So I think the theological problem with tossing the orthodox view is that you either still end up with a wrathful God, or your make the death of Christ meaningless. I suppose the third alternative would be to say the whole thing is an allegory and there wasn’t any death of Christ, but I think that view would take one out of the Christian faith altogether.
By: NI on May 2, 2008
at 2:45 pm
Hey, Steve.
Joseph Campbell used to compare the Adam and Eve story to Eastern religions’ creation stories, many of which are almost identical! However, the key difference is that in these Eastern traditions, the “Fall” (i.e. receiving knowledge) is not viewed as sinful or something deserving of outcast.
Rather, they believed that God viewed this as the first step to maturity. Humanity received knoweldge and, in a sense, received responsibility and maturity, which (according to Campbell) symbolized when life truly began.
In response to NI above, “Muslims, in fact, believe that God, being God, can forgive anyone he likes and doesn’t need to kill his son to do it.”
This is a great theological question to think about, but my meditations cannot help but wonder how much Jesus was really killed by God. He was killed by the Romans…and while I believe that forgiveness and grace was God’s will, I don’t believe that Jesus was “forced” to die by God, as I think that would rob Jesus’ crucifixion of its sacrifice.
I believe that Jesus very much had a choice and could have decided to avoid crucifixion if He so desired. Granted, this would have compromised everything Jesus was and embodied and represented.
But Jesus chose to die. Jesus chose to be crucified and hold strong, I believe, to the Word of God made flesh through…well, Him rather than bow to political, popular, and (ultimately) sinful opinions on how His destiny should play out. Jesus was, in no way, forced to die, but rather I believe He made a decision to sacrifice. And that, I believe, gives real power to Christ’s sacrifice and forgiveness.
Maybe this is completely heretical but…eh, not much I can do about it. And who knows? I could be completely wrong.
By: Marc van Bulck on June 12, 2008
at 6:06 pm
I’m going to disagree with NI that “if one believes that God is merciful and would have found a way to excuse us from hell anyway (or that there isn’t a hell to begin with), then his death was superfluous.” I understand this potential issue with universalism (at least, I believe this is your issue – please don’t let me put words in your mouth, and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), but I believe you are confusing universal salvation (the idea that God will find a way to save us all in the end) with hedonism (the philosophy that we should pursue only our own happiness with no regard to others).
I’ve had numerous debates with my fellow seminarians about universal salvation (of which, I am, I think, a believer – and a pluralist one at that, so go figure. There’s two heresies already), and I’ve noticed this trend of slamming universal salvation as heretical citing hedonism as a direct consequence.
I disagree with this. Yes, I could easily see someone saying, “Well, if I’m going to heaven ultimately anyway, so I’ll just do whatever I want.” Yes, I understand that’s an easy philosophical jump one can make.
However, universal salvation does not necessarily mean IMMEDIATE salvation – just because universal salvation is a possibility does not necessarily let us off the hook for hedonism. If God has it in mind for us to learn something before our existence is accomplished, I can also see God sitting back and saying, “Eternity is a long time for you to grow and learn and mature.”
Christ’s death is not superfluous. I like to think Christ’s death, resurrection, His resurrection, and forgiveness go a little bit deeper than just some possible cosmic light switch between heaven and hell – between discipline and reward. I believe Christ’s very being – the very Word of God incarnate goes a little bit deeper than that. It goes into the very essence of who we are. Of who we are as creatures. As human beings. It concerns our very natures – how we treat each other. How we grow, how we mature, how we learn compassion and respect and a deep love for each other, for ourselves and for God. It’s not just a ticket that says, “Skip Hell, move straight to Heaven.”
If THAT was the full extent of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, I kind of think that would sort of be superfluous.
By: Marc van Bulck on June 14, 2008
at 12:10 am
I always have tried to understand God’s “wrath” as one facet of his perfect Being (picture a diamond with many facets). That “wrath” stems from His absolutely sinless Being coming into contact with sin. Like oil and water, they don’t mix. So His reaction can include “wrath”. If you negate His wrath, then how do you approach the fact that God is the God of both the Old and New Testaments since there are clear refences to His wrath in the Old Testament? And do you then struggle to believe that God remains the same yesterday and today?
By: D on July 3, 2008
at 2:19 pm
Please see my last post at the top of the page for my comment for this. I’m still trying to figure out how to do this blog thing.
By: sgoyer on July 3, 2008
at 2:46 pm
I’m interested that sacrifice somehow both attracts and repels me, intellectually and emotionally. I am attracted to the idea that Jesus’ death transcends the Hebrew sacrificial system, but that is more because I am more suspicious of systems than of sacrifice. For me, sacrifice is elemental not because it can or will appease God, but because it enables us to do what all of us (made in the image of God) want to do at our deepest core: subordinate our grasping wills to the will to love and forgive. Isn’t that what makes Jesus in the Garden on the night before his crucifixion so compelling? He represses his own will and decides to sacrifice himself not to appease God, but to enable a situation in which he can enact the perfect model of non-violence and forgiveness, to demonstrate that the kingdom of God really is at hand, to show us the only way we have to bring that kingdom on.
Does God demand Jesus’ sacrifice to redeem a fallen race? I can’t quite believe that, but I have come to believe from experience that unless I choose (at least sometimes) to sacrifice myself and my needs for the sake of my brothers and sisters, I have a real hard time living in relationship to God.
I sometimes wonder if we Presbyterians aren’t a little too afraid of sacrifice, of saints and altars. Our own church’s architecture goes so far as to create niches and leave them empty to demonstrate just how far we have gone to throw off all that sacrificial stuff. We are very careful to keep our communion table from becoming an altar. We put chairs in front of the reredos to emphasize our polity and keep it from being mistaken for something, God forbid, Roman. There are very good and manifest reasons for those things. We have a whole Reformed system that helps us to understand communion almost entirely apart from sacrifice, and that system appeals to my need for both boundaries and insight. But it is a system.
The most moving experience I have ever had in worship was at mass in my in-laws’ parish church. I saw a little Hispanic boy with his arms around an old woman—maybe his grandmother–determined to help her struggle up the aisle to the altar to receive Jesus sacrificed for them in the Eucharist. The priest could have brought the Host to her in the pew, but neither of them was going to let the opportunity pass to meet that sacrifice with their own. All my resentment about being excluded from the altar by yet another system just melted away.
By: Chris Wrenn on July 3, 2008
at 10:02 pm
The last comment (the part regarding the woman struggling to the Eucharist) made it exceedingly simple for me to grasp. In giving of ourselves we find that is when we truly receive. Maybe Jesus gave of Himself freely for us to see that He was willing to sacrifice Himself to help mankind understand. His sacrifice also serves as the ultimate example. So stunningly complex, yet simple enough for a child to understand. Give of yourself . . . or simply . . . give yourself. Sacrifice comes in many forms and your thought-provoking message helped me to consider my own life and ask “what am I sacrificing and what am I willing to sacrifice?” It need not be a blood sacrifice, but Jesus in His human form knew what we demanded as humans. And He went . . . knowingly. Thank you for making us all think.
By: LeanneB. on August 6, 2008
at 3:26 pm