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The metaphors --
1. Judicial: Jesus was punished for our sins in our place.
2. Payment: Jesus' life was a payment of ransom for our liberation.
3. Blood Sacrifice: Jesus was the lamb slaughtered to expiate our sins.
4. Surgical: Jesus was transformed into our sin so it could be destroyed on the cross.
A metaphor uses something which is similar in some ways to help explain something which is not quite the same. So lets go through each as see how they are different and how they are the same.
Different --
1. We don't actually believe that an innocent person punished pays for the crime of the guilty.
2. We don't actually believe that God has to pay something to the devil in order to free us.
3. We don't actually believe that human and animal sacrifices have a magical power.
4. Jesus was not really transformed into sin and neither were our sins actually removed.
Same--
1. Often the innocent suffer because of our sins and this motivates us to change.
2. The atonement makes it clear that God would pay any price for our redemption.
3. Jesus was indeed the unblemished and the very best human being. His death was a painful price to pay for our sins.
4. Sin is a degenerative disease that needs to taken out of our lives before it kills us, and Jesus does represent a treatment for that disease.
While the Eastern Orthodox understand that these are metaphors, Western Christianity tends to take them (especially the first) somewhat literally in defiance of all reason. This is the doctrine of substitutionary atonement the belief in which many Western Christians practically equate with being Christian. It is almost as if, the sacrifice of our intellectual integrity and the acceptance of this blatant cognitive dissonance is the price we have to pay for salvation -- and thus the way they subvert a gospel of salvation by grace to make it a gospel of salvation by a work of the mind.
Because of this I would like to spend a little more time examining this judicial metaphor. For example, this metaphor compares sin with a crime that needs to be punished. But is sin really a crime? No it is not. Many sins are criminal, but there is a difference, and we can even say that the sinful nature of an action is quite different than its criminal nature when they overlap.
Crimes consist of breaking laws which are part of a social contract. What we learn from Jesus in Matthew 5 and Matthew 22 is that sin isn't really about living to the letter of some set of laws, as if the excuse, "I haven't broken any laws", is really a valid excuse for our actions. People are always twisting the laws to an evil purpose and to justify evil and selfish behavior. Thus Jesus shows that sin goes much deeper than the breaking of a set of laws.
Sin is hurtful to us and for that reason they should be stopped. But although many Christians with this judicial metaphor stuck in their head like to say the consequences are deserved, I don't think this is right. I think it is more like this...
We might tell a child not to climb tall trees because they could easily fall and break their neck. If the child climbs a tall tree anyway and falls to his death, then would we say this was a just punishment of a crime? Of course not. The judicial metaphor is a metaphor ONLY and the truth of this comparison only goes so far. Jesus did lay down his life so that we could have eternal life. That is where the metaphor matches reality but where it does not match reality is in the fact that we do not believe criminals should go free just because innocent people are punished in their place -- not unless there is something seriously wrong with you.
The Bible is mixture of many kinds of writings. Not all of it is history and not all of it is law. There is also poetry, songs, parables, dreams, proverbs, and letters. Thus it is full of metaphors whether you pretend otherwise or not. For example, according to 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5, Isaiah 45:18, the earth is fixed, firm, immovable, and can never be shaken. Take this literally and you burn scientists at the stake and pretend that earthquakes don't happen.
So, the question isn't believing the Bible or not but rather how hard headed, "stiff-necked", unreasonable, and willfully blind you are when reading the Bible. Because when you do that you are just like the people Jesus was talking about in Matthew 13 using the literal words to refuse to hear what is meant and returning the text of the Bible back word for word without any investment of thought, like the slothful servant in Matthew 25.
What an excellent post! How did I miss it? I would add MY metaphor to those you have so clearly exposed.
1. Judicial: Jesus was punished for our sins in our place.
2. Payment: Jesus' life was a payment of ransom for our liberation.
3. Blood Sacrifice: Jesus was the lamb slaughtered to expiate our sins.
4. Surgical: Jesus was transformed into our sin so it could be destroyed on the cross. 5. Designated Hitter: Jesus was the first to achieve our species' purpose - perfect agape love
Everything prior to Jesus was Prologue. Our barbaric and savage species had to evolve and then mature enough to make possible the self-control of our baser urges through agape love for all life. The beginning of our species' wisdom was the achievement of self-control using obedience and the fear of God - the Schoolmaster stage. This is why no one prior to Christ achieved eternal connection with God after death. Their Spirits were not compatible with God's agape love.
By the time of Christ, the fields were ripe for the harvest, but no one had the ability or inclination to use self-control out of agape love for God and others, except Jesus. He did everything to teach and demonstrate the New Covenant of love with God and paid the ultimate price for it in scourging and crucifixion by our brutal, savage, barbaric, and ignorant ancestors. But He "Hit a Grand Slam" because He still loved us all, including those who tortured and murdered Him in their ignorance. "They knew not what they did."
The Good News is that His death and First-born rebirth of His HUMAN consciousness as Spirit did two very important things. If they BELIEVED JESUS (NOT believed IN), it removed the fear of death by the concept of resurrection - a "carnal milk" version our carnal minded ancestors could accept (because they were deathly afraid of Spirits). This is where FAITH that Jesus IS the Firstborn of us is important. He paved the way for us to be "born again" as Spirit upon our death. That is why He said not to concern yourself with saving your life here on earth. Our FAITH in His rebirth removes the fear of death as long as we follow His instructions to His disciples and love God and each other every day and repent when we don't.
Jesus SAVED our entire species from eternal separation from God by His death which connected His PERFECT HUMAN consciousness to ALL (previous and future) human consciousness. His "born again" Spirit of perfect agape love connected all human consciousness to God who IS the Spirit of agape love. This and His perfect agape love (Grace) provides cover for our imperfections as long as we love God and each other. That is how He is the Way. Only through His perfection are we able to be connected to God. The best part is that He abides with us as the Comforter sent in His name to guide us in agape love to the truth God has now "written in our hearts." All we have to DO is love God and each other every day and repent when we don't.
Last edited by MysticPhD; 05-29-2016 at 03:33 PM..
The metaphors --
1. Judicial: Jesus was punished for our sins in our place.
2. Payment: Jesus' life was a payment of ransom for our liberation.
3. Blood Sacrifice: Jesus was the lamb slaughtered to expiate our sins.
4. Surgical: Jesus was transformed into our sin so it could be destroyed on the cross.
A metaphor uses something which is similar in some ways to help explain something which is not quite the same. So lets go through each as see how they are different and how they are the same.
Different --
1. We don't actually believe that an innocent person punished pays for the crime of the guilty.
2. We don't actually believe that God has to pay something to the devil in order to free us.
3. We don't actually believe that human and animal sacrifices have a magical power.
4. Jesus was not really transformed into sin and neither were our sins actually removed.
Same--
1. Often the innocent suffer because of our sins and this motivates us to change.
2. The atonement makes it clear that God would pay any price for our redemption.
3. Jesus was indeed the unblemished and the very best human being. His death was a painful price to pay for our sins.
4. Sin is a degenerative disease that needs to taken out of our lives before it kills us, and Jesus does represent a treatment for that disease.
While the Eastern Orthodox understand that these are metaphors, Western Christianity tends to take them (especially the first) somewhat literally in defiance of all reason. This is the doctrine of substitutionary atonement the belief in which many Western Christians practically equate with being Christian. It is almost as if, the sacrifice of our intellectual integrity and the acceptance of this blatant cognitive dissonance is the price we have to pay for salvation -- and thus the way they subvert a gospel of salvation by grace to make it a gospel of salvation by a work of the mind.
Because of this I would like to spend a little more time examining this judicial metaphor. For example, this metaphor compares sin with a crime that needs to be punished. But is sin really a crime? No it is not. Many sins are criminal, but there is a difference, and we can even say that the sinful nature of an action is quite different than its criminal nature when they overlap.
Crimes consist of breaking laws which are part of a social contract. What we learn from Jesus in Matthew 5 and Matthew 22 is that sin isn't really about living to the letter of some set of laws, as if the excuse, "I haven't broken any laws", is really a valid excuse for our actions. People are always twisting the laws to an evil purpose and to justify evil and selfish behavior. Thus Jesus shows that sin goes much deeper than the breaking of a set of laws.
Sin is hurtful to us and for that reason they should be stopped. But although many Christians with this judicial metaphor stuck in their head like to say the consequences are deserved, I don't think this is right. I think it is more like this...
We might tell a child not to climb tall trees because they could easily fall and break their neck. If the child climbs a tall tree anyway and falls to his death, then would we say this was a just punishment of a crime? Of course not. The judicial metaphor is a metaphor ONLY and the truth of this comparison only goes so far. Jesus did lay down his life so that we could have eternal life. That is where the metaphor matches reality but where it does not match reality is in the fact that we do not believe criminals should go free just because innocent people are punished in their place -- not unless there is something seriously wrong with you.
The Bible is mixture of many kinds of writings. Not all of it is history and not all of it is law. There is also poetry, songs, parables, dreams, proverbs, and letters. Thus it is full of metaphors whether you pretend otherwise or not. For example, according to 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5, Isaiah 45:18, the earth is fixed, firm, immovable, and can never be shaken. Take this literally and you burn scientists at the stake and pretend that earthquakes don't happen.
So, the question isn't believing the Bible or not but rather how hard headed, "stiff-necked", unreasonable, and willfully blind you are when reading the Bible. Because when you do that you are just like the people Jesus was talking about in Matthew 13 using the literal words to refuse to hear what is meant and returning the text of the Bible back word for word without any investment of thought, like the slothful servant in Matthew 25.
This is quite interesting and I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusion. I personally hold to blood atonement because thematically it runs through bot Testaments and the blood stream widens from the first offering (by Abel) to the last (by Jesus). More and more find forgiveness as the result of a sacrifice. Forgiveness and mercy for one man for one time with Abel to one family for one time in Egypt, to the whole nation for one time
when Temple sacrifices began.
BUT, there are different problems associated with seeing that blood flow. Salvation theology reinforces the idea that religion is a transaction, rather than a covenant of compassion. "You died for me. I believe in you. Now give me what you promise in the contract---Heaven. This sounds remarkably like a business transaction.
Neither transactions nor contracts are what Scripture revolves around. Rather it is covenants, where both sides make vows of loyalty and then are expected to live up to them. It is a major OT theme of the covenant between God and Israel. Israel kept breaking the covenant and God just kept on trying to win back His errant bride.
Getting "saved" becomes an individualistic transaction whereas the OT idea of salvation was about community. God didn't lead just the faithful out of Egypt, He rescued them all--even the ones that would anger Him by turning to a Golden Calf. Later some would perish, but that would be after the initial rescue.
Salvation by blood becomes an individual balm whereby we praise God for our rescue and perhaps pray for others to have the same, but it does not embrace the OT theme that the community is what really matters. In our land where we constantly shop for bargains, salvation becomes the ultimate bargain of "He said pick Door #1 or #2, I did choose (and I, of course, made the right choice) and walked away holding the ultimate prize.
But salvation by covenant is not so cut and dried, nor nearly as easy. Covenants require us to bring along everyone with us regardless of spiritual condition. That is far more stressful and demanding upon us. In fact, it sounds remarkably like carrying a cross!! It requires me to think beyond the comfort level of myself.
True faith requires me to consider the wisdom of Jesus the Man as perhaps more important than salvation by Jesus. Confining God to work within my own spiritual understanding means I choose for God whom He will save and whom He will not. Salvation theology cannot be collectively understood by definition. It is a zero-sum game that cuts us off from the unsaved and can often cause all us to be arrogant and judgmental. As a human being I am tempted to draw a circle because I'm going to put me in it. But Jesus keeps expanding that circle---frequently using examples of people without any faith or with the wrong kind of faith--like those Samaritans.
So as I struggle to reconcile these differing understandings of salvation theology vs covenant theology, I'm struck with the thought that maybe I'll never know the answer in this life I know the idea of blood sacrifice is popular and what I was brought along believing. But when I view both Testaments through the lens of Jesus Christ, I see Jesus as inclusive --- and that may mean that salvation theology as taught is to confining to have come from God.
This is quite interesting and I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusion. I personally hold to blood atonement because thematically it runs through bot Testaments and the blood stream widens from the first offering (by Abel) to the last (by Jesus). More and more find forgiveness as the result of a sacrifice. Forgiveness and mercy for one man for one time with Abel to one family for one time in Egypt, to the whole nation for one time
when Temple sacrifices began.
Being a scientist before a Christian (peeling back layers of the onion which I happen to be), I would connect blood sacrifice with our evolutionary roots, since it only through a great deal of death and suffering that we have learned as a species and come to be. And then there is fact of being animals who require devouring other living creatures for our own sustenance. Thus there is a basic fact of our existence that life comes at a price. It also reminds me of the thesis in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (new one) that collectively, change only comes to us on the precipice of destruction.
But all of this still only speaks to the visceral power of the metaphor and most of us still do not believe that any real power (other than material) is actually derived just from killing something innocent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wardendresden
BUT, there are different problems associated with seeing that blood flow. Salvation theology reinforces the idea that religion is a transaction, rather than a covenant of compassion. "You died for me. I believe in you. Now give me what you promise in the contract---Heaven. This sounds remarkably like a business transaction.
Neither transactions nor contracts are what Scripture revolves around. Rather it is covenants, where both sides make vows of loyalty and then are expected to live up to them. It is a major OT theme of the covenant between God and Israel. Israel kept breaking the covenant and God just kept on trying to win back His errant bride.
The problem I see with both contracts and covenant (but especially contracts) is the implication of entitlement and that is something which is refuted quite thoroughly in the NT by Jesus and Paul. But when you compare this to a covenant of marriage I suppose I can see more value in it, since it is my observation that expectation and entitlement is toxic to marital relations. But doesn't that bring us back to the popular evangelical way of putting it as a relationship?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wardendresden
But salvation by covenant is not so cut and dried, nor nearly as easy. Covenants require us to bring along everyone with us regardless of spiritual condition. That is far more stressful and demanding upon us. In fact, it sounds remarkably like carrying a cross!! It requires me to think beyond the comfort level of myself.
I can see the appeal of this idea and I think there is something to it, but perhaps not quite the same as what you are thinking.
The problem I see is that this is very physical, like the laws of nature, putting us very much at the whim of happenstance, for very very few of us ever have the chance to have much impact on the collective. We may be called to bear the cross but it isn't likely to bear any us much fruit, and then you have to ask whether we should have bothered tilting at windmills. Sure you can say it doesn't matter and that regardless we must make the effort. But if the only benefit comes from success then salvation becomes the option for only the elite and the privileged and it doesn't sound like an inheritance of the meek at all.
Therefore I think there must be something wrong with such an idea and I don't see the words of Jesus lining up with this. And that is what ultimately bring us right back to an individualistic benefit. I very much believe that the spirit is about the our own heart and desires and that makes it very individualistic indeed.
HOWEVER, I think there is also a way in which what you say is quite true. Because although I think the spirit is a fundamentally individualistic existence, it is the connections with others that give it life. Passages like Matthew 25 strongly imply it is only in our connections with each other that we can make a connection with God. So you may be quite right that God's grace is manifested more by a collective alteration (or something like that). It is only this idea that we can only literally go together as a collective which I decline as an entirely too physical sort of salvation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wardendresden
Confining God to work within my own spiritual understanding means I choose for God whom He will save and whom He will not.
Well I certainly don't think that we should confine God to work within our own spiritual understanding. But then... isn't that a part of my own spiritual understanding? Also, there are the words of Paul in Romans 10 which equate determining who will be saved and who will not with a righteousness based on the law and thus with legalism. Is that not also a part of my own spiritual understanding? So the point is that while I agree with prohibition, I doubt the reasoning you use here works terribly well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wardendresden
Salvation theology cannot be collectively understood by definition. It is a zero-sum game that cuts us off from the unsaved and can often cause all us to be arrogant and judgmental. As a human being I am tempted to draw a circle because I'm going to put me in it. But Jesus keeps expanding that circle---frequently using examples of people without any faith or with the wrong kind of faith--like those Samaritans.
But I don't think that salvation theology has to draw a circle. That only happens if you address the wrong question like the man in Matthew 19 "what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?" Salvation theology can instead observe Jesus' answer, "with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." This is the gospel of salvation by the grace of God and if you are consistent with keeping this entirely in the hands of God then no circle is drawn.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wardendresden
But when I view both Testaments through the lens of Jesus Christ, I see Jesus as inclusive --- and that may mean that salvation theology as taught is to confining to have come from God.
It is easy to observe that religion is frequently twisted by people to make it useful as a tool of power. Thus when you see something in Christianity which is very convenient for such a use then are not the odds in favor of this not being something from God at all?
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