Why God’s Son Died?

A question from someone who has begun attending my church:

I get that Jesus shed blood and gave his life to atone for, ultimately, what went down in the Garden and the ramifications of that, but what I have never understood is, why did it have to come to that? I mean, there were others down through history who required blood to atone for wrongs; Dracula, the count of Monte Cristo, nosfaratu of all kinds. If, on one hand, we were created in His image, why isn’t blood sport/bloodlust ok for us, or why is it looked down upon? If, on the other hand, as George Carlin said, He was created in our image, why is He such, pardon me, an ass as to need His child to die for us to be all good with Him?

A great question, especially in light of the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT.  I can’t give you a full answer because in many ways the atonement is a mystery, but let me attempt to point in two hopefully helpful directions.

First, there are multiple theories of atonement.  The theory of atonement that you’re describing is usually called the substitutionary theory of atonement.  This theory of atonement starts with the basic assumption that God is holy and that our sin has accumulated such an amount of guilt that there is no way we can reconcile the difference.  The way that God reconciles the difference is by sending his son to pay the price of the difference.  This could be understood in a variety of ways.  The difference could be that our own life was demanded and Jesus gave his life as a substitute.  It could be understood that God’s wrath on our unholiness/guilt was directed upon Jesus as a substitute for being directed upon us.  It could be that God’s honor was in need of satisfaction and Jesus’ death restored God’s honor.

I was recently listening to This American Life, a radio show on NPR, and the theme of the show was “Animal Sacrifice.”  Check out this link to listen.  The opening interview with Rabi Jonathan Klawans, was one of the best explanations of what animal sacrifice was all about in the Old Testament and it sheds some light on what it might have meant for Jesus’ death to be a sacrifice of this sort.  Substitutionary atonement is a live atonement theory in Western Christianity, especially in more conservative protestant churches in America, but it is not the only theory for the atonement.

There are two other atonement theories worth noting here.  The first of them is often called Christus Victor (or Christ the Victor).  In this theory of atonement Jesus was not so much on a sacrifice mission from heaven, but on a rescue mission from heaven into enemy territory to save all of creation.  This atonement theory relies less upon Jesus’ death to help explain how Jesus fixed the broken world’s relationship with God and with each other.  Jesus’ death is more of the kind of self-sacrifice of a solider who throws himself upon a grenade or mine to save the lives of his comrades.  In this theory Satan is the ruler of the earth, and in his attempt to kill Jesus, he finds that he has killed someone who can’t be killed.  Death is vanquished and hope is restored to all creation.  In this case, Jesus can be seen as a kind of participate in active non-violent resistance to the enemy-ruler of this world, Satan.  Thus, our model for living isn’t one of bloodlust or blood-sport but one who willing sacrifices his life to save the lives of others.

One last atonement theory is sometimes called divinization or theosis.  This theory of atonement has been explored more in the Eastern Orthodox churches, although it may be best known in the West and especially in America in C.S. Lewis’ portrayal of Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Lewis tells the story of a lion named Aslan who is king of Narnia, but Narnia is currently ruled by the White Witch.   Aslan is betrayed by a boy who enters into Narnia through a wardrobe and aligns with the White Witch.  He then offers himself as a prisoner in place of the guilty child.  What happens when he, an innocent victim, is killed in place of a guilty one, is that “magic” works backward.  Things are turned inside out.  Death runs in the opposite direction.  Or as my wife likes to ask: what happens when a rotten apple is thrown in with a bunch?  The rest are made rotten.  But what happens when an apple that is “fully apple and fully divine” (i.e. Jesus full humanity and divinity) is thrown in with a bunch of rotten apples?  Well, the rottenness of the apples is absorbed by the divine apple.  This atonement theory leans more heavily on the incarnation (the introduction/union of the divine with the human) than it does upon the death of Jesus.  The introduction of the incarnation or union of the divine with the human in the person of Jesus brings about a total and radical change within the creation.  It brings a healing and renewal of all creation as Jesus absorbs the rottenness of the broken world.  This includes but is not limited to Jesus’ death absorbing the death of the world.

From a historical perspective, there were several church councils throughout the first millennium of Christianity when the church was not so splintered, and none of them settled on one particular theory of atonement as the right one.  It is only relatively recently in Western American Christian history that the substituionary theory has taken precedence.  I have found in studying historical theology that I have been given more options for understanding who Jesus was and how what he did mattered.  But in the end it is a mystery, and there are ways in which all three of these theories are accurate to different parts of scripture and Christian thought throughout the centuries.  Personally, I tend to keep all three in my back pocket and pull one or another out as I find it helpful to explain something, but I also tend to like the theosis theory a bit more than the others right now, perhaps because it is simply the newest one for me but has a long history within Christianity.

So that was all the first, hopefully helpful, direction to provide an answer to your question.  Let us now turn to a second direction for an answer: The Trinity.

Second, you mention George Carlin’s comment that God is such an ass that he requires the death of his son for all of creation to be made right with God.  I think a brief reflection upon the Christian idea of the Trinity is helpful at this point.

The Trinity is the Christian idea that God is eternally one God in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  It is hard to image how this works, but let me offer three metaphors of things that are always three and one that might help wrap our imagination around the Trinity.

First, a triangle is always three sides/angles but one object.  Take away one side or angle and you no longer have a triangle.  Second, speech is always three elements and yet one thing: a speaker, words, and breath.  Take away one and you no longer have speech.  Third, fire is always three and one: a flame, heat, and light.  Take away one and you no longer have fire.

Christians have understood that when we say God, we mean Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  And where one person of the Trinity is present the other two are present as well.  In any given conversation about God, the limits of language end up focusing on one of these two things: God’s “threeness” or God’s “oneness.”  When Carlin says that God requires his child’s death, his language is focusing on God’s threeness.  But what if we looked at Jesus’ death through the the “oneness” of God?  Jesus and the Father are one (and the Spirit too).  Where Jesus is, there the Father (and the Spirit) are too.  That would mean that God was not an abusive father of Jesus sending his son to die, but rather God is giving himself, sacrificing himself, and offering himself on the cross.  When God does this in the flesh, he does this in the “person” of Jesus.  Thus if God is an “ass”, God is the kind of “ass” who takes the punishment upon himself rather than posing it upon someone else.  God is no abusive father, but the kind of father who would step in front of speeding car to save a child from certain destruction.

So those are two thoughts (and lots of sub-thoughts) that I hope are helpful in providing an answer to your very good question.  In the end though, it is still a mystery, and one that we will continue to ponder and explore and meditate upon for all of eternity.