Why Did Jesus Die: The Rescue
Sycamore Creek Church
August 10/11, 2014
Tom Arthur
Peace friends!
As you can see in that video, there’s a wide set of answers to the question: Why did Jesus die? Some people just don’t know but most who do give an answer focus on one thing: Jesus died to forgive us of our sins. This is the general answer that gets most of the air time in the churches and Christian leaders in our culture. But it is not the only answer.
Today we begin a new four-week series where it’s our intent and hope to widely expand your imagination about the cross and Jesus’ death. It’s our hope that in expanding your imagination by seeing more answers to the question Why did Jesus die? that you will have a deeper appreciation of the breadth and depth of how God is saving the world in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and will see how many different ways there are for you to participate in that salvation.
This series is what we call a “belief series.” We do many different kinds of series over a given a year. Some of the more well known ones we call Buzz Series. A buzz series speaks to our felt needs and our emotions. Other times we do H.A.B.I.T.S. series and we speak to your will by helping you develop more spiritual practices or habits. At other times we do a Bible series and cover a book of the Bible or a character in the Bible. This series as a belief series, is intended to help you grow in your depth of understanding of some of the basics and essentials of Christian belief and doctrine, and there’s not much more basic and essential to Christianity than Jesus’ death on a cross.
Now it would be a mistake to assume that this will be a dry series because it is a belief series. It would be a mistake because while it is a belief series I also believe it is something of a felt-need series too. The question, “Why did Jesus die?” or its counterpart, “Why did Jesus have to die?” are two questions I get asked over and over again. There are many misconceptions about why Jesus died and much hangs on our answer to this question. So we are doing this series because you have asked us to do it. It is a belief that you want to know more about.
This series has been deeply informed by a book that you may find helpful. The book is called The Nature of Atonement. It’s the kind of book that I really like. It has four different authors. Each author presents a different answer to the question: Why did Jesus die? I like this kind of book because it shows me that there are options, and options are always good!
The Nature of Atonement has a big word in the title: “Atonement.” When we ask the question: Why did Jesus die we are asking a question of atonement. Atonement as Merriam-Webster defines it is: “the reconciliation of God and humankind through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.” So when we talk about atonement we’re talking about reconciliation.
There are at least three different theories that Christians present to answer the atonement question: Why did Jesus die? The first is what most of us are familiar with and is usually called a Substitution Atonement. Substitution Atonement says that the problem is that we are guilty and Jesus’ death reconciles us to God by forgiving us. This is the theory that gets most of the air time. Another theory is the Healing Atonement. The Healing Atonement says that the problem is that we are wounded and broken and in need of healing. We will cover these two theories in the coming two weeks.
The atonement theory I want to explore today is called the Rescue Atonement or Christus Victor as scholars like to call it (why do they always like to use Latin?). The Rescue Atonement says that the problem is that we are in captivity and we need freedom. Today I want to explore four keys to a Rescue Atonement.
Four Keys to a Rescue Atonement
1. The Bible describes an epic battle between the forces of good and evil where the forces of good ultimately win.
Gregory Boyd says, “The biblical narrative could in fact be accurately described as a story of God’s ongoing conflict with and ultimate victory over cosmic and human agents who oppose him and who threaten his creation.” We can see this over and over in scripture but here are three examples to give you a sense of how we’re in a battle of good vs. evil.
I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
~Genesis 3:15 NRSV
You rule the raging of the sea;
when its waves rise, you still them.
You crushed Rahab like a carcass;
you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.
~Psalm 89:9-10 NRSV
[The angel] said to me, “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia opposed me twenty-one days. So Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of Persia, and have come to help you understand what is to happen to your people at the end of days.”
~Daniel 10:12-14 NRSV
This last one is my favorite. I love the image of an angel coming to talk to Daniel but being held up by another enemy angel. Michael, the chief angel or archangel, has to come and join the battle so that the first angel can get through enemy lines to show Daniel this amazing vision! Over and over again on every page of the Bible we find this imagery of a battle being waged between good and evil. This is the first key to understanding a rescue atonement.
2. Sin is not just individual but structural and cosmic.
I think that most of us think of sin as something very personal. I sinned. But sin is bigger than something personal. It is structural (all of our sins put together) and cosmic (forces beyond even human control). Paul describes this in his letter to the church at Ephesus:
For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
~Ephesians 6:12 NRSV
Lately I’ve begun to watch the HBO mini series The Pacific. It’s about the Pacific theater of war in WWII. The show begins with the battles at Guadalcanal. I was astonished at the carnage of Japanese soldiers. They just keep coming and coming at the Americans, and what they find themselves facing is an almost impregnable line of defense anchored by machine guns. These machine guns allow the Americans to lose very few men compared to hundreds and thousands of Japanese deaths. It’s a terrible unbeatable force that the Japanese encounter.
The same thing is true when it comes to our own human efforts against the forces of evil. By ourselves, we are like the Japanese soldiers who throw themselves against the American machine guns and are utterly unable to break through. We need someone who is able to break through the line of the enemy and set us free.
Gregory Boyd says:
Paul does not see ‘sin’ first and foremost as a matter of individual behavior, as most modern Westerns do. He rather conceives of ‘sin’…as a quasi-autonomous power that holds people groups as well as individuals in bondage…This is why people can never hope to break the power of sin and fulfill the law by their own efforts. As in much apocalyptic though, Paul believed what was needed was nothing less than God breaking into human history to destroy the power of sin and rescuing us from the cosmic powers that keep us in bondage to sin. This is precisely what Paul and all early Christians believed happened with the advent of Jesus Christ. And this is the essence of the Christus Victor view of the atonement.
If sin is something structural and cosmic, then something is needed more than just forgiveness of individuals. Jesus rescues us from this captivity. But how?
3. The character of this battle is self-sacrificial love.
Most of the language used around the Rescue Atonement theory is battle language. It would seem then that what is needed is a warrior who is going to show up and bash some heads in to rescue us. But this isn’t what Jesus did. Jesus dies. On a cross. He gives of his own life self-sacrificially. He turns war on its head. He rescues not by being violent, but by giving his life on a cross. Jesus’ follower, John, puts it this way:
Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
~John 12:31-32 NRSV
When Jesus says “when I am lifted up from this Earth” I think it’s a double reference to both being lifted up by the cross and his ascension to the right hand of God the Father. But his glorification through ascension only happens because he first goes through the ascension upon the cross. That ascension is that he gives his life up that we might be rescued even from death itself.
Perhaps one of the best modern illustrations of this I’ve seen is a scene from the movie Captain America.
Before he’s Captain America, Steve Rogers faces a test with a grenade. He willingly throws himself upon the grenade to save his fellow soldiers from dying. He gives his own life to save the lives of others. This is what makes Steve Rogers fitting to be Captain America.
Martin Luther King Jr. picked up on the spirit of Jesus rescue mission as he developed a rescue mission to save black people from the captivity of segregation. He called his method active non-violent resistance. Here’s how he described it:
To meet hate with retaliatory hate would do nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love; we must meet physical force with soul force.”
~MLK Jr. (An Experiment in Love)
We would do well to follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther King Jr. as he followed in the footsteps of Jesus’ self-sacrificial love.
4. Salvation means gaining freedom from evil forces and participating in the battle of good over evil.
So if the problem is that we’re in bondage to the forces of evil and the solution is that Jesus came on a rescue mission to free us, how are we to understand salvation? Well, salvation is joining this rescue mission by gaining freedom from evil and participating in the battle for good!
John, Jesus’ disciple said it this way:
The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
~1 John 3:8 NRSV
Jesus’ purpose is our purpose: to destroy the works of the devil. As the psalmist says:
Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool.
~Psalm 110:1 NRSV
Jesus sits at the right hand of God and as we sit at the right hand of Jesus, we participate in the rescue mission of making evil the footstool of God.
Forgive me if I go back to Martin Luther King Jr. again, but he preached an amazing sermon called “Why Jesus Called a Man a Fool” (listen to it here). In it he describes a moment of deep despondency where he met Jesus over a cup of coffee. Jesus calls him to join in this battle over injustice and oppression (underline emphasis mine):
And I got to the point that I couldn’t take it any longer; I was weak. (Yes)
Something said to me, you can’t call on Daddy now, he’s up in Atlanta a hundred and seventy-five miles away. (Yes) You can’t even call on Mama now. (My Lord) You’ve got to call on that something in that person that your Daddy used to tell you about. (Yes) That power that can make a way out of no way. (Yes) And I discovered then that religion had to become real to me and I had to know God for myself. (Yes, sir) And I bowed down over that cup of coffee—I never will forget it. (Yes, sir) And oh yes, I prayed a prayer and I prayed out loud that night. (Yes) I said, “Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right. (Yes) I think I’m right; I think the cause that we represent is right. (Yes) But Lord, I must confess that I’m weak now; I’m faltering; I’m losing my courage. (Yes) And I can’t let the people see me like this because if they see me weak and losing my courage, they will begin to get weak.” (Yes) I wanted tomorrow morning to be able to go before the executive board with a smile on my face.
And it seemed at that moment that I could hear an inner voice saying to me, (Yes) “Martin Luther, (Yes) stand up for righteousness, (Yes) stand up for justice, (Yes) stand up for truth. (Yes) And lo I will be with you, (Yes) even until the end of the world.”
And I’ll tell you, I’ve seen the lightning flash. I’ve heard the thunder roll. I felt sin- breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul. But I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No, never alone. No, never alone. He promised never to leave me, (Never) never to leave me alone.
Do you hear the call to join in the rescue mission? Do you hear the attempt of evil to conquer Martin Luther King Jr.? Do you hear the call to fight on? Martin Luther King Jr. joins in the rescue mission of Jesus by finding his own freedom from captivity and seeking the freedom of those who are captive yet today.
So have you found that freedom? Are you participating in that battle? Are you being saved? That’s what Jesus did on the cross. That’s why Jesus died. As Gregory Boyd says, “To have faith in what Christ did is to walk faithful to what Christ is doing.” Do you have that faith? Are you walking faithfully?
Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross, that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace. So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your name.
~Book of Common Prayer
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.
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.
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