Atonement

ATONEMENT- WHO PAYS THE PRICE?

There is an Easter story that horrifies me. This story is the creation of the Christian teacher Anselm, in the twelfth century, told with the intention of explaining the mystery of how Jesus' death on the cross enables us to be reconciled to God.

It goes something like this: God is holy, and wholly just. As such God cannot abide sin.All human beings are born sinful, therefore cannot have a relationship with God. They are therefore condemned to eternal separation from God (hell!). A debt therefore has to be paid for human sin in order to satisfy God's demand for justice, but being sinful, human beings cannot pay it.Jesus, being perfect, pays the price by substituting himself and accepting the fate that should have been ours- by dying on the cross. We are now thus saved from hell and can live in a relationship with God.

Put crudely, it is like a transaction has taken place between God and Jesus: 'You suffer this horrible fate and I will forgive the sin of the world!'

This has also been taken further to say that God actually has to punish his own Son, instead of us- The Penal Substitutionary Theory of The Atonement!

The word 'atonement' is not used much these days; certainly not in day to day conversation. Ask the average person what it means and you are likely to be told that it is the title of a recent film! Having not seen the film I do not know how well the cap fits.

The word 'atonement' means making amends, which may be by doing something or paying some price to put right something that is wrong.If we have to make atonement it means that we are the ones at fault, or in debt. So, if I forget Helen's birthday, I may try to make atonement by taking her out for a special dinner followed by a movie she wants to see- probably something tragic!

A helpful way to understand the meaning of the word is to break it down: AT ONE MENT; bringing back together again, to be as one again.

In religious language the word is specially used to describe what happens through Jesus' death on the Cross, in terms of how this act brings us back together with God again.In spite of various efforts to explain how this works, it must ultimately be accepted a mystery. As Charles Wesley wrote ''Tis mystery all, the immortal dies.Who can explore his strange design?" All we can do is try to find metaphors from our own experience to help us get a handle on it.So it was that early writers used ideas from their day, like ransom payments demanded by brigands who kidnapped rich travellers. (eg Matt.20:28, Gal 3:13 and so on). The main biblical image is the one of sacrifice, for example in the book of Hebrews, where Jesus is described as a once and for all sacrifice, making the sacrificial system of the Temple obsolete. Another powerful image, from the Gospel of Matthew, is the report of the curtain in the temple being split in two at the moment of Christ's death. The curtain separated the congregation from the Holy of Holies, that most sacred place where the Ark of the Lord was kept- where the very presence of God was said to dwell. Before this, nobody could get access, save for one priest, once a year! Now, atonement has been made, and we are free to enter the holy place of a relationship with the living God.

Not everyone agrees that humanity is in fact alienated from God. Matthew Fox and the Creation Spirituality school reject the idea that we are born sinful and therefore automatically separated from God.They emphasise original grace rather than original sin. Others see the meaning of Christ on the cross in terms of the setting ofexample of what it means to lay down one's life for one's friends.We are thus inspired to live more like him.

What is almost as mysterious as the meaning of atonement is the fact that one theory, the so-called Penal Substitutionary theory of the Atonement which I described earlier has become so popular that many people simply accept it as THE theory of the Atonement. This Is the Gospel; the Good News of what God and Christ have done for us.

I can think of at least six serious objections to this idea of Anselm's, an idea which would not matter so much if the Christian world did not take it so seriously as to proclaim it as The Gospel itself!

The problems are these:

1. The theory justifies the use of violence as a solution to humanity's biggest problem. How does this relate to Jesus as the Prince of Peace entering Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday?

2. If God requires such a terrible price is paid before he can forgive us, does that mean that we can only forgive one another when our own honour has been satisfied by some sort of atoning act?

3. Where is the actual justice in then innocent being punished for the guilty?

4. While the divine transaction goes on between God and Jesus, humanity is passive. This can and often does result in conversion without transformation.

5. The theory makes Jesus' life and teaching irrelevant, and the resurrection unnecessary

6. It directly contradicts the image of God that Jesus gives us in his life and teaching. Consider for example how the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 would sound from the standpoint of the Substitutionary Theory of the Atonement:

Remember how the younger son asks for his share of the inheritance and goes off and wastes it in a far country. Starving, he decides to go home…

The father saw his younger son coming from a long way off.He ran out to meet him and said "Stop right here.There is no way that you can come back home to the farm the way things are.Someone has to pay for what you have done. I cannot abide your presence in your sinful state! With that he turned on his heel and went back through the farm gate, locking it firmly behind him.There was nothing the Prodigal could do but sit out there in the heat and the cold.

When the older brother heard the commotion he came in from the fields to learn that his younger brother had tried to come home.When he asked why his father had refused him entry, the father patiently explained that when someone had offended his honour, someone had to pay."In fact", said the father, "You are my beloved son who has always been with me, and have done me no wrong. You also love your brother so muchYou are the perfect person; actually the only person who can enable your brother to be reconciled to me."With that he summoned the head servant, who had the other servants seize the older brother, bind him, and bring him back before his father. The son pleaded that he might be spared, but also said "You are my dad I can only hope you know what you are doing! " Trust me", said the father."With that he ordered the head servant to stab his son to death.

Going to the farm gate, the father placed a warm cloak around the young man's shoulders.He said to the prodigal, "What was necessary to do has now been done.You can come in now.Everything has been put right between us"

I am sorry if that story shocks you, but I am similarly shocked that so many people could for so long have given full assent to an understanding of how God works that is no better than I have just described!

I believe that the church has paid a huge price for its unquestioning and dogmatic adherence to this theory.For one thing, it has alienated many thinking people who cannot abide the twisted thinking.For another, it has left us with a theology of salvation that does not require us to take seriously the life and teachings of Jesus, nor the implications of the resurrection and Pentecost in energizing us to live transformed lives. This has allowed Christians to go around calling themselves saved, and arrogantly assuming that others are not, without showing any grace in their lives. We pay no price yet claim sole occupancy of the Kingdom of Heaven! It may also explain how the Christian Church has been so often an accomplice in the ways of violence and revenge.

For me, the transforming work of Christ certainly involves him paying the highest possible price; but not just at his death.He starts to pay the price when he is tempted in the wilderness to embrace lust for power, and employ his spiritual power to his own advantage. He pays the price throughout his ministry by favouring the poor and the outcast; by confronting the pride and legalism of the religious rulers, and by refusing to bow to Caesar.He pays the price of being available to the woman at the well.She does not need him to die to save her.She needs him to do exactly what he did, which was to create a compassionate healing space within which she could safely face her deeper self, and come through the experience transformed. The price he pays at his death and in his death is a logical continuation of the price he pays with his life.

The friends he takes with him in the time of his ministry are learning what the way of Christ is all about. Sadly though, they are shamed at the Cross because in the end they all either betray or deny him. He dies alone.What finally transforms them from cowards to apostles is the experience of the resurrection, and the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

This Easter I hope we can dig a little deeper than the flawed theory of Anselm, and comprehend the amazing grace made available, not only by Jesus' death, but by the impact of his life and resurrection as well. This is not to diminish one iota the saving importance of his death but to value its transforming and mysterious power beyond limited and facile attempts to explain it that do justice neither to God's justice nor God'sunconditional compassion.

May The Christ of Easter inspire us to lives of peaceful transformation, forgiveness without demanding blood, hope that is grounded in Jesus image of God as a loving Father, and new life that is steeped in the teaching and example, the suffering and death, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.