Beautiful Scandal
Commentary
When Canadian missionaries Don and Carol Richardson entered the world of the Sawi people in Irian Jaya in 1962, they were aware that culture shock awaited them. But the full impact of the tensions they faced didn’t become apparent until one challenging day.
The Sawi lived in dwellings constructed high in the trees, partly to escape the ever-damp rain forest jungle floor, partly to catch cooling breezes that were otherwise blocked by dense growth, and partly to avoid mosquitoes as much as possible. Don committed himself to language acquisition, and soon had learned enough of the Sawi language to carry on elementary conversations. He often spent time at the evening communal gathering of men, practicing his rudimentary Sawi skills by articulating Bible stories.
The Sawi were great tellers of tales. The best among them could weave word pictures for hours, captivating and entrancing everyone within earshot. Don was a novice working under the limitations of a foreign language. Some listened politely as he tried to express himself, but most ignored him and carried on other conversations and activities.
Then came the night that turned out to be horrifyingly different. At first, the gathering of men was as restless as usual while Don spoke. The narrative he had chosen, of Jesus’ final days with his disciples before the crucifixion, did not seem to grab them. But Don pressed on, and began the story of Judas, one of Jesus’ closest associates, plotting to have his friend killed. Suddenly Don felt a measureless energy connecting everyone in the room. No one moved. No one made a noise. All were listening.
Startled and pleased, Don carried on. The drama heightened, with a dark night, Jesus’ worried conversations, the arrival of soldiers, and the kiss of betrayal. The room shivered with anticipation at each move. And when the details of Judas’s awful murderous act danced before them, Don felt a keen sense of involvement in every eye.
Then came the uneasy crawling of his skin. What was it about the story that drew the Sawi? Why did this story of treachery draw such enthusiasm? He was about to find out.
When the last words were spoken, one man whistled in delight. Others chuckled in glee, and some touched their fingertips to their chests in awe. In their animated responses, it quickly became apparent that to them, Judas was a great man! He was the hero of the story! Judas might even be called a super-Sawi! He had played the greatest trick a Sawi man could ever hope to pull off—the “fattening of a friend for the slaughter!”
Don was horrified. What was this Sawi ritual that seemed to make Judas the person to emulate in the crucifixion story? It was rooted in the cannibalistic heritage of the Sawi.
Over generations, the Sawi found no excitement that could match that of eating the flesh of someone who first had been groomed as a friend. It was the ultimate expression of power, of control, of vindication. To eat the flesh of a friend was the ultimate trip, since it took all of the vital energy of someone who was respected (and thus made a friend), and infused this vitality into one’s own self. To “fatten a friend for the slaughter” made the betrayer a truly big man. In fact, his story would be told again and again, around nighttime fires, as a lesson to future generations.
So, for the Sawi, Judas was the hero of the gospel. Jesus was a great man, a wonderful friend. But Judas was an outstanding man who managed, through subterfuge, to incorporate all of Jesus’ goodness into Judas’ own larger personhood first by befriending him, and then, even more significantly, by betraying him to his death.
Don and Carol Richardson could not sleep that night. After all, they had been welcomed into the village as guests. They had been “befriended”! Now they wondered whether they were to become the next victims of such a value system. Which among those who had treated them kindly would soon plunge the knife after they had been sufficiently “fattened for the slaughter”?
The Richardsons decided, with deep fears and much prayer, to remain among the Sawi. Don scavenged his few theological books for different ways to express the Christian understanding of the atonement. How could he proclaim the gospel message, centered as it was on Jesus’ death, in a meaningful manner for Sawi who were enamored with Judas?
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
There are three major families of atonement theory, he recalled. Each began with Jesus on the cross. But each moved in a different direction as it unpacked the meaning of what took place on that grim and gruesome Friday afternoon.
Earliest among Christian reflections on the meaning of Jesus’ death was the “ransom” theory. The gospel message was, from the first, really “good news!” After all, no one had ever before experienced a dead man getting up out of his grave! That, coupled with the miracles that Jesus had done, both before and after his resurrection, made a huge impact on his closest contacts and friends. They were scared and amazed and terrified and overjoyed, all at the same time. Jesus could do anything!
And what Jesus did was good. He was not a tyrant, using power as a weapon. He was a friend, a healer, a provider. He blessed bread and it multiplied until everyone was fed. He spoke words of kindness and encouragement, and demons left the house. He touched sores and painful rashes, and health glowed in the eyes of those previously troubled by diseases. He was God’s agent of grace. In fact, many believed he was, himself, actually God!
More than that, although Jesus had disappeared from them, the message from his closest disciples was that he would return soon. During this brief interlude, Jesus’ friends and followers were commissioned to tell everyone they could about the great things Jesus had done. Early followers of Jesus soon earned the name “Christians,” since they could not stop talking about Jesus, the Christ. They were like little Jesuses walking around. Whether people appreciated them or despised them, these were certainly “Christians.”
Of course, beyond all the tales of Jesus’ miracles, and the huge story of his resurrection, there was the BIG EVENT that needed explanation. Yes, Jesus was powerful. Yes, he was God or God-like. Yes, he did many good things that changed peoples’ lives. But why was he killed in the first place? And how could such a one who wielded enormous divine resources that sent away demons and overturned diseases and defied death in others himself succumb to death? What was going on?
The initial response of Christians to such questions is that Jesus willingly traded his life for that of others. After all, he had talked about both his coming and his death in that manner: “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45; Matthew 20:28). During the age of persecution, early Christian theologians portrayed Jesus’ cross as the point of transaction between himself and the devil. This line of argument was rooted in Genesis 3, where the devil, in the form of a serpent, tempted the first human parents into seeking meaning apart from their creator. Through the unfortunate choices of Eve and Adam, all their offspring would begin life dominated by Satan, and compromised by evil. From birth, Lucifer owned our souls and snagged us on his deadly lures as we swam the oceans of time and existence. Powerless to save ourselves, Jesus provided, by way of his own death, the ransom that bought us back from the devil.
Justin Martyr (100-165) articulated this already early in the second century. “[Christ]” he said, “was in these last days, according to the time appointed by the Father, united to his own workmanship, inasmuch as he became a man liable to suffering ... he commenced afresh the long line of human beings, and furnished us, in a brief, comprehensive manner, with salvation; so that what we had lost in Adam—namely, to be according to the image and likeness of God—that we might recover in Christ Jesus.” Soon after, in his commentary on Matthew 16:8, Origen (184–254) wrote: “To whom did [Christ] give his life a ransom for many? Assuredly not to God; could it then be to the evil one? For he was holding us fast until the ransom should be given him, even the life of Jesus; [Satan] being deceived with the idea that he could have dominion over it, and not seeing that he could not bear the torture in retaining it.” He draws out this image again later in his commentary, and Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-394) and Augustine (c. 354-430) pick it up in turn.
The idea of Jesus’ death as a ransom is intriguing. It makes the gruesome reality of crucifixion even more powerful. Yes, Jesus could have avoided the cross, but he chose to offer himself in exchange for the whole of humanity, who, by their willful disobedience or through the dastardly trickery or the devil, had come to be owned by evil. Only someone who has power greater than Satan, but who chooses to wield that might in the guise of helplessness, could subvert the tyranny of wickedness by feinting defeat in a single battle in order to win the cosmic war.
C. S. Lewis twice carried the ransom theory of the atonement in our modern world. First, he named his space hero “Dr. Ransom,” in the trilogy that wrestled over the past, present and future of earth and its neighboring planets. Ransom is a scientist (knowledgeable, source of hope and healing) who gets abducted by aliens (evil incarnated), visits Mars (to see how one species resisted temptation), and travels to Venus as the creator is planting a new civilization that might replay humankind’s fall into sin.
Later, the act of a ransoming Messiah was central to Lewis’ Narnia Chronicle The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Aslan, the Jesus-like lion ruler of Narnia, is reclaiming his kingdom that has been under a long spell of wintery frigidity brought on by the White Witch. According to ancient prophecies, Aslan can only redeem his Narnia world through the assistance of two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve. The Pevensie children from London, living temporarily in the country home of Professor Digory Kirke to escape the Second World War bombing blitz, stumble into Narnia just in time. But all is not well. Peter, Susan and Lucy are right for redemptive leadership, and will go on to rule as king and queens. But brother Edmund sneaked into Narnia on his own, and fell prey to the Witch’s influences. She “owns” him, and because this “son of Adam” has now become an agent of evil, Aslan cannot win the war for Narnia. The only way that Edmund can be released from her clutches is if Aslan himself will become the ransom. Of course, this defeats all of Narnia’s hopes, since the “savior” of this world is now killed by the evil ruler who has usurped the throne.
Whimpering in darkness as the demons and ogres strip the mane and life from Aslan on the Stone Table with magical writing from the beginning of time that dictates these outcomes, Lucy and Susan believe all is lost. But at dawn they are wakened by a loud CRACK! Peering from their hiding place, they see the Stone Table shattered, and the evil creatures scattered. Then Aslan bounces in, larger than ever. When they ask him what has happened, he tells of a magic that is found before time itself. In this magic, Aslan was able to offer himself as ransom to the White Witch, without her realizing that she would never be able to keep or destroy him.
Hebrews 4:14-16 (5:7-9)
The ransom perspective regarding the work of Jesus was strong in the church’s first centuries. It has been maintained through to the present in popular form by Lewis’ creative Narnia imaginings, and also by astute theologians such as Gustav Aulen, who asserted Jesus’ triumph over evil as Christus Viktor. Aulen unfolded the history of atonement theories in three stages. The second group of atonement explanations, initiated by Anselm (1033-1109) imagined Jesus’ death more as an intentional dialogue with his Father. On Monday of what has come to be known as Passion Week, Jesus told a story that summarized all of Israelite history, including Jesus’ own coming into the world, as a teaching parable. A great landowner established a vineyard guarded by walls and complete with a winepress and a fortified tower. Before leaving on an extended journey, the master of the estate rented it out to tenants. After harvest, the landlord sent servants to collect his mandated share of the proceeds. The tenants, however, beat some and killed others, despising the one who had given them their very livelihood.
Finally, the master sent his own son, believing that the troublesome renters would respect this flesh of his own flesh. But the rebels saw things differently. “This is the heir,” they said to one another. “Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance!” And this they do.
Jesus’ story ends with the landowner bringing judgment on those horrible tenants. Of course, all who heard the story knew that they were implicated in the fiendish plot, for they were the tenants of God’s great world. Even more, they had received ambassadors from God throughout their history—the prophets sent to call them back to obedience and loyalty to their good master. In each gospel’s rendition of this parable, the last lines talk about the religious leaders of the day going out to foment a plot against Jesus, desiring to kill him. The rest of Passion Week will mark their progress, until Jesus is on the cross.
Of course, Jesus’ own disciples recalled this parable for its profound theological richness as the centuries unfolded. God had been righteous and good in preparing this world for humankind. God had even nurtured a special relationship with the nation of Israel, giving them unique lead-tenant status at the heart of his creation. To them, God had sent prophets, reminding the people of their character and obligations. Yet virtually every “servant of Yahweh” had been despised or brutally treated. Some had even been killed in response to their righteous messages.
And now, the Son had come. But he was rejected and tortured as well, until he hung on the cross in shame. Yet in his steadfast commitment to the ways and the will of his Father, Jesus restored dignity and honor in heaven, and transformed life on earth. In Anselm’s pivotal work, Cur Deus Homo, Anselm carries on a dialogue with his student Boso about these things. Anselm argues that humanity has offended God, but that humankind is incapable of living faithfully or restoring honor. In fact, even if we were able to overcome our innate tendencies toward evil, continuing to defame God, any righteous acts would only be reasonable and expected, and would not cleanse the tarnishment debt that had been growing for centuries. Only Jesus, beginning with a perfect righteousness, could also stand in for us as we faced our Creator. Taking it upon himself to offer his own life on our behalf, Jesus’ crucifixion provides absolute redemption, since Jesus is a human without sin (thus not needing to negotiate on his own behalf for his own transgressions) and also divine (thus acting in infinite ways toward ultimate and transcendent fulfillment of outcomes).
Aquinas (1225–1274) elaborated on the satisfaction atonement theory in his Summa Theologica. He writes, “Consequently Christ by his passion merited salvation, not only for himself, but likewise for all his members.” Later, both Martin Luther (1483-1546) and John Calvin (1509-1564) expounded further on this view of Jesus’ crucifixion, although separating it from the sacramentalism of the medieval church. Calvin put it this way: “This is our acquittal: the guilt that held us liable for punishment has been transferred to the head of the Son of God (Is. 53:12). We must, above all, remember this substitution, lest we tremble and remain anxious throughout life — as if God’s righteous vengeance, which the Son of God has taken upon himself, still hung over us.
This perspective on the meaning and effects of Jesus’ death emerges most directly from biblical passages like Hebrews 4, 5 and 9. The write of Hebrews, using the day of atonement as his canvas, paints a picture of Jesus performing the duties of high priest in order to make the people right with their sovereign. There is sin. There is sacrifice. There is expiation and atonement. Redemption is accomplished when Jesus officiates at the place of death, since “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrew 9:22).
John 18:1--19:42
A third family of atonement theories focuses the attention of Jesus on humanity, rather than on the devil or the Father. Most frequently this is called the “Moral Example or Influence” view of the atonement. While it has been around since the beginning of the church, this perspective gained a lot of traction in our modern world. Since it points to the cruelty of Jesus’ death, and the fact that he did not deserve what happened to him, the Moral Influence atonement theory asserts Jesus’ crucifixion as a scandal that is intended to shock us back from our immoral stupor, re-engaging us with a higher morality.
Most articulate and influential for this perspective was Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher who set the stage for much of our current metaphysical thinking. Reacting to David Hume’s skepticism about God and the transcendent beliefs of Christianity, Kant sought to ground religious perspectives in the rationality of common human thinking. Kant remained a theist all his life, but rewrote the manner in which God is apprehended by us, or influences our lives. The consistency of our many human perceptions about the world in which we live convinced Kant that God has provided innate categories of thinking and organizing and moralizing within the common human mind. These shape our experiences of life, as well as our ethical practices, in similar ways, regardless of our cultural backgrounds or contexts.
Jesus was important for Kant, but not in a manner similar to either the “ransom” or “satisfaction” portraits for understanding why Jesus came among us or died a cruel death. Instead, for Kant, Jesus was the greatest expression of human self-awareness and compliance with the intrinsic moral codes stamped into our rational processes. Jesus thus serves humanity as the pinnacle example of moral rectitude, and the role model of best ethical choices.
Kant expressed this most profoundly in the third book of his Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793). Jesus of Nazareth is, for Kant, the prime archetype symbolizing what can take place when we as evilly-inclined humans reach instead for the virtues which God has embedded into our most authentic rational thinking. Kant never explores Jesus’ origins, or connects Jesus with divinity. Instead, the fullness of the best of our humanity oozes from Jesus’ every pore, and we become better through our imitation of him.
Friedrich Schleiermacher adapted Kant’s Enlightenment philosophical perspectives and used them to shape what would come to be known as Liberal Protestant Theology. Schleiermacher broke from the orthodox German pietism of his family heritage in a stunning declaration to the youthful intelligentsia of his times by publishing On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1799). Rejecting miracles and the historic Christian views of Jesus as divine, Schleiermacher instead described religion as an innate human longing for mystery and the transcendent. Jesus most clearly articulated these things, and demonstrated them in his personal commitments to others, including his great example of love in volunteering to go to death if it would spare his friends, and allow them to escape and live on.
In 1832, after having formulated his mature Enlightenment theology for publication as The Christian Faith, Schleiermacher taught a course on “The Life of Jesus.” Although these assertions were never published as a finished literary work by Schleiermacher, they have been reassembled from his own lecture outlines, supplemented by quotes and elaborations found in classroom notes taken by his students. Schleiermacher believed Christianity was the best expression of human religious questing, and that the Jesus at the center of Christianity was humanity’s greatest ethical teacher, and its finest example of authentic moral living.
Schleiermacher’s “example theory” of Jesus’ life and death was multiplied throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in what has become known as the initial “quest for the historical Jesus.” Ernest Renan (1823-1892) and David Strauss (1808-1874) broadly popularized this perspective in their influential biographies of Jesus, each titled Life of Jesus (1835, 1863). Both asserted that Jesus was a heroic man who separated his deep moral authority from the Judaism into which he had been born, and established Christianity as the best expression of truly moral rational religion. Culminating this “quest” was Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), who wrote a history of this Enlightenment take on Jesus and the religion he founded. Invariably, Jesus was portrayed as a uniquely insightful human who provided his followers with a meaningful moral matrix defined by a rational understanding of the best that life can become when properly conceived and executed by ethically astute people and societies.
Application
While each of these families of atonement theory is rooted in some aspect of Jesus’ life and teachings, and each holds merit for deepening our appreciation of Jesus’ world-changing ministry and death, there are clearly a number of contradictory points made by various extended reflections on these themes. The writer of Hebrews would keep us focused on the “Satisfaction” aspect of Jesus’ death. Building his argument upon his readers’ shared understanding of the actions and significance of the annual Israelite “Day of Atonement,” the author declares Jesus to be a unique high priest, offering himself as the substitute sacrifice that will renew God’s relationship with God’s people.
And how did Don Richardson fare in his attempt to bring this message regarding Jesus to the Sawi people, who were enamored with strongman Judas, who had, in Sawi fashion, “fattened the pig (Jesus) for the slaughter”? As Don and Carol continued their lives with these people in the rain forests of Papua, New Guinea, climate conditions precipitated stresses that eventually caused a new insight.
In an unusually dry rainy season, river flows diminished and vegetation suffered from drought. Sawi men ranged further and longer to find adequate game and fish, and local sources of fruits and vegetables became scarce. Rarely an afternoon would pass without deepening concerns expressed in the tree house where the men huddled to mend nets, create hunting weapons, and pass along gossip and wisdom. Now the talk was turning ugly, particularly after several Sawi were wounded in skirmishes with neighboring tribes who fought them over territorial claims for hunting grounds and fishing rights, in a world of receding resources. After these clashes brought death to more than a few of both Sawi and their enemies, Don heard murmurings of the possible need for a “peace child.”
A ”peace child”? Don asked what this meant. With troubled voices, the older men revealed another stream of Sawi tradition. Sometimes in the distant past, they said, when tensions ran high between clans and tribes, and when warfare threatened to destroy their villages and families, a wise chief would grab the youngest newborn male from its mother’s loving embrace, and run with the child, chased by horrified maternal cries, across the distance between the Sawi and their enemies. Emerging suddenly into the settlement of their foes, the chief would thrust this baby into the arms of a young woman there. While adrenaline flared and testosterone ignited menacing passions, a sudden stillness would calm them all. This was a “peace child,” and everyone was aware of what was taking place. A single life of a Sawi boy had been entrusted to the care of the other tribe. In this action, their communities were knit toward a common purpose: one of us live with them; we have become brothers and sisters and family and partners; to kill them is to take our own life; to fight with them is to destroy ourselves.
In an instant, all rules in the game of war were changed. What had been combat against foreigners to gain and use turf and resources, now was transformed into a growing family that needed all interests to provide safety and nourishment for every individual who was part of this newly amalgamated collective. The “peace child” knit disparate elements of humanity together into a larger whole, where mutual care superseded violent competition.
Don was intrigued. A “peace child” who reconciled embattled enemies!
He had one important follow-up question. What would happen, he asked, if someone harmed the “peace child”?
Fierce emotions erupted immediately. Harm the “peace child”?! Impossible! No one would ever do that! It was unthinkable!
“Let me tell you a story…” said Don. He told of a time in the distant past when the tribe of humanity was at war with the tribe of heaven. He told how antagonism mounted and words became weapons and alienation threatened to destroy this world. But just when things looked most critical, the Chief of heaven’s tribe took his only son, and thrust him into the hands of a young human woman. She became his mother, and the “peace child” reconciled earth to heaven.
As murmurs of approval hummed in every Sawi throat, Don went on. One day, he told them, a brash young man connected with the “peace child.” This fellow decided to draw the “peace child” into his personal quest for power, and played the manly Sawi game of “fattening the pig for the slaughter.” After three years of building trust and friendship, the cunning young fellow was able to betray and kill his buddy.
The Sawi were horrified! When did this happen?! Who was this terrible young man?! How could anyone violate the foundational principle of reconciliation that was essential to the “peace child” rite?!
In simple terms, Don Richardson told the Sawi men about Jesus (the “peace child”) and Judas (the betrayer). With cries of anguish, the Sawi wondered what could be done, and how this plight might be remedied.
That was the day that the Sawi became Christians.
Alternative Application (Hebrews 4:14-16 (5:7-9))
In our modern pluralistic world of many options, and all of them good, or at least okay, we skim through Hebrews, berry-picking those morsels that make us smile and tell us how much we are loved. But the real message of the book is profoundly dark, even as it is wrapped up in bright hope: “Folks, stick with Jesus, because there is no other source of life or salvation! And, yes, sticking with Jesus means that you are going to be horribly tortured, and will lose everything here, and are about to die painfully! But remember, those who really mattered in the past shared the same journey. And Jesus himself walked the way of faith through bloody death.”
Those who read the whole of Hebrews and spend time with its implication realize that it has just one theme: “Trust Jesus and die!” The promise is that resurrection and a glorious eternity await those who fall faithfully in the coliseum, whispering their martyr’s testimony. But that is a promise to be held in faith’s abeyance. For now, only a single command: “Keep believing in Jesus and perish under persecution!”
Do we have the stomach for this book today? I am deeply challenged every time I reread it. Do I actually believe it is a word for me? Do I actually believe it is a word from God? Do I actually believe it enough to live as if it matters? Do I actually believe in Jesus this much? Will I stake everything, including my life, my possessions, my family, my community, my career, my safety, my lifestyle, my entertainments, on Jesus?
More than any other book in the Bible (except, possibly, for Revelation), Hebrews is a “martyr’s manual.” It calls out faithful living. And it expects us to die with and for Jesus. Are we ready to read that? Are we ready to live that? Are we ready to die?
The Sawi lived in dwellings constructed high in the trees, partly to escape the ever-damp rain forest jungle floor, partly to catch cooling breezes that were otherwise blocked by dense growth, and partly to avoid mosquitoes as much as possible. Don committed himself to language acquisition, and soon had learned enough of the Sawi language to carry on elementary conversations. He often spent time at the evening communal gathering of men, practicing his rudimentary Sawi skills by articulating Bible stories.
The Sawi were great tellers of tales. The best among them could weave word pictures for hours, captivating and entrancing everyone within earshot. Don was a novice working under the limitations of a foreign language. Some listened politely as he tried to express himself, but most ignored him and carried on other conversations and activities.
Then came the night that turned out to be horrifyingly different. At first, the gathering of men was as restless as usual while Don spoke. The narrative he had chosen, of Jesus’ final days with his disciples before the crucifixion, did not seem to grab them. But Don pressed on, and began the story of Judas, one of Jesus’ closest associates, plotting to have his friend killed. Suddenly Don felt a measureless energy connecting everyone in the room. No one moved. No one made a noise. All were listening.
Startled and pleased, Don carried on. The drama heightened, with a dark night, Jesus’ worried conversations, the arrival of soldiers, and the kiss of betrayal. The room shivered with anticipation at each move. And when the details of Judas’s awful murderous act danced before them, Don felt a keen sense of involvement in every eye.
Then came the uneasy crawling of his skin. What was it about the story that drew the Sawi? Why did this story of treachery draw such enthusiasm? He was about to find out.
When the last words were spoken, one man whistled in delight. Others chuckled in glee, and some touched their fingertips to their chests in awe. In their animated responses, it quickly became apparent that to them, Judas was a great man! He was the hero of the story! Judas might even be called a super-Sawi! He had played the greatest trick a Sawi man could ever hope to pull off—the “fattening of a friend for the slaughter!”
Don was horrified. What was this Sawi ritual that seemed to make Judas the person to emulate in the crucifixion story? It was rooted in the cannibalistic heritage of the Sawi.
Over generations, the Sawi found no excitement that could match that of eating the flesh of someone who first had been groomed as a friend. It was the ultimate expression of power, of control, of vindication. To eat the flesh of a friend was the ultimate trip, since it took all of the vital energy of someone who was respected (and thus made a friend), and infused this vitality into one’s own self. To “fatten a friend for the slaughter” made the betrayer a truly big man. In fact, his story would be told again and again, around nighttime fires, as a lesson to future generations.
So, for the Sawi, Judas was the hero of the gospel. Jesus was a great man, a wonderful friend. But Judas was an outstanding man who managed, through subterfuge, to incorporate all of Jesus’ goodness into Judas’ own larger personhood first by befriending him, and then, even more significantly, by betraying him to his death.
Don and Carol Richardson could not sleep that night. After all, they had been welcomed into the village as guests. They had been “befriended”! Now they wondered whether they were to become the next victims of such a value system. Which among those who had treated them kindly would soon plunge the knife after they had been sufficiently “fattened for the slaughter”?
The Richardsons decided, with deep fears and much prayer, to remain among the Sawi. Don scavenged his few theological books for different ways to express the Christian understanding of the atonement. How could he proclaim the gospel message, centered as it was on Jesus’ death, in a meaningful manner for Sawi who were enamored with Judas?
Isaiah 52:13--53:12
There are three major families of atonement theory, he recalled. Each began with Jesus on the cross. But each moved in a different direction as it unpacked the meaning of what took place on that grim and gruesome Friday afternoon.
Earliest among Christian reflections on the meaning of Jesus’ death was the “ransom” theory. The gospel message was, from the first, really “good news!” After all, no one had ever before experienced a dead man getting up out of his grave! That, coupled with the miracles that Jesus had done, both before and after his resurrection, made a huge impact on his closest contacts and friends. They were scared and amazed and terrified and overjoyed, all at the same time. Jesus could do anything!
And what Jesus did was good. He was not a tyrant, using power as a weapon. He was a friend, a healer, a provider. He blessed bread and it multiplied until everyone was fed. He spoke words of kindness and encouragement, and demons left the house. He touched sores and painful rashes, and health glowed in the eyes of those previously troubled by diseases. He was God’s agent of grace. In fact, many believed he was, himself, actually God!
More than that, although Jesus had disappeared from them, the message from his closest disciples was that he would return soon. During this brief interlude, Jesus’ friends and followers were commissioned to tell everyone they could about the great things Jesus had done. Early followers of Jesus soon earned the name “Christians,” since they could not stop talking about Jesus, the Christ. They were like little Jesuses walking around. Whether people appreciated them or despised them, these were certainly “Christians.”
Of course, beyond all the tales of Jesus’ miracles, and the huge story of his resurrection, there was the BIG EVENT that needed explanation. Yes, Jesus was powerful. Yes, he was God or God-like. Yes, he did many good things that changed peoples’ lives. But why was he killed in the first place? And how could such a one who wielded enormous divine resources that sent away demons and overturned diseases and defied death in others himself succumb to death? What was going on?
The initial response of Christians to such questions is that Jesus willingly traded his life for that of others. After all, he had talked about both his coming and his death in that manner: “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45; Matthew 20:28). During the age of persecution, early Christian theologians portrayed Jesus’ cross as the point of transaction between himself and the devil. This line of argument was rooted in Genesis 3, where the devil, in the form of a serpent, tempted the first human parents into seeking meaning apart from their creator. Through the unfortunate choices of Eve and Adam, all their offspring would begin life dominated by Satan, and compromised by evil. From birth, Lucifer owned our souls and snagged us on his deadly lures as we swam the oceans of time and existence. Powerless to save ourselves, Jesus provided, by way of his own death, the ransom that bought us back from the devil.
Justin Martyr (100-165) articulated this already early in the second century. “[Christ]” he said, “was in these last days, according to the time appointed by the Father, united to his own workmanship, inasmuch as he became a man liable to suffering ... he commenced afresh the long line of human beings, and furnished us, in a brief, comprehensive manner, with salvation; so that what we had lost in Adam—namely, to be according to the image and likeness of God—that we might recover in Christ Jesus.” Soon after, in his commentary on Matthew 16:8, Origen (184–254) wrote: “To whom did [Christ] give his life a ransom for many? Assuredly not to God; could it then be to the evil one? For he was holding us fast until the ransom should be given him, even the life of Jesus; [Satan] being deceived with the idea that he could have dominion over it, and not seeing that he could not bear the torture in retaining it.” He draws out this image again later in his commentary, and Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-394) and Augustine (c. 354-430) pick it up in turn.
The idea of Jesus’ death as a ransom is intriguing. It makes the gruesome reality of crucifixion even more powerful. Yes, Jesus could have avoided the cross, but he chose to offer himself in exchange for the whole of humanity, who, by their willful disobedience or through the dastardly trickery or the devil, had come to be owned by evil. Only someone who has power greater than Satan, but who chooses to wield that might in the guise of helplessness, could subvert the tyranny of wickedness by feinting defeat in a single battle in order to win the cosmic war.
C. S. Lewis twice carried the ransom theory of the atonement in our modern world. First, he named his space hero “Dr. Ransom,” in the trilogy that wrestled over the past, present and future of earth and its neighboring planets. Ransom is a scientist (knowledgeable, source of hope and healing) who gets abducted by aliens (evil incarnated), visits Mars (to see how one species resisted temptation), and travels to Venus as the creator is planting a new civilization that might replay humankind’s fall into sin.
Later, the act of a ransoming Messiah was central to Lewis’ Narnia Chronicle The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Aslan, the Jesus-like lion ruler of Narnia, is reclaiming his kingdom that has been under a long spell of wintery frigidity brought on by the White Witch. According to ancient prophecies, Aslan can only redeem his Narnia world through the assistance of two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve. The Pevensie children from London, living temporarily in the country home of Professor Digory Kirke to escape the Second World War bombing blitz, stumble into Narnia just in time. But all is not well. Peter, Susan and Lucy are right for redemptive leadership, and will go on to rule as king and queens. But brother Edmund sneaked into Narnia on his own, and fell prey to the Witch’s influences. She “owns” him, and because this “son of Adam” has now become an agent of evil, Aslan cannot win the war for Narnia. The only way that Edmund can be released from her clutches is if Aslan himself will become the ransom. Of course, this defeats all of Narnia’s hopes, since the “savior” of this world is now killed by the evil ruler who has usurped the throne.
Whimpering in darkness as the demons and ogres strip the mane and life from Aslan on the Stone Table with magical writing from the beginning of time that dictates these outcomes, Lucy and Susan believe all is lost. But at dawn they are wakened by a loud CRACK! Peering from their hiding place, they see the Stone Table shattered, and the evil creatures scattered. Then Aslan bounces in, larger than ever. When they ask him what has happened, he tells of a magic that is found before time itself. In this magic, Aslan was able to offer himself as ransom to the White Witch, without her realizing that she would never be able to keep or destroy him.
Hebrews 4:14-16 (5:7-9)
The ransom perspective regarding the work of Jesus was strong in the church’s first centuries. It has been maintained through to the present in popular form by Lewis’ creative Narnia imaginings, and also by astute theologians such as Gustav Aulen, who asserted Jesus’ triumph over evil as Christus Viktor. Aulen unfolded the history of atonement theories in three stages. The second group of atonement explanations, initiated by Anselm (1033-1109) imagined Jesus’ death more as an intentional dialogue with his Father. On Monday of what has come to be known as Passion Week, Jesus told a story that summarized all of Israelite history, including Jesus’ own coming into the world, as a teaching parable. A great landowner established a vineyard guarded by walls and complete with a winepress and a fortified tower. Before leaving on an extended journey, the master of the estate rented it out to tenants. After harvest, the landlord sent servants to collect his mandated share of the proceeds. The tenants, however, beat some and killed others, despising the one who had given them their very livelihood.
Finally, the master sent his own son, believing that the troublesome renters would respect this flesh of his own flesh. But the rebels saw things differently. “This is the heir,” they said to one another. “Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance!” And this they do.
Jesus’ story ends with the landowner bringing judgment on those horrible tenants. Of course, all who heard the story knew that they were implicated in the fiendish plot, for they were the tenants of God’s great world. Even more, they had received ambassadors from God throughout their history—the prophets sent to call them back to obedience and loyalty to their good master. In each gospel’s rendition of this parable, the last lines talk about the religious leaders of the day going out to foment a plot against Jesus, desiring to kill him. The rest of Passion Week will mark their progress, until Jesus is on the cross.
Of course, Jesus’ own disciples recalled this parable for its profound theological richness as the centuries unfolded. God had been righteous and good in preparing this world for humankind. God had even nurtured a special relationship with the nation of Israel, giving them unique lead-tenant status at the heart of his creation. To them, God had sent prophets, reminding the people of their character and obligations. Yet virtually every “servant of Yahweh” had been despised or brutally treated. Some had even been killed in response to their righteous messages.
And now, the Son had come. But he was rejected and tortured as well, until he hung on the cross in shame. Yet in his steadfast commitment to the ways and the will of his Father, Jesus restored dignity and honor in heaven, and transformed life on earth. In Anselm’s pivotal work, Cur Deus Homo, Anselm carries on a dialogue with his student Boso about these things. Anselm argues that humanity has offended God, but that humankind is incapable of living faithfully or restoring honor. In fact, even if we were able to overcome our innate tendencies toward evil, continuing to defame God, any righteous acts would only be reasonable and expected, and would not cleanse the tarnishment debt that had been growing for centuries. Only Jesus, beginning with a perfect righteousness, could also stand in for us as we faced our Creator. Taking it upon himself to offer his own life on our behalf, Jesus’ crucifixion provides absolute redemption, since Jesus is a human without sin (thus not needing to negotiate on his own behalf for his own transgressions) and also divine (thus acting in infinite ways toward ultimate and transcendent fulfillment of outcomes).
Aquinas (1225–1274) elaborated on the satisfaction atonement theory in his Summa Theologica. He writes, “Consequently Christ by his passion merited salvation, not only for himself, but likewise for all his members.” Later, both Martin Luther (1483-1546) and John Calvin (1509-1564) expounded further on this view of Jesus’ crucifixion, although separating it from the sacramentalism of the medieval church. Calvin put it this way: “This is our acquittal: the guilt that held us liable for punishment has been transferred to the head of the Son of God (Is. 53:12). We must, above all, remember this substitution, lest we tremble and remain anxious throughout life — as if God’s righteous vengeance, which the Son of God has taken upon himself, still hung over us.
This perspective on the meaning and effects of Jesus’ death emerges most directly from biblical passages like Hebrews 4, 5 and 9. The write of Hebrews, using the day of atonement as his canvas, paints a picture of Jesus performing the duties of high priest in order to make the people right with their sovereign. There is sin. There is sacrifice. There is expiation and atonement. Redemption is accomplished when Jesus officiates at the place of death, since “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrew 9:22).
John 18:1--19:42
A third family of atonement theories focuses the attention of Jesus on humanity, rather than on the devil or the Father. Most frequently this is called the “Moral Example or Influence” view of the atonement. While it has been around since the beginning of the church, this perspective gained a lot of traction in our modern world. Since it points to the cruelty of Jesus’ death, and the fact that he did not deserve what happened to him, the Moral Influence atonement theory asserts Jesus’ crucifixion as a scandal that is intended to shock us back from our immoral stupor, re-engaging us with a higher morality.
Most articulate and influential for this perspective was Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher who set the stage for much of our current metaphysical thinking. Reacting to David Hume’s skepticism about God and the transcendent beliefs of Christianity, Kant sought to ground religious perspectives in the rationality of common human thinking. Kant remained a theist all his life, but rewrote the manner in which God is apprehended by us, or influences our lives. The consistency of our many human perceptions about the world in which we live convinced Kant that God has provided innate categories of thinking and organizing and moralizing within the common human mind. These shape our experiences of life, as well as our ethical practices, in similar ways, regardless of our cultural backgrounds or contexts.
Jesus was important for Kant, but not in a manner similar to either the “ransom” or “satisfaction” portraits for understanding why Jesus came among us or died a cruel death. Instead, for Kant, Jesus was the greatest expression of human self-awareness and compliance with the intrinsic moral codes stamped into our rational processes. Jesus thus serves humanity as the pinnacle example of moral rectitude, and the role model of best ethical choices.
Kant expressed this most profoundly in the third book of his Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793). Jesus of Nazareth is, for Kant, the prime archetype symbolizing what can take place when we as evilly-inclined humans reach instead for the virtues which God has embedded into our most authentic rational thinking. Kant never explores Jesus’ origins, or connects Jesus with divinity. Instead, the fullness of the best of our humanity oozes from Jesus’ every pore, and we become better through our imitation of him.
Friedrich Schleiermacher adapted Kant’s Enlightenment philosophical perspectives and used them to shape what would come to be known as Liberal Protestant Theology. Schleiermacher broke from the orthodox German pietism of his family heritage in a stunning declaration to the youthful intelligentsia of his times by publishing On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1799). Rejecting miracles and the historic Christian views of Jesus as divine, Schleiermacher instead described religion as an innate human longing for mystery and the transcendent. Jesus most clearly articulated these things, and demonstrated them in his personal commitments to others, including his great example of love in volunteering to go to death if it would spare his friends, and allow them to escape and live on.
In 1832, after having formulated his mature Enlightenment theology for publication as The Christian Faith, Schleiermacher taught a course on “The Life of Jesus.” Although these assertions were never published as a finished literary work by Schleiermacher, they have been reassembled from his own lecture outlines, supplemented by quotes and elaborations found in classroom notes taken by his students. Schleiermacher believed Christianity was the best expression of human religious questing, and that the Jesus at the center of Christianity was humanity’s greatest ethical teacher, and its finest example of authentic moral living.
Schleiermacher’s “example theory” of Jesus’ life and death was multiplied throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in what has become known as the initial “quest for the historical Jesus.” Ernest Renan (1823-1892) and David Strauss (1808-1874) broadly popularized this perspective in their influential biographies of Jesus, each titled Life of Jesus (1835, 1863). Both asserted that Jesus was a heroic man who separated his deep moral authority from the Judaism into which he had been born, and established Christianity as the best expression of truly moral rational religion. Culminating this “quest” was Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), who wrote a history of this Enlightenment take on Jesus and the religion he founded. Invariably, Jesus was portrayed as a uniquely insightful human who provided his followers with a meaningful moral matrix defined by a rational understanding of the best that life can become when properly conceived and executed by ethically astute people and societies.
Application
While each of these families of atonement theory is rooted in some aspect of Jesus’ life and teachings, and each holds merit for deepening our appreciation of Jesus’ world-changing ministry and death, there are clearly a number of contradictory points made by various extended reflections on these themes. The writer of Hebrews would keep us focused on the “Satisfaction” aspect of Jesus’ death. Building his argument upon his readers’ shared understanding of the actions and significance of the annual Israelite “Day of Atonement,” the author declares Jesus to be a unique high priest, offering himself as the substitute sacrifice that will renew God’s relationship with God’s people.
And how did Don Richardson fare in his attempt to bring this message regarding Jesus to the Sawi people, who were enamored with strongman Judas, who had, in Sawi fashion, “fattened the pig (Jesus) for the slaughter”? As Don and Carol continued their lives with these people in the rain forests of Papua, New Guinea, climate conditions precipitated stresses that eventually caused a new insight.
In an unusually dry rainy season, river flows diminished and vegetation suffered from drought. Sawi men ranged further and longer to find adequate game and fish, and local sources of fruits and vegetables became scarce. Rarely an afternoon would pass without deepening concerns expressed in the tree house where the men huddled to mend nets, create hunting weapons, and pass along gossip and wisdom. Now the talk was turning ugly, particularly after several Sawi were wounded in skirmishes with neighboring tribes who fought them over territorial claims for hunting grounds and fishing rights, in a world of receding resources. After these clashes brought death to more than a few of both Sawi and their enemies, Don heard murmurings of the possible need for a “peace child.”
A ”peace child”? Don asked what this meant. With troubled voices, the older men revealed another stream of Sawi tradition. Sometimes in the distant past, they said, when tensions ran high between clans and tribes, and when warfare threatened to destroy their villages and families, a wise chief would grab the youngest newborn male from its mother’s loving embrace, and run with the child, chased by horrified maternal cries, across the distance between the Sawi and their enemies. Emerging suddenly into the settlement of their foes, the chief would thrust this baby into the arms of a young woman there. While adrenaline flared and testosterone ignited menacing passions, a sudden stillness would calm them all. This was a “peace child,” and everyone was aware of what was taking place. A single life of a Sawi boy had been entrusted to the care of the other tribe. In this action, their communities were knit toward a common purpose: one of us live with them; we have become brothers and sisters and family and partners; to kill them is to take our own life; to fight with them is to destroy ourselves.
In an instant, all rules in the game of war were changed. What had been combat against foreigners to gain and use turf and resources, now was transformed into a growing family that needed all interests to provide safety and nourishment for every individual who was part of this newly amalgamated collective. The “peace child” knit disparate elements of humanity together into a larger whole, where mutual care superseded violent competition.
Don was intrigued. A “peace child” who reconciled embattled enemies!
He had one important follow-up question. What would happen, he asked, if someone harmed the “peace child”?
Fierce emotions erupted immediately. Harm the “peace child”?! Impossible! No one would ever do that! It was unthinkable!
“Let me tell you a story…” said Don. He told of a time in the distant past when the tribe of humanity was at war with the tribe of heaven. He told how antagonism mounted and words became weapons and alienation threatened to destroy this world. But just when things looked most critical, the Chief of heaven’s tribe took his only son, and thrust him into the hands of a young human woman. She became his mother, and the “peace child” reconciled earth to heaven.
As murmurs of approval hummed in every Sawi throat, Don went on. One day, he told them, a brash young man connected with the “peace child.” This fellow decided to draw the “peace child” into his personal quest for power, and played the manly Sawi game of “fattening the pig for the slaughter.” After three years of building trust and friendship, the cunning young fellow was able to betray and kill his buddy.
The Sawi were horrified! When did this happen?! Who was this terrible young man?! How could anyone violate the foundational principle of reconciliation that was essential to the “peace child” rite?!
In simple terms, Don Richardson told the Sawi men about Jesus (the “peace child”) and Judas (the betrayer). With cries of anguish, the Sawi wondered what could be done, and how this plight might be remedied.
That was the day that the Sawi became Christians.
Alternative Application (Hebrews 4:14-16 (5:7-9))
In our modern pluralistic world of many options, and all of them good, or at least okay, we skim through Hebrews, berry-picking those morsels that make us smile and tell us how much we are loved. But the real message of the book is profoundly dark, even as it is wrapped up in bright hope: “Folks, stick with Jesus, because there is no other source of life or salvation! And, yes, sticking with Jesus means that you are going to be horribly tortured, and will lose everything here, and are about to die painfully! But remember, those who really mattered in the past shared the same journey. And Jesus himself walked the way of faith through bloody death.”
Those who read the whole of Hebrews and spend time with its implication realize that it has just one theme: “Trust Jesus and die!” The promise is that resurrection and a glorious eternity await those who fall faithfully in the coliseum, whispering their martyr’s testimony. But that is a promise to be held in faith’s abeyance. For now, only a single command: “Keep believing in Jesus and perish under persecution!”
Do we have the stomach for this book today? I am deeply challenged every time I reread it. Do I actually believe it is a word for me? Do I actually believe it is a word from God? Do I actually believe it enough to live as if it matters? Do I actually believe in Jesus this much? Will I stake everything, including my life, my possessions, my family, my community, my career, my safety, my lifestyle, my entertainments, on Jesus?
More than any other book in the Bible (except, possibly, for Revelation), Hebrews is a “martyr’s manual.” It calls out faithful living. And it expects us to die with and for Jesus. Are we ready to read that? Are we ready to live that? Are we ready to die?
