For years I’ve taught Jesus of Nazareth, and most years during the last week of the semester we examine the theology of each of the four Evangelists. The Gospel of Mark, in many ways, comes to a crucial pivot in Mark 8–10, and the core idea is this: the Messiah will be crucified in order to liberate God’s people, and that means the cross is also the paradigm of discipleship. Tim Keller, in King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, sketches the heart of this in his chapter called “The Ransom.” A point I’d like to make: to be consistent, to embrace cruciform discipleship requires embracing cruciform soteriology. The cross is the core.
Three times in three chapters Jesus announces his death (8:31-32; 9:30-31; 10:32-34). Jesus came to die. “That sets him apart from the founder of ever other major religion. Their purpose was to live and be an example; Jesus’ purpose was to die and be a sacrifice” (140).
Further: “Jesus came to be a substitutionary sacrifice” — the words are “to give his life a ransom for many” and he sees behind “for” the Greek word “anti” which means “instead of.” [I write about atonement theory in A Community Called Atonement: Living Theology.] And ransom is about a cosmic payment that will procure freedom.
Here’s where Keller’s ideas make an important shift: his contention is that “all life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice.” Surprise? He sees it in care for the needy and in true parental love for children. I would definitely agree that it is sacrificial. He contends, and this he doesn’t discuss, that forgiveness is not just “I forgive” but requires sacrificial love. So that the cross is the self-substitution of God — not just Son’s love but Trinity love. Then this: God “re-created the world on the cross” (144).
Which leads to the cruciform life of discipleship:
The disciples want a glory discipleship but Jesus shows that the essence of life is sacrificial and not ruling. And here he gets to the very core of Mark’s theology: “If at the very heart of your worldview is a man dying for his enemies, then the way you’re going to win influence in society is through service rather than power and control” (149).
The saving cross is the paradigm for the serving cross.
This is spot on: “The saving cross is the paradigm for the serving cross.”
The essence of life is…not ruling, yes. So regardless of the means of achieving it, the motive for even desiring “influence in society” is….? Not a rhetorical question, something to think about.
That’s fantastic, all the way around.
JohnM,
We can desire to influence from and through love. I desire to influence all the people I love at various points. Is it possible to want to communicate, to encourage, to build up and not also influence?
Good stuff. Thanks, Scot! Appreciate this series, and your take on it. And by the way, I much respect Tim Keller.
In his book Hallowed Be This House the Catholic writer Tom Howard makes the same case. Howard argues that “My Life for Yours is the principle at the bottom of everything, to embrace which is to live and to refuse which is to die.” That’s love and that’s also what it means to live a eucharistic life.
Cross at the center: of course. “Sacrificial” understood in terms of being other-directed and transcendent of oneself, as it seems to be the flavor of what is described: good. “Substitutionary”… istm from the review that he’s trying a bit too hard to make his case from his Reformed pov, and that this word is actually not as good, or as precise, as he could have chosen. As a parent, I can’t love my child in place of my child – doesn’t make sense.
Dana
We get so used to hearing these truths. But if I am honest with myself, you’ve gotta be some kind of crazy to suggest dying for your enemies. Who does that?!
Yeah, I know the answer: creator God and his son Jesus and Jesus’ apprentices or disciples – they do this. I’m just saying, if you step back and read this from a normal every-day mindset… it’s crazy.
Wow, some great content in very concise form, Great stuff!
I appreciate the last sentence: “The saving cross is the paradigm for the serving cross.”
But I’m with Dana Ames in that his usage of substitution, sacrifice, and ransom seems a bit sloppy.
Ransom, it seems to me, is fundamentally different than substitution. First, ransom is an economic term meaning that something was paid for the return of something else or to set that something else free. Substitute, though, is not an economic term. It means to put something in place of something else. Both are helpful and important ways to understand the cross but they should not be treated as synonymous. Sacrifice is woven through both of these concepts (and many others).
And on a nit-picky note, “That sets him apart from the founder of ever other major religion. Their purpose was to live and be an example; Jesus’ purpose was to die and be a sacrifice” is also a sloppy idea. Hinduism (and Buddhism in many respects), for instance, is not about living as an example but escaping life. The difference that Jesus exemplifies is that life is not bad in itself. Jesus death is important but not as a way to forsake life but as a way to bring life into its fulness. Having not read this book I could be missing the fullness of Keller’s contention here, but I’m surprised at his error here.
I should probably clarify my last comment. Yes other religions use their founders as moral examplar. But we do this too. Jesus is our moral exemplar. He modeled this sacrifice, and asked us to follow in example (as did Paul). What stands out about Jesus is less about his death, because other religious founders also looked forward to death but that he didn’t see death as a way to avoid suffering. In fact, death for Jesus is what leads to full life. I just don’t want us to downplay is ethic or example by over-mythicizing his work.
At the same time, JoeyS, this is very good:
“Christ re-created the world on the cross.”
(I would add, in tandem with the Resurrection, and as the “logical” outcome of his Incarnation.)
There is indeed some mystery involved here, but it’s not arcane, and it’s not a way to escape trying to communicate the events and their meaning.
Dana
Relatedly, when I first heard how Gregory of Nazianzus and Athanasius understood the Ransom aspect, I literally caught my breath. No one had ever explained it to me in those terms before (and I’m kind of surprised I can’t find at least a quote from one of them in “Community/Atonement”).
The ransom is understood by these theologians as not paid to God, nor to the devil. They describe Jesus paying the ransom price to humanity **in our very condition of sin and mortality.**
Athanasius, “On the Incarnation,” section 8.
Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 45,22
Not trying to cherry-pick or proof-text the fathers; they didn’t all agree on this, either. But what has come down as the understanding of ransom/substitution/sacrifice in the eastern church doesn’t pit the Persons of the Godhead against one another. The whole Trinity condescends in love and humility to deliver us from death and the sin that feeds it.
And as Gregory says at the end of the passage referenced,
“So much we have said of Christ; the greater part of what we might say shall be reverenced with silence.” One can hardly even bear to talk about its magnificence.
Dana
I have not finished my Community Called Atonement, and now I have misplaced it….argh.
But here is the way I work through a ransom theory. Item A is held by Party A, and Party A is demanding Item B (which could be anything, including money, a person, whatever), So Party B gives Item B to Party A, and Party A gives Item A to Party B.
Now to me:
Item A, seems to be something called Salvation
Party A is……who is holding Salvation away from Party B?
Party B, the one who does not have Salvation is us.
Item B, is Jesus life.
But the whole transaction seems to be a big double cross. Just when we think that Party A is going to get away with Item B, viola! Jesus rises from the dead and Party B still gets to keep Item B in better form than ever before.
So who is Party A? God is not holding Salvation from us, he would give it to us if the Israelites were faithful and executed Torah and brought it to the nations, right?
So the irony of the double cross is that this is actually a double double cross. If we are Party B and we seek Salvation, we mistakenly think that someone else has it. When in fact, we are also Party A. So we are both Party A and Party B, and the sacrifice of Jesus as a ransom instead of many eliminates all the people that would have been sacrificed without us believing. But by Jesus rising from the dead, we don’t have to sacrifice anyone else.
Or perhaps the “for many” are all the animals that are continually sacrificed in the temple. Jesus died as a ransom for all those poor animals…..
What a thought-provoking blog post! You make some very good points, and while I’ve never read any of Tim Keller’s work, it seems as though he’s on the right track as well. I’ve taken note of some of your ideas—particularly your last point, that “the saving cross is the paradigm for the serving cross”—and I’m looking forward to seeing what my youth ministry students think.
T #4 – Sorry, I just now noticed your comment/question here. What I keyed on was the the phrase “..win influence in society..” in the a sentence the very point of which was that discipleship is not about power and control. My point is that there is a fine line between desire to influence and desire to control. What we need to ask ourselves is if we really desire to communicate, encourage and build up, and if so why. Is it not possible the desire to influence precedes and we actually use the encouraging, etc, as means to an end? Not necessarily so mind you, but we should be reflective and honest with ourselves. Then there is the question of to what end do we desire to influence others. I don’t know what Keller intends, but when the desirable end is phrased as “influence in society” that sounds like something other than building up The Body of Christ and it sounds like something other than influencing unbelievers toward faith in Christ.