When we say \u201cJesus died for our sins,\u201d what does that mean? It\u2019s undeniably an essential confession of Christian faith, but how does it work? This much I\u2019m sure of, it\u2019s not reducible to just one thing\u2026 To try to reduce the death of Jesus to a single meaning is an impoverished approach to the mystery of the cross. I\u2019m especially talking about those tidy explanations of the cross known as \u201catonement theories.\u201d I find most of them inadequate; others I find repellent. Particularly abhorrent are those theories that portray the Father of Jesus as a pagan deity who can only be placated by the barbarism of child sacrifice.\u00a0The god who is mollified by throwing a virgin into a volcano or by nailing his son to a tree is\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0the Abba of Jesus!<\/strong><\/p>\nNeither is the death of Jesus a kind of\u00a0quid pro quo\u00a0<\/em>by which God gains the necessary capital to forgive sinners.\u00a0No!\u00a0<\/em>Jesus does not save us from God; Jesus reveals God! Jesus does not provide God with the capacity to forgive; Jesus reveals God\u00a0as<\/em>\u00a0forgiving love\u2026<\/p>\nLet me suggest that when we say Jesus died for our sins, we mean something like this:\u00a0We violently sinned our sins into Jesus<\/strong>, and Jesus revealed the heart of God by forgiving us.<\/strong>\u00a0When Jesus prayed, \u201cFather, forgive them,\u201d he was not asking God to act contrary to his nature. When Jesus prayed, \u201cFather, forgive them,\u201d he was, as always, revealing the very heart of God!<\/p>\nAt the cross we violently sinned our sins into Jesus, and Jesus absorbed them, died because of them, carried them into death, and rose on the third day to speak the first world of the new world:\u00a0\u201cPeace be with you.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nWhen I say \u201cwe\u201d violently sinned our sins into Jesus, I mean that all of us are more or less implicated by our explicit or tacit support of the systems of violent power that frame our world. These are the very political and religious systems that executed Jesus.\u00a0At the cross we see where Adam and Eve\u2019s penchant for blame and Cain\u2019s capacity for killing have led us \u2014 to the murder of God!\u00a0<\/strong>At Golgotha human sin is seen as utterly sinful. God did not require the death of Jesus \u2014 but we did!<\/p><\/blockquote>\nWhat I love about the way Brian is interacting with this theme, is that he is taking seriously our own complicity in Christ\u2019s death. We are the ones that call for blood. God does not delight in the blood of bulls and goats. Jesus, dying on the cross, is God saying \u201cenough with all the blood already.\u201d I also love that Brian is connecting violence to the gospel. Where God reigns there is peace. Where God does not reign (where what God wants to happen isn\u2019t happening), there is violence. You want to know where sin & death reigns? Follow the violence.\u00a0You want to know where the gospel is? Follow the peace.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I read a great post from Brian Zahnd this week, it\u2019s worth a read. Here\u2019s a quick excerpt. You can find the whole article and Brian\u2019s\u00a0blog here: When we say \u201cJesus died for our sins,\u201d what does that mean? It\u2019s undeniably an essential confession of Christian faith, but how does it work? This much I\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[990,991,987,978],"class_list":["post-3006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-atonement","tag-brian-zahnd","tag-easter","tag-violence"],"yoast_head":"\n
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