Were You There?

"Were you there when they crucified my Lord?"

African American Spiritual

Since reading Gerhard Forde (...and Paul) (...and a little bit of quantum physics), the question in this song has new meaning for me.

Paul writes in Galatians “I have been crucified with Christ” The same thought is expressed in Romans (“We were therefore buried with him”) and Colossians (“having been buried with him”). Metaphorical expressions? Or were we really there -physically, metaphysically, spiritually, mystically, or some other way our adverbs can’t fully explain?

If we do not take Paul’s wording as mere metaphor, the answer to the song’s question is a resounding “Yes, we were there!” All mankind was there. Somehow, mysteriously (to us), the incarnation of Jesus put God in communion with humanity in such a way that he made it possible for us to be with him in his death. This is how our sin-filled nature was vanquished, and also how we received a righteous new life in the resurrection.

Forde calls this “getting caught in the act.” We participated in the crucifixion. On the one hand, we were there to crucify Jesus. On the other hand, we were also there being crucified with him. Impossible? Makes no sense?

While Einstein scratched the surface on the relativity of time, quantum physics is just now beginning to understand how matter can be in two different places at once. Beyond that, the scientific study of consciousness (including consciousness that transcends time and space) opens up possibilities that heretofore seemed far-fetched. Perhaps science itself will eventually be capable of substantiating our presence with Jesus at the cross. One day every knee will bow - even the knee of science.

In the meantime, faith is all we have.

And faith tells me, "We were there."

Forde on Atonement - Conclusion

As I stated at the outset, I don’t think Forde necessarily denies vicarious satisfaction in toto. Rather he dismisses what might be considered the cruder forms of it - those forms that make God the primary obstacle to reconciliation, rather than us. Such thinking can turn God into a blood-thirsty God who demands his pound of flesh before he can show mercy. Such a view makes God out to be neither righteous nor merciful.

Forde concedes that certainly the work of Christ does satisfy God’s wrath. But he insists on placing this in a context that does not ignore the real problem - our wrath against God, and specifically our wrath against his mercy.

“There is indeed a sense in which we must say that Christ’s work is to “ satisfy” the divine wrath. But it is surely a mistake to say, to begin with, that Jesus was killed because God’s honor or justice or wrath was the obstacle to reconciliation which had first to be “ satisfied “ before mercy could be shown. Surely the truth is that Jesus was killed because he forgave sins and claimed either explicitly or implicitly to do it in the name of God, his Father. When we skip over the actual event to deal first with the problem of the divine justice or wrath, we miss the point that we are the obstacles to reconciliation, not God.”

Forde clearly does not deny that the death of Christ removes God’s wrath against us. He writes,

“As “God of wrath” he submits to death for us; he knows he must die for us. That is the only way he can be for us absolutely, unconditionally.”

At the same time, Forde does not deny the victory motif either. The cross absolutely marked the defeat of Satan, sin and death itself. Forde would not argue with this. He simply recommends that this victory be placed in a context that does not remove us from the scene. He says about this view:

“Surely the view must be deepened to say (at the very least) that the demonic powers operate through us, their quite willing lackeys.”

In the end, it seems to me that Forde does not discard any of the atonement theories entirely. They each display some aspect of what actually was accomplished at the cross. I think he is merely reminding us to be careful when we search for the necessity of the cross, especially if that search takes us away from the actual event itself, our personal involvement with it, and the unconditional love and mercy of God. ("For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son...")

Forde on Atonement - Part 4

Forde says that we move too quickly past the “brute facts” of the crucifixion in search of our atonement theories. He suggests that before trying to look at it from God’s point of view, we would do better to start with looking at it from ours. Only then will we perhaps get “’caught in the act’ in more ways than one: caught at it and at the same time caught by it.

So when we look at the actual facts and consider the question, “Why could God not just up and forgive?”, we find that the simple fact is, he did!

"Jesus came preaching repentance and forgiveness, declaring the bounty and mercy of his “Father.” The problem, however, is that we could not buy that. And so we killed him. And just so we are caught in the act. Every mouth is stopped once and for all. All the pious talk about our yearning and desire for reconciliation and forgiveness, etc., all our complaint against God is simply shut up. He came to forgive and we killed him for it; we would not have it. It is as simple as that."

Forde says we are all implicated in the universal rejection of such unconditional forgiveness. We do not necessarily reject the idea of unconditional forgiveness in the abstract. We could maybe handle that. But we could not handle the actual forgiver himself - the one who actually did the deed - actually forgave sins without conditions. We could not tolerate the one who “actually eats with traitors, whores, outcasts, and riff-raff of every sort.”

The crucifixion exposes us for who we really are “sinners, fakes, liars, deniers, unbelievers.” We don’t really want uncondtional forgiveness, because it is a threat to our conditional world and all our religious ambitions. To consent to such forgiveness would mean that we would have to give up on ourselves - essentially lose our own lives (our old selves). So Jesus had to go. It was a matter of self-defense.

In looking at the facts in this way, from below instead of from above, we are able to see that it is not God who is the obstacle to reconciliation. It is us. This is Forde’s main point. God did indeed have a problem. But his problem was not necessarily how to satisfy his righteous wrath against us. His problem was how to get us to stop rejecting his mercy. Put another way, the problem was never reconciling God to us. The problem was reconciling us to God. God needed a way to put an end to us and our religious ambitions. When we finally let him have mercy on us, only then would he be "satisfied." And this could only be done by killing us.

So here is how we get “caught by the act.” Through faith, we are crucified with Christ. The old self, which refuses to accept unconditional forgiveness, is destroyed. It is put out of business. The final obstacle to reconciliation between God and man is removed.

His death is, therefore, our death. As Paul put it, Christ “has died for all; therefore, all have died” (2 Cor 5:14).

So Forde concludes, when looked at from our point of view, the cross must always be understood as an act of God's mercy toward us - one in which we participate personally. We first participate by killing Jesus (we reject the God of mercy and get him out of the way). Then we die with him (he gets us, our sin and our spiritual ambitions out of the way) and a new us is born. Now there is true reconciliation.

Atonement theories which put us on the sidelines, abstractly assessing the crucifixion from afar (or from above), can distract us from knowing the cross in this way.

Forde on Atonement - Part 3

In the section of his essay subtitled “Theories Aside”, Forde brushes away the other two atonement theories as faring no better than vicarious satisfaction. The theory of moral influence centers on the idea that Jesus' sacrificial act was needed to serve as an example to inspire human selflessness and faithfulness. Forde merely asks a few rhetorical questions.

“How can God possibly be “justified” in sending his Son into this world to be cruelly murdered at our hands just to provide an example of what everybody already knew anyway? If the cross does not actually accomplish anything new, is not the price too great? Is not a God who would do such a thing fully as thoughtless and cruel as the God of vicarious satisfaction?”

He disposes of Gustaf Aulén and the “victory motif” just as hastily. Under this theory, Christ’s work in incarnation, death, and resurrection was required to conquer Satan and the demonic powers that hold us in slavery to sin and death. But Forde says that under this theory, like the others, the actual act of us killing Jesus is ignored.

“Once again the killing has been covered up. Jesus’ death is somehow necessary to defeat the demons. We are exonerated because the demons did it. God, too, is exonerated in the process because he can appear as the hero of the piece, the mighty conqueror of the demons.”

Forde points out that this theory seems to undermine God’s sovereignty, as he again asks the unanswerable questions.

“Why should the cruel death of Jesus be necessary to defeat the demons? Surely if God is God, he could just put the demons out of commission whenever he wished.”

He then briefly references the troubled history of atonement theories, pointing out that even the early church fathers struggled with this question, as they pondered the idea of “ransom” and debated to whom the ranson was paid. He also notes that the vicory motif, popularized by Gustaf Aulen in his 1931 book, Christus Victor, was the classic view that both Anselm (vicarious satisfaction) and Abelard (moral example) were contending with in the 12th century when these theories were first developed. Thus we have come full circle.

Having brushed the theories aside, Forde restates the issue before moving toward his goal.

"So we come back to our original question: Why the murder of the innocent one? What does that accomplish for us—or for God? What is “the word” of Christ? What does he actually do for us that God could not have done with greater ease and economy in some other way? The crucial and persistent question emerging from discussion of the various views seems always to be that of the necessity for the concrete and actual work of Christ among us.

It is, of course, ultimately the question of the necessity for Christology at all. Cannot God just up and forgive and/or cast out demons? Or to use another current form of the question: Is there not grace aplenty in the Old Testament? Or in nature? Or in other religions even? Why Jesus? Why the New Testament?"

Forde on Atonement - Part 2

I base my understanding of Forde’s atonement views on his essay “Caught in the Act: Reflections on the Work of Christ.” This essay is not an exhaustive theological work (thankfully), but a relatively short essay. Actually, it’s more like a very long sermon.

Forde introduces the essay by briefly discussing the shortcomings of the three most prevalent atonement theories - vicarious satisfaction, moral influence and the victory motif. But as he goes through these, I sense he is in a bit of a hurry. He is on his way to the “brute reality” of the cross itself - the actual event and our involvement with it. This is the main focus of his essay, and the atonement theories are but the path he uses to get there.

So while Forde does not expend much energy debating or debunking the major theories, it is clear they don’t much impress him. He dismisses them as insufficient to prove the necessity for Christ’s death (which may not need proving). More importantly he argues that atonement theories can distract us from the message of the cross, obscuring the very thing they are designed to explain.

“Indeed, the fatal flaw in most thinking about the atoning work of Christ is the tendency to look away from the actual events, translate them into “eternal truths,” and thus to ignore or obscure what actually happened and our part in it. We interpret Christ’s death as though it were an idea, a necessary part of a logical scheme of some sort, as though God were tied to a scheme of honor or justice making him the obstacle to our reconciliation. We exonerate ourselves, so to speak, by blaming the necessity for the cross on God.”

With this he begins to explain his complaint concerning the vicarious satisfaction view of atonement.

“..it is maintained that God needed the death of Jesus in order to be able to be merciful to us. God is the object of the atoning act. The demands of his law, or wrath, or justice had to be “satisfied.” So we are exonerated because the cross was necessary to God. But the inevitable consequence of such thinking is that it doesn’t finally reconcile us to God. If the cross is necessary to pay God, God will be pictured as at worst a rather vindictive tyrant demanding his pound of flesh or at best an inept subordinate caught in the same inexorable net of law and justice as we are. The theory intended to foster reconciliation actually contributes to further alienation.”

“The persistent criticism of doctrines of vicarious satisfaction and substitutionary atonement since the enlightenment have the same root. The picture painted of God is too black, too contrary to the biblical witness. If the death was payment, how could reconciliation be an act of mercy? Mercy is mercy, not the result of payment. If God is by nature love and mercy, why could he not just up and forgive? Jesus, it seems, forgave sins before his death. Why then was the death necessary? The logic of the theory threatens the very thing it wants to promote: the mercy of God.”

Forde, of course, is not the first to question the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction. As I understand the historic criticism, it is rooted in the rather straightforward logic that grace and mercy cannot be made dependent on payment or satisfaction, else grace and mercy cease to be.

Forde does not dwell on this problem, but is moving on toward his main point. First, however, he quickly deals with the two other popular atonement theories.

Forde on Atonement - Part 1

It may seem odd that Christian theology is still struggling with what actually happened at the cross. We’ve had two thousand years to consider the matter. One would think it not that difficult to come to some conclusion, especially since it stands at the heart of Christianity - the sina qua non, if you will.

But the cross event is unique. And it is called foolishness by the Apostle Paul. So perhaps it is not unusual that our explanations don't necessarily measure up to the event itself. I won't criticize those who struggle to comprehend the cross. I've found that I’m certainly not immune from wondering about the wonder of it all myself.

I don’t wonder about the historical accuracy of the event or who exactly was involved. Questions of this nature don’t interest me. The crucifixion itself and the divine nature of Jesus have long ago been settled questions - settled at least to my satisfaction and most who consider themselves Christian. But the question of why still lingers, and the why raises questions of what actually took place - beyond the physical crucifixion of the Son of God.

Why did Jesus have to die? Could not have God reconciled the world to himself some other way? When we enter this realm, we encounter differing theories of the atonement, and now even the word theory sounds strange. Don’t we know for sure? Are we still speculating about all this? The use of the word theory seems dangerous in itself. But that is what we seem to be faced with - atonement theories.

I was first confronted with the whole notion of atonement theory when I discovered that my new-found theological hero, Gerhard Forde, was accused of denying the vicarious satisfaction of Christ. Now, as it turns out, I don’t believe he really denies it so much as challenges us to think of it in an entirely new way. But I will get to that later. The point is that vicarious satisfaction is but one of several theories of atonement, all of which come in various flavors. It is the most common and the one I had always believed without question. It was also the one I assumed Luther taught, and what had been taught down through the ages.

Christ had to die because the justice and wrath of God against us had to be satisfied. The sins of the whole world had to be paid for, and the sacrificial death of Jesus was the only price acceptable. Theologically, this is called vicarious satisfaction - Jesus taking our place in satisfying the justice of God the Father. It is also sometimes called substitionary atonement - Jesus substituting himself for us in order to make us acceptable to God.

So I was faced with the question, why would a Lutheran theologian, especially one of Forde’s stripe - someone obviously devoted to Luther’s theology of the cross and the radical preaching of the unconditional Gospel - why would such a person seem to question the vicarious satisfaction view of atonement?

Conventional Wisdom on Its Head

In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul calls the message of the cross foolishness. Other translations say:

“doesn’t make any sense”
“folly”
“sheer silliness”

Paul goes on to quote God from Isaiah, where He says:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise.”

or in modern language:
“I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head.”

Rather than trying to make sense of the cross, it seems Luther simply accepted Paul’s view that it was foolish and went about the task of trying to figure out what made it so foolish.

In other words, how exactly does the cross turn conventional wisdom on its head?

According to Forde, Luther saw the cross as primarily God’s attack on human sin. Ultimately it is also our salvation from sin, but to grasp the foolishness of the cross, we must first see how it attacks us as sinners, not just as sinners in our bad works, but sinners in our good works.

This, to Luther, was the key to understanding the offensive illogic of the cross and lies at the root of how a theology of the cross differs from a theology of glory. As Forde puts it:

“The offense consists in the fact that unlike other theologies it attacks what we usually consider the best in our religion. Theologians of the cross do not worry so much about what is obviously bad in our religion, our bad works, as they do about the pretension that comes with our good works.”
- Gerhard Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross. p.2

It is not any particular doctrine of the atonement that made the cross nonsense for Luther. It was his understanding of what the cross says about our sinfulness, that such a radical act would be necessary.

In a nutshell, according to Luther’s offensive theology, all of our good works were actually sin - sin that needed to be destroyed at the cross along with our more obvious bad works. In fact, Luther seemed to claim that good works were humanity’s biggest problem. In a sense then, what appears to be the very best of us, is actually the worst of us.

If this is actually true, as Luther tried to prove with his Heidelberg Disputation, then God certainly has kept his promise to turn conventional wisdom on its head.

Shut Down the Blog

One of the problems I considered when I started this blog (and consider every time I write) is the matter of offense. I suspect much theological writing comes across to the reader as offensive in that it is dogmatic, argumentative and judgmental. These are cardinal sins, particularly to the postmodern mind (as I understand postmodernism).

Dogmatism represents a closed mind; it is the source of bigotry and most other evil in the world. Dogmatic assertions must be replaced with stories. Argumentation is inherently divisive and annoying. It is to be replaced with a more civil discourse, something called conversation. And judgmentalism is the worst sin of all. It reveals a self-righteous and arrogant spirit. I may hold my beliefs, (which are true for me), but I dare not judge yours (which are true for you.) Judgmentalism must always yield to toleration, not just in the normal sense of the word (no burning at the stake), but in the moral obligation to accept opposing ideas to be of equal value with your own. That may paint postmodern thinking with too broad a brush, but, no matter. I could use the same brush for modern thinking or any other kind of thinking.

Any theology, it seems to me, will inherently be offensive to someone. To “take a position” is to risk offense, regardless of how loving the intent or how sweet the tone. That’s why politics and religion are forbidden topics at the Thanksgiving table. In contemplating all this, I began to doubt whether any of this is worth it. What is the point of it all? Does not almost all theological discussion just create more confusion, more insecurity, more doubt, more division among Christians, more offense to the non-Christian?

I have seen theology divide fathers from sons, children from parents, brothers from brothers, friends from friends. All in the name of God’s honest truth. Is this really what God's truth is intended to do? (Some would say yes.) But does anybody really have any idea what they are talking about? Do I? (Some would say no.)

At this point in my thinking, I could have gone either way. Shut down the blog or forge ahead. ” Then I reread Forde’s introduction to his book On Being a Theologian of the Cross where he cited I Corinthians 1:18-25. I read and reread. Finally, I had an “aha” moment of sorts. I think I’m beginning to understand. The theology of the cross is not just one more theology that will offend some people and not others. It offends everybody! It offends me.

One reason it offends me is that it is not a theology (at least not in the normal sense), but rather an attack on theology. In fact, it puts an end to theology. Now I think I know why Luther never wrote a systematic theology. (Or Paul, for that matter) It also dawned on me that the theology of the cross (which is not a theology) could, in fact, be very postmodern (as well as modern, medieval and ancient.)

As I forge ahead, the reader should be aware that I may truly have no idea what I’m talking about. But I will continue to explore this strange new world of the theology of the cross (which is not a theology) and will (probably) continue to blog.

Gerhard Forde

Gerhard O. Forde (1927-2005)
pastor, scholar, teacher, writer
Luther Theological Seminary, St. Paul, MN
Lecturer in Church History, 1959-61
Instructor of Systematic Theology, 1964-74
Professor of Systematic Theology, 1974-98


While an ELCA theologian may seem an unlikely source of inspiration for an old WELS-bred conservative like myself, I have found Gerhard Forde to be a breath of fresh air - daring to preach and teach the more radical Gospel I have come to believe. It is a Gospel I believe Luther preached, and which Luther believed Paul preached. The writings of Gerhard Forde, more than any other source, helped me to interpret Luther’s theology in a way that I could understand. And it was remarkably consistent with what I had already come to believe through a hodgepodge of other means.

I first met Gerhard Forde in the book Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification (1988).

The book dealt with the question of the Christian life, addressing the following kinds of questions:

- How do we grow closer to God?
- Is there a secret to the spiritual life?
- Do we need a second blessing?
- Is sanctification God’s work or ours?
- Is it instantaneous or is it a process?

Five scholars from different traditions (Lutheran, Reformed, Wesleyan, Pentecostal and Contemplative) were brought together to write and respond to one another’s views. Forde was asked to present the Lutheran view.

As I read Forde’s description of sanctification, I was struck by just how clearly and calmly he said some very radical things. It was the clearest description of the unconditional Gospel I had seen in print since first reading Jeff Harkin’s Grace Plush Nothing. Forde seemed to dodge the issue of sanctification as he preached the unconditional Gospel, and this seemed to baffle the other four writers who had to respond to his views. But he was not dodging. He was merely allowing the cross to inform his view of sanctification. He was doing the theology of the cross in plain sight, and his critics didn’t quite know what to make of it.

After that brief introduction to Forde, I bought and read five of his books. I am now in the process of re-reading each one of them. I have decided that, for a book to be truly worth recommending, I personally should have been driven to read it twice or more. These five books, in my view, are worth reading at least twice:

- The Captivation of the Will: Luther vs. Erasmus on Freedom and Bondage (Lutheran Quarterly Books, 2004)

- On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther's Heidelberg Disputation, 1518 (1997)

- Theology Is for Proclamation (1990)

- Justification by Faith: A Matter of Death and Life (1982)

- Where God Meets Man (1972)

All of us are theologians

"...all of us are theologians, in one way or another. Being a theologian just means thinking and speaking about God. True, we may not do much of that. We might go for days and weeks without a thought of God entering our heads, but that is usually impossible. Things happen. Acccidents. Tragedies. Deaths and funerals. Natural disasters. Illness. Loss. Suffering. Disappointment. Wrongdoing. And so on and on. There is also good fortune. Experience of great beauty or pleasure. Sheer grace. Chance encounters that determine our lives. Love. We begin to wonder… wondering if there is some logic to it all in our lives, or some injustice. We become theologians."

- Gerhard O. Forde On Being a Theologian of the Cross, 1997. p 10-11