On two week break - returning March 5.
Did I say two weeks? I meant five - returning March 26.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Friday, February 16, 2007
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 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...")
Thursday, February 15, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
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?"
“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?"
Monday, February 12, 2007
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 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.
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