“PUT LOVE FIRST” (St. Paul)
Most Christians believe that Jesus had to die on the cross in order to pay God back for the injury of Adam’s sin. Sin had pawned our lives to Satan, and Jesus’s death was the price to get them back (“redeem”) from hock. Jesus offered his life instead of ours, and since he was divine, his payback was sufficient to absolve us of our sins. And what a price it was! With cause the Church sang in the Easter Liturgy, “O lucky sin that was worthy of such a wonderful Redeemer!”
This view of the death of Jesus is called “substitutional atonement,” because it substitutes that death for our lives. It is one of the five foundational beliefs proclaimed by Fundamentalists as defining Christianity. But Marcus Borg, in his last book, Convictions (2014), says it is “seriously deficient,” partly because it turns God into a stern businessman, partly because it ignores the historical reasons for the crucifixion of Jesus, and partly because there are other models.
Jesus himself gave us a different image of God as a father who forgives his erring son without conditions, and who reconciles him to himself without expecting anything in return; in other words, out of sheer love. This model appeals more to me than the substitutional one, because it underlines the notion of God as lover. The sinful son was not rejected: the door was always open to his return, and he did not have to be “bought back” from anybody. His reconciliation with his father required only that he come back home.
I have always wondered why God created me, who he knew would sin, instead of others who he knew would be saints. I have the merest feeling he did so because he knew I would love him more after my sin, who already loved him so much even while I sinned against him. This is one major reason, I think, why the image of God as loving and forgiving father appeals to me.
Ignacio Gotz
Most Christians believe that Jesus had to die on the cross in order to pay God back for the injury of Adam’s sin. Sin had pawned our lives to Satan, and Jesus’s death was the price to get them back (“redeem”) from hock. Jesus offered his life instead of ours, and since he was divine, his payback was sufficient to absolve us of our sins. And what a price it was! With cause the Church sang in the Easter Liturgy, “O lucky sin that was worthy of such a wonderful Redeemer!”
This view of the death of Jesus is called “substitutional atonement,” because it substitutes that death for our lives. It is one of the five foundational beliefs proclaimed by Fundamentalists as defining Christianity. But Marcus Borg, in his last book, Convictions (2014), says it is “seriously deficient,” partly because it turns God into a stern businessman, partly because it ignores the historical reasons for the crucifixion of Jesus, and partly because there are other models.
Jesus himself gave us a different image of God as a father who forgives his erring son without conditions, and who reconciles him to himself without expecting anything in return; in other words, out of sheer love. This model appeals more to me than the substitutional one, because it underlines the notion of God as lover. The sinful son was not rejected: the door was always open to his return, and he did not have to be “bought back” from anybody. His reconciliation with his father required only that he come back home.
I have always wondered why God created me, who he knew would sin, instead of others who he knew would be saints. I have the merest feeling he did so because he knew I would love him more after my sin, who already loved him so much even while I sinned against him. This is one major reason, I think, why the image of God as loving and forgiving father appeals to me.
Ignacio Gotz
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