Why Did Jesus Have to Die?

Even before hearing the sermon linked below, I had started reading about and wrestling with the atonement and different ways the church has looked at salvation throughout history. The "Satisfaction theory" of the atonement that is prevalent in the Western Church today doesn't seem too different at first glance from the "Christus Victor" model of the atonement that the early church believed. However, the implications are huge even though no one ever talks about "how they believe the atonement worked." Below, I was taking notes and a lot of quotations for my own interest as I was processing what Boyd shared. It is now a summary of his message, paraphrased in my own words (with some of his!), so I would encourage you to listen to his sermon for any quotations and read up on the subject for yourself! I hope the post below is worth it for a shorter version of the message, so please let me know what you think!!

Why did Jesus have to die? - Greg Boyd sermon on February 20, 2005

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Why did Jesus have to die?

A very simple question, and many of us know the obvious answer: “Well, for my sins and the sins of the world.”

Yes, but how and why? It seems to me that most of us (including myself) have had a lot of misconceptions about God because of this question and those misconceptions have damaged our relationships with God.

(This has huge implications for how we think about Jesus, God, and our relationship with him, so please sit down when you have time and a thinking cap on!)

The picture most of us get is that there is a sinner, Joe, who has a broken relationship with God. Sinner Joe rebels against God, sins, and does not worship God, so God is full of wrath and anger against him. God’s wrath is about to fall on sinner Joe, but then at the last moment, Jesus pushes sinner Joe out of the way of the truck of God’s wrath and Jesus gets smashed in his place. God’s wrath falls on Jesus instead of sinner Joe. This is also called the “Satisfaction Theory of the Atonement" that began in the 11th century when salvation and the work of the cross were thought about in more legal terms.

But here are some consequences of thinking about salvation in that way:

First, sinner Joe is thankful for Jesus but isn’t so sure about the Father. The Father seems schizophrenic because sinner Joe hears about His love, but the Father just had to take out his wrath and defend his honor by killing someone in Joe’s place. Jesus becomes the buffer against God the Father. Jesus is like the defense attorney, but we’re not so sure about the prosecutor.

Secondly, Joe found a “legal loophole” that protects him from the Father because of Jesus. Joe thinks of Christianity as magic where Jesus takes the blow and Joe doesn’t have to worry about hell. Joe has fire insurance, but there is no change and no transformation in his life. Joe can go and sin his brains out because he found a loophole protecting him from God’s wrath.

Third, how is it that Jesus takes Joe’s punishment? How can Jesus take Joe’s guilt? Guilt doesn’t seem transferable. So, how is it okay that Jesus gets punished for Joe’s guilt? How is that just of the Father?

Fourth, does God really forgive Joe in this case? Forgiveness is a matter of “releasing a debt.” If God just transferred Joe’s debt and vented his wrath on Jesus, is that really forgiveness? If God just takes out His anger on someone else, did He really forgive anyone? Did God really release someone’s debt?

Fifth, the Bible says that God demonstrates his love for us in this, “While we were sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8), and not that Christ just defends us from the wrath of God. “If you see me, you see the Father.” Jesus shows us who God is. “God so LOVES the world,” NOT, that he was so full of wrath [so God sent his son].

We’re missing something here. This “Satisfaction Model” of atonement doesn’t seem adequate. If it is the only way that people see salvation, then it could even be damaging. The Bible certainly uses this model in a few cases, but it is not the primary way that the Bible speaks about salvation. Another way to think about salvation and the work of the cross was dominant view of the Church until the 11th century when people began thinking about salvation in legal terms.

But first…

God’s plan has always been to have a people for himself. We see that plan in the nation of Israel, in the New Testament Christian community, and in the ultimate image of a marriage union found in the book of Revelation. God wants a bride, His Church, without spot or wrinkle, who lives in perfect union with Him forever. He has always wanted that people, his bride. That plan has never changed.

Time with Adam and Eve in the garden and the whole world up until now seems more like a courtship period, but the goal is a marriage union. God wants a relationship of absolute intimacy. God is with the bride and the bride is with God: that is the goal.

God’s heart toward us has never been a reluctant heart. It has always been a heart toward us, a heart to find the lost sheep.

That was always the plan, but the plan was not that we would say, “NO.”

Our rebellion seemed to cause three problems:

1. We are separated from God – we believed a deceptive picture of God, and we developed a vacuum in our heart because we don’t know God’s love for us. God MUST ABOLISH THE LIE that He is not Good
2. We have contracted a fatal disease – sin is a condition we are in, not just individual bad things we do. God must bring about HEALING from that DISEASE
3. We have surrendered our authority to the Devil and he has enslaved us. God must BREAK the POWER of SATAN from over our lives

The problem God faced in His plan (rescuing His bride) was not a question of, “Who am I going to punish for this mess?” It was and is not a legal problem, but a REALITY PROBLEM. We believe lies about God's goodness, we have a fatal disease where we live in rebellion against God, and we are enslaved by God’s enemy.

It is like a criminal in prison. The criminal only looks at the LEGAL problem. “How can I get off the hook? How can I get out of jail?” But if a criminal has a healthy mother who loves him, she has a REALITY problem. “I love my son and he is a criminal, but how can I save him from himself and change his heart?”

If you take care of the reality issue, the legal issue is solved. If you do the opposite (take care of the legal problem), the reality problem is not solved.

God is not asking, “How do I get my bride off the hook?” He is always interested in the reality: “How do I unveil the lie and show my bride the truth? How do I bring about real healing from her real disease? How do I free my people when they are under real oppression?”

There is a big difference between reality and legality. God is not an uptight accountant in a rage about wrong things. “Oh no! He won’t forgive us without SOMEONE [Jesus] taking the blow and getting killed!” No. There is a reality problem. We believe lies about God, have a fatal disease of rebellion, and are in bondage to the enemy.

God’s answer was the incarnation and the crucifixion– but we can’t think about it in LEGAL TERMS!

1. We are separated from God and believe lies about who He is – Jesus reveals the true God and restores our faith and trust in Him. None of us have a truly accurate picture about God. We don’t see how beautiful God truly is. With our rebellion we adopted a monstrous picture of God. However, Jesus reveals what God is like, that God always has a “Calvary heart” for rebels, and a self-sacrificial love for people. God is not schizophrenic, with both “love” and this need to just kill someone (sinners or Jesus) because of sin in the world. There is no duplicity in Him. He wants an eternal relationship with his bride and is willing to do anything for that. We can enter into a new covenantal trust with God.
2. We have contracted a fatal disease, a condition of rebellion against God – In a way that we will never understand, God “made him to be sin who had no sin.” In some way, Christ works as a “medicinal sponge” to suck up our disease of rebellion and heal us from that cancer. Jesus absorbed the disease of our sin (not a legal transaction for our individual sins). God does hate sin, the disease, and so, God’s entire wrath toward the disease came out against Jesus who absorbed it. This is not a dysfunctional God who gets angry at some individual sins and is about to strike people down until Jesus jumped in the way. God is interested in liberating us from our fatal disease and not in a legal transaction that lets us off the hook for our sins. God wanted rid of the disease because He hates the condition that is hurting his bride. God wants, in reality, to free us from our cancer, so we can be His spotless bride. He isn’t interested in just “letting us off the hook” but wants to heal us from the inside out, by getting the cancer out of us.
3. We surrendered our authority to the devil and he has enslaved us – In the “Satisfaction model” the person stays a criminal but gets freed from prison, but in the "Christus Victor" model, then it’s about the reality of the relationship. We are no longer criminals. We are FREED from our enslavement to the devil. “The reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” (1 John 3:7). Hebrews 2:14 adds, “By his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil.” By destroying the power of the devil, it was the ultimate act of love. We are free to praise, follow, and imitate Christ.

The “legal” thinking that pervades the church is certainly an analogy that the Bible uses, but it was not the dominant way to look at salvation and the work of the cross for a millennium after Jesus’ life. It is amazing how much this “satisfaction” view of the cross affects and changes the way we view God and the freedom He gives us.

Take-aways:

1. God is not PARTLY like Jesus – God is completely like Jesus. There is no sinister streak in God. The fullness of God dwelt in Jesus. Jesus reveals, not conceals, the Father’s heart towards you.
2. The cross and salvation is about REALITY, and not LEGALITY. God wants to heal us from the power of the devil and free us from our enslavement to him and his desires. God is not interested in just “letting us off the hook.”

In America we think about God in almost exclusively legal terms. Jesus is not a buffer and we should not think about Christ in that way. Will we put ALL OUR TRUST in Jesus and live our entire lives for him? Salvation is not exclusively about what happens after we die (getting out of jail free!). It is about wholeness, a real relationship, and freedom that begins with him now.


***This material comes from Greg Boyd's sermon "Why Did Jesus Have to Die?" on February 20, 2005