The Moral Influence of Jesus’ Death

In my Sunday School class yesterday we discussed Mark 15. We’re reading this with Allan Bevere’s Keeping Up with Jesus: A Narrative Devotional Commentary on Mark.

In the thought questions for chapter 15, Allan asks both why Jesus is silent at his trial as depicted in Mark, and what it means that Jesus died for our sins.

On the first question, there were a number of answers, including simply, “prophecy,” that it was expected. But I want to focus on one note I make myself about this, because it relates to the third question, which is how we understand Jesus dying for our sins. (There are three questions following each chapter in the commentary. I’m focusing on the first and third.)

In a trial with a foregone conclusion, there is really no point in making a defense, unless you are doing so for someone listening. In this case, I suspect the crowd is well selected for hostility (at least of the moment), and thus not prepared to actually listen to a defense.

This leads me to what I think is a key point about the death of Jesus. It creates a story of contrast and of black and white confrontation. Nobody is seeing the day in shades of gray. In a book by one of my favorite authors, David Weber, there’s a quote by one of the characters, which I paraphrase from memory here: “Very few days are outlined in black and white, and most of those days have a body count.” I don’t know if that quote is original to Weber, and I can’t locate the correct book, but it’s good.

The day of the crucifixion was not set out in gray, and it definitely had a body count. It creates the moment of contrast between what good is willing to do and what evil is willing to do. Good dies for others; evil kills what it does not like.

A portrayal such as this is one that day to day reality can’t really live up to. We don’t have the clear line drawn in the story. We have our struggles both to understand and to do. But that is a critical value of the story: It drives us to higher ground. If we let it.

So what did this have to do with the third question. What does it mean that Jesus died for our sins?

What I loved about this question was that it called for each person to think: What does that mean to me? It’s easy to be very prescriptive. We like to have one interpretation and get everyone to understand it.

The Values of Multiple Metaphors

I would suggest that no single metaphor can possibly do justice to the atonement. It’s a good thing we don’t have only one!

Moral Influence

As an undergraduate working on my degree in biblical languages, there was a required course on exegesis of Romans in Greek, to be taken after I completed intermediate Greek. The professor for this class was an advocate of the moral influence theory of the atonement. This theory is often presented simply as Jesus providing an example in his life of how we should live and influencing good behavior in us.

That’s not the whole story. In that theory, the portrayal of good and evil meeting at the cross becomes a powerful influence, a powerful changemaker.

I didn’t get that in class. I wanted something other than penal substitutionary atonement, and I hoped that I could accept what this scholar presented. I wanted to read this view in Romans. I tried to do so diligently.

It never worked.

It took me some time to realize that there was something here for me to take in and make a part of my understanding. That portrayal, brutal as it was, was a necessary part of the story of salvation. It was easy to miss this in other views. Then I started to see other metaphors for the atonement, and to see how they build a picture.

Penal Substitutionary Atonement

In fact, I came back to appreciate the courtroom metaphor presented by penal substitution, which, among other things helps portray completeness, and finality while excluding the idea of us earning the result. I have conservative friends who still think I’m ditching this dominant evangelical view of the atonement and progressive friends who wonder why I don’t just ditch it. To me, however, each of these views is essential. Since this is not my main topic, I’ll leave it at that.

I turn next to expressions of faith by the Apostle Paul. Paul can be an annoying character. He covers a lot of ground and expects you to keep up.

About Paul

I was interviewing author Herold Weiss, author of the book Meditations on the Letters of Paul in a series I did titled “Who Was Paul?” One question I asked was this: Let’s imagine you’re at a conference and you have the duty of introducing Paul as the next speaker. What do you say?

Herold laughed and said, “I don’t have to answer that. You see, Paul would never have been invited to speak in the first place!”

He’s likely right. Paul was too much of a disruptor to be invited to church conferences. It was much more likely that conferences would be held to talk about him and what he was doing, such as in Acts 15.

Paul, Good and Evil, and Crossing the Line

In many of Pauls’ letters we have what looks like a theological section, which generally talks about salvation and will frequently inform you that it is not of works. Then you move to a section that talks about things you ought to do. Often these sections are presented as distinct, as though Paul had multiple personality. “Not of works, now get to work,” so to speak.

I think a closer look will allow these to be coordinated, and I think Philippians is an excellent place to do so. The reason is that until chapter 3, which seems to be a kind of side-tirade, Paul is ready to go through the basics quickly.

By Philippians 1:27 he’s telling his readers/hearers to live in their community in a way that is “worthy of the good news (gospel).” He wants to hear that they are “standing firm,” and “striving together” for the gospel. He continues that God has granted the the privilege not only of believing (a privilege, a gift, not a purchase), but also of suffering for Jesus as well.

Not of works. Here come the works.

Well, yes and no. Paul is writing here, I think, on that line drawn between good and evil at his crucifixion. You get a choice. Are you a crucifier or are your crucified.

Too often Christians have answered that they are with the crucified one while picking up nails and erecting crosses.

Persecuted or Persecutor

I was asked once in Sunday School who I thought was right when two groups were fighting over doctrinal points, really fighting, to the extent of killing one another. It has happened way too much in Christian history. I said that anyone who was killing the other one over their beliefs was wrong. Killing people in the name of the one who went to the cross silently and said, “Father forgive them,” is blasphemous.

Have I departed from Paul and his letter to the Philippians? I think not.

How to Look at Other People

Paul now tells the Philippians to make his joy complete (2:2) by being of one mind (sharing viewpoint) and having the same love. Nothing is to come from selfishness or vanity, but they are to regard others as better than themselves (2:3) then also look to the interests of others, rather than their own.

I think Paul is looking at that line. Are you a crucifier or are you with the crucified?

Philippians 2:5-11 is a famous passage. Jesus emptied himself, humbled himself, became obedient, and went to the cross. Others called for his blood.

This was a portrayal of the nature of good and the nature of evil. That is something we should not forget about the crucifixion, if for no other reason that we avoid becoming the persecutors.

As Paul says it in Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ. I’m no longer the one living, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:19b-20a). That’s the line drawn in morality and in history. Paul has no intention either in Philippians or in Galatians of telling his hearers that this is easy. He doesn’t suggest that everyone will love them after the decision or that they will get a new job, drive a better car, or be suddenly totally free of disease.

Be crucified with Christ.

Identifying the Power

Things start going off the rail again right here. We think that having been crucified with Christ, or at least made the choice of which side of that line we want to be on, we must get on the ball and be better people.

Indeed, Jesus was exalted after death and given the name above all names. But first he went to that cross, was taken into the tomb, and was raised again by the very power he laid down in the first place.

Remember where the power comes from.

Having died, and been buried with him by baptism, you don’t come back and start fixing yourself.

“So, if anyone is in Christ, there’s new creation. The old stuff is gone. It has all become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:18b)

You can’t sanctify yourself. You’re dead. You’ve got no stuff at all. It’s all new, and it’s all His.

Who Works?

So back to Philippians and one of my favorite passages:

(12) So, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not only when I’m there, but also when I’m away, with fear and trembling work out your own salvation. (13) For it is God who works in you all, both to will and to accomplish his pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)

So how does this work?

I wonder why it’s so hard to see God at work in us morally when we already know God is at work in us. If you are a believer in God and that God is the creator, then everything, ultimately, is a gift of God. I could paraphrase this physically as “Do your own breathing with fear and trembling, for God is at work in you both to make you want to breathe and also to make you breathe.”

I don’t think that’s a ridiculous way to put it. I couldn’t type the next letter without God. God makes the various particles move around in a certain way. God brought me into the world. I can’t even make mistakes without God.

If you try to take over and do your own working, that just makes everything harder. God knows that and has a plan for all that as well. God makes you want. God works in and through you. But ultimately it’s all God.

If you go try to do it yourself, then it’s like jumping back to the person who just died, forgetting about being buried and raised to new life by divine power, and deciding to do it all just as if none of that every happened.

Does this mean there’s nothing to do? Actions are still important. Actions have consequences. Paul even says this in Galatians, his strongest book against works of the law. “Don’t be deceived! God is not mocked! Whatever a person sows that person will also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

The Life Context of Commands

Again we have to look at context, in this case, life context. Not every command, not every discussion of good and bad, smart and stupid, effective and ineffective is about whether or not you are saved or have eternal life. Deciding someone’s eternal state is not my job and it’s not yours. Let’s say that I am hiking a trail in some beautiful mountains, tremendous beauty all around, and I get careless, lose my step, and fall off a cliff. Gravity (created by God) still works. The ground (created by God) is still hard. My body (created by God) is still not up to a fast encounter with a hard place. I die.

Are the mountains still beautiful? Yes.

I also still have eternal life.

But it would have been a good idea to be more careful.

The Invitation

The invitation to salvation is not an invitation to an untroubled life. It’s not an invitation to always make perfect decisions. It’s not an invitation to comfort.

It’s also, and this is critical, not an invitation to think of yourself as better than other people. It’s not an invitation to be God’s favorite grandchild, spoiled rotten and looking down on all the other children who have somehow failed to earn all that love.

If you thought going to church was joining the popular kids’ club and becoming one of the important people, you missed the point. If you get a charge out of feeling superior, you’re missing the point.

“Looking to Jesus, the author and completer[sic] of our faith …” (Hebrews 12:2).

Completion

Read Philippians 2:5-11 again. Try to imagine just what it was that Jesus thought was not something to hang onto, what Jesus gave up. That’s where God is taking you. Don’t diminish that by looking sideways or looking back. When your measuring stick is God’s glory and God’s grace, the differences in human beings are literally not measurable.

And just as Jesus not only went to the cross and the grave, but rose again and ascended, so we now that God will complete what God has started.