Saturday, October 14, 2017

The Atonement: A Supreme Act of the Love of Christ


We love him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

Markus Barth wrote the following which focuses rather powerfully on the love of God and love of Christ for humanity that informs a true, biblical theology of the atonement:

Jesus does not ask the Father to put grace before justice. Grace in the Old Testament sense (en) is definitely not a dialectical antithesis to a justice that works itself out in judgment proceedings, but a synonym of divine justice. Grace means solid covenant truthfulness and special concern for a man in need of help. In being true to his covenant and his promise, God is true to himself. Even in his judging, his judicial concern is ultimately “setting things right” in a judicious way . . . The intercession of the Son is not, however, confined to words and cries. Even the intercessory prayers of the Old Testament did not consist merely of sounds. Moses offered God his own life as a substitute for the life that Israel had thrown away. According to one tradition he lay fasting totally “for forty days prostrate before the Lord.” The high priest risked his life when he went through the curtain into the sanctum sanctorum. Jeremiah came to the edge of despair—or crossed over it—when he stood up for his people. Of the Suffering Servant it is said not only that he was despised, beaten, suppressed, grieved as he took the guilt of all upon himself in God’s name but also that he was “cut off from the land of the living . . . struck to death.” . . .

. . . [B]lood is able to magnify the human voice. It can show forth or call into being a totality of commitment. When a child who has been run over cries or moans from the street, the sympathy of all who have witnessed the accident is assured. But if his blood flows on the pavement, sympathy can turn into direct or immediate action in response to the misfortune or injustice that has taken place. The poured-out blood of Abel “cries” from the ground to God, and God intervenes at once. Jesus’ blood “speaks even louder than the blood of Abel.”

All the biblical references to the blood of Jesus Christ characterize his death as a sacrifice. His death is a sacrifice in the biblical sense only because it was an act of intercession for sinners. God had willed this total intercession, and out of his faithfulness to God and his love for men, Jesus suffered death in making his plea. Indeed, several among the most outstanding sacrifices described in the Old Testament were in some way juridical acts in which God himself was entreated to make a decision accepting or rejecting the sacrificer and in which God’s judgment was pronounced. The death of Jesus Christ, which marks the completion of his intercession, shows that justice and sacrifice, sacrifice and faith (or obedience), judgment and love are in no way dialectical antitheses or mutually exclusive polarities. On the contrary, they belong inseparably together where a servant of God intends to “fulfil all righteousness.” He is a true friend, representative, and helper of man who puts his own life on the line before a judge. In his death, Jesus Christ shows a love that cannot be greater. The sacrifice of Christ is not an alternative to complete obedience to God and total love for man. It is their very sum and substance.

In suffering to the death, Jesus Christ fulfils the Law and the Prophets. These require and promise only that God be loved with the whole heart and that simultaneously the neighbor be loved. Truthfulness to God reigns where mercy to the brothers triumphs. Jesus Christ obeys God by loving the neighbor. He is “the fulfilment of the law”—just as he was sent to “fulfil the requirements of the law among us.” He reveals his love for the neighbor by giving God his due. To “give God the glory” in the Bible means to confess one’s own guilt before God and simultaneously to call on God with good confidence for mercy. The Jews and Gentiles have not done this. As the only one to give God his due, Jesus shows himself to be truly man. Not at the cost of his fellow men, but at the cost of his own life, he demonstrates true humanity. True humanity is fellow-humanity. In his praying and dying he brings the human condition before God. In his death among men he reveals what it means to be God’s image. On earth, at a definite moment, he shows that this image is not a dream or an ideal but a full and concrete reality. (Markus Barth, Justification [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1971], 42, 43, 44-45, emphasis in original)