The Road to Redemption: The Struggle Over the Nature of Jesus (Part 2)

    So who was/is Jesus? That was the question which confronted the early church. As we looked at last week the Biblical titles given to Jesus (Lord, messiah, Son of Man, Son of God, Word, rabbi, savior) were all functional titles. They spoke to what Jesus did and what he accomplished. They did not speak to his inherent nature. As the church moved further away from its Hebraic roots and moved into the Greco-Roman world the desire to know about the metaphysical nature of Jesus began to grow. Over the centuries there were a number of contending belief systems about Jesus. Ultimately however the church decided that there could be only one Orthodox position. Today we will take a quick look at some of the contenders for the coveted prize of Orthodoxy.

    Manichaeism was a tradition built upon the work of the prophet Mani (216-276 CE) who lived in Persia and was of Parthian descent. He believed that Jesus was merely one in a line of prophets (including Zoroaster and Buddha) and that he Mani, was the final prophet and the "Comforter" which Jesus had promised his disciples. Mani's view of the universe was that it was composed of two competing sources (good and evil) and that Jesus had been sent to enlighten humans to the good. The Manichean church had apostles, bishops and presbyters. It was finally extinguished in the Roman Empire around 390 CE though it survived in the east for more than 1,000 years. Augustine was originally a member of this church.

    Docetism was the belief that Jesus was never actually physically real. His body was an illusion as was his crucifixion. This belief developed out of a concern for and a rejection of the possibility that God could become flesh. Docetism believed that the body as inherently evil and that only the spirit was good. This belief was proven by the fact that bodies wither and die while the spirit remains. These movements began around 70 CE but mainly died out within a hundred years…though we can see remnants of them in movements such as Christian Science.

    Gnosticism was a movement that gained ground as Christianity spread out from mainly Jewish areas. The core belief of the Gnostics (derived from the Greek word gnosis…or knowledge) was that the physical was evil and the spiritual good. The goal of life was to discover the correct knowledge which would allow one to escape this physical world. Jesus was seen as the teacher who brought this knowledge. There are many Gnostic scriptures which present Jesus in this light. This school of thought became prevalent among the Germanic tribes which conquered the Roman Empire and still exists today.

    Arianism was based on the works of Bishop Arius who lived from 250-336 CE. Arius believed that Jesus was neither God nor man. Jesus was instead a semi-divine being. By being a semi-divine being Jesus was able to be obedient to God and not fall prey to the temptations of the world. The battle over Arius' beliefs lasted for more than 200 years and was the greatest threat to Trinitarian beliefs. You can see remnants of this belief in the theology of Jehovah's Witnesses.

    Apollinarianism was the belief that while Jesus had a fully human body his reasoning was taken over by the Spirit of God. This school was founded by Apollinaris of Laodicea who argued that Arius was wrong in that Jesus had divinity within him (he was after all "The Word") while at the same time arguing that the Trinitarians had to be wrong because you couldn't have two natures (human and divine) integrated in one person. While being declared a heresy in 381 this view continues to be expressed by Christians around the world.

    As you can see the church spent hundreds of years wrestling with the nature of Jesus. Next week we will take a look at the victor (at least in terms of the Western Church) and what it means for us.

    

The Road to Redemption: The Struggle Over the Nature of Jesus (Part 1)

    So who was Jesus? Was he really God? Was he sort of like God? If he was God or like God was he also human in a way you or I would recognize? Do the answers to these questions actually matter? The answer to the last question is "far more than you or I could possibly imagine." The historic reality was that those questions mattered so much that people were excommunicated and even executed if they believed in the "wrong" answers. Why was that? Well, let's find out.

     In the beginning (so to speak) of the Jesus movement (which was originally called "The Way" meaning it was a movement and not a religion) no one really cared about the "nature" of Jesus. What mattered was that Jesus had accomplished something on the cross. As we looked at over the past several weeks Jesus' followers believed that by his death and resurrection the power of sin and the powers of this world had been overcome. Death was defeated and resurrection awaited all who followed the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth. Even those letters of Paul which appear to focus on the "nature" of Jesus (Romans and Philippians) do so only in a passing and cursory way. This functional view of Jesus proved to be sufficient for a considerable period of time. However as the church became more organized (in the third and fourth centuries) two very distinct groups began to not only wonder about the nature of Jesus but began to vehemently disagree about that nature as well.

    The first of these two groups were the monastics. These were the monks and hermits who had withdrawn from the Greco-Roman world in order to live lives of solitude and self-sacrifice. They began to wonder how it was that anyone other than God could save humanity. In other words, how could an ordinary Jew, even a really, really good Jew save humanity by dying on the cross? They concluded that a human being could not do so, and therefore (reading John's Gospel and inferring from some of Paul's letters) they argued that Jesus must somehow be fundamentally God. The monastics, because of their informal power in the early church began to push the church to clarify its position.

    The second group that began to discuss this issue consisted of the bishops of the early church. Long before there was any sense of a "Roman" church with Cardinals and a Pope, there were bishops. While initially the bishops (those priests who oversaw a number of congregations) were elected by and were accountable to the people, they slowly gained enough power to be able to do as they pleased and to set doctrinal beliefs for the congregations they oversaw. As discussions about the nature of Jesus increased in frequency and complexity, the bishops disagreed with each other and this led to divisions within the church.

    Eventually these discussions led to the creation of two different schools of thought about Jesus. The first was the Antiochene (from the church of Antioch, in Syria) and the second was Alexandrian (from the church at Alexandria, Egypt). The difference between the two was significant. The Antiochene School emphasized Jesus' humanity. They saw salvation as coming from the perfect obedience of the perfect man. The incarnation in this sense was the power of God present in the perfect man that allowed Jesus to be faithful. The Alexandrian School emphasized the divinity of Jesus. Salvation was accomplished because the perfect God/man gave his life for the world. The incarnation here meant that God was fully and completely present in Jesus.

    Needless to say the subtleties of these two schools can be, and often are lost, on most of us today. What is fascinating however is that the issues at the heart of this discussion are still with us. While the majority of churches have ultimately agreed with the Alexandrian school (meaning they are considered to be theologically orthodox) many others have not. Latter Day Saints, Jehovah Witnesses, United Pentecostals and others follow some form of the Antiochene School. Next week we will look at the variety of ways people talked about Jesus and the following week how this issue was resolved.

    

What Happened on the Cross (Theologically Speaking)

    Over the past several weeks we have looked at the trial, death and resurrection of Jesus. There is one last issue concerning the death of Jesus at which we need to look and that is the church's understanding of how Jesus accomplished our salvation on the cross. The word which has been used to describe the outcome of Jesus' death is atonement. A simple definition of atonement would be "making amends for a wrong that has been done for the purpose of repairing a relationship. " As we discussed last week what makes this story a bit strange is that God, in the person of Jesus, made amends for the sins of humanity, because we could not ultimately make amends for ourselves. A struggle for the church has been to explain "the how" of this process in a way that made sense to people in different times and places. We will look at four different ways in which atonement is described. These are Ransom, Christus Victor, Substitutionary and Moral Influence (listed in the order they were adopted by the church).

The Ransom theory of atonement was the earliest and most widely held theory of how humanity was reconciled to God. It is partially based on Mark 10:45 : "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many"; and 1 Timothy 2:5-6, "There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men…". This theory implies that Adam and Eve, by their actions in the garden sold humanity to Satan. Justice required that a ransom be paid to Satan for our salvation. Jesus paid the ransom with his death, but God raised him from the dead thus tricking Satan and insuring eternal life for all.

Christus Victor is a theory which though related to the Ransom theory has some important differences. Christus Victor (or Christ the victor) puts forth the idea that in Jesus God defeated the powers and principalities of this world. The powers did their worst in killing Jesus, God's only Son, but in raising Jesus from the dead God defeats sin and death, thus liberating humanity. Because sin and death have been defeated human beings can once again live as God-centered moral agents. The main difference between the Christus Victor and Ransom theories is that Christus Victor does not see Jesus' work as a transaction between God and Satan (paying a ransom) but as a dramatic victory over the forces of evil.

Substitutionary atonement reflects the ancient sacrificial system employed by Jews at the Temple in Jerusalem. This theory is based on the scriptures in the Gospel of John which speak of Jesus as "the Lamb of God" as well as those in Hebrews which specifically speak of Jesus as the perfect sacrifice. This model works in the following fashion. Human beings sin and are thus deserving of death. The only way in which people can be saved is through a blood sacrifice. While the Temple sacrifices had been sufficient for temporary forgiveness, humans were always likely to sin again and thus be libel for punishment. In Christ however, we have the perfect sacrifice (because Jesus is the perfect man) and this brings about perfect, lasting forgiveness based in a renewed relationship with God.

The Moral Influence theory, while not as dependent on Jesus' death as the other three theories has still been influential across the entire history of the church. This theory claims that Jesus, through his teachings, his examples and ultimately his death on behalf of the world, provided a clear example of the life that God wishes humans to lead. The Holy Spirit then took that example and made it possible for the human beings to align their lives to Jesus' examples. This matters, according to Moral Influence because judgment will be based on the content of our character and not on a particular set of beliefs. In a sense then Jesus' death did not "accomplish" something specific, but instead offered us a perfect example of one who would "lay down his life for his friends."

The gift of scripture is that it offers us a wide variety of ways in which we can understand how Jesus saved and transformed us. The challenge for us is to live into the new life we have been given.

The Road to Redemption – Why the Cross

    Why the cross? That has long been an issue for Christians. Surely, we ask, there had to be an easier way for God to make forgiveness of sins and human renewal possible? Perhaps God could have continued to use the sacrificial system of the Temple (God tried this but people never seemed to change). Maybe God could have started over and the world would have learned its lesson (tried that with Noah and Noah started all over by making wine and getting drunk). Maybe God could have simply forgiven humanity (not sure how many times God forgave and we humans went right back to our same old ways of living). So again, why the cross? I believe the answer can be found in D. M. Baillie's book God Was in Christ. By following Baillie's argument I hope it will become clearer why God chose the horror of the cross as the instrument of God's reconciling and renewing work in the world.

    The first part of Baillie's argument is that sin is real, cannot be ignored and must be dealt with. This is so first because sin is not simply people doing somewhat bad things but that sin is instead the orientation of human hearts that leads them to death dealing ways thus destroying the good that God has created. Sin robs persons of their opportunity to be fully human, and enjoy the blessings that God offers in this world. Sin must also be dealt with because sin's destruction of humanity and creation causes great pain to God who loves the whole world. God's love for the world is so great that God desires nothing more than for human beings to live in right relationship with Gods self, one another and with creation. Thus in order to save humanity from death and into life something has to be done about sin.

    The second part of the argument concerns what must be done. For Baillie this is a costly self-offering of God's own self. Why is this? This is so because there is a great deal of difference between a "good natured indulgence and a costly reconciliation." Baillie puts it this way, "Is there no difference between a good-natured indulgence and a costly reconciliation? There is an immense moral and spiritual difference between the two. And which of them are we to attribute to the love of God? Does the whole process of reconciliation cost Him nothing? Is His forgiveness facile and cheap? And if it were, or if we accepted it as such, would it have the liberating power, to set us free for a new and better life?"
(p. 172) To grasp concept this we must consider the difference between indifference and forgiveness. If someone takes something from me about which I do not care I can say, "I forgive you," and it will cost me nothing because I am really indifferent. In addition my indifference will have little if any impact on the one who has taken from me because they can tell I do not care. However, if someone takes something from me that is dear to me, for me to forgive them is costly to me because it hurts to forgive. I pay a price. That kind of costly forgiveness also contains within it the possibility of real change in the life of the one who has taken from me because they can see the pain they have caused.

The final part of Baillie's argument then is that in order for God to save humanity from sin, and transform us into loving human beings, God must pay a price…God must go to the cross. "What Jesus offered to God was Himself...But if, on the deepest interpretation, this was not only an offering made by a man to God, but also a sacrifice made by God Himself, then it is part of the sacrifice that God is continually making, because He is infinite Love confronted with human sin. And it is an expiatory sacrifice, because sin is a dreadfully real thing which love cannot tolerate or lightly pass over, and it is only out of the suffering of such inexorable love that true forgiveness, as distinct from an indulgent amnesty, could ever come. That is the objective process of atonement that goes on in the very life of God." (pp. 197-198) Thus the cross becomes a necessary evil/good through which humanity can be and is being changed into the very likeness of the image of God. Forgiveness now makes an actual difference in our lives so that we can become new people. The challenge for us then is to allow that transforming power to work within us that we too might be continually brought from death to life.

The Road to Redemption: The Resurrection of Jesus

Jesus died quickly. Unlike many victims of crucifixion who often endured several days of pain before they died, Jesus died quickly. The Roman soldiers were as surprised as anyone at his early demise and even checked to be sure that he was dead by poking his body with a spear. Though none of his followers were directly at the foot of the cross, many of the women who had followed him were nearby and saw him die. After his death a follower of his, Joseph of Arimathea, went to Pilate and asked for the body…a very brave act considering Jesus has been crucified for sedition. Permission having been granted Joseph took the body and had it placed in a family tomb. A stone was rolled in front of the tomb and everyone went home. The Sabbath had come.

    This much of the story would seem to be commonly agreed upon by most commentators. I say that for several reasons. First no one in the first century would have made up a story about someone being crucified. It was a humiliating and ritually unclean way to die. Second crucifixion meant one was an enemy of the state…hardly a selling point for a religion in the first century. Finally there are both Jewish and Roman sources which confirm the crucifixion. At the most basic level then, most people will acknowledge that Jesus lived and died. The question that has divided people is what happened to the body.

     Where Jesus' story begins to take a turn for the unusual is that when the women (or woman) arrived at the tomb on Sunday, after the Sabbath they discovered that the tomb was empty and the body gone. What remained were the grave clothes only. Depending on which Gospel we read they were informed by men in bright clothing, an angel or a number or angels that Jesus was not here but had been raised from the dead. Next we have various accounts of what message the people received, who saw Jesus first and how those persons interacted with him. There is little consistency within these elements of the stories. What is consistent however is that Jesus' body is gone and that all the persons are told he has been raised and is alive. In other words he has been resurrected.

    I want to take a moment and make sure that we are all on board with what resurrection means. Resurrection means that someone who was dead…clinically dead…no heartbeat and no brain activity…is now alive…heart beating and brain working. Resurrection is not that a person dies and becomes a spirit or a ghost. Resurrection is not that someone lives in our memory. I say this because the Greek language has words to describe ghosts, spirits and memories. The Gospels do not use those words to describe what happened to Jesus. They speak of resurrection, meaning being made alive in a fully physical sense. This being alive is confirmed by people touching Jesus (Mary), Jesus eating with his friends and the witness of more than 500 persons (according to Paul) who interacted with Jesus after his resurrection.

    Across the centuries people have had trouble with this resurrection thing. The Romans claimed that the disciples stole Jesus' body so they could claim he was raised from the dead (hardly seems likely since the disciples were not expecting him to be raised). Some have claimed that he was probably a specter of some kind (note my earlier comments). More modern scholars have spoken of resurrection as a common memory (not sure why anyone would have made up a memory of a living Jesus when it went against almost all understandings of life and death in both Jewish and Roman cultures).

    Ultimately our faith rises or falls upon the resurrection of Jesus. If he was not raised then Jesus is just another dead Jewish teacher. If he was raised then the world has been changed. We profess that he was resurrected and lives even now. Over the next couple of weeks we will look at the interplay of the cross and the resurrection and why they are so important to our faith. So stay tuned.

    

The Road to Redemption: Jesus’ Arrest, Trial and Crucifixion (Part 3)

    The powers in First Century Judea (both religious and political) needed Jesus out of the way. They needed him out of the way because he was a threat to their power and religious convictions. They needed him out of the way because he was offering a new way of being faithful to God and a new empire which would not bow to Rome or to Jewish political leadership. Jesus had to go so the powers had Jesus arrested, tried and finally crucified.

     Crucifixion was a form of execution that had been used by the Persians, Carthaginians and Macedonians, along with the Romans. The Greeks were loath to use it, but did so on rare occasions. The act of crucifixion was saved for slaves, pirates and enemies of the state; those who had committed treason. Rome conducted not only individual crucifixions but also mass crucifixions as well. Rome crucified over 6,000 slaves following the slave revolt under Spartacus as well as possibly up 30,000 Jews during the siege of Jerusalem. The methods of crucifixion varied. Individuals were either nailed or tied to the cross beam. When someone was nailed the number and location of nails varied. Crucifixion was intended to be both horrifically painful and humiliating in order to serve as a means of intimidation. It was a horrifically painful way to die because one slowly suffocated to death as one lost the strength to remain erect. It was humiliating because individuals were crucified nude, meaning not only were they completely exposed but any bodily function was done in full view of their tormentors. Finally most bodies were left up until birds had picked the bones clean.

    This was the fate that awaited Jesus. It is little wonder then that Jesus agonized so much in the Garden of Gethsemane prior to his arrest. He understood that once the trial began there was little doubt that he would be crucified. An additional humiliation for Jesus was that within Jewish culture crucifixion was not a reputable way to die (Jewish law only permitted stoning, burning, strangulation and decapitation). To be "hung on a tree" then meant one was dying outside the law and thus outside of God's grace.

    Once Jesus was convicted he was flogged, mocked, crowned with thorns and then forced to carry the top beam of his cross with him toward the place of execution at Golgotha. Along the way Jesus stumbled and Simon of Cyrene was required to carry the cross beam the rest of the way. Once he arrived at Golgotha Jesus was stripped of his clothes (do not let paintings and crucifixes fool you, he did not retain a loin cloth), and attached to the cross. Above his head was a plaque which read, in three languages, King of the Jews. This would have been the crime of which he was convicted, treason against the political authorities. Jesus was not crucified alone but between two thieves…or perhaps two rebels who robbed and stole to support their rebellion. While Jesus was on the cross he was offered sour wine on some hyssop. In addition soldiers cast lots for his clothes and according to John, pierced his side to see if he was still alive. Unlike many victims who lasted for days on the cross Jesus died quickly. His body was then taken down and placed in a tomb.

Depending on which Gospel one reads there were numerous strange events which followed Jesus' death; earthquakes, the sun was darkened, the Temple curtain (between the Holy of Holies and the rest of the Temple) was torn in two or a Centurion pronounced that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. While the historicity of these specific events is open to question the fact of Jesus' death is not (at least by serious historians). We know this because writers such as Mara Bar-Serapion (73 CE), Josephus (1^st cen. CE), Tacitus (116 CE), Lucian (160?) and even the Babylonian Talmud (220CE) all refer to the death of Jesus. The question for Jesus followers became what would they do with now that Jesus was dead. We will look at this issue next week when we look at the resurrection.

The Road to Redemption: Jesus’ Arrest, Trial and Crucifixion (Part 2)

    Jesus was too dangerous to be allowed to continue his ministry. As we saw last week he was dangerous to the Sadducees because he did not respect the Temple. He was dangerous to the Pharisees because he was not a diligent follower of the law. He was dangerous to the political authorities because people wanted to name him the messianic king. The Biblical accounts tell us that the religious leaders decided that because he was dangerous, Jesus needed to be arrested, tried and executed. It is at this point in the story that things become a bit unclear. I say unclear because the Gospel accounts do not concur in terms of the exact details of what happened next. However there are two series of three steps each which appear to link all of the stories together.

    The first series entails the trial before the Jewish authorities. Step one (according to the Gospel of John) is that Jesus is brought before Annas, the former high priest. While it may appear odd that Jesus would stand before a former high priest (the Romans removed Annas from his office in 15 CE) historians have discovered that Annas continued to be a significant power broker within the Jewish establishment. Annas evidently gave his approval to the arrest and trial thus facilitating Jesus being sent to then high-priest Caiaphas. In step two Caiaphas examined Jesus and determined that an official trial before the Sanhedrin be held. The Sanhedrin was what we might describe as the Jewish Supreme Court. It was composed of about 70 members from the competing religious sects (Sadducees, Pharisees, and Herodians). Their task was to enforce religious adherence among the Jews.

The charge against Jesus was blasphemy. The problem was that there was no consensus among the witnesses as to Jesus' guilt. Ultimately the leaders take a single statement of Jesus (that he saw himself as the Son of God…which could actually be taken in any number of ways) as proof of his guilt, thus giving them cause to send Jesus to the Romans for a hoped for execution (though in that trial they would charge Jesus with political crimes since the Romans had little interest in Jewish religious arguments).

    The second series consists of Jesus' trial before the Romans. The first step was to send Jesus to Pontius Pilate. Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea. It was his task to maintain control of the area, administer justice and collect taxes. Pilate was not overly impressed with Jesus and even though the charges against him were severe (inciting the people to riot, forbidding people from paying taxes and claiming to be King) Pilate decided to pass the political hot potato to Herod Antipas. Pilate was able to do so because he believed that Jesus was from the area of the nation ruled by Herod (Galilee). In step two Herod, also found that Jesus has done nothing deserving of either imprisonment or death and so sent him back to Pilate to do with as he pleased. The final step in this trial is that Pilate desired to let Jesus go (why antagonize the people at a major festival) but the religious leaders press him to execute Jesus. The leaders made it clear that unless Pilate gave in they would cause trouble, which would not play well in Rome. Pilate acquiesced and had Jesus prepared for crucifixion.

    There are three things we ought to note from these stories. The first is that we should not be surprised that the Jewish authorities wanted to rid themselves of Jesus. He was teaching a way of life which was inconsistent with First Century Judaism and was thus a heretic. The second thing we should note is that Rome was not only complicit in Jesus' death but actually carried it out. Rome nailed Jesus to the cross. Finally we should see clearly that Jesus not only did not defend himself (as the Apostle Paul would later do) but willingly went to the cross. Jesus believed that he was the suffering servant of Isaiah and that in his death the power of sin would be broken once and for all, thus ushering in God's kingdom.

    In First Century Judea Jesus was the most dangerous man in the world…maybe it is time for us to un-tame him and let him be dangerous again? What do you think?