The Body of Christ has a tricky invader that often goes unnoticed – not unlike the corona virus – and has infected large segments of Christian society. This virus gnaws at a person\u2019s fundamental beliefs in the unconditional love of God for them, and if left untreated, is able to completely undermine a person\u2019s faith in the goodness of God. It is called the PST… <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The Penal Substitutionary Theory. Scared yet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Imagine for a moment you were trying to immigrate to a new country with your family. The president tells you, \u201cWe would love to welcome you. But our moral standards here are so high, you will never be able to live up to them. In fact,\u201d and he looks at your youngest, most rambunctious child, \u201cjust by being the imperfect family you are, according to the laws I set up, all of you deserve to be tortured and killed.\u201d You take a step back and pull your kids closer. \u201cBut I have good news,\u201d he goes on. \u201dI have a son who loved me so much, he submitted to my will and let himself be tortured and killed in your stead so you could live with me. Therefore, welcome!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You would be on the run before he\u2019d said the last word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What sounds absurd here is actually the exact message that has been delivered by the majority of well-meaning Christians all over the world. God wants you to join His kingdom. But at the same time, He is so disgusted at your shortcomings, so unable to accept your imperfection, that He has to have a victim to download his wrath and fury on. Somebody\u2019s gotta pay! But don\u2019t worry \u2013 it\u2019s going to be Jesus. He paid the price and took God\u2019s wrath upon himself on your behalf, so you\u2019re fine. And he\u2019s now fine too, because he rose from the dead, and if you say the right prayer, God\u2019s wrath will not come near you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I marvel at how I could ever have bought this. Why on earth would I want a friend who has to have his wrath satisfied through a cruel human sacrifice? No wonder the whole thing is deeply confusing to so many people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember the day I tried to convert my own brother, long ago, at a restaurant in Switzerland. I had told him of all the wonderful things that had happened to me since I\u2019d become a Christian (good approach). He told me he was happy for me to have found this, but didn\u2019t really see a need for it himself (quite common response). I told him of his need to be saved, and he asked why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember my feelings at that moment as if it had happened yesterday. Slight panic rose as I realized that it wasn\u2019t going to be easy to convince my kind, peaceful brother that he deserved to be beaten bloody, tortured, and finally endure a slow death on a cross for what he\u2019d done \u2013 and so did his kids, all the way down to his newborn son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seriously??<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I ended up trying to convince him that spiritually speaking, even the nicest of humans deserve death and that only Jesus could pave that way back to the Father. But I still didn\u2019t exactly know how to explain why God was so upset with us all, and why He seemed to like bloody rituals so much. Looking back, I suspect my brother felt sorry I would be involved in such archaic ideas and therefore made sure he kept far away from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Penal substitutionary theory<\/em> is the big name for this idea \u2013 God is punishing Jesus in our stead. It first was established by the church father Anselm, and later developed by John Calvin, a French lawyer and theologian. As a lawyer, Calvin argues in legal terms: a crime is committed (the imperfection or sinfulness of humankind), and the law, which demands perfection, has to be satisfied with a punishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While lawyers might be able to relate to Calvin\u2019s reasoning, it\u2019s definitely a bad basis for Christian theology. The biggest problem with this theory is that it makes God the murderer of his own innocent son. It makes him a blood-thirsty, vengeful dictator who demands perfection or else. Nothing related to the PST reminds us of the way Jesus reveals the Father: Merciful, patient, kind, long-suffering, forgiving. So, unless we want to proclaim a God nobody in their right mind would want to worship, we need to ask the question: Did God really kill Jesus?<\/p>\n\n\n\n You might ask, why else did Jesus have to die? Now there\u2019s a dangerous question!<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the first day he started teaching, Jesus had challenged the Roman empire. He challenged their methods of power and their politics. He also challenged the Jewish religious leaders, who in tr turn were trying to suck up to the Romans and reserve their piece of the power pie. Jesus didn\u2019t play their game. And no empire likes being ignored. No system of power, of politics or wealth can tolerate one who owes it nothing. The man who is completely free from a system is its biggest threat. Even Plato, a Greek philosopher living 400 years before Christ, knew this. He described in detail what would happen to a perfectly just, incorruptible man: \u201cOur just man will be scourged, racked, fettered\u2026and at last, after all manner of suffering, will be crucified.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the same manner, both the Roman governor and the Jewish leaders, the Sanhedrin, agreed to kill Jesus. It wasn\u2019t to appease a blood-thirsty God. It was to rid the world of a man who showed people they didn\u2019t have to be slaves to a system built on greed, power and violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This might sound as if Jesus\u2019 death on the cross wasn\u2019t a divine idea at all, but simply an inevitable fate that awaited any rebel in Roman times. However, there\u2019s more to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we let go of looking at the Cross as a means of an angry God being appeased, it takes on an entirely different meaning. In this new light, the Cross is a mystery. The Cross is beautiful. The Cross is a way of life. What do I mean by this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n There have always been alternative explanations to Jesus\u2019s death on the cross apart from Calvin\u2019s. Christians across the centuries have felt that the Cross was more beautiful, more meaningful than either an appeasement of wrath or a mere political consequence. They have discovered, among others, three deep realities connected with what Jesus did on the Cross:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The way of Peace<\/p>\n\n\n\n The way of Solidarity<\/p>\n\n\n\n The way of Love<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through his most violent death, Jesus created an enduring way of peace<\/em> to enter the world. He drew the unspeakable, unimaginable violence, hatred and murder of the human race to himself and absorbed all of it into himself. He demonstrated that only forgiveness ends the perpetual cycle of violence. As Ren\u00e9 Girard puts it, violence is a dead end. And humanity had gotten themselves deeply into a dead end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Christ on the Cross transformed all of this darkness of the world into forgiveness, and with it eternally broke the cycle of perpetuating violence that has held the world a prisoner since the dawn of time. He demonstrated an often-overlooked truth: God\u2019s power shows in His willingness to abdicate power<\/em>. As Paul says in Phil 2:6, Jesus did not consider his equality with God but lowered himself and became a servant. Jesus could have chosen the path of power and violence, but he instead chose the path of peace and humility.<\/em> A humility so deep that God didn\u2019t shy away from letting His own creation torture and kill Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is strongly connected with the second reality of the Cross: Solidarity<\/em>. On the Cross, Jesus embraces our physical as well as emotional and spiritual ailments and shortcomings. He truly becomes one of us<\/em> \u2013 which is why we never have to wonder if he can understand us or if we\u2019re good enough for him. We never have to wonder if we\u2019re alone.<\/em> He has suffered it all there on the cross, even the things he didn\u2019t literally go through in his life. He took it all upon himself so we would never, ever be alone. Those marginalized by society, the weak, the oppressed, have in him their greatest advocate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The third reality of the Cross is the way of Love<\/em>. Through the Cross, the Holy Spirit is reminding us that there is always a way to give, to forgive, to let go, to help, and to lay down our lives for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Selfless love is a mystery. When evolutionists around Darwin were formulating their theories, one thing kept puzzling them. In all their understanding about the survival of the fittest, one species\u2019 behavior didn\u2019t fit in. It was the inexplainable tendency of humans to help others to their own hurt, to save people not even in their family, to share food with strangers and things the like. You don\u2019t really become the fittest like that. It\u2019s not natural. It\u2019s supernatural <\/em>\u2013 because in the heart of man is a yearning to imitate our Creator in his self-sacrificing love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we draw near to Jesus Christ, <\/p>\n\n\n\n lifted up upon the cross,<\/p>\n\n\n\n His cross becomes for us the axis of love,<\/p>\n\n\n\n expressed in forgiveness <\/p>\n\n\n\n that refounds the world.<\/p>\nfrom the Morning Liturgy<\/em> by Brian Zahnd<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Further reading:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDid God kill Jesus?\u201d by Tony Jones, HarperOne 2015<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSinners in the Hands of a Loving God\u201d by Brian Zahnd, Waterbrook 2017<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Keywords: Penal Substitutionary Theory – Calvinism – mystery of the Cross – Plato – Tony Jones<\/p>\n The Body of Christ has a tricky invader that often goes unnoticed – not unlike the corona virus – and has infected large segments of Christian society. This virus gnaws at a person\u2019s fundamental beliefs in the unconditional love of God for them, and if left untreated, is able to completely undermine a person\u2019s faith in the goodness of God. It is called the PST…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[93,94,92,95,96],"class_list":{"0":"post-362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-theology","8":"tag-calvinism","9":"tag-mystery-of-the-cross","10":"tag-penal-substitutionary-theory","11":"tag-plato","12":"tag-tony-jones","13":"entry","14":"no-grid","15":"first"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.judithforgoston.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/54031618_s.jpg?fit=847%2C565&ssl=1","featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.judithforgoston.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/54031618_s.jpg?resize=600%2C400&ssl=1","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.judithforgoston.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/54031618_s.jpg?resize=600%2C565&ssl=1","author_info":{"display_name":"Judith Forgoston","author_link":"https:\/\/www.judithforgoston.com\/de\/author\/judith-forgoston\/"},"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfADN4-5Q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithforgoston.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithforgoston.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithforgoston.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithforgoston.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithforgoston.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithforgoston.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2039,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithforgoston.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions\/2039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithforgoston.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithforgoston.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithforgoston.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithforgoston.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n