Staines, Robert George (2008) the Soteriological Significance of the Cross of Jesus : Metaphor, Meaning and Salvation
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Staines, Robert George (2008) The soteriological significance of the cross of Jesus : metaphor, meaning and salvation. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/567/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] The Soteriological Significance of the Cross of Jesus. Metaphor, Meaning and Salvation. Robert George Staines PhD. Thesis Divinity Faculty University of Glasgow October 2008. 1 Contents Introduction Pages 3-10 Chapter 1. Metaphors and Models Pages 11-39 Chapter 2. The Enigma of Sacrifice Pages 40-76 Chapter 3. Ransom and Rescue Pages 77-107 Chapter 4. The Power of Love Pages 108-138 Chapter 5. The Crucified Scapegoat Pages 139-183 Chapter 6. Wounds that Heal Pages 184-233 Chapter 7. Reconciliation Pages 234-282 Conclusion Pages 283-287 Bibliography Pages 288-297 2 “That God could create beings free over against himself is the Cross which philosophy could not bear but upon which it has remained hanging.” 1 Introduction The Nicene Creed (AD 325), expressly states that Jesus Christ “for our salvation came down from heaven” and that He “was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried and the third day He rose again, according to the scriptures.” Here the structure and sequence of soteriological events are explicitly stated in creedal formulation, where Christ’s crucifixion holds the strategic centre point, where Jesus not only dies, but dies for our salvation. The Cross is the emblematic sign of Christian authenticity, the kernel of the kerygma of faith and paradoxically the preferred mechanism that God uses for salvation. Indeed, St Paul proclaimed to the world in the first century: “We preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”2 Even in the Gospels the apparent contradictory sign of the Messiah being nailed to a tree is highlighted, with taunts from onlookers and the last satanic temptation, to “save yourself and come down from the Cross”,3 is used to psychologically torment him in a last ditch attempt to abort the salvific enterprise; but salvation transparently can only come through the acceptance of the Cross.4 For as the great Spanish mystic and doctor of the Church St John of the Cross declares: “If you desire to possess Christ, never seek him without the Cross… whoever seeks not the 1 Keirkegaard (1970) Journals and Papers, vol. II, ed. and trans, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 58. (entry no.1237). 2 1 Corinthians 1:23-24. 3 Mark 15:30, see also Mathew 27:42-43 & Luke 23:35. 4 Brown, Raymond E. (1986), A Crucified Christ in Holy Week. Essays on the Four Gospel Passion Narratives. The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 33. 3 Cross of Christ, also seeks not the glory of Christ.”5 Jesus indicates the magnetic pull of the Cross when he says in his own words: “and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself”,6 thus indicating the portal or ladder to heaven that the Cross symbolizes, where the divine glory7 shines diaphanously through the wood of the Cross. “It is as well to remember, however, that when we speak about the glory of God we are in fact speaking about the disclosure of his nature, which means that in his death, Jesus glorifies God and he himself is glorified; in other words, we see here the nature of God, and the nature of his Son. The glory of God is revealed.”8 On Good Friday the centrality and instrumentality of the Cross is venerated, “behold the wood of the Cross on which hung the saviour of the world.”9 The Cross is thus heavily laden with soteriological significance but we should never look at the Cross without being reminded of the resurrection,10 for the death and resurrection of Christ cannot be separated, since both are part of the mysterious purpose of God.11 Indeed it has been argued that the gospel tradition was formed “backwards”, starting from Jesus’ resurrection and working toward his birth.12 And for this reason the Cross and resurrection are two dimensions of the one single saving reality and are, therefore, necessary to illuminate each other. Karl Rahner stipulates this when he says: “From this perspective, if the fate of Jesus has any soteriological 5 St John of The Cross (Otros Avios y Sentencias, sentence 83 & 84), cited in Stein, Edith (2002), The Science of the Cross, ICS Publications, Washington D.C., 282. 6 John 12:32. 7 “I glorified thee on earth, having accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do; and now Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.” John 17:3-5. 8 Hooker, Morna D. (1994), Not Ashamed of the Gospel. New Testament Interpretations of the Death of Christ, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 95. 9 The dramatic unveiling and adoration of the Cross on Good Friday was introduced into the Latin liturgy in the seventh or eight century but has its origins in the Church of Jerusalem at the close of the fourth century. 10 Hume, Cardinal Basil (1998), The Mystery of The Cross, Darton, Longman & Todd, London, 21. 11 Hooker, 18. 12 Brown (1986), 9. 4 significance at all, this significance can be situated neither in the death nor in the resurrection taken separately, but can only be illuminated now from the one and now from the other aspect of this single event.”13 However, for the purposes of this thesis it will be necessary to focus exclusively on the significance of the Cross to establish what is happening at this point in the drama of salvation. Yet it must always be remembered that it was the resurrection that transformed the tragedy of Christ’s death into a triumph, where the reality of the resurrection reversed and overturned the apparent supremacy of evil, and the kingdom of violence, with that of the abiding peace of the kingdom of heaven.14 “The New Testament writers are united in insisting that the Cross is at the heart of the gospel: if the death of Christ is meaningless without the resurrection, so, too, the resurrection depends for its significance on the crucifixion.”15 For although it appeared that he died because it was the will of God that he should die,16 albeit at the hands of wicked men; “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous that he might bring us to God”, (1 Peter 3:18). On one level Jesus in his death makes dying and death itself a holy thing,17 but at a more profound level, death because it is a distortion and curse, should not be seen as a welcome deliverance from life itself,18 for Christ came to bring life in abundance,19 and not celebrate death or elevate it to a position of desirability. Death is definitively the last enemy which Jesus victoriously conquers.20 “If death had been 13 Rahner, Karl (2006), Foundations of Christian Faith. An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, Crossroad, New York, 266. 14 “Jesus came and stood among them, ‘Peace be with you’, when he had said this he showed them his hands and his side.” John 20:19-20. 15 Hooker,140. 16 Ibid., 15, 17, and Stott, John (1986), The Cross of Christ, Intervarsity Press, Nottingham, England, 42. See also: Acts 2:23; 3:18; 4:28. 17 Hume, 26. 18 Brown (1986), 9. 19 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life and abundantly.” John 10:10. 20 “‘Death is swallowed up in victory’. ‘O death, where is thy victory? O death , where is thy sting?’” 1 Corinthians 15:54-55 5 overcome and Christ was alive, the curse had also been annulled and changed to blessing. The scandal of the gospel of a crucified Messiah was in fact no scandal but gospel – good news for the world.”21 The New Testament contributors and the early post apostolic Church, therefore, had a firm double base in the teaching of Christ and his apostles for making the Cross the unmistakable sign and symbol of Christianity.22 “In the influential though apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus that narrates the descent of Christ to Hades, there is a description of Christ applying the sign of the Cross on the foreheads of Adam, the prophets and patriarchs of old, the forefathers, the martyrs and all the righteous in Hades, so that they may enter heaven.”23 Indeed, throughout history the sign of the Cross has been seen as a mark of Christian identity.24 It was Constantine, the first Christian emperor, who, according to his biographer Eusebius of Caesarea, on the eve of the Battle of the Milvian bridge (October 28 AD 312) saw a cross of light in the sky along with the words in hoc signo vinces,25 which he immediately used as an emblem on his shields for which he later attributed to his military success.