Biblical Accounts of the Crucifixion

Biblical Accounts of the Cruciﬁ xion

SESSION 2 A cross is the primary Christian symbol of how God is made known to humanity through Jesus’ ugly death and surprising resurrection. The New Testament books describe and refl ect upon the crucifi xion in a wide variety of ways, reminding us that no single view- point can convey the full signifi cance of this event. How do they help us understand what the death of Jesus means for us, for the world, and for God?

Introduction fi rst century the notion of a Christ who is crucifi ed was an utterly scandalous idea, something totally incongru- The reality of Jesus’ death on a ous with prevailing assumptions. How and why could cross and God’s raising him from God’s anointed deliverer possibly meet his end in such the dead reside at the center of a shameful and abominable way? Paul knew that dying the apostle Paul’s thinking about on a cross expressed society’s contempt for the cruci- God, humanity, and the world. fi ed, labeling him a deviant or dangerous criminal. Yet, For Paul, there is no Christian and more signifi cant, Paul also believed that crucifi xion gospel without the crucifi xion implied that a victim was accursed even by God (Gal. and resurrection. Therefore, in 3:13), condemned by God’s law and no longer enjoy- 1 Corinthians 1:17–18, he speaks of “the gospel” as ing access to God’s blessings. The shocking profundi- equal to “the message about the cross.” This message ties of Christ’s particular death—death on a cross—were is not merely a story or a collection of information or therefore crucial for Paul. It is no accident that Paul tells beliefs about Jesus. The gospel message itself displays his readers virtually nothing about Jesus’ teachings, and actualizes God’s ability and desire to bring about miracles, and parables. His interest is in Jesus the cruci- humanity’s salvation (Rom. 1:16; 1 Thess. 2:13), because fi ed Christ, and so he reminds Christians in Corinth: the gospel is what God has accomplished through “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. Christ, and him crucifi ed” (1 Cor 2:2; see also 1:22–24).

Compared to the Gospels, then, Paul approaches the When we read Paul discussing the crucifi xion, we crucifi xion from a very different angle. Paul does not encounter someone who wants to talk about what the describe Jesus’ execution in terms of its details, its set- cross does, or what happens as a result of Jesus’ death. ting, or the attitudes of observers. His letters display Paul regards this death as having happened “for us” little interest in how Jesus died on a cross, but they are (1 Thess. 5:9–10) and “for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3; Gal. 1:4), sharply fi xated on the fact that the Christ was cruci- but what does that mean? In part, it means that Christ’s fi ed. The crucifi xion is nothing less than a creation- crucifi xion is a theological event—an event about God or shattering event for Paul, precisely because it explodes an event through which God acts on humanity’s behalf. so many assumptions, because it defi es categories for Through the cross, God displays love to humankind thinking about God and what governs people’s rela- (Rom. 5:8). But what exactly transpires as a result of tionship to God. For many Jews like Paul, during the Christ’s death, and precisely how do benefi ts proceed to

Christ’s death does not merely express his own sentiment, . . . but God’s; or to put it another way, God’s stance toward the world is quintessentially demonstrated in the action of Christ.1 us? Paul never attempts simple or mechanistic answers righteous, to be justifi ed, means that God mercifully to these questions. Instead of engaging in detailed anal- repairs the fractured relationship between humanity yses or explanations, he offers a collection of metaphors. and God. As a result, our relationship and future with These metaphors provide images and language to iden- God are secure. tify and illustrate the effects of the cross, the changes it Paul does not dwell on the details of how this rectifying brings to pass. Paul’s use of multiple metaphors, some- work transpires or why it might require Christ’s crucifi x- times arranged in combination or rapid succession, ion, but the language of justifi cation is scattered through- indicates that no single one of them is capable of sup- out most of his letters. God is the subject of this justifying plying on its own a complete defi nition of the crucifi x- activity, an activity that is centered in Jesus’ cross and ion’s meaning. Paul thereby depicts Jesus’ death as an resurrection. Paul speaks extensively about justifi cation event with deep signifi cance. His metaphors invite us to in Romans 3:21–26; 5:1–21; Galatians 2:15–21. explore the cross and ponder how it conveys the depths of God’s commitment and love toward us. In this study we will review a handful of these cross-related meta- Redemption phors from Paul’s writings. Some may remember the practice of returning empty bottles to stores that would redeem them by buying Justifi cation/Righteousness them back for a small price or returning a deposit. A great place to begin this over view is Romans 3:22b– Redemption refers to a transfer of ownership. Paul’s 25a, where three of Paul’s metaphors appear in a com- second metaphor in Romans 3:22b–25a recalls the slav- pact statement. The fi rst metaphor, justifi cation, evokes ery that was familiar in his day, in which people could images from courts of law. It refers to God repairing the be bought or sold, and some slaves could even purchase broken relationship between humanity and God through their own freedom. Of course, the Bible Paul read (what Jesus’ death. In Greek, the language in which Paul Christians call the Old Testament) commonly applies wrote letters, the nouns justifi cation and righteousness as redemption language to God’s acts of freeing the Hebrew slaves from their bondage to Egypt and estab- well as the verbs justify and make righteous all share a lishing them as a new nation to declare God’s Lordship. tight linguistic and semantic relationship. When English This kind of redemption is liberation, where God effects translations speak in one place about God’s “righteous- a transfer from slavery to freedom. Paul’s appropria- ness” and elsewhere about how God “justifi es” people, tion of the metaphor to make sense of the cross fi ts well we easily miss the connection between these two ideas. with his understanding of how sin ensnares humanity. God’s righteousness and God’s willingness to justify Elsewhere in his letter to the Romans, as he describes people speak of the same thing: God’s ability to set humanity’s sinfulness, Paul does not characterize the things right, to accomplish salvation, or to rectify the world. God’s “righteousness,” therefore, is not primarily a statement about God’s moral purity. Our “justifi - JUSTIFICATION, REDEMPTION, cation” is not primarily a declaration of legal acquittal. AND ATONEMENT When Paul says that God justifi es humanity through the Paul writes, “There is no distinction, since all have cross, he means that God makes us righteous; that is, sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now God’s rectifying (righteous) activity claims us, settling justifi ed by his grace as a gift, through the redemp- the damages we have infl icted on our communion with tion that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward God. Therefore, we ourselves are rectifi ed (justifi ed), set as a sacrifi ce of atonement by his blood, eff ective right before God. This does not mean that God instanta- through faith.” Romans 3:22b–25a neously bestows perfection upon us. Rather, to be made

Paul speaks about sin much more frequently than sins (in the plural). He depicts humanity as in bondage to sin, as if sin were a hostile force than holds us in its grasp. The things people do as a result of this condition, their discrete sinful deeds, or “sins,” are only evidence of a much deeper problem. Redemption from sin’s control does not result, according to Paul, in a freedom understood as personal autonomy that allows every individual to live as she or he freely chooses. It results in slavery to God (Rom. 6:22). To be enslaved to God (and, as a consequence, to other believers, as in Gal. 5:13), however, is not a grievous thing; it is true freedom (2 Cor. 3:17; Gal. 5:1, 13). human condition as one of people selfi shly commit- envision it as a transaction such as paying a debt to an ting various sinful acts. Instead, he casts the problem as angry God. His point is that Christ functions as a sac- humanity being enslaved to sin (Rom. 3:9; 6:6, 16–17). In rifi ce, insofar as through his death God is able “to deal response, through the crucifi xion, God delivers us from with sin” (Rom. 8:3) and what sin produces. slavery to sin and claims us as slaves to God (Rom. 6:18, 22). The cross grants freedom from sin and also from the Reconciliation law (Gal. 3:13; 4:5), which sin manipulates, and freedom Turn next to another passage, 2 Corinthians 5:14–21, from death (Rom. 8:2), which is a consequence of sin. where Paul speaks about reconciliation. Reconcilia- tion implies that enmity has been removed from a rela- Sacrifi ce of Atonement tionship, creating peace between parties that had once Although he uses metaphors from temple life only been opposed (see also Rom. 5:1–11). This bold image infrequently (see also 1 Cor. 5:7), in Romans 3:25 Paul characterizes humanity as in confl ict with God prior to employs the imagery of ritual sacrifi ce to indicate Jesus’ death and resurrection. Paul clearly states that that through Christ’s death God takes away the con- God initiates and accomplishes this reconciliation, with sequences of people’s transgressions. He writes that, Christ acting as the medium of reconciliation, and that through the cross, God put forth Jesus as a hilastērion. “the world” collectively benefi ts from God’s action. We The Judaism of Paul’s day would recognize this Greek cannot bring about such a reconciliation on our own. word as the name of the “mercy seat,” the cover of the Finally, God’s reconciliation compels us in a social direc- ark of the covenant that once resided in the shrines and tion, where Christians declare God’s reconciling activity fi rst temple of ancient Israel (1 Kgs. 8:1–11). Annually, to the wider world through our words and deeds. on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), Israel’s high priest would sprinkle blood from animal sacrifi ces Interchange on the mercy seat, to make an offering for the sins of Paul’s letters do not include the word interchange, but the entire nation (Lev. 16). By translating hilastērion some biblical interpreters (most notably, Morna D. as “sacrifi ce of atonement” in Romans 3:25, the NRSV Hooker) have applied the term to characterize Paul’s blunts the force of the raw “mercy seat” metaphor but notion of a kind of mutual exchange or sharing tak- emphasizes that Christ’s death, like the mercy seat of ing place between the crucifi ed Christ and humanity. past generations, represents the location and the means According to 2 Corinthians 5:21, God “made [Christ] by which the problem of sin is addressed—both where to be sin,” so that “we might become the righteousness and how atonement is enacted. Again, Paul does not of God.” In Galatians 4:4–5, Paul writes that God’s Son pretend to map out exactly how this atoning works took on a slave’s existence (insofar as he lived “under itself out through a sacrifi ce, and he certainly does not the law,” resulting in his death), so that we might be adopted as God’s own children. Paul is not saying that Christ trades places with us, so that he simply gets what GOD, THE RECONCILER is ours while we get what is his. The interchange Paul It is not God who needs to be reconciled to humans, describes is more like a shared participation. He asserts but humans who need reconciliation with God.2 that when on the cross Christ shares in our human expe- rience of death, we somehow participate in his dying

3 Copyright © 2006 www.TheThoughtfulChristian.com Biblical Accounts of the Crucifi xion, 2 Permission given to copy this page for use in class. expanding our sights into all the other matters that the SALVATION AS FREEDOM letters address. Paul’s assertions about the meaning of the crucifi xion are both complex and wide ranging. The [F]or Paul, salvation does not primarily mean the end images that Paul uses to discuss the effects of the cross of past disaster and the forgiving cancellation of for- can be experienced by some of his readers as abstract mer guilt. It is . . . freedom from the power of sin, death and diffi cult to grasp. But it would be a mistake to con- and the divine wrath; that is to say, it is the possibility clude from this that Paul treats Jesus’ death as some of new life.3 theoretical principle, as something removed from the nitty-gritty of life in this world. Instead, Paul regards the crucifi xion as the occasion by which God transformed (see 2 Cor. 5:14; Gal. 2:19–20). This allows us to hope the world’s relationship to God—the point at which that we will share in a resurrection like his (see Rom. God removed or disarmed the obstacles that prevented 6:5–11; 8:15b–17). Our identifi cation with the crucifi ed humanity from authentic communion with God and with Christ—as well as his identifi cation with our sinfulness one another. Furthermore, Paul insists that this trans- and its lethal consequences—is not merely a symbolic formation touches every aspect of his own identity, life, idea in Paul’s writings. He speaks of a real coparticipa- and work. tion, wherein the cross is the pivot point at which we become united with Christ and God graciously bestows Some people make the error of considering Paul’s refl ec- upon us all the benefi ts and glories that properly belong tions on the cross to be a superior, more refi ned brand of to Christ, God’s Son (see Rom. 8:32; 2 Cor. 8:9). theology than what we read in the Gospels or elsewhere in the New Testament. As the fi rst session of this study New Creation suggested, the Gospels likewise interpret the crucifi x- Twice Paul speaks of a new creation, in 2 Corinthians ion as they narrate it. To presume that Paul explains and 5:17 and Galatians 6:15. Although he hardly develops interprets what the Gospels merely describe and relay is to this image through additional explanation, it is clear undervalue the Gospels’ contributions and to mistake from the wider contexts of these two passages that he Paul’s conceptual refl ections for defi nitive explications. connects the idea of new creation with what God accom- The New Testament presents us with a variety of per- plishes through Jesus’ death and resurrection. Notice spectives on the cross, conveyed to us through a variety that these passages do not say that individual people of descriptions, images, and metaphors. In concert, these become new creations because of the cross. Paul’s claim perspectives give us the language and imagination that is much more elemental and much more comprehen- allow us to wade into the deep waters of the crucifi x- sive. He says that an altogether new era and new exis- ion so that we might approach its profound meanings tence have begun. The former state of affairs, in which with both gratitude for its promises and wonderment sin and death held sway over creation, has passed away. concerning its mysteries. This refl ects Paul’s understanding that the crucifi xion of the Christ—an idea that seemed so absurd according to About the Writer Paul’s former convictions—has literally changed every- Matthew L. Skinner is assistant professor of New Testament at thing. The crucifi xion means that God has forged a new Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota. way and waged an assault on those forces that keep humanity oppressed and estranged from God. God has acted decisively through the death and resurrection of Endnotes the Son of God, reclaiming all of creation and giving it 1. Charles B. Cousar, A Theology of the Cross: The Death of Jesus in the Pauline Letters (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 45. new—and not simply renewed—life. 2. Charles B. Cousar, The Letters of Paul, Interpreting Biblical Paul’s Cross-Eyed Vision Texts (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 126. 3. Ernst Käsemann, “The Saving Signifi cance of the Death Because Jesus’ crucifi xion and resurrect letters, it is dif- of Jesus in Paul,” in Perspectives on Paul (Miffl intown, PA: fi cult to explore his interpretations of the cross without Sigler, 1996), 44.