CHRIST'S ATONING MINISTRY ON THE CROSS Raoul Dederen Gerhard F. Hasel CHRIST'S ATONING MINISTRY IN HEAVEN Because of the many requests that have come to the Ministerial Association offices for copies of the talks on Christ's Atoning Ministry presented at the Ministerial Pre-session to the General Conference in Vienna, Austria, June 7-10, 1975, we have been encouraged to publish them in full in this pamphlet. They set forth clearly and distinctly the Adventist understanding of what is involved in Christ's once-for-all self-sacrifice on the cross and this continuing ministry as High Priest, Mediator and Intercessor in the heavenly Sanctuary. The authors, Drs. Dederen and Hasel, are on the faculty of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan. Dr. Dederen also serves as an associate editor of THE MINISTRY. Printed for THE MINISTERIAL ASSOCIATION General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists by The Eusey Press 27 Nashua Street Leominster, Massachusetts For information concerning additional copies contact: MINISTERIAL ASSOCIATION General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists 6840 Eastern Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20012 Printed in U.S.A. 2C CHRIST'S ATONING MINISTRY ON THE CROSS Raoul Dederen Theological Seminary Andrews University Christianity is pre-eminently a religion of redemp- are actually offered in the gospels is a passion-epos tion. At its center is Christ. Our religion is not, in stretched to the utmost limit of what the subject the first place, the acceptance of a creed. In its matter will bear. It is a well-known fact that at least a innermost essence it is a commitment to a Person. quarter of each gospel concentrates on events Being a Christian means to say yes to Christ and to immediately preceding and following the Lord's do so unreservedly. So, at the heart of our Christian death. Henry Clarence Thiessen goes so far as to life there is this personal relationship with Christ in write that "if all the three and a half years of His which we give ourselves to him in obedient love. (Christ's) public ministry had been written out as Here everything clusters around him with whom fully as the last three days, we would have a "Life of our soul is in direct and living communion. Christ" of some 8,400 pages." (Introductory Everything gathers around the eternal act of God in Lectures in Systematic Theology, Grand Rapids: Christ, around the person of Christ and the cross of Eerdmans, 1963, p. 313:) Obviously the death — Christ. And in the last issue around the cross of and resurrection — of Jesus Christ was deemed of Christ, "because it is the one key to his person. "1 supreme importantce in the early church. Beyond the historical event of Christ's death something As Oscar Cullmann has so conclusively shown in happened which has theological significance. his highly significant book Christ and Time, The This theological significance, I believe, has found Christ-event is the center of redemptive history.2 embodiment in the Christian doctrine of the And our Lord's death is its epitome. It is the clearest atonement. It is a doctrine of unfathomable depth identifying mark of the religion which stemmed and inexhaustible mystery. In a large measure it is from Jesus of Nazareth.3 "The cross of Calvary," determinative of all other doctrines. The term itself writes Ellen G. White, "is the great center."4 — "atonement" — is ambiguous, and requires Contrary to the facts in the case of ordinary men the definition. In the words of Robert H. Culpepper, "it NT evidence shows that the death of Christ is of as is of Anglo-Saxon origin and its original meaning is great importance as his life. It was unavoidable that `at-one-ment' or reconciliation, the restoration of the gospels' account of our Lord's ministry should broken fellowship. "5 While in Shakespearean have the passion for its finale. From the nature of the English to atone is to reconcile, in more recent times case the death of Christ had to stand at the close of the term has come to mean to make reparation, to each of the gospels. But while from the viewpoint of make amends for an offense. In our study the term is biography a short statement of the fact and its used to describe the saving act of God in Christ circumstances would have been sufficient, what we through which our reconciliation to God is effected. I. CHRIST'S DEATH AND MAN'S SIN A. Christ as the Lamb of God. Since the the death of this one man, in a far-away city of the appearance of Anselm's epoch-making Cur Deus ancient world, almost 2,000 years ago, have saving, Homo? (1098) the doctrine of the atonement has reconciling significance for me today? ever been central in Christian theology. Upon the In a series of presentations like this one, which centrality of the doctrine theologians are generally aims at brievity and simplicity, it is impossible to agreed. It is with regard to the interpretation of the avoid the distortion which comes from over- atonement that a great diversity of views has simplification. Nor is it possible to avoid the prevailed. 6 As requested I shall address myself to impression of arbitrariness in the selection of the one aspect of Christ's atoning ministry as under- aspects to be discussed. I very much resent, for stood by the NT: his death on the cross. How does instance, the isolation of Christ's death from his 3C resurrection. Just as the cross of Christ is not to be this IS the gospel — that ultimately another line separated from his incarnation and life, neither is it crossed the line of human action in expressing this to be kept distinct from the resurrection. Christ's mystery. resurrection I regard as essential to the mystery of Faith, by the light of revelation, clearly discerns salvation. A theology of redemption that pays here the nature of a divine action. This insight is exclusive attention to Christ's death is necessarily already noticeable immediately after Pentecost, unbalanced and impoverished. Nevertheless, in spite when Peter for instance, sees two aspects in this of such shortcomings, such an attempt must be grave event: "This Jesus," declares the apostle, made, for a correct understanding of the meaning "delivered up according to the definite plan and and relevancy of the cross of Christ lies at the very foreknowledge of God you crucified and killed by the heart of the Christian experience. hands of lawless men" (Acts 2:23). God's One of the first things that strikes the NT reader providence was governing every step of Christ's interested in a theological understanding of Christ's way. God's activity was manifesting itself in and crucifixion is the earliest Church confession of through the human action. The same apostle Peter Christ's sinlessness, of his innocence, or more speaks of "that living stone rejected by men, but in positively his holiness. He is the "Lamb of God" God's sight chosen and precious" (1 Pe 2:4). (Jn 1:36). Rarely however does the NT speak of his Interestingly enough the author of the 118th psalm holiness without immediately and in the same which the apostle is quoting adds: "This is the connection mentioning the guilt which he carried as Lord's doing, it is marvelous in our eyes" (Ps God's Lamb: "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes 118:23). Man's doing is evident, but God's wisdom away the sin of the world," declares John (Jn 1:29). and loving kindness cross the iniquity of men. The Christ's death is closely connected with the fact that ugliness and injustice of Christ's death are therefore it was "for us." His was a fruitful, beneficial death; placed in the light of the divine deliverance. the death of a grain of wheat that only by way of first Some 700 years earlier, already, Isaiah expressed dying bears much fruit (Jn. 12:20-25). God's action in and through the Messiah in the B. Three major dimensions of Christ's death. We prophecy concerning the Man of Sorrows. It is true are not dealing here with the tragic end of a that this prophecy indicates clearly what part men disillusioned man, nor with the death of a martyr, shall play in this process, when it declares that the but with sacrifice, self-surrender, ransom, reconcil- Servant of the Lord shall be afflicted and oppressed ing suffering. (Isa 53:7), and that he shall be numbered with the 1. Men paved the way to the cross. The early transgressors (v. 12; notice that Christ applies these sermons in the book of Acts represent the words to himself in Lk 22:37). The emphasis, crucifixion of Christ as the crime of the Jews, but a however, is on the fact that it is the Lord who has crime which God overruled by raising Jesus from laid on his servant the iniquity of us all (v. 6). "It the dead.? Men paved the way to the cross. Jesus, was the will of the Lord to bruise him" (v. 10). to be sure, had been fully conscious of this fact. He It is precisely the full realization of the knew that he would be delivered into the hands of relationship between these two elements, human men (Mk 9:31) and to the Gentiles (Mk 10:33), be rejection and God's good pleasure, that gives the killed (Mk 8:31), be mocked, scourged and spat on right conception of the meaning of Christ's suffering (Mk 10:34).