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Resurrection

What was God doing around the cross?. It is really a search for understanding of one of the crucial events of human history, perhaps the crucial event. The whole New Testament focuses on the death, burial, and resurrection, events before and flowing from it, its theological significance and ethical implications. We are going to focus on the deep significance with the atonement, as explained from three perspectives: the dynamic, subjective, and objective views.

Dynamic view The dynamic view sees Christ's death and resurrection because the climax of a cosmic conflict with Satan and also the demonic forces of evil. Christ came since the Second Adam (Romans 5:18-19), winning the contest that Adam failed. He also came as the new Israel, faithfully keeping submitting to God as opposed to to Satan as the first Israel tried (Matthew 2:15; 4:4; etc.). Soon after His baptism, the Spirit "drove" (Greek: ekballei) Him to the wilderness so that He might confront Satan (Mark 1:12). His victory there is only one of what must have been many battles, for Luke records that Satan left Him until "an opportune time" (Luke 4:13).

Throughout his ministry Jesus offered His ability to cast out demons as a demonstration that He was stronger than Satan. Although He described Satan like a "strong man," He claimed the opportunity to "bind" the strong man and despoil his possessions (i.e., those that were demon-possessed). His ability to cast out demons "by the finger of God" He presented as proof of the arrival of God's kingdom on earth (Luke 12:20-22). Jesus got His disciples mixed up in warfare; their successful preaching, healing, and exorcism mission He afterward described as the fall of Satan from heaven (Luke 10:18).

Satan was behind the betrayal of Jesus by Judas (John 13:2, 27), his abandonment from the other apostles (Luke 22:31-32), along with his trial and murder (John 8:40-41, 44). Jesus recognized Satan as His principal enemy, as well as before His death, He am confident of victory he spoke of it as a fait accompli (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11, 32). As soon as before His death Christ Himself uttered the triumphant words, "It is finished" (John 19:30; compare Luke 12:50). The glorious resurrection is proof that His death was obviously a victory and not a defeat (Revelation 3:21).

In the confrontation with false teaching at Colossae, Paul presents the cross and resurrection as a conquer spiritual enemies. The Colossians were vulnerable to being deceived by a syncretistic mixture of Judaistic legalism, Hellenistic philosophy, and Eastern mysticism. Apparently the heretical teachers were not advocating a rejection of Jesus, but they denied Him the primacy in support of intermediary beings. "Go beyond Jesus Christ to greater realities," they might have taught. Paul replies that there is nothing beyond Jesus Christ, in whom God's fullness dwells. He it really is Who "disarmed the powers and authorities, [making] a public spectacle of which, triumphing over them by the cross" (Colossians 2:15).

Not just did Christ conquer Satan, demons, principalities, and powers. He also conquered death (Acts 2:24; Revelation 5:5-6). Paul uses militaristic terms to discuss the resurrection, e.g., "destroyed" and "victory" (1 Corinthians 15:24-26, 54-56).

Because Christ has triumphed as our representative, we be part of His triumph (hence the super-conquerors of Romans 8:37). In Ephesians 4:8 Paul applies Psalm 68:19 to Christ's triumph, picturing Christ like a conquering general returning to Rome for any victory parade: "When he ascended on high, he led captives in the train and gave gifts to men." The ensuing passage explains the gifts He gave will be the offices for building up the church. The captives are bypassed, but Colossians 2:15 seems suitable commentary.

In 2 Corinthians 2:14, Paul states that "God... always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him." In cases like this the apostles (see 1 Corinthians 4:9), and possibly all Christians, are probably those types of following along behind--themselves conquered, and yet joyously sharing in the victory celebration. Our struggle against Satan and demonic forces continues (Ephesians 6:12). While he is victorious, we also can be victorious (Revelation 3:21; 1 John 2:14-15; 4:4; 5:4-5).

Subjective view It's true that we are the subjects of His daring rescue (Colossians 1:13-14), but we participate. This is the subjective nature with the atonement: it transforms us. When we are united with Christ through faith-repentance-baptism, God's Spirit begins the process of transforming us from one level of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18).

The Spirit, Himself the guarantee this beginning will reach its intended end (Ephesians 1:13-14), actually starts to produce His fruit in our hearts (Galatians 5:22-23) as we cooperate by "walking in the Spirit" and being "led by the Spirit" (Romans 8:4, 14; Galatians 5:16). The metamorphosis just isn't automatic; it takes constant mental concentration once we count ourselves dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:11). Additionally, it requires continual moral striving, as we refuse to let sin dominate us, yielding the members of our bodies to righteousness instead of to sin (Romans 6:12-13).

This is a battle we fight, yet Paul assures us, "[S]in could have no dominion over you" (Romans 6:14). The struggle results in holiness and the end is eternal life (Romans 6:22). When Christ returns, in the eschaton, the Spirit will have performed His are employed in us: "[W]e shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2).

Though this is work that changes us from within and in which we ourselves participate, the credit still belongs to God, because it's His work being done in us and thru us. He is the one that provides it to completion on that day (Philippians 1:6). Meanwhile, we image Christ nowadays. He was our representative in the cosmic conflict; we are His representatives in the existential struggle against the world, the flesh, and also the Devil.

Objective view Yet Christ's death is more than what he did for (hyper) us (see Mark 14:24; Luke 22:19-20) and what he is doing in (en) us (see Colossians 1:27). Additionally, it involves what He did instead of (anti) us (see Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45)---the objective take a look at the atonement. In fact, many believe that the substitutionary nature of the atonement is the central aspect of all.

Several types of the substitutionary atonement originate from Genesis. The word used in 1 John 3:12 to describe Cain's murder of his brother may be the word for "slaughter" (Greek: esphaxen), as in the offering of a sacrifice. This has led some to view our planet's first murder, recorded in Genesis 4:8, as the offering of a substitute sacrifice. In effect, Cain may have said, "So, You didn't like my vegetables as a possible offering? Let's see how You like THIS! (slash)." The murder certainly involved the shedding of his brother's blood, for it cried out from the ground against the perpetrator (Genesis 4:10).

When the angel stops Abraham from stabbing Isaac to death, Abraham finds a ram caught inside a nearby thicket that he can offer instead of (Septuagint: anti) his son (Genesis 22:12-13). The passage assumes that some sacrifice must be offered, and the one is replaced through the other.

abductions - More than a hundred years later, when Joseph's testing of his brothers made a crisis situation involving the enforced servitude of Benjamin, Judah stepped forward and freely offered himself as an alternative for his brother (Genesis 44:18-34, especially not the Septuagint's usage of anti in v. 33). In this case also, some substitute must be provided. There was no possibility of mere escape from the demands of the master.

Yet all three of these are one-for-one substitutions, similar to the "eye-for-eye" provisions of the Law. Christ's sacrifice (one for many) is more like the sin offering in behalf of all the people or the sacrifice of the goat on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 4:13-21; 16:15-19). He is the "atoning sacrifice for our sins, rather than only for ours, but also for the sins from the whole world" (1 John 2:2). He could be the "Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29).

One for that world? How can that be just? Its justice is dependent upon the identity of the Sacrifice. A single human deserves infinite punishment as a result of sins. Adding the punishment of some other human adds no more than was there already (for infinity plus infinity equals infinity). The same holds true for "the sins of the [whole] world." The slaughter of the Infinite One for these sins beings one infinity into connection with the other--just payment.

Our sins brought us beneath the curse of the law, but Christ became a curse for us by hanging on the tree (Galatians 3:10-14). Because of Christ's death, God was able to effect what Luther called a "happy exchange": we were the subjects of God's just condemnation, the objects of His righteous wrath, nevertheless the sinless Christ became "sin" for us, in order that we might become God's righteousness by Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). God established Him as the propitiation, the appeasement, so that the all-consuming fire of His wrath could be diverted to Him instead of destroying the rest of us humans (Romans 3:25). As Isaiah said, "The LORD has laid on him the iniquity folks all" (Isaiah 53:6).

Must we choose? resurrection - Dynamic, subjective, and objective--must we select from them? No! By its very nature the atonement is higher than any one metaphor or perspective can contain. We have to always be answering, "Yes, and much more besides." Like astronomers surveying the universe, the more we study it, the more vast it becomes. Our inability to fully comprehend its dimensions will not nullify what we can understand, nor does it rob us of the amazement we sense at what we know was accomplished.