E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten
Treat The Atonement
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-4335-7572-3
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection
An Introduction
E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten
Reihe: Short Studies in Systematic Theology
ISBN: 978-1-4335-7572-3
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection
Jeremy Treat (PhD, Wheaton College) is a pastor for preaching and vision at Reality LA, a church in Los Angeles, California. He is also an adjunct professor of theology at Biola University and is the author of Seek First: How the Kingdom of God Changes Everything and The Crucified King: Atonement and Kingdom in Biblical and Systematic Theology.
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The Foolishness of the Gospel
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1 Corinthians 1:18
The Lord’s plan for dealing with sin is shocking in its unexpectedness. It will not involve force or some military champion imposing righteousness on the people. Rather, the Lord’s solution to sin is for his servant to take human sin on himself and to offer himself as a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of others.1
Paulson Pulikottil
The good news of Christ crucified was being proclaimed in the heart of Los Angeles, but I was hearing it from a different perspective than ever before. I had the week off from preaching, so I sat with our congregation, listening to one of my fellow pastors preach 1 Corinthians 2 on the cross of Christ: “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). I had heard the words before, but as I listened on this day my eyes were fixed not on the preacher, nor on the young creatives surrounding me, but on the scar-laden head of the man sitting directly in front of me.
Like railroad tracks traversing the desolate land of his scalp, each scar told a story of pain and loss. And since this man was a part of our church, I knew the stories all too well. The first scar was from surgery at age six shortly after his childhood innocence was shattered by the words “brain cancer.” The next scar came at age thirty-four when the cancer returned, and another scar was added just a few months later when an additional surgery was necessary. The most recent scar came from removing two glioblastoma tumors from the brain. After a week of chemotherapy, he had saved up all his energy to come to church. And while I trust that he was comforted by the sermon on the cross, he himself was a living illustration to our church of its meaning: God’s “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). From one perspective, people merely saw the scars, the frailty, the weakness. But from another perspective, this man’s greatest problem in life had already been solved, his future hope was completely secure, and he was presently being transformed from one degree of glory to the next in a way that would make the angels blush. “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18).
As I looked around the congregation, I realized that we are not all that different from our friend with cancer. We are all wounded; our scars are just not as visible. We are all dying; we simply have not been told how much time we have. We have all fallen short of the glory of God and experienced the pain from our own sin and the sins of others. Yet, in Christ crucified, there is the hope of complete and utter renewal. In the crucified Nazarene is the power for healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation—not only for one man, and not only for our church in Los Angeles, but also for the whole world.
As followers of Jesus, we cling to the truth that God is making all things new by grace. But he is not doing it from afar. The Father has sent the Son in the power of the Spirit with a mission to ransom sinners and renew creation. Yet he is doing so in the most breathtaking way.
The Folly of the Cross
The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is the most significant event in the history of the world. By dying in our place, the Son of God accomplished all that is necessary for the reconciliation of sinners and the renewal of creation. But how could the death of a fairly unknown Jewish carpenter alter the course of history? Why would the crucifixion of this man—when Rome crucified tens of thousands—bring healing and hope to the lives of others? How could a gruesome execution by the state be considered good news? To ponder these questions is to stumble into the doctrine of atonement.
People today do not gasp at the idea of a crucifixion. We should. Crucifixion was a form of capital punishment invented to slowly torture and publicly shame criminals. As opposed to beheading, which was a quick death, crucifixion intentionally kept the victims alive long enough to plunge them into the depths of human suffering. Beyond the pain of the nails through the main arteries near the hands and feet, those hanging on the cross would spend hours or even days pulling themselves up in order to breathe, scraping their already-scourged skin on the wood of a rugged cross. So agonizing was this form of punishment that a word was later invented based on its severity: excruciating, which literally means “from the cross.”2
When the Bible talks about crucifixion, however, it emphasizes not physical pain but rather social shame. Reserved for the scum of society (rebels, slaves, and outcasts), crucifixion was a public spectacle meant to humiliate and dehumanize the victim. Crucifixion usually happened along busy Roman roads, with those crucified placed in the most vulnerable position—naked, arms stretched out, and alone—in order to be taunted and mocked as they struggled for breath. Those being crucified were stripped not only of their clothes but also of their dignity. A century before Jesus, for example, a slave revolt in Rome led to six thousand people being crucified along a 130-mile stretch of a road leaving Rome.3 The near-lifeless bodies, along with those already being eaten by vultures and vermin, served as a billboard to the world declaring the power of Rome.4
Since the cross was a monstrous symbol of death and defeat in the first century, it is no wonder that early Christians were mocked for worshiping a crucified Savior. The cross of Christ was “a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:23). The Jews were looking for a conquering Messiah who would overthrow Rome and establish a political rule. The notion of a suffering Messiah would have been scandalous to their ears. They wanted someone who would triumph over their enemies, not be executed by them. The Gentiles (particularly the Greeks) sought salvation through philosophy and wisdom. The thought of a king being crucified was foolishness to them, something only a madman would believe. The picture of the good life was a contemplative philosopher, not a dying criminal.
The mainstream view after the crucifixion was that Jesus was a failure, his followers were fools, and the cross was a defeat. That is certainly what an early graffiti drawing reveals about the way Romans thought about Christians. The drawing depicts a worshiper looking up at Christ dying on the cross. However, in place of Christ’s head is the head of a donkey. Below the drawing reads the Greek inscription, “Alexamenos worships his God” (see figure 1). This second-century graffiti represents the foolishness of a gospel proclaiming a crucified Messiah.5
Figure 1 Tracing of the Alexamenos graffito.
While early Christians were mocked for their belief in the cross, Christians today have often domesticated the cross to make it more palatable for a modern society. Whether placed on a calendar in a Christian bookstore, tattooed on an arm, or elevated above a city skyline, we have tamed the cross and turned it into a decorative pleasantry. But only when we see the horror of the cross will we be ready to understand the glory of the cross.
The Glory of Christ Crucified
When Jesus was crucified, it appeared that his mission had been brought to a devastating halt. From an earthly perspective, the cross was weakness and foolishness. But through the lens of faith, the glory of God shines from the cross like a thousand suns compared to the candle of this world’s glory. The love of God through the cross of Christ subverts the wisdom and power of this world, revealing a kingdom that is different than people would expect but greater than they could imagine. The cross is not weakness but rather power controlled by love. The death of Jesus is not foolishness but rather God’s wise way of saving the unjust while upholding his justice. This is the awful beauty of the cross.
Herein lies the paradox of the gospel. The self-giving love of God transformed an instrument of death into an instrument of life. The cross is the great reversal, where exaltation comes through humiliation, glory is revealed in shame, victory is accomplished through surrender, and the triumph of the kingdom comes through the suffering of the servant. As Lesslie Newbigin says, “The reign of God has indeed come upon us, and its sign is not a golden throne but a wooden cross.”6 The cross is good news because it is God’s way of rescuing sinners and restoring the world.
Faith Seeking Understanding: The Doctrine of Atonement
The doctrine of atonement is the church’s attempt to understand the glory of Christ crucified in a way that cultivates worship and catalyzes discipleship. This is what theology is about: faith seeking understanding in service of faithful living. What does it mean that Jesus died “for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3)? How did his death two millennia ago shape the trajectory of eternity? How does the crucifixion of Christ reveal the wisdom and power of God? The doctrine of...
