The pastor explained in vivid detail the scourging of Jesus, the thirty-nine lashes and the placement of a crown of thorns on his head. It would have been difficult for me not to visualize the skin being ripped from Jesus’ back as he was unmercifully beaten or picture the droplets of blood falling down his face as the thorns of his crown bit deeply into his scalp.
The cruel images the pastor was describing had already been indelibly imprinted on my brain by Mel Gibson’s brutally graphic film, The Passion of Christ. It is very difficult for modern people to get their minds wrapped around the barbaric cruelty and violence of Roman crucifixion.
Crucifixion was nasty business in Jesus’ day. The torturous suffering of the one being crucified is unimaginable for many. We ask: “How can humans treat other humans with such barbaric cruelty?” That’s a good question but the better question to ask is:
“Would God treat a human being like this?”
The way one answer this question depends on one’s interpretation of the meaning of the cross of Jesus.
As the pastor was describing in colorful detail the suffering of Jesus I kept saying to myself over and over: “Please tell the congregation that it wasn’t God who was doing all this to Jesus!” I wanted him to make it very clear to all of us: “Yes the cross of Jesus was extremely bloody; yes it was cruel punishment; yes it was brutally violent; BUT, God was not the One inflicting all this torture and pain upon Jesus!“Please make this clear” I kept saying to myself!
Allow me to say it again: “God did not torture and kill Jesus.” God was in no way responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. I realize that there are theories of the cross and models of salvation that require God to punish Jesus in order for Him to forgive us and offer us eternal life. Oner may even find some Scriptures in support of such an idea.
This is what I was taught to believe concerning the meaning of Jesus’ death. I sang old hymns that portrayed the death of Jesus as payment for my sins: “Jesus Paid It All” or “Are You Washed In The Blood” or “Covered by the Blood” and many more like these. Hymns that portray what author Dallas Willard described as “Vampire Theology.”
Now I am not denying, nor should I, the reality of Jesus’ horrific bloody death upon a Roman cross. The Gospels are very clear that Jesus died on the cross and that somehow that obedient death and God's forgiveness are inseparably connected.
But did God have to kill Jesus or have him killed in order to forgive us of our sins?
God did not kill Jesus! I am fairly convinced that God is fully capable of complete forgiveness apart from the death of Jesus on the cross.
What kind of God would demand that His only Son be crucified in order to provide salvation to us? Brian Zahnd calls this interpretation of the cross: “Salvation by sadism.” It makes God out to be a petty tyrannical bloodthirsty deity whose capacity for forgiveness is dependent upon sacrificial blood being spilt. Such an idea paints God as a cosmic child abuser.
There is something deeply mysterious in the death of Jesus and its correlation with the forgiveness of sins. Something of cosmic proportions took place that I believe defies all human explanation. All blood atonement theories aside, Jesus’ death and our salvation are mysteriously connected.
The truth is God didn’t kill Jesus, the Romans killed Jesus in collusion with the religious authorities.
Jesus died as the result of human sin and not Divine need for a bloody sacrifice for sin.If you get right down to it, we humans killed Jesus!
Let me be crystal clear about this: God did not torture and crucify Jesus . . . Period!
Did Jesus obediently give up his life for us? Yes he did!
Did he willingly sacrifice his life so that we might live. Yes!
But it was not a sacrifice to appease some bloodthirsty God before he could forgive us humans.
We serve a God who does not need to kill in order to give life! He needs nor does He want blood sacrifices in order to forgive human sin (see Hebrews 10:5-9).
This is the real message of Good Friday! This is the real Good News! In the words of author and pastor Brian Zahnd:
"The cross is a cataclysmic collision of violence and forgiveness. The violence part of the cross is entirely human. The forgiveness part of the cross is entirely divine. God’s nature is revealed in love, not in violence. The Roman cross was an instrument of imperial violence that Jesus transformed into a symbol of divine love . . . Punishing the innocent in order to forgive the guilty is monstrous logic, atrocious theology, and a gross distortion of the idea of justice."
I could not agree more. Good Friday will past and Easter will indeed dawn!
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