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The Messiness of the Cross
12 August 2016
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Why should God have used the instrument of the cross to reconcile us to Himself in Christ? Couldn't some better, even less messy way, have been found by God to resolve the conflict between Himself and Adam's children? Some theologians have argued that God could simply will away the conflict between men and Himself. He has an omnipotent will. So why not expect Him to sweep the whole messy business under the carpet through His all powerful decision. I suppose one could argue about what God "could" do until the cows come home.
But perhaps it would be more fruitful to consider what God has actually done for us humans in Christ by grace. This seems to be Augustine of Hippo's answer to the question of God's method of reconciliation. He really fails to explain why God used the death of the precious Victim upon the cross of Calvary to reconcile the world to Himself. He merely retreats to God's own self-explanation in Scripture. Here one can hardly go wrong. For all the influence of Neo-Platonic philosophy on the thinking of the Bishop of Hippo, still Scripture is the decisive influence. This is as it should be for Augustine was a theologian of the Church, because he was a biblical theologian. For him there was no better explanation of our salvation than the one provided by God Himself.
We are all quite capable of placing upon God our own presuppositions and desired explanations of His work. Our wisdom and sophistication gets in the way of letting God be God. Consider that there were millions of crucifixions perpetrated by the Romans over the centuries; yet not one of them could be said to be an atonement for sin, except the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. Only if God tells us the value of the crucifixion of Jesus will we know what it really means. The event itself doesn't carry its own meaning. The word of God must tell us who Jesus is and why he died. We would only know what God's plan is for the salvation of the world when God himself reveals what that plan is. Any speculation about another way to do it is exactly that, just speculation. Could God have done another way? Of course, but that's beside the point. Through God's self-revelation, we know that God used the messiness of the cross.
Rev. Dr. Scott R. Murray
Memorial Lutheran Church
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Augustine of Hippo
"Why should the death of Christ not have come to pass? Why should that specific death have been chosen above all others, while bypassing innumerable other ways which He who is omnipotent could have employed to free us? Why does God choose that death in which neither was anything diminished or changed from His divinity and so great benefit was conferred upon men, from the humanity which He took upon Him, that a temporal death, which was not due, was rendered by the eternal Son of God, who was also the Son of man, by which He might free them from an eternal death which was due? The devil was holding fast our sins, and through them was fixing us deservedly in death. Christ discharged them, who had none of His own, and who was led by him to death undeservedly. That blood was of such price, that he who even slew Christ for a time by a death which was not due, can as his due detain no one who has put on Christ in the eternal death which was due.
"Therefore 'God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God' (Rm 5:8-9). Justified, he says, in His blood, justified plainly, in that we are freed from all sin; and freed from all sin, because the Son of God, who knew no sin, was slain for us. Therefore 'we shall be saved from wrath through Him;' from the wrath of God certainly, which is nothing else but just retribution. For the wrath of God is not, as is that of man, an agitation of the mind; but it is the wrath of Him to whom Holy Scripture says in another place, 'But You, O Lord, mastering Your power, judge with calmness'
(Wisdom 12:18).
"If, therefore, the just retribution of God has received such a name, what can be the right understanding also of the reconciliation of God, unless such wrath comes to an end? Neither were we enemies to God, except as sins are enemies to righteousness; which being forgiven, such enmities come to an end. Those whom He Himself justifies are reconciled to the Just One. And yet certainly He loved them even while still enemies, since 'He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all' (Rm 8:32), when we were still enemies. Therefore, the apostle has rightly added: 'For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,' by which that remission of sins was made, 'much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved in His life' (Rm 5:10). Saved in life, we were reconciled by death. For who can doubt that He will give His life for His friends, for whom, when enemies, He gave His death? The apostle says, '
More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation' (Rm 5:11).
'Not only,' he says, 'shall we be saved,' but 'we also rejoice;' and not in ourselves, but 'in God;' nor through ourselves, 'but through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received reconciliation,' as we have argued above.
"Then the apostle adds, 'Therefore, as by one man sin entered the world, and death through sin; and so death passed upon all men, because all sinned'
(Rm 5:8, 12) and so on
. In this passage he disputes at some length concerning the two men; the one the first Adam, through whose sin and death we, his descendants, are bound by, as it were, hereditary evils; and the other the second Adam, who is not only man, but also God, by whose payment for us of what He owed not, we are freed from the debts both of our first father and of ourselves."
Augustine, On the Trinity, 13.17
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Matthew 20:17-28
And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, "See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day."
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. And he said to her, "What do you want?" She said to him, "Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom." Jesus answered, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?" They said to him, "We are able." He said to them, "You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father." And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
(ESV)
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Prayer
Lord Christ, You chose the way of the cross and offered your immaculate life there for us poor sinners. Grant that we might confess You to be the Lord who takes the hard way to become our Way, the Lord who gives up His life to give Life, and the Lord who is the truth that we might know the Truth. Amen.
For our friends and fellow believers in the Lutheran Church of Madagascar, that God would guard and keep them in the most holy faith of Christ the Word of God
For deliverance from temptation, especially that young people would be protected from the demonic attractions of pornography
For the teachers and staff of Memorial Lutheran School, who are preparing to begin a school year, that both those who learn and those who teach would be blessed
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Art: Durer, Albrecht
The Adoration of the Trinity (1515)
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