INADEQUACY OF THE SACRIFICIAL PARADIGM FOR SALVATION?

OPENING COMMENTS

Paradigm = a philosophical or theoretical framework or model.

I’m not sure this material will be incorporated into the final version of Through The Wilderness. I base my hesitation on two factors:

(1) Through The Wilderness focuses on posing appropriate questions to obtain useful answers. I haven’t yet defined a question that will generate an answer within the context of this book. Questions and answers relating to the sacrificial/substitutional paradigm carry great importance to me as a professing and struggling Judeo-Christian, irrespective of inclusion in, or exclusion from, Through The Wilderness.

The situation reminds me of a statement (paraphrased) from one of our notable authors/critics of the 20th Century: I don’t know what I think on that subject because I haven’t written about it. (One of these days I’ll find a reference to identify the lady who made this statement.) Perhaps my writing about the sacrificial paradigm or model will generate a question and answer I can incorporate into Through The Wilderness. As usual, I not only solicit but welcome comments and critiques.

(2) Many potential readers of Through The Wilderness quite likely will have severe reservations about, if not outright hostility to, this material that erroneously could be considered to strike at the traditional core of Judeo-Christianity.

I want people to read Through The Wilderness. Conservative and especially fundamentalist religious reviewers could generate negative reviews based upon this published material, which might scare off potential readers of the book. I’m not averse to participating in, or even starting, controversies based upon differing informed opinions; therefore, I may include this material under appropriate circumstances. I wouldn’t want to refrain from incorporating legitimate material solely to preserve readership.

I must note that reservations about the sacrificial, substitutional, or atonement model for salvation began in the early days of Judeo-Christianity and have continued to this time. Again, we may ask, What’s new under the sun? Nevertheless, I have never heard a sermon preached on any model for salvation other than this one, albeit sometimes with the invocation of God’s love. Perhaps I’ve been in the wrong churches?

THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS

Which of the following expressions most adequately explains how or why God forgives our sins, thereby leading to our salvation?

(1) The forgiveness of our sins is mediated through the sacrificial life and death of Jesus Christ, the exemplification of Jesus Christ’s great love for us and for God?

(2) The forgiveness of our sins is mediated through the great love Jesus Christ has for us and for God, as exemplified by Jesus Christ’s sacrificial life and death.

To my mind, these two statements offer profoundly different understandings. The first places the weight of forgiveness on the sacrificial life and death of Jesus Christ whereas the second emphasizes the love Jesus Christ has for us and for God as responsible for the forgiveness of our sins. That is, statement (1) more closely corresponds to the traditional sacrificial model for salvation.

SACRIFICIAL MODEL FOR SALVATION

The epistles of St. Paul (C.E. 3 – 62) and those attributed to him perhaps furnish the most extensive rationale for the sacrificial model of salvation:

Romans 3:25 whom (i.e., Jesus Christ) God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his (i.e., Jesus Christ’s) blood.

Romans 5:8-9 God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.

The sacrificial model can be summarized as follows:

(1) God is both just and merciful.

(2) Our Hebrew ancestors believed animal, including human, life force resides in blood.

(3) The Hebrew Scriptures link the forgiveness of sins with sacrifices to be performed by human sinners.

(4) Although sin offends God’s honor beyond human ability to compensate, God’s justice requires that blood with its life force must be spilled on the altar as compensation for sin. That is, God or God's sense of justice must be appeased in order for humans to escape the consequences of God’s judgment.

(5) Christ’s death (spilling of his blood) on the cross provides a one-time substitution or replacement for blood sacrifices.

(6) The sacrificial and compensatory death of the completely innocent (without sin) Jesus Christ, God’s beloved son, was demanded because only an integrated fully human and fully divine being could repay or atone for the infinite debt of all human sins.

(7) This sacrificial substitution or atonement brings humans and God’s creation back into the perfect unity destroyed by the original sin of Adam and Eve, and reestablishes the mutual loving relationship between God and humans.

RESERVATIONS ABOUT THE SACRIFICIAL MODEL

My first reservations about the sacrificial substitution model probably began in Prof. Franz Joseph Kovar’s Philosophy 101 class during my senior year at LaGrange College. This class was required of all pre-ministerial students at the college. I took the course because of interest and to broaden my horizons beyond a double major in Biology and Chemistry. Although I would have graduated with an additional major in Mathematics had I taken Differential Equations instead of Philosophy 101, the later was, in retrospect, the single most valuable course I studied at LaGrange College.

Prof. Kovar remarked in one class, I do not understand why Christ had to undergo the sacrifice on the cross in order for God to forgive us our sins. Does this cruel sacrifice truly reflect the God of love we are called upon to worship?

Of course this statement infuriated most of the pre-ministerial students. The comment was not a surprise because Prof. Kovar made this declaration each year. Several of the pre-ministerial students, as if on cue, stood up. One announced, We will pray for you, Prof. Kovar, that you might receive the blessing of salvation through the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ.

Prof. Kovar replied, Pray for yourselves. Praying for others substitutes your arrogance for God’s wisdom.

My next formal discontent with the sacrificial model came when I facilitated an extraordinary Sunday School class at New Horizon United Methodist Church in South Florida. We used the Seasons of the Spirit lectionary-based material for the class. One Easter, the lesson commentary pointed out: Christ had free will and could have refused to die on the cross. If so, God would have continued to forgive sins as God has done throughout human history. Well, that statement was as mind blowing as Prof. Kovar’s declaration.

So, what are my reservations?

(1) My concept of God precludes some grand cosmic plan through which Christ was pre-ordained to come to earth at some future time in order to save us from our sins.

Such a plan would imply that God is both all-powerful (omnipotent) and all-knowing (omniscient), able to see and control events before they happen. To this point, let us consider a human circumstance or condition that could result in only two outcomes, A or B. If God already knows the outcome will be A, then God cannot choose B and, therefore, God cannot be, or chooses not to be, all-powerful. To expand, if God is all powerful and is free to choose either A or B, he cannot foresee the future or he would loose the power to choose. This idea requires considerable thought but is not new with me because it dates back to some of the early Church fathers.

(2) God forgave sins prior to the appearance of Jesus Christ on earth. The Hebrew Scriptures are replete with this fact.

(3) Hebrew Scriptures consistently point out that regret, repentance, and the desire henceforth to lead a better, if not sin-free life, must come before any sacrifice: The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm51:17, for instance).

(4) Many Hebrew prophets and Jesus Christ himself inveighed heavily against the Jerusalem Temple, with its Sanhedrin elites, maintaining a monopoly on forgiveness of sins in conjunction with a corrupt sacrificial system.

(5) Once King Solomon completed the Jerusalem Temple, God commanded that it would be the only sanctioned site for Israelites to offer animal sacrifices. Performing sacrifices in any other place was a sin. The Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 CE; therefore, Jews to this day offer no more animal sacrifices because to do so would violate God’s prohibition. Accordingly and importantly, Jews believe they receive forgiveness of sins without the requirement of an animal sacrifice and the shedding of innocent blood with its life force. That is, prayer and repentance take the place of sacrifices in Judaism: Take with you words, and turn to the Lord. Say to Him, forgive all iniquity and receive us graciously, so we will offer the words of our lips instead of calves. (Hosea 14:3, for instance).

As an aside, I wonder if the modern day Jews will reestablish animal sacrifice when the Jerusalem Temple is rebuilt on the reclaimed Temple Mount presently occupied by Muslims?

(6) St. Paul himself offers models for salvation in addition to atonement through sacrificial death, including: (a) Ransoming or taking the place of a slave, debtor, or captive; (b) The Incarnation that unites humans and God; and (c) The entire life of Jesus.

Although I have tried to be a faithful and active member of the United Methodist Church since 1960, many of my theologian friends consider me a closet Presbyterian, the faith tradition in which I was raised. I must point out, therefore, that Anselm of Canterbury, generally recognized for his expansion of St. Paul’s sacrificial model, apparently did not emphasize the idea that Christ substitutes of bears the penalty for human sin. Martin Luther and John Calvin promulgated the penal substitution concept some centuries after Anselm. How such an idea ever caught on and became so widespread in its acceptance flummoxes me, and illustrates that not even agreement by the majority of Christians guarantees the correctness or validity of a theological concept.

(7) The sacrificial model promotes violence as sanctified by God and encourages us to submit to violence and suffering in imitation of Christ. (See Mel Gibson’s The Passion Of the Christ).

(8) How can we defend, much less worship, a just, loving, and merciful God who decreed that human sins could not be forgiven except through the condemnation and suffering of the righteous and innocent Jesus Christ? If God had the power to otherwise forgive sin and did not do so, how can we defend God’s wisdom and justice? To insist upon and hew to the sacrificial model means that a cruel and wicked despot pre-ordained innocent suffering and death to be the entire purpose of the Incarnation.

With the above reservations in mind, I totally reject any pleas or threats that I should abandon my God-given intellect and simply accept the traditional sacrificial model because it involves a divine mystery beyond human comprehension. This type of faith truly would be blind.

I think one of St. Augustine’s great dicta applies here, as suitably rephrased to avoid gender-specific language: If persons believe that Holy Scripture contradicts what they observe with their own eyes (i.e., through rationality and intellect), then those persons do not understand what Holy Scripture actually says.

WHY AND HOW DOES GOD FORGIVE SINS?

The Why appears straightforward: God, out of divine love for his creatures, desires reconciliation between himself and us for the estrangement arising from our inappropriate use of free will, i.e. our sins.

The issue of why God bestowed free will upon us has little relevance to the present discussion. Suffice it to say that we have free will as a result of our human condition. If we do not have free will because God pre-ordained and controls all aspects of human endeavors, then we cannot be guilty of sin and would not need salvation. I cover this point in Through The Wilderness.

Perhaps God organized creation in such a way that we humans have free will and, as a compensation for that blessings/responsibility, God also out of love offers us what we Methodists often term Prevenient Grace - after John Wesley.

The How constitutes a thornier issue, which would not be so difficult if the sacrificial model actually applied. Consideration of the How forces us to face squarely our concept of Jesus Christ and his role in our salvation.

I defy anyone to state an unequivocal explanation of Jesus Christ. Starting with, Jesus Christ is the (only) Son of God, won’t work because that statement comes loaded with ambiguity. For instance, how can a divine being give birth to human being? Postulating a construct based upon the Holy Spirit and the idea that Jesus Christ represents a Man-God (fully human and fully divine) contains even more ambiguity.

The fact that we are saved appears clear on the basis of rational faith informed by Holy Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience. (OK, as at least a titular Methodist, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to bring in the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.) However, the relationship between the suffering and sacrificial death of Jesus Christ and our salvation remains imprecise, even elusive.

Despite the imprecision, I offer the following approach for how God forgives our sins, keeping in mind that I am by no means commanding God what to do but commenting only what I think God does:

(1) Our loving God desires harmony and reconciliation with us, as stated above for the Why of forgiveness.

(2) Having given us the blessings and responsibility of free will while knowing full well that we will sin and become mired in estrangement, God lovingly offers us forgiveness in order to reestablish the harmony of creation, something we cannot accomplish through our own efforts.

(3) While God must be considered righteous and just, the absolute sovereign ruler of all that exists, seen and unseen, has no obligation to demand a blood sacrifice to satisfy divine justice. God, out of love, offers mercy and love to trump harsh justice, punishment, and recompense.

(4) Jesus Christ, through his life and death, shows us how we should live and die in complete obedience to, and in harmony with, God.

(5) Through his life of complete obedience, Jesus Christ inevitably was led to sacrifice in his daily life and on the cross. One aspect of this sacrifice was eschewing the allure of sin available to him by virtue of free will. All of us experience this sacrifice when we do not succumb to temptation and refrain from indulging in desirable evil. Anyone, human or divine-human, who lives in complete obedience to and harmony with God likely will end up on a cross. This end becomes virtually certain when the obedience, like Christ’s, leads to a direct challenge of a major political power and rebellion against the established order.

(6) Sacrifice, even a substitutional or compensatory spilling of blood, does not bring forgiveness of sins. Regret, repentance, and a desire for the alteration of a sin-filled life constitute necessary prerequisites for forgiveness. Sacrifice, therefore, becomes a sign of the sinner’s repentance and forgiveness, not the cause of the forgiveness.

(7) We must comprehend the Incarnation and the suffering life and death of Jesus Christ from two integrated perspectives: (a) God’s mercy and boundless love for creation, and (b) God’s justice as the divine will and power to restore creation and human roles in it.

I do not insist on a complete understanding of how our sins are forgiven, and I will accept some imprecision based upon presently restricted human knowledge. An example from science illustrates my point: For decades we knew through experience that aspirin has many beneficial medicinal properties; however, the mechanism by which this pharmaceutical agent exerted its effect was unknown and only speculated. Not until research in the 1970's led to the Nobel Prize for Sir John Vane did we understand most of the mechanism. Nevertheless, aspirin worked quite well during the period of our ignorance.

The above paradigm for forgiveness and salvation works for me and constitutes a basis for further reflection and exploration. Hey, I’m saved through the grace of God regardless of my paradigm.