When I consider "atonement theory," I do not object to the need for atonement. I object to asserting that it is divine will and initiative that the medium for atonement must be the separation of soul from body and the shedding of blood.
For I read, "Do you think I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and make good your vows to the Most High. Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall honor me" (Ps. 50: 13-15).
It seems ridiculous to me that an uncreated being should be propitiated by destroying what He has created and more ridiculous that He should be propitiated by the destruction of the earthly body that shared or had shared in his divine life (as with Adam and Jesus).
I can imagine God destroying to express his will and maintain His government. In Genesis 6, God almost decides to wipe the slate clean. (I have computer simulations that go awry sometimes, so I know the feeling.) What I baulk at is the idea that doing so is satisfactory to Him: why else is He so insistent on saving faithful remnants (Noah, Lot, various divisions of Israel) or indeed unfaithful ones (Cain)?
And if God were satisfied by the death of ungrateful wretches like me, think about the schizophrenia implied by Ezekiel 18:23, "I desire not the death of sinners, but that they turn from their ways and live."
Instead, I think this insistence on bloody satisfaction comes from our initiative. The most obvious example is Lamech's proclamation of his own personal lex talionis, "Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, mark what I say: I kill a man for wounding me, a young man for a blow. If sevenfold vengeance was to be exacted for Cain, for Lamech it would be seventy-sevenfold" (Genesis 4:23-24).
If the Fall is chiefly expressed by our desire to legislate in place of God ("knowing what is good and evil" and "determining what is good and evil" could be expressed by the same Hebrew words, see D. Fairbairn, Life in the Trinity: An Introduction to Theology with the Help of the Church Fathers), Lamech takes the cake. The Law revealed to Moses is a tutor here indeed (Galatians 3:24), in that it moderates our personal legislation by creating institutions like the cities of refuge (Numbers 35) and insisting that vengeance be proportional: lex talionis (Exodus 21:24; Leviticus 24:20; Deuteronomy 19:21).
But when He who truly has power to legislate takes on human nature, He has this to say, "You have it heard it said, 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him also with the left" (Matthew 5:38-39). And these were no idle words on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Jesus didn't send twelve legions of angels to bust up the place but endured shame, spitting, and death. Epiphanius of Cyprus calls Jesus's restraint "economy," and this idea points us to how God relates to us.
And again, the same One said when asked how often one should forgive and the number seven was put forth as an option (the reverse of the vengeance of Cain), Jesus responded with the reverse of vengeance of Lamech, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times" (Matthew 18:21). If anything God seems to be pointing us away from the satisfaction of bloody vengeance.
So far, I only really have demonstrated convincingly that humans should not exact satisfaction for wrong acts by blood atonement. Perhaps, this is something simply reserved for God and we may impute this satisfaction to Him in understanding Christ's work on the cross.
The problem is that if justification is by faith alone and not by works of law, whether revealed to Noah, Moses, or by Lamech or Jesus (as Paul and the Reformers did) and salvation consists in participation in the Trinitarian life (we relate in Christ to the mutual love of the Father and the Son), the key ethical content of the Holy Scriptures does not aim at our justification by works but to pointing us to what it means to participate in the Trinitarian life. That is, it orients us to the way God is, thinks, loves etc.
And I think it turns me away from thinking that Jesus is an atoning sacrifice to God that genuinely satisfies God. I instead feel turned to think that Jesus's sacrifice is atoning in that it convinces our sinful selves that we have atoned. I do not deny that the work on the Cross does things that are effectual in the context of life, the universe, everything, and the life of the Trinity, but the atoning sacrifice bit is not God's idea. Instead, God does what needs to be done in such a way that it meets our idea and fallen perspective on atonement. He shows His love for us by doing something utterly absurd.
When those of us of a more catholic bent celebrate the Eucharist, we often see it as an actual, but bloodless sacrifice. Part of this sacrifice is done in memory of the sacrifice (however it was one) of Jesus Christ and is sacrificial by participating in that action, which as performed by Christ in his human nature is an event with a defined point in space-time, but as Christ as God the Word is performed outside space-time, and so is always accessible to our participation. (Madeline L'Engle's Episcopal Bishop Nason Colubra splendidly explains the basic outlines of this idea in An Acceptable Time.)
But part of the sacrifice we make is the one to which God points us in Psalm 50, "The sacrifice of thanksgiving." That's what Eucharist means in Greek, "thanksgiving." The grand sacrifice we make to God is to say thank you "for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and the hope of glory" (Book of Common Prayer 1979, p. 101). If we read Psalm 50 in this way, the vows mentioned are not works of law: promises we make to exchange/manipulate God's favor by doing "good" deeds. They really wouldn't be good deeds that way. The vows to which Psalm 50 refers are our baptismal vows: a historically mutable, extra-Biblical set of promises we have made to serve Christ as Lord. But they signify a promise of obedience (that evangelical counsel). Donald Fairbairn in his Life in the Trinity: An Introduction to Theology with the Help of the Church Fathers convincingly argues that obedience (between equals, no less!) is the way that love between the Son and the Father is expressed.
And thus the Eucharistic sacrifice is a locus for remembering what God has done for us, bringing our concerns to Him ("call on me in the day of trouble"), and orienting ourselves toward gratitude and obedience, all of which are our imperfect loving sacrifice to God.
As you can tell, the Holy Brothers like the work of Donald Fairbairn well enough to engage with it and very much would like to thank "JMG" of Mockingbird for bringing it to our attention.
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