Original posting: Nov/2K
I received this question a while
back:
The essence of Christianity is that God
SACRIFICED his only Son to save us from our Sins. But where's the sacrifice?
Less than 3 days after His death, God revived Jesus. Then he took Him back Home
so he could sit at His right hand.
I'll concede Jesus was "cut off" for
awhile, but the connection was eventually restored. (Someone told me that being
"cut off" for 1 second for God is like INFINITY for Man. So is Man
stronger than God in the endurance of pain?)
Equating this with "sacrifice" is
somewhat like Superman volunteering to stand in front of a firing squad. The
bullets might sting, but He knows He won't die. Where's the kryptonite?
Could a Levite priest make a sin offering of an
unblemished animal, and later have it "revived" so that it could be
restored to its original owner? Not hardly.
In my mind, a true sacrifice would require Jesus to
die FOREVER, i.e., cut off from Jehovah, FOREVER. God would have to feel this
"infinite pain" in order to vicariously atone for Human Sin.
Otherwise all of this talk about sacrifice seems
to be missing the point.
............................................................................................................
Thanks for the question, friend
(and sorry to make you wait so long, but since you FIRST submitted it so long
ago, I have had a chance to study Sacrifice in some detail, in both the OT and in the NT, and to teach (audio) on it
for a year or two, see The Great Irruption files at the bottom of that A/V menu, and so my answer should have a better probability of being
helpful to you)...
The way I want to work through this
with you is by looking at this from a couple of different angles:
1. The nature of sacrifice itself (in the OT/Tanach)
2. The Cross: the Offerer, the Offering, the
Recipient
3. The issue of pain
So, let's dive in...
1. The nature of sacrifice itself (in the OT/Tanach)
The first thing to note here is
that the core meaning of "sacrifice" has to do primarily with
"giving something over" to God, and not with "death" itself
per se. Even English dictionaries
highlight the 'giving' aspect, as opposed to "mode of giving" (i.e.,
death, symbolic marking, going to live/serve the priests). Compare the Concise
Oxford English Dictionary's main two entries:
"the act of giving up something valued for the sake of something
else more important or worth" and "the slaughter of an animal or
person or the surrender of a
possession as an offering to a deity”
Notice that the most common meaning
focuses only on “giving up” and that the second meaning allows for non-slaughter
sacrifices (religious), involving transfer
of property to the deity. We will see similar dynamics in the
biblical data.
a. Fundamentally, sacrifice was the transfer of property from the
offerer to God. The OT/Tanaach
laws highlight
this aspect in the choice of materials allowed:
"The sacrificial victim had to be taken from the clean animals and birds (Gn. 8:20), and could be bullock, goat, sheep, dove or pigeon (cf. Gn. 15:9), but not camel or ass (Ex. 13:13). These provisions are not to be traced to the idea of sacrifice as ‘food for the gods’ (viz. that the gods ate what man ate)—as might be suggested by Lv. 3:11; 21:6; Ezk. 44:7—for fish (Lv. 11:9) and wild animals (Dt. 12:22) could be eaten but not sacrificed. The principle seems rather to have been that of property (cf. 2 Sa. 24:24), the wild animals being regarded as in some sense already God’s (Ps. 50:9ff.; cf. Is. 40:16), while the domestic animals had become man’s by his labours (Gn. 22:13 is only apparently an exception), and were in a kind of ‘biotic rapport’ with him. This was even more clearly the case with the non-blood offerings, which had been produced by ‘the sweat of his brow’ (cereals, flour, oil, wine, etc.), and were also staple articles of the kitchen. Property unlawfully acquired was not acceptable (Dt. 23:18)." [NBD, s.v. "Sacrifice and Offering"]
This can also be
seen from David's comment in 1 Chrn 21.23f: "Araunah said to David, “Take it! Let my lord the king do whatever pleases
him. Look, I will give the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing sledges
for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering. I will give all this.” 24
But King David replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying the full price. I will not take for the LORD what is yours, or
sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing.”
[Notice that it had to (a) be David's and (b) involve a personal 'loss']
b. ‘Sacrifice’ is often considered a
sub-set of 'offerings' (although the distinction is not clear at all), in which
the only common elements are (a)
how the sacrificial material was "delivered to" the deity--by full or
partial burning; and (b) that the
materials were transferred to God
from the offerer, becoming God's to dispose of as He chose.
"The Bible
does have two basic terms for
offering: minha (in the non-P
materials) which means simply “gift,”
and qorban (in P) which implies
something “brought near” (namely,
to the altar). These words are generic terms which
include every type of sacrifice or oblation. There is no single term
which defines how, or in what manner, an offering becomes a “sacrifice.”
“Indeed, we might define sacrifice in the Bible as those oblations which are burned (wholly or partially) at
the altar. These would include
the burnt offering, the “peace
offering”, and the grain offering, as well as the purification and reparation offerings. Other
types of sacred donations, though brought to the sanctuary and even sometimes
presented at the altar, are not burned
in any way at the altar and so are not sacrifices. These would include the
tithe, ), firstfruits,, the wave-offering,, and the heave-offering.” [REF:ABD, s.v. "SACRIFICE AND
SACRIFICIAL OFFERINGS."]
But this
theoretical distinction between sacrifice and offering (the OT doesn’t distinguish
between the two, in its usage of terms to describe them) will not be important. In the NT, for
example, Christ’s death is described as both ‘sacrifice’ (e.g., I Cor 5.7; Eph
5.2; Heb 9.28; 10.12) and as ‘offering’
(Eph 5.2; Heb 8.3; 10.14).
c. Sacrifice and offerings--for the
common Israelite, not the elite—were statements
of faith in God. The most common animals offered were sheep (and
then goats), the very lifeblood of the people, but the type of sheep generally required
(i.e., a young male) required great faith on the part of the offerer.
· Sheep were raised for their wool and milk, not for meat and hides (although hides and bone were obviously re-cycled wherever possible). The average person rarely ate meat in the ancient world, since animals were far more valuable for their secondary products.
"Ordinary
people doubtless did not get to eat meat very frequently, and sheep were regarded as too valuable to kill for food."
[OT:LIANE:39]
"In a simple
society an accepted figure for the amount of wool fibre a person required annually for clothing is 1.5-3 kg
(3.3-6.7 lb) which, for a population of c. 460,000 equals 690,000-1,380,00 kg
(1,521,450-3,042,00 lb). We are also told that a caprovine produced c. 0.5-1 kg
(1.1-2.2 lb) of cloth-grade fibre per year. This means that somewhere between
690,000 and 1,380,00 sheep or goats--mainly the former--would be needed to
clothe the population [TankNote: Note that he is using a much smaller
population figure than I would, for Israel at this time]. But how many such
animals could there have been in the country? In the early Iron Age village of
'Izbet Sartah there were an estimated 6-7 caprovines per family. This would
work out at between 600,000 and 700,000 for all Israel, which would just supply the basic clothing needs to be
met, but leave no surplus for possible export. Of course, flocks
held by large landowners and the crown might well have augmented the total
considerably, but it is perhaps relevant that the Israelites demanded form King
Mesha of Moab a very substantial tribute of wool-bearing lambs and sheep (2
Kings 3,4). Home production, it seems, was sometimes not sufficient to cover
needs." [OT:I:179-180]
"[In
Mesopotamia] Sheep were the most important [domesticated animals] economically
and numerically...These animals were more
important for their milk products and their wool than for their
meat..." [OT:DLAM:249]
"In essence, none of these animals were normally consumed as part
of the regular diet because of the fact that their secondary products and
labour were much too value for the animal itself to be slaughtered....Sheep
and goats...were kept principally for the fleece and hair they provided for the
textile industry." [MCMF:89]
·
Comparative bone deposit studies in the area indicate that male
sheep died earlier (since they were used for sacrifices in Israel, and
additionally for omens in the surrounding cultures) than females, which were
cultivated throughout their adult life [HI:ASHL:256f]. Males produced no milk
products obviously, and their wool was inferior to that produced by their
female counterparts. In fact, even though the ratio of male-to-female adults in
a flock was about 1-to-1 [OT:DLAM:249], most of these males would have been
gelded, to improve the quality of the wool ["Most male sheep were gelded
because geldings give better wool, but a small number of males was kept as stud
animals"--[OT:LIANE:39]].
·
Since the normal offering was a male (un-gelded) sheep, the only economic value of this sheep to the offerer
would have been that of reproduction--the ability to ensure the future of the
flock. It would have had almost no current
“output” value at all. To sacrifice such an animal was NOT an offering from
one's "current income" (in that case the offering would have allowed
adults, females, geldings, or more exactly—wool itself), but rather from one's
"pension" or "retirement savings". Since disease and
disaster (including vandalism raids by nomadic tribes), killed off 10-15% of
the livestock PER YEAR(!), to kill such an
animal required real faith in God's commitment to provide for their family in
the future. [Notice, by the way, that this sorta dispels the notion
that God 'values males higher than females, because He only accepts male
sheep'...This practice would seem to indicate the opposite, if such an argument
can be made at all from this data...which I strongly doubt..!]
d. Some of the sacrifices and
offerings are distinguished by the mode/means
of giving over to the Lord, or by their
purpose.
“The other frequently used words describe particular kinds of sacrifice,
and are derived either from the mode of
sacrifice, as zebah (sacrifice), ‘that which is slain, (zabah), and
‘ola (burnt-offering), ‘that which goes up’, or
from its purpose, as asam (guilt-offering), ‘for guilt’ (asham), and
hatta’t (sin-offering), ‘for sin’ (hatta’t). These may be distinguished in part
by the disposal of the victim,
whether wholly burnt (hola, Lv.
1), or eaten by priests and
worshippers together (zebah, Lv. 3), or eaten by the priests alone (hatta’t and
asam, Lv. 4-5)...Also included under qorban
were the non-blood offerings, the cereal-offering (Lv. 2), the firstfruits, the sheaf of 16 Nisan, the dough of the
Feast of Weeks, and the tithes.” [NBD, op cit]
What must be noticed is that
the elements involved in sacrifice and offering have different expressions:
·
Some
of the sacrificial/offering material was meat,
some was vegetable (e.g., cereal),
some was chemical (e.g., oil,
incense), and some were people (e.g.,
Samuel was given to God by his mother, the Levites were a wave-offering in Num
8.15)
·
Some
of the offerings were to be killed,
some were to be set free (e.g.,
the scapegoat and the dove of purification), some were to serve Yahweh in the service of the
temple (e.g., Samuel was given to YHWH and moved in with Eli, 1 Sam 1).
·
For
those sacrifices that were killed, disposal
of the carcass differed according to God’s instructions: some were
burnt on the altar, some were cooked/eaten, some were burnt outside the camp,
some were burnt and dissolved in water for ritual use (e.g., Num 19).
·
Methods of ‘delivery’ to God also varied: some were
burnt entirely (i.e. ‘olam, ‘that which goes up’), some had only a token portion burnt (while the rest was
given back to the people—but it was still considered God’s possession), some
were only held up toward God
(i.e., the heave/elevated offering of Ex 29.26 and Lev 7.31). In the case of people, they moved to/lived next to the
central sanctuary site of God’s
presence, to serve God (e.g., Samuel, even as a young boy, moved
into the tabernacle compound). In the case of vow-offerings (e.g. house,
unclean animals, labor services/people), God
could even ‘sell it back’ to the original owner (i.e.,
‘redemption’).
But the main point
was that the material/person became God’s
property by the rite of offering, and it was then God’s sole prerogative as to
what He did with his ‘new’ possession. For examples,
1.
In the case of the Levites, in Num 8, God accepted the Levites as
a wave-offering and then gave them
(now His possession) to Aaron, for
help in the work:
“Thus you shall separate
the Levites from among the sons of Israel, and the Levites shall be
Mine. 15 “Then after that the Levites may go in to serve the tent of meeting.
But you shall cleanse them and present them
as a wave offering; 16 for they are wholly given to Me from among the sons of Israel. I have taken
them for Myself instead of every first issue of the womb, the first-born of all
the sons of Israel. 17 “For every first-born among the sons of Israel is Mine,
among the men and among the animals; on the day that I struck down all the
first-born in the land of Egypt I sanctified them for Myself. 18 “But I have
taken the Levites instead of every first-born among the sons of Israel. 19 “And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron
and to his sons from among the sons of Israel, to perform the service of the
sons of Israel at the tent of meeting, and to make atonement on behalf of the
sons of Israel, that there may be no plague among the sons of Israel by their
coming near to the sanctuary.”
2.
Some of the priestly offerings were given to Aaron from God (e.g.,
Lev 10.12ff):
Then Moses spoke to Aaron, and to his surviving sons,
Eleazar and Ithamar, “Take the grain offering
that is left over from the Lord’s offerings by fire and eat it unleavened beside the
altar, for it is most holy. 13 “You shall eat it, moreover, in a holy place, because it is your due and your sons’ due out of the Lord’s
offerings by fire;
for thus I have been commanded. 14 “The breast of the wave offering, however,
and the thigh of the offering you may eat in a clean place, you and your sons
and your daughters with you; for they have
been given as your due and your sons’ due out of the sacrifices of
the peace offerings of the sons of Israel.
3.
Even the tithe was at God’s
disposal—and it was to be given (back) to people for celebration and for relief
(Deut 14):
And you shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God, at the place where He
chooses to establish His name, the tithe of
your grain, your new wine, your oil, and the first-born of your herd and your
flock, in order that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. 24 “And if the distance is so great for
you that you are not able to bring the tithe, since the place where the Lord your God chooses to set His name
is too far away from you when the Lord
your God blesses you, 25 then you shall exchange it for money, and bind the
money in your hand and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. 26 “And you may spend the money for
whatever your heart desires, for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or
whatever your heart desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your
household. 27 “Also you shall not neglect the Levite who is in your town, for
he has no portion or inheritance among you. 28
“At the end of every third year you
shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year, and
shall deposit it in your town. 29 “And the Levite,
because he has no portion or inheritance among you, and the alien, the orphan
and the widow who are in your town, shall come and eat and be satisfied,
in order that the Lord your God
may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.
The net of this is
that the sacrifice/offering of an
Israelite/priest transferred ownership of something to God, and God was
completely free to do whatever He wanted to with it then. The sacrifice was
‘completed’ when ownership transferred…
And ownership
transferred in an act, not in a
state. It was in the act of
‘waving’ that the Wave offering was ‘taken’ by God—they didn’t have
to keep waving it forever. It was in the act of holding the Heave offering up
that it was ‘taken’ by God—they didn’t have to keep it elevated forever. It was in the act of ‘burning’ that the
offering was ‘taken’ by God—they didn’t have to keep burning it somehow
forever. It was in the act of dying that the offering was ‘taken’ by God—the
offering didn’t have to somehow keep dying forever. [Remember also, that it
wasn’t ‘been dead’ that was the issue, because the Israelites were forbidden to
bring dead animals to the altar for sacrifice—it was
death-as-the-giving-over-to act that was the transitional event.]
If God had chosen
to “resurrect” a burnt/dead animal, that would be entirely in keeping with His
‘legal rights of property’ under the rules of sacrifice, and would have IN NO WAY ‘un-done’ the act/fact of the
sacrificial giving by the Israelite. [Also, remember that the
sacrifice was OFTEN given back to the worshipper for food-celebration, but the
fact that he/she got it back didn’t ‘undo’ the value of their heart’s devotion
to God, as expressed in the offering.]
2. The Cross: the Offerer, the Offering, the Recipient
The next point we
need to understand is that it was Jesus who was the Offerer and Priest at the
Cross, that the offering was His own devout and unblemished life, and that the
offering/sacrifice was made to (i.e., transferred to) the Father.
The Father gave
His only Son to the drama of redemption, but it was the Son who ‘laid down His
life’ for us. The biblical data witnesses to this quite clearly, using the more
generic ‘providing’ and ‘giving’ words in reference to the Father’s act, and the more sacrificial
images/terminology in reference to Christ’s
acts:
Moving from the more generic/purposeful, to the more historical/priestly images, we can see the roles of the Father and Son manifest this difference of focus:
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. 17 “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. (John 3.16f) [Very generic, purposeful statements]
“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? (Rom 8.32) [alludes to the ‘turning over to death’ action of God, but no sacrificial notions yet]
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5.8) [‘death’ gets us closer, but still no ‘sacrifice’ notion.]
“By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (I John 4.9) [Propitiation is very sacrifice oriented, but the statement still is a bit generic as to the separate roles.]
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me. (Gal 2.20) [He the generic ‘delivered up’ is used of Jesus, but in a substitutionary way—‘for me’]
“I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me, 15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 “And I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they shall hear My voice; and they shall become one flock with one shepherd. 17 “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. 18 “No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” (John 10.14ff) [A very specific statement that it was Christ’s choice to die, even though it was at the commandment of the Father.]
“the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father (Gal 1.4) [A specific statement of Christ’s initiative, and for the purpose of deliverance]
And, when we begin to move into the more specific work of Jesus as Offerer, we see more explicit statements that He was also the Offering:
“just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Eph 5.2) [Here Jesus is both priest and offering/sacrifice]
“For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest,
holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the
heavens; 27 who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up
sacrifices, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people,
because this He did once for all when He
offered up Himself. (Heb 7.26ff) [Christ as both priest and offering]
“how much more will the
blood of Christ, who
through the eternal Spirit offered Himself
without blemish to God (Heb 9.14) [Christ specifically is the offerer, and is Himself the
offering—with a detailed reference to sacrificial ‘blood’, God being the
recipient]
“but He, having offered
one sacrifice for sins for all time (Heb 10.12) [Christ as Priest, only one act
of sacrifice needed]
“but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been
manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice
of Himself. 27 And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once
and after this comes judgment, 28 so Christ
also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall
appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who
eagerly await Him
(Heb 9.26ff) [Very explicit reference to Christ as Priest and sacrificial offering,
with clear reference to substitution.]
Now, we obviously have an interesting problem here—how is a priest going to kill himself, and still somehow be able to finish the ritual (e.g., sprinkling the blood, carrying the blood into the sanctuary, cutting/boiling/eating the meat, burning portions of it, disposing of the ashes, etc.)?
And, compound this difficulty with the fact that the death of Christ is the fulfillment of several different sacrifices in the OT background (all of which required some post-death priestly activity):
1. The initial Passover sacrifice, which resulted in freedom for Israel from Egypt (1 Cor 6:5-8)
2. The Covenant Inauguration sacrifice of Exodus 24 --but for the New Covenant (Mk 14.22-25; 1 Cor 11.25; Heb 9)
3. The Peace/Communion offerings (1 Cor 10.14-22)
4. The Sin offering (Rom 8.3)
5. Burnt offerings (Hebrews 10)
6. The Red Heifer cleansing offering of Numbers 19 (Heb 9.13-14)
7. The Day of Atonement offering (Heb 9.1-12; 10.19-25)
Roger Beckwith points out that true forgiveness required (under the images of the OT system) someone to take blood into the “true” Holy of Holies:
“The true Holy of
Holies, into which Christ entered at his day of atonement, was heaven (Heb.
9:23-8). And that is where we too can now boldly draw near, through faith in
his blood (10:19-25). Heaven is the scene of
his priesthood (8:1-5), of which this epistle, unlike the rest of
the NT, says so much. But it was on earth,
essentially, that his sacrifice took place. The epistle lays great stress on the importance, in Christ's sacrifice,
of his death (Heb. 2:9,14; 9:15-17, 22, 25-28; 13:12, 20). All that was costly in the sacrifice-the part of the
donor and the victim-took place at the cross; there remained only the priestly
part-the presentation of the sacrifice to God by an acceptable mediator-and
we are probably to understand that Christ performed this at his ascension, the
time when, as man, he entered his Father's presence in the true Holy of Holies.
We are told in 8:3 that he 'offered' (prosphero)
something there, and this probably refers to the sprinkling or 'offering' of
the blood in the Holy of Holies by the high priest on the Day of Atonement
(Heb. 9:7,21-26; cf. 12:24), a typical action fulfilled by Christ, perhaps by
simply 'appearing in the presence of God for us' (9:24). Once he had appeared there, his sacrifice was over.
“ [STB:134]
The Book of Hebrews consistently argues two points about the Priestly requirements of any adequate remedy for our need (vis-à-vis atonement—there are also needs relative to New Covenant, Mediator, Victor over Evil, etc.):
1.
The priest must be a morally perfect
human himself (which leaves us out)
2. The offering must be greater than simple animals (indeed, adequate somehow for everything in the universe!!—cf. Heb 9.23 and Col 1.20) , and morally perfect (which leaves us out again)
What this
implies, of course, is that we (a) EITHER have two different ‘perfect’
human-plus individuals; (b) OR have a human-plus figure that dies and then
comes back to life to finish the various sacrificial requirements (or, since
the OT rituals were ‘shadows’ and not the ‘realities’, it would be more
appropriate to say “to fulfill the actual spiritual requirements, foreshadowed
by the earthly rituals and images”).
But (a) has a major problem—the ethical and theological problem known as the “Righteous Sufferer”.
OT/Tanaach theology had a fundamental tenet that a Covenant God could NOT allow undeserved suffering to be unrecompensed. ‘Bad things’ were only supposed to recoil on ‘bad people’—not show up in the lives of ‘good people’. Indeed, much of the emphasis on the afterlife in later Judaism was due to reflection on the problem of the Unjust Suffering of the (allegedly) Righteous Israel, and the more general discussions of Undeserved Suffering are warp and woof of the problem of Evil.
And, in fact, part of the argument against Jesus was that God allowed Him to die such an ‘unrighteous death’. Jesus’ Cry of Dereliction (“my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?!”) was a quote from Ps 22, in which the Psalmist raised the ethical issue before God:
“The worshiper begins by expressing
the darkest mystery of his suffering, namely the sense of being forsaken by
God. It is a mystery because it appears to be rooted in a contradiction, namely
the apparent contradiction between theology and experience. Theology, based
upon the tradition and experience of the past, affirmed unambiguously that
trust (the verb is used three times, for emphasis, in vv 5–6) resulted in
deliverance. Indeed it was of the essence of
the covenant faith that those who trusted in the holy God would not be
disappointed—hence the praise of Israel upon which God was enthroned
(v 4). But experience was altogether at odds with theology; whereas the fathers
trusted and were delivered, the essence of the psalmist’s complaint (“my
moaning,” v 2) was “the distance of my salvation.” The God of covenant, who was believed not to have deserted his faithful
people, appeared to have forsaken this worshiper who, in sickness, faced the
doors of death. And it was the sense of being forsaken by God that was the
fundamental problem—more grave than the actual condition of sickness
and the threat of death. [WBC, in.loc.]
Those around Jesus at the time, understood this to be a call to God for deliverance (but they thought He said ‘Elijah’). So, BBC at Mark 15.34ff:
“Jesus’
cry is an Aramaic quotation of Psalm 22:1,
which was sometimes recited at this time of day in prayer but
receives special significance when Jesus prays it. The first line would evoke
this whole psalm of the righteous sufferer—and its hope of divine vindication.
(Jesus probably quoted the psalm in Hebrew, as in Matthew; Mark uses the
Aramaic form because the saying was transmitted in an Aramaic milieu. “Eli” could
be mistaken for “Elijah” much more easily than “Eloi”; cf. 15:35–36.)…Members
of some circles of Jewish tradition believed that Elijah was sent like an angel to rescue famous teachers, in
addition to his role in the time of the end.” [BBC at the Matthew cite adds: “Because Elijah was thought never to have
died, some rabbis felt that he was sent on errands like the angels, often to deliver pious rabbis from trouble”]
The Psalmist of Ps 22, though, was praying for deliverance from death, in hopes of avoiding the suffering. For Jesus, on the other hand, this suffering, though horrific, was the very focus of His mission (as he had mentioned time and time again to His disciples). But the awesome experience of death was a chosen path, along which the truly Righteous Sufferer had to walk:
“What is most significant about the NT perspective (on Psalm 22) is the self-identification of Jesus with the suffering psalmist, for it provides an insight into one part of the meaning of the crucifixion. The sufferer of Ps 22 is a human being, experiencing the terror of mortality in the absence of God and the presence of enemies. In the suffering of Jesus, we perceive God, in Jesus, entering into and participating in the terror of mortality; he identifies with the suffering and the dying. Because God, in Jesus, has engaged in that desolation, he can offer comfort to those of us who walk now where the psalmist walked. But there is also a remarkable difference between the experience of the suffering psalmist and that of Jesus. The psalm concludes with praise because the sufferer escaped death; Jesus died. Yet the latter half of the psalm (vv 22–32) may also be read from a messianic perspective. The transition at v 22 is now understood not in deliverance from death, as was the case for the psalmist, but in deliverance through death, achieved in the resurrection. And it is that deliverance which is the ground of praise, both for the sufferer (vv 23–27) and for the “great congregation” (vv 28–32). [WBC, at Ps 22]
So option (a)—two perfect human-plus figures—has a major ethical/theological difficulty at the outset, in that the victim would need to be either delivered from death (rendering the sacrifice non-initiated) or recompensed after death (through resurrection of the Righteous, as promised in the OT). And, accordingly, we are led back to option (b)—one human-plus figure who is true-victim (fully dying), resurrected, and then who completed the priestly and mediator functions.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
So, what we have seen so far is that:
So, a death (as long as it was very, very real), followed by resurrection, would be in perfect keeping with the religious requirements outlined by God in the OT/Tanaach. Not only would the return-from-death not be in violation of the Law, it would actually be required by the larger demands/promises of future, thoroughgoing, cosmic salvation.
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3. The issue of pain
When we get to this issue (which seems to be the main issue for you), we have to focus again on the actual “requirements” of the sacrifice primarily, and then ask questions about ‘emotional pain’ or ‘loss’.
The sacrificial terminology in the OT, of course, doesn’t speak of ‘pain’ but only of ‘cost’ and ‘value’. David would not offer something that wasn’t his own property, or something that did not cost him something. And we have noted above that the focus of sacrifice was in giving something important to God, and something which required trust in God’s future actions of recompense, blessing, etc. [The victim had to be unblemished and perfect (as a picture of ‘value’), but for reasons of compassion on the poor, the Lord ‘scaled’ the victim requirements on the basis of the economic situation of the individual (e.g., Lev 14).]
Hence, in the OT the loss was expected to be ‘temporary’, in that God would provide (and indeed, bless) the offerer in the future (not with the same, identical animal, of course)—although the future might be very, very far away. The loss would be very, very real (requiring strength of faith and will until the ‘future’ recompense/blessing would arrive), and would involve some ‘hardship’ or ‘self-denial’ or ‘anxiety’ in the interim.
When we get the NT, the victim becomes a conscious human individual (for which ANY death would only be temporary, I might add, because of the fact of pan-human future resurrection and continued consciousness after physical death) and so the emotional experience of the Offering Himself can be considered for the first time.
In this situation, we have to look at this from two vantage points: that of the Son (as Offerer, and as Victim), and that of the Father.
In the NT, when the victim becomes the very Son of God, the pain, terror, agony, and shame leaps to the foreground. The very Son of God—immaculate, compassionate, accustomed to pre-Incarnate peace and grandeur, love-loyal, depth-hearted, life-giver—is now going to die at the hands of unreasoning, hate-filled, ungrateful, omni-destructive, small-hearted creatures of mud, hair, and teeth…and, in the process, He will deliberately take on the accountability for their moral atrocities, before His Perfect and Holy Father God.
The motive for such an act was sheer love, but the Heart’s response to the requirements of this were couched in terms of pain:
In the days of his flesh, he offered up prayers and appeals with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his devotion to God. (Heb 5.7)
Taking Peter and the two sons of Zebedee with him, he began to be grieved and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to the point of death. Wait here and stay awake with me.” (Mt 26.37)
So he said to them, “I am deeply grieved, even to the point of death (Mr 13.34)
Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like large drops of blood falling on the ground (Luk 22.43)
“Now my soul is in turmoil, and what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No! It was for this very reason that I came to this hour. (John 12.27)
This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. (Acts 2.24f)
This death itself had an extra ‘load’ on it: it was a death as being
“accursed of God”, and carrying the full consequences of being the Only Law-breaker in the Universe (i.e., He ‘removed’ our law-breaking status,
somehow, and put it on Himself—cf 2 Cor
5). The apostle Paul makes this clear in Galatians, that “Christ redeemed us from the
curse of the Law, having become a curse for
us—for it is written, “Cursed
is everyone who hangs on a tree” It wasn’t just a ‘natural’ death—it was a
“punitive” death as well.
And, as an Offerer, there was no greater
offering that could be given than one’s life—no
possessions, no service, no labor would suffice. Jesus pointed this out in John
15.13:
“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”
As an Offerer, then, there was NOTHING
greater He (as the incarnate One) could give than ‘laying down of life’—the act
of dying. And the emotional glimpses we noted above of Jesus’ response to this
demonstrate the very real ‘pain’ associated with His voluntary death.
But wouldn’t the knowledge that He wouldn’t stay dead sort of nullify the pain of dying? Me genoito! (That’s Greek for “no way!”).
Think about it for a second—what possible significant diminishing of pain, agony, desolation, etc would some theoretical foreknowledge provide—WHILE IN THE AGONIES OF DYING?! It might help some (e.g., knowing that my foot pain will eventually go away helps me ‘put up with’ the discomfort, but the pain is still very, very ‘vocal’ every day!), but the biblical data above indicates that it wasn’t enough to help Jesus! Jesus knew and tried to teach his followers that He WOULD be raised from the dead, but that didn’t stop Him from crying, tears, anguish, agony, death-level grief, and the Cry of Dereliction. Dying is dying—it is unnatural, it is offensive to God, it is a moral stench, it is violation, it is existential rape—no matter WHO it happens to. And the more innocent and sensitive the Sufferer, the more likely its full terror and mocking violation will be felt…He had to drink this Cup…This suffering had an ultimate character to it, given the Ultimacy of the Sufferer, and the Ultimacy of the event itself.
And, btw, it’s here that the Superman analogy disconnects—there WAS kryptonite, and more than enough to drive Superman to death in pain and agony…How much good would the knowledge that “after I have suffered this agonizing death, I will be okay in the future” do while writhing in minute-by-agonizing-minute pain under the glow of green death?
But wouldn’t the pain of those few hours go away after He was risen from the dead? Probably not…
Depending on the nature of the pain, of course, some of it might NEVER go away. Emotional pain can be experienced over and over and over again, by simple memory recall.
According to the Scriptures, He still carries the nailprints in His hands…Can He look at them and not remember the experience of the Cross? Or His sufferings and rejection by His own (John 1.11)?
Indeed, we even have scriptural reason to believe all of His experiences of suffering are still ‘present to Him’, because of His ministry of solidarity:
Since then the children
share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same,
that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death,
that is, the devil; 15 and might deliver those who through fear of death were
subject to slavery all their lives. 16 For assuredly He does not give help to
angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham. 17 Therefore, He had to
be made like His brethren in all things, that He
might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation
for the sins of the people. 18 For since He
Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the
aid of those who are tempted. (Heb 2.14f)
For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been
tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. (Heb 4.15)
These passages suggest that Christ is currently able to sympathize with our sufferings, that He can somehow still ‘know what it is like to hurt’, that He can ‘weep with those who weep’…This requires Him to have a current knowledge/memory of the emotional pains of suffering, betrayal, desolation, abandonment, persecution, slander etc. This ministry of His, of “I know exactly what you are experiencing right now, friend” requires the emotional memories and feelings to be ‘available’ (if not omni-present, given the numbers of people bringing these trials to him each day!) in order to succor His needy.
His sacrificial death/suffering was ‘once for all’, but the memory and emotional experience of that will be forever with Him. [He certainly still remembered it by the time of the writing of Revelation—He identified Himself to John as the One “who died”.] It is not the dominant aspect of His life, of course, since the Father exalted Him because of His obedience and commitment, in spite of his degradation and suffering (Phil 2.9ff; Hebrews 2.9; 12.2).
So, when we factor in the hyper-reality of His suffering on the Cross, and the ever-present residual emotional memory of that experience, we get a very sobering view of the cost of the Cross to the Lord.
As for the Father’s experience of the Cross, it is even easier for me to understand how His heart would carry this forever—even in both directions of time, through anticipation and through memory (depending on how He ‘experiences’ time, of course)…As a father myself, biblical and personal experiences make sense of this for me.
I have reflected on this at a number of places in the Tank already, but let me summarize some of the argument on this again.
“And while He was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the
twelve, came up, accompanied by a great multitude with swords and clubs, from
the chief priests and elders of the people. 48 Now he who was betraying Him
gave them a sign, saying, “Whomever I shall kiss, He is the one; seize Him.” 49
And immediately he went to Jesus and said, “Hail, Rabbi!” and kissed Him. 50
And Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you have come for.” Then they came and
laid hands on Jesus and seized Him. 51 And behold, one of those who were with
Jesus reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest,
and cut off his ear. 52 Then Jesus *said to
him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up
the sword shall perish by the sword. 53 “Or
do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My
disposal more than twelve legions of angels? 54 “How then shall the
Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen this way?” (Matt 26.47ff)
The father was ready to
intervene—ready to dispatch the armies of heaven to rescue His beautiful Son
from the clutches of the traitors and the treacherous. But Jesus stayed the
course for us, and the Father watched and heard His betrayal, abandonment,
incrimination, abuse, humiliation, suffering, mocking, degrading public
execution—and the undoubtedly cacophonic laughter of the malignant one and his
followers. He heard His prayer of anguish from the Garden, wept at His cry from
the Cross, and was probably very, very quiet for a couple of hours that
afternoon…
No, our lives are more “of one piece” than we
realize. All of us can recall times of betrayal and rejection and hurt and
shock, and we can re-feel those very vividly. Why would we not believe that God
is even more in touch with His memories? This is not about weakness at all—my
pain is related to my depth and my sensitivity. The deeper, more authentic, and
more sensitive I grow, the greater capacity I have to both re-enjoy and
re-suffer the elements of my past. This is depth, not weakness. This is life, not morbidity. I have
no reason to believe that the God who grieves with pain in his heart over
pre-Flood human cruelty and atrocity (Gen 6.6), and who delights over His
people with shouts/singing (Zeph 3.17), is any less emotionally robust than I
am…(smile)
Now, let me also make just a brief
comment or two about the use of the adjective ‘infinite’ to describe aspects of
this.
There are two ways of looking at
this issue, depending on how you view the ‘quantitative’ aspect of sin:
So, under either scenario, the
sacrifice of Christ could/would be more than adequate, without it requiring to
be infinite in duration.
But, I must protest here, that talk
about ‘infinite’ and ‘finite’ aspects of sin and redemption leave me very
thirsty, epistemically. I have very little confidence in our ability to use
these adjectives in describing this amazing event—an incarnate Son of God,
more-than-human, carrying the sin of the world, in perfect obedience and in
perfect love, being shamefully executed by human political and religious
authority, and abandoned to this by His Father (even though by mutual
arrangement)—with any
level of appropriateness and precision. But, even with this reservation, any
discussion of the event in these terms still indicates that the sacrifice of
Jesus on the Cross was painful, meaningful, and supremely costly, regardless of
the duration of the actual process of dying.
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Let me try to summarize some of
these points:
What this leads me to conclude is:
I hope this helps, friend, and
thanks for the question (and sorry it took so long)…
Glenn miller, Nov/2000