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Abductions
What was God doing about the cross?. It is really a search for understanding of one of the crucial events of human history, perhaps the crucial event. The entire New Testament focuses on the death, burial, and resurrection, events prior to and flowing from it, its theological significance and ethical implications. We are going to focus on the deep significance from the atonement, as explained from three perspectives: the dynamic, subjective, and objective views.
Dynamic view The dynamic view sees Christ's death and resurrection because the climax of a cosmic conflict with Satan and also the demonic forces of evil. Christ came because the Second Adam (Romans 5:18-19), winning the competition that Adam failed. He also came because the new Israel, faithfully keeping submitting to God as opposed to to Satan as the first Israel had done (Matthew 2:15; 4:4; etc.). Immediately after His baptism, the Spirit "drove" (Greek: ekballei) Him to the wilderness so that He might confront Satan (Mark 1:12). His victory there is only one of what must have been many battles, for Luke records that Satan left Him until "an opportune time" (Luke 4:13).
Throughout his ministry Jesus offered His capability to cast out demons as a demonstration that He was stronger than Satan. Although He described Satan as a "strong man," He claimed the opportunity to "bind" the strong man and despoil his possessions (i.e., those that were demon-possessed). His ability to cast out demons "by the finger of God" He presented as proof the arrival of God's kingdom in the world (Luke 12:20-22). Jesus got His disciples active in the warfare; their successful preaching, healing, and exorcism mission He afterward referred to as the fall of Satan from heaven (Luke 10:18).
Satan was behind the betrayal of Jesus by Judas (John 13:2, 27), his abandonment through the other apostles (Luke 22:31-32), along with his trial and murder (John 8:40-41, 44). Jesus recognized Satan as His principal enemy, and even before His death, He was so confident of victory that He spoke of it as a fait accompli (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11, 32). The moment before His death Christ Himself uttered the triumphant words, "It is finished" (John 19:30; compare Luke 12:50). The glorious resurrection is proof that His death was a victory and not a defeat (Revelation 3:21).
In his confrontation with false teaching at Colossae, Paul is definitely the cross and resurrection as a conquer spiritual enemies. The Colossians were vulnerable to being deceived by a syncretistic combination of Judaistic legalism, Hellenistic philosophy, and Eastern mysticism. Apparently the heretical teachers are not advocating a rejection of Jesus, however they denied Him the primacy and only intermediary beings. "Go beyond Jesus Christ to greater realities," they might have taught. Paul replies that there is nothing beyond Jesus Christ, in whom God's fullness dwells. He it really is Who "disarmed the powers and authorities, [making] a public spectacle of these, triumphing over them by the cross" (Colossians 2:15).
Not just did Christ conquer Satan, demons, principalities, and powers. Also, he conquered death (Acts 2:24; Revelation 5:5-6). Paul uses militaristic terms to talk about the resurrection, e.g., "destroyed" and "victory" (1 Corinthians 15:24-26, 54-56).
Because Christ has triumphed as our representative, we be part of His triumph (hence the super-conquerors of Romans 8:37). In Ephesians 4:8 Paul applies Psalm 68:19 to Christ's triumph, picturing Christ as a conquering general returning to Rome for any victory parade: "When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men." The ensuing passage explains how the gifts He gave are the offices for building up the church. The captives are bypassed, but Colossians 2:15 seems an appropriate commentary.
In 2 Corinthians 2:14, Paul states that "God... always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him." In this instance the apostles (see 1 Corinthians 4:9), and possibly all Christians, are probably the type of following along behind--themselves conquered, and yet joyously sharing in the victory celebration. Our struggle against Satan and demonic forces continues (Ephesians 6:12). Because He is victorious, we also can be victorious (Revelation 3:21; 1 John 2:14-15; 4:4; 5:4-5).
Subjective view It's true that we are the subjects of His daring rescue (Colossians 1:13-14), but we also participate. This is the subjective nature from the atonement: it transforms us. When we are united with Christ through faith-repentance-baptism, God's Spirit begins the whole process of transforming us from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18).
The Spirit, Himself the guarantee that beginning will reach its intended end (Ephesians 1:13-14), begins to produce His fruit within our hearts (Galatians 5:22-23) as we cooperate by "walking inside the Spirit" and being "led by the Spirit" (Romans 8:4, 14; Galatians 5:16). The metamorphosis isn't automatic; it takes constant mental concentration once we count ourselves dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:11). Additionally, it requires continual moral striving, once we refuse to let sin dominate us, yielding the members of our bodies to righteousness instead of to sin (Romans 6:12-13).
This is a battle we fight, yet Paul assures us, "[S]in could have no dominion over you" (Romans 6:14). The struggle results in holiness and the end is eternal life (Romans 6:22). When Christ returns, at the eschaton, the Spirit will have performed His are employed in us: "[W]e shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2).
Though this really is work that changes us from the inside and in which we ourselves participate, the credit still belongs to God, because it is His work being done in us and thru us. He is the one that will bring it to completion on that day (Philippians 1:6). Meanwhile, we image Christ these days. He was our representative within the cosmic conflict; we are His representatives within the existential struggle against the world, the flesh, and also the Devil.
Objective view Yet Christ's death is a lot more than what he did for (hyper) us (see Mark 14:24; Luke 22:19-20) and what he is doing in (en) us (see Colossians 1:27). Additionally, it involves what He did instead of (anti) us (see Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45)---the objective view of the atonement. In fact, many believe that the substitutionary nature of the atonement is the most important aspect of all.
Several types of the substitutionary atonement result from Genesis. The word used in 1 John 3:12 to spell it out Cain's murder of his brother is the word for "slaughter" (Greek: esphaxen), as in the offering of a sacrifice. It has led some to view the earth's first murder, recorded in Genesis 4:8, because the offering of a substitute sacrifice. In essence, Cain may have said, "So, You didn't like my vegetables as a possible offering? Let's see how You like THIS! (slash)." The murder certainly involved the shedding of his brother's blood, for this cried out from the ground against the perpetrator (Genesis 4:10).
Once the angel stops Abraham from stabbing Isaac to death, Abraham finds a ram caught inside a nearby thicket that he can offer in place of (Septuagint: anti) his son (Genesis 22:12-13). The passage assumes that some sacrifice should be offered, and the one is replaced by the other.
abductions - More than a hundred years later, when Joseph's testing of his brothers created a crisis situation involving the enforced servitude of Benjamin, Judah stepped forward and freely offered himself as an alternative for his brother (Genesis 44:18-34, especially not the Septuagint's use of anti in v. 33). In this case also, some substitute must be provided. There was no potential for mere escape from the demands of the master.
Yet all three of these are one-for-one substitutions, just like the "eye-for-eye" provisions of the Law. Christ's sacrifice (one for most) is more like the sin offering in behalf of all the people or the sacrifice with the goat on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 4:13-21; 16:15-19). He could be the "atoning sacrifice for our sins, rather than only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2). He could be the "Lamb of God, Who removes the sins of the world" (John 1:29).
One for your world? How can that be just? Its justice depends on the identity of the Sacrifice. Just one human deserves infinite punishment because of sins. Adding the punishment of one other human adds no more than was there already (for infinity plus infinity equals infinity). The same is true for "the sins of the [whole] world." The slaughter from the Infinite One for these sins beings one infinity into connection with the other--just payment.
Our sins brought us underneath the curse of the law, but Christ became a curse for us by hanging on the tree (Galatians 3:10-14). Because of Christ's death, God was able to effect what Luther called a "happy exchange": i was the subjects of God's just condemnation, the objects of His righteous wrath, but the sinless Christ became "sin" for us, in order that we might become God's righteousness by Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). God established Him as the propitiation, the appeasement, so that the all-consuming fire of His wrath may be diverted to Him as opposed to destroying the rest of us humans (Romans 3:25). As Isaiah said, "The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6).
Must we choose? resurrection - Dynamic, subjective, and objective--must we select from them? No! By its very nature the atonement is greater than any one metaphor or perspective can contain. We have to always be answering, "Yes, and much more besides." Like astronomers surveying the universe, the greater we study it, the harder vast it becomes. Our wherewithal to fully comprehend its dimensions will not nullify what we can understand, nor will it rob us of the amazement we sense at what we know was accomplished.
