ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CUENet AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION DOGMATICS 2 LESSON 45 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 10 E. 22nd Street Suite 304 Lombard, IL 60148 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >> Thanks. That was extremely helpful. You mentioned three different ways of looking at atonement. Can you explain those to us? >> DR. DAVID SCAER: The question of the atonement has to do with really the question of Jesus' death. Many people, Christians or non-Christians, when they come face to face with the death of Jesus ask this kind of question: How could such a nice man suffer such an awful death? Or why would God allow such a nice man as Jesus to die this kind of a death? I think this is quite an ordinary question. It's a question we ask of ourselves. If we come down with a disease. If we have a horrible death in our family. If we lose our job. Have some family problems. We ask: Why has this difficulty come upon us? And the same question has to be asked in regard to the death of Jesus. Why do these calamities come upon the person of Jesus? I'm going to make reference again to the motion picture "The Passion." Because that really brought the question face to face with the audience. And I think many of us really didn't want to face this particular question. Because the answer might be that we are the ones who are responsible for the death of Jesus. You know, for a long time -- and it's been dismissed -- people have blamed Jews for the death of Jesus. Just recently Pope John Paul II made it quite clear that the Jews are not responsible for the death of Jesus. And of course, that's nothing new. Our Lutheran hymns in connection with Lent and Good Friday make it quite definite that it's not really the political forces that brought Jesus to his death. But it really was our sins. One idea that Jesus died was found in the rock star opera "Jesus Christ Superstar." That Jesus died because he was the pathetic leader of a political movement which got out of control. Another explanation for the death of Jesus is that he was a politically offensive person and deserved to die. Another explanation for the death of Jesus is that he was an extremely naive individual and that he could have done any number of things even if he couldn't perform them miraculously to avoid his death. He was not an easily recognizable figure. And he could have disappeared in the crowds and lived an ordinary life until he died a natural death. The three typical ways in which the death of Jesus is understood are known by these three phrases: We just explained the ***Onzelmic theory of the atonement or the vicarious satisfaction theory of the atonement or the payment theory of the atonement. That means some harm has been done. And on that account, a death is required. But I'm going to speak about the two other popular theories of the atonement. That theory, by the way, is predominant, the Onzelmic or payment theory is predominant in the Lutheran Church historically. And it is very prominent of the Roman Catholic Church. Whatever we may dislike about the Roman Catholic Church, its doctrine of the mass and payments keeps that idea. That a payment must be made for sins before the eyes of the people. We want to speak about two other theories of the atonement. One is the exemplars theory of the atonement. That as Christ by dieing left us an example of how we should live also our lives. And the Christos Victor theory. There's a great misunderstanding about this. Because since we strongly believe in the vicarious satisfaction, the payment theory of the atonement, the Onzelmic theory of atonement, that God must make things right by the death of Jesus, that we tend to deprecate the view that Christ died to give us an example. In fact, I think many Lutheran preachers have said the same. I think we have to reevaluate that. Even before Jesus spoke of his death, he said to his disciples that they are to take up their crosses and to follow him. And in the example that we discussed -- just discussed about the sons of Zebedee, James and John arguing about who was going to be first in the kingdom, Jesus said that they would have to be like him in giving up their lives for one another. They are to follow his example. And even the commandment that we should love our neighbors as ourselves teaches the exemplars theory of the atonement. Typically it's quite common to say we should love our neighbors as ourselves. Some people have argued quite typically that this really means that first we have to have self appreciation, confidence. And that we should love ourselves. And after we have loved ourselves, then we can love somebody else. I like to use the example of flying in an airplane. They tell you if you are flying over water and there's a difficulty or the oxygen masks come down, it says first of all fix the oxygen mask around your own face and then help the child or the other individual next to you. You should love your neighbor as yourself. Take care of yourself. But it means just the opposite. It means we should love the other person in place and instead of ourselves. We are not the center of our universe. If you listen to talk radio -- and I listen to it when I drive around -- I don't drive around as much as other people -- they say children around 4 or 5, maybe even younger, see themselves as the center of their universes. Now, I don't know if that's true. I'm not into education. But of course, that's true of us all. We are each a universe. And we are each at the center of our own universe. What is so distinctive about Jesus, he was not the center of his universe. Other people were at the center of his universe. Even those who were his enemies and disliked him. That was at the center of the universe. The exemplars theory of the atonement, that Christ gave us an example, does not specifically have to do with fulfilling the Ten Commandments perfectly. That's never going to happen. But it really means putting all other people in place of ourselves as the center of our attention. And that's why in the church we pray for our enemies. We pray for those who trespass against us. We forgive those who trespass against us even before they forgive us. And Jesus on the cross showed what the exemplars theory of the atonement was. He prayed "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." He actually prayed the Lord's Prayer over against other people. So we should be very cautious when we preach that we never say that Christ did not die to leave us an example. That's explicitly what he says. And that's what Peter says in his first epistle. The other theory of the atonement that has not received much attention until lately has been the Christos Victor theory of the atonement. This theory of the atonement has to do with Christ's victory over Satan. Now we can begin to handle this particular question: Did God have to send Jesus to die for us? It's quite commonly said that he did this as an act of his free will. Well, certainly God does nothing from an external compulsion from the outside. Nobody can put God into a corner. This, afterall, is the message of the book of Job. Whatever happens to us, we can't go and question God. God cannot be put on the witness stand. But in another sense there's a certain compulsion in God. And that is God had no choice about what he was going to do in Jesus. Because if he had not sent Jesus in order to redeem the world, he would have handed over the physical world to Satan. Satan is called by St. Paul the God of this world. Jesus calls him the prince of this world. That means he rules this world. If the atonement had not taken place, God would have ruled and reigned in heaven and Satan would have ruled on this earth. He would have been a god. We would have been his subjects. If he were not equal to God, he would at least come in as a close subordinate. He would have a realm all to himself. And part of the ministry of Jesus, particularly in the Gospel of Mark, is that Jesus is throwing out devils all over the place. And the devils know who he is. They call him by the proper title. "Son of God, have you come to torment us before the time?" They know exactly who he is. And they know his fate. In the early church for about a thousand years the Christos Victor theory, that is the theory that God conquers Satan, was predominant. But it was seen as a demonstration of the omnipotence that Jesus had. That as the Almighty God, as the creator of all things, he could vanquish everybody. That was the theory that was predominant in the church for about a thousand years. I think that's a very important and very valid way to look at Christ's work. But there's something very wrong with it. And that is Jesus conquers Satan not by a demonstration of his might but by a demonstration of his humility. He actually meets Satan on Satan's terms. It's been quite popular among Lutherans to compare the atonement and our salvation to a courtroom scene in which Satan is the prosecuting attorney and we are the defendants. And the prosecuting attorney -- the prosecuting attorney says, "This is the bill of indictment against these people who have sinned. I'm in hell. And these people have done the same thing. And they are going to hell." You know, you have to be very careful around two kinds of people: Prosecuting attorneys and people who work for the tax -- the internal revenue department. Because their ears -- they are trained always to look for infractions. If you make a glib remark in a social sense about how you've hidden some of your money, they pick it up. What is the prosecuting attorney supposed to do? The prosecuting attorney is actually examining case after case to see if there's an infraction. That's his job. To see that the law is fulfilled. Satan wants to make sure that we have fulfilled God. You can see this in children, by the way. If one child is sent to his room for misbehaving, that child wants another child also to have the same fate. If there ever have been even handed people, it's been children. Each has to have the same piece of cake. All get the same penalty. If you're a teacher and you favor one child over another by giving an A over a child that has the B, the child that has a B is going to say something. The Bible calls Satan the accuser. That's the prosecuting attorney. Now, you could simply say that God could say, "Away with you, Satan," as an act of demonstrating his power. "Away with you." But it wouldn't be the just thing. Still the penalty -- what we have done would stand. Jesus comes forward, pays the penalty which is against us, so Satan can no longer accuse us. Now, the marvelous thing about Luther's explanation to the second article of the Apostle's Creed is that he puts all of these things together. "I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity and also true man is my Lord who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sin. From death and from the power of the devil. Not with gold or silver. But with his holy precious blood and in his suffering and death that I may live under him and his kingdom and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and holiness." Now, what Luther says there, pardon the cliche, we have to unpack. There's the Onzelmic theory. Quite specifically -- quite specific in there that he purchased us not with money but with gold or silver (sic). And he purchased us from the power of Satan. He overcame Satan by this. And then comes the exemplars theory of the atonement. That we should live in his -- live under him in his kingdom and serve him in righteousness -- righteousness and innocence forever. That we actually live the life of Christ. It is the -- it is these two theories or two theories of the atonement which have received -- it's in our liturgy. It's in our confessions. And it's in our hymns. But these have received the least amount of attention in our preaching. It's in our hymns. "Let us ever walk with Jesus, follow his example pure." And when we speak about the death of Jesus, we don't speak about one attitude or theory of the atonement and exclude the other. But we mention all of these things together. We could mention a theory which is quite popular among some Protestants. And that's the penal theory of the atonement. That God wants to show how much he hates sin so he picks one man and punishes him severely to give us an example that maybe we shouldn't do the same thing. So he chooses Jesus. That's I guess they call it the penal theory of the atonement because that's the way our prison theory -- our prison system works. When people engage in heinous crimes, especially against children, we know that some states are increasing the amount of time spent in prison to get the message across that other people dare not do this in order to protect the other children. I think that might be a very good theory for the kind of life we live together. But God does not punish Jesus simply to show how angry he can get. Some of these -- some of these theories appear -- appear in other places in the Gospel. Because the Lord's Prayer has at the end -- and if we do not forgive other people their debts, neither will God forgive us our debts. And there's the story of the fellow who -- who was forgiven a huge loan. the story has to be hypothetical because nobody -- I mean, if you're in debt for a million bucks and haven't made a payment on your credit card, they're not going to give you another credit card. They'll give you a credit card if you keep making the payments. But he didn't go out and he didn't forgive somebody else. And then Jesus also told the parable of a strong man who was armed there in armor. And he speaks about another stronger man coming in and defeating him. Of course, Jesus is the strong man who comes into the realm of Satan and conquers him. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***