During the holiest of seasons for Christians around the world, thoughts turn to the Cross on which Jesus died on Friday before his tomb was empty on Sunday. At candlelit Maundy Thursday evening observances of the Lord’s Supper or solemn Friday morning remembrances of Good Friday, Christians have been led to contemplate the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.
In many of these services, the emphasis on Jesus’ crucifixion centers on the most popular interpretation of the event — namely, the substitutionary atonement for sin which his death provides for all those who trust in his work on the Cross. According to this view, he who was without sin took upon himself the sins of the world’s peoples — my sins and yours — and suffered a humiliating, horrible death so we might be forgiven and escape the “wages of sin” (see Romans 6:23).
Robert Sellers
Beloved hymns that were likely used in these Holy Week services reflect this theory of atonement in their lyrics. “The Old Rugged Cross” recalls: “On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame; and I love that old cross where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain.”
“At the Cross” inquires: “Alas, and did my Savior bleed and did my Sovereign die? Would he devote that sacred head for sinners such as I?”
“Down at the Cross” exults: “Down at the Cross where my Savior died, down where from cleansing from sin I cried, there to my heart was the blood applied; Glory to his name.”
“At Calvary” confesses: “Years I spent in vanity and pride, caring not my Lord was crucified, knowing not it was for me he died on Calvary.”
These lyrics draw attention to the Cross as God’s provision of forgiveness and salvation available to all who personally believe in the sacrificial death of Jesus for them. Everyone who believes and confesses Jesus and his atoning death on the Cross can experience “at-one-ment” with God.
That this viewpoint is a bedrock belief for conservative Christians was illustrated in a 2006 article by Mark Dever in Christianity Today whose cover proclaimed “No Substitute for the Substitute.” Dever, Calvinist pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., president and founder of the “healthy church” ministry 9Marks and a council member of The Gospel Coalition, wrote: “If we have any assurance of salvation, it is because of Christ’s atonement; if any joy, it flows from Christ’s work on the Cross. … Apart from Christ’s atoning work, we would be forever guilty, ashamed and condemned before God.”
Another viewpoint
Although this interpretation of the meaning of the Cross can be found elsewhere in Scripture, particularly in Paul’s writings, it is not clearly taught in the Gospels. Marcus Borg, New Testament scholar and prolific writer, explains in Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary:
Seeing Jesus’ death primarily within the framework of substitutionary atonement goes far beyond what the New Testament says. Strikingly, (the) story of Jesus’ death (in Mark, the earliest Gospel), says nothing about a substitutionary sacrifice. In the other (later) Gospels, it is only if one reads them within the framework of substitution that one finds the notion there. … Moreover, it is important to realize that the language of sacrifice does not intrinsically mean substitution. This is true in ordinary language as well as in the Bible. In our everyday use of the word, we speak of soldiers sacrificing their lives for their country and of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi and others sacrificing their lives for the causes about which they were passionate. In this sense, was Jesus’ death a sacrifice? Yes. But affirming this does not thereby imply that they and he died as a substitute for somebody else.
“Ever since the Reformation, the substitutionary atonement theory of the meaning of the Cross has been dominant, especially among evangelical Protestants.”
Dan Stiver, my former faculty colleague at Logsdon Seminary, in his valuable book Life Together in the Way of Jesus Christ: An Introduction to Christian Theology acknowledges that ever since the Reformation, the substitutionary atonement theory of the meaning of the Cross has been dominant, especially among evangelical Protestants. Yet the idea was not central during the first millennia of the Christian church but rather was initially promoted in a book in 1097 by Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury. As Stiver explains, the theory was “rooted in the Medieval context of honor, where satisfaction must be given if someone’s honor had been offended.”
Progressive Baptist professor and author John Killinger, however, does not accept this theory, as I wrote in an earlier published article.
Killinger rejects this idea that God’s offended honor demanded satisfaction, like the ego of some insecure potentate or president. In fact, he says the explanation made no sense to him from the time he was a child. Instead, Killinger posits what God required of Jesus was not his dying for the atonement of sin, but rather what God requires of everyone, namely, “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God,” a reference to Micah 6:8.
This explanation for the meaning of the Cross is not only rejected by progressive theologians but also by evangelical author Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy. In the work, which is said to have “revolutionized the way that we think about true discipleship,” Willard talks about “vampire Christians” — those interested in the blood of Jesus but little else. In that regard, I recall Mel Gibson’s 2004 movie The Passion of the Christ, first rated NC-17 for its intense violence and blood but later reduced to an R rating, making it more accessible to Christians who helped it attain more than $600 million in ticket sales, despite its gore.
The moral example theory
If Killinger is correct that what God required of the human Jesus was to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God, then an alternative view of the meaning of the Cross seems relevant, even required. This perspective is known as the moral example theory, which Stiver explains:
“An alternative view of the meaning of the Cross seems relevant, even required.”
Close to the time of Anselm, another great Medieval theologian, Abelard (1079-1142) … proffered another, more subjective model in the early 12th century. … He was concerned that the objective nature of Anselm’s model did not do justice to the way that Christ moved people to follow him by consideration of his love and sufferings. So his view emphasizes more a change in people than in God.
This view of what the Cross of Jesus means was revived during the Protestant Reformation by an Italian theologian named Faustus Socinus. The Global Dictionary of Theology notes that “Socinus’s view, which has come to be known as the moral example theory, emphasizes that the true value of Jesus’s death is … that it offers a perfect example of self-sacrificial dedication to God.”
This explanation of the meaning of the Cross, rather than substitutionary atonement, underscores what Jesus said to his disciples — and to all his subsequent followers — in his discourse in the Upper Room: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
The Cross provides a moral example of great love for others. It shows Jesus was doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with God. The Cross also challenges the followers of Jesus to imitate his life.
Imago Christi
Imago Christi, the imitation of Christ, is an ancient spiritual discipline that we are challenged, by the Cross, to perform. “What would Jesus do?” is not simply a question to ask when we are faced with a difficult moral dilemma. Rather, it is the question that should shape the way we live in all circumstances, a sacrificial way of loving and serving others inspired by the example of the Cross.
In this “way of the Cross,” followers of Jesus are challenged to become disciples who give themselves to others — as Willard suggests — rather than merely being grateful recipients of God’s forgiveness and grace.
Borg concludes his discussion of the substitutionary atonement theory with this summary:
I think it’s bad theology because it elevates one understanding of Jesus’ death above all others and makes it normative. Moreover, it says something both limiting and negative about God. It limits God by saying God can forgive sins only if adequate payment is made. Is God limited in any way? Is God limited by the requirements of law? It is negative in that in it God demands a death — somebody must die. It implies that the death of Jesus, this immeasurably great and good man, was God’s will, God’s plan for our salvation.
“Is saying that Jesus died as God’s plan for saving us consistent with the character of the divine we see in Jesus?”
To Borg’s evaluation of substitutionary atonement I might append a question about the character of God. Is saying that Jesus died as God’s plan for saving us consistent with the character of the divine we see in Jesus — “the human face of God”? Don’t we love the story of Jesus’ forgiveness of the woman caught in adultery when he told her he didn’t condemn her to death? Don’t we ourselves cling to the good news that assures us we receive God’s unmerited love rather than getting what we deserve?
Singing our faith
As a part of the Maundy Thursday service at my church this year, we sang the version of “Just As I Am” written by Travis Cottrell. The chorus of Cottrell’s reimagining of this beloved hymn text by Charlotte Elliott (1789-1871) has the following words: “I come broken to be mended, I come wounded to be healed. I come desperate to be rescued, I come empty to be filled. I come guilty to be pardoned by the blood of Christ the Lamb, and I’m welcomed with open arms, praise God, just as I am.”
While the last two lines of this chorus — “I come guilty to be pardoned by the blood of Christ the Lamb, and I’m welcomed with open arms, praise God, just as I am” — reflect the substitutionary atonement theory of the Cross, the first four lines can be said to reflect the moral example theory. Cottrell writes: “I come broken to be mended, I come wounded to be healed. I come desperate to be rescued, I come empty to be filled.”
Mending, healing, rescuing and filling are very human needs, not necessarily spiritual in nature. As we consider the Cross as a dramatic enacted parable of spectacular sacrificial love, it is possible that our brokenness, our woundedness, our desperation and emptiness can find solace, comfort and restoration.
“We are challenged by the moral example of the Cross to respond redemptively to those around us who are broken, wounded, desperate and empty.”
The example of what Jesus was willing to suffer rather than take up a sword to defend himself or “call ten thousand angels” to provide a “shield of protection” around him and his disciples can inspire and motivate us to change our way of living.
Moreover, we are challenged by the moral example of the Cross to respond redemptively to those around us who are broken, wounded, desperate and empty. Following this ultimate example of the power of love demonstrated for others, we might find the courage to mend, heal, rescue and fill the lives of God’s little ones who are all around us.
Another old hymn that may not have been sung in many services this Holy Week, but should have been, is Fanny Crosby’s “Jesus, Keep me Near the Cross.” The words of the first three verses can be understood to reprise this moral example understanding of the Cross:
Jesus keep me near the Cross, there a precious fountain, free to all, a healing stream, flows from Calv’ry’s mountain.
Near the Cross, a trembling soul, love and mercy found me; there the Bright and Morning Star shed his beams around me.
Near the Cross! O Lamb of God, bring its scenes before me; help me walk from day to day with its shadow o’er me.
The Cross as moral example is a healing stream where trembling souls can see the ultimate expression of love and mercy. On the Cross, a most horrific and violent form of execution designed by empires to safeguard their power, Jesus showed his followers another way — a way of nonviolent self-sacrifice, of love so amazing it was willing even to give its life as a model for others to imitate.
As followers of that way, we are reminded this sacred season of the year that we should live in the shadow of the Cross. In that way, our lives will not be crusading but cruciform. We will not desire to obtain power, rather we will be challenged to offer our lives, in a spirit of divine powerlessness, for others.
For the Cross is not about the forgiveness of sins but the call to discipleship and self-sacrifice.
Jesus, keep me near that cross.
Rob Sellers is professor of theology and missions emeritus at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, Texas. He is a past chair of the board of the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago. He and his wife, Janie, served a quarter century as missionary teachers in Indonesia. They have two children and five grandchildren.