Edgework

9. God’s Judgment is Restorative, not Punitive: It is common in our modern context to equate judgment with condemnation. It is deeply engrained in our sense of justice that sin must be punished; that the divine ledger must in the end be balanced. In fact it is so imbedded in our mindset that we assume that even God cannot forgive unless a fixed penalty is paid; that God is subject to some universal philosophical notion of retribution. To use a human analogy, if David owes me a hundred dollars I cannot forgive that debt until someone pays it. So if David’s friend Oscar pays me the money owed I can then forgive David. But in that case it is not a debt forgiven because I have been paid the full amount. We should not equate debts paid in full with grace, mercy and forgiveness.

True forgiveness involves absorbing the debt, without payment, and pronouncing the matter settled. Psychologists tell us, and we all know from experience, that genuine forgiveness will not happen unless we are willing to absorb the pain inflicted or the debt owed. True forgiveness involves undeserved grace and mercy. That is the kind of forgiveness that God offers humankind.

So when the Bible speaks about God’s judgment we should not be thinking about what steps God is taking to make sure people are appropriately punished for their sins. Instead we should be thinking about the steps God is taking to restore what has been broken and healing that which is not whole. Again, to use a human analogy, when I as a parent enter into a dispute between two of my children, my ultimate goal is not to make sure that both get the exact punishment they deserve for disturbing the peace. I enter the fray with the goal of restoring a sense of order and mutual respect. If I simply punish my children but fail to bring restoration and reconciliation I have not rendered appropriate judgment.

So when thinking about atonement we should think of God as entering the scene to make things right, not to ensure that every sin is thoroughly punished. Ultimately his judgments are about reconstituting our broken world through the fire of his love. God is not out for punishment but for restoration. That is the message that Jesus brought with him to the world in which we live.

10. God is Love: One of the first Bible verses I learned in Sunday School was I John 4:8 which clearly proclaims that “God is Love” – pure and simple. Much ink has been spilled over the years to counter such a simplistic view of God. Some have said that it would be more correct to say that “God is will” – that because he is sovereign his “will” is always done, even when we can’t understand it. Others have postulated that it is more accurate to say that “God is a perfect balance between love and wrath” – as though God has a split personality. So when conditions are right he shows his unfailing love but when he is crossed or disobeyed he is prepared to show his wrath by punishing people. That is why we must have a healthy “fear of God” because we can never be quite sure which nature of God will show up when.

It should be pointed out that there is no biblical reference stating that “God is wrath.” This alerts us to the fact that what is perceived as the wrath of God is of a lesser order than the truth that “God is love.” Instead of trying to find a perfect balance between love and wrath when thinking about God, we do well to proclaim that God’s love is intrinsic to his character and that wrath is our perception of the acts of God in response to sin. But even in this response it is not as though God is going about actively investigating, arresting, convicting and punishing sinners. It is more helpful to understand that we experience the negative consequences of sin as the “wrath of God.” It is fair to say that wrath is a metaphor for God’s consent (giving us over) to the consequences of sin even though some texts seem to imply that God is punishing for the sake of punishing.

Much more could be said about this topic, and it will no doubt resurface as we proceed. But we will be taking the simple truth that “God is Love” as our starting point for reflecting on what the biblical notion of atonement is all about. That is to say that we will assume from the outset that God is not motivated by an uncontrollable anger to punish offenders. We will be assuming that he is eternally exercising his nature of love in seeking and saving those who are lost. Like the loving father in the parable of the prodigal son, God’s primary impulse is to reconcile all that has been broken.

11. God’s Redemptive Process Involves the Entire Jesus Event: Some theories of atonement focus almost entirely on the terrible death of Jesus, as if to say that the only reason Jesus came to earth was to die. It is said that all that precedes his death takes place to prepare him to be the perfect sacrifice God the Father required to save people from eternal damnation. In a similar way, the resurrection of Christ is frequently relegated to the sidelines, as if to say that atonement was completed on the cross alone.

As we approach the topic of the redemptive work of Christ, we will be assuming that we need to keep in view the entire Jesus event in order to understand its full import: his birth, life, teachings, death and resurrection. We affirm that every aspect of this larger story informs and impacts our understanding about how Jesus saves. Any ideas or theories about atonement that do not consider the whole picture will be considered suspect.