AriasShreve636

Resurrection

What was God doing around the cross?. It constitutes a search for understanding of one of the crucial events of history, perhaps the crucial event. The entire New Testament focuses on the death, burial, and resurrection, events before and flowing from it, its theological significance and ethical implications. We'll focus on the deep significance with 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 as well as the demonic forces of evil. Christ came because the Second Adam (Romans 5:18-19), winning the contest that Adam failed. He also came since the new Israel, faithfully keeping submitting to God instead of to Satan as the first Israel tried (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 was clearly 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 being a demonstration that He was stronger than Satan. Although He described Satan being a "strong man," He claimed a chance to "bind" the strong man and despoil his possessions (i.e., people who were demon-possessed). His ability to cast out demons "by the finger of God" He presented as proof the arrival of God's kingdom on earth (Luke 12:20-22). Jesus got His disciples active in the warfare; their successful preaching, healing, and exorcism mission He afterward described 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 by the other apostles (Luke 22:31-32), in addition to his trial and murder (John 8:40-41, 44). Jesus recognized Satan as His principal enemy, and also before His death, He was confident of victory he spoke of it as a fait accompli (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11, 32). As soon as 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 would be 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 triumph over spiritual enemies. The Colossians were in danger of 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, but they denied Him the primacy in favor of 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's Who "disarmed the powers and authorities, [making] a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross" (Colossians 2:15).

Not only did Christ conquer Satan, demons, principalities, and powers. Younger crowd 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 share with 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 being a conquering general returning to Rome for a victory parade: "When he ascended on high, he led captives as part of his train and gave gifts to men." The ensuing passage explains that the gifts He gave will be 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 thru us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him." In this case the apostles (see 1 Corinthians 4:9), and possibly all Christians, are probably those types of following along behind--themselves conquered, yet joyously sharing in the victory celebration. Our struggle against Satan and demonic forces continues (Ephesians 6:12). As they 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 with the atonement: it transforms us. If we are united with Christ through faith-repentance-baptism, God's Spirit begins the entire process of transforming us from one level of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18).

The Spirit, Himself the guarantee this beginning will reach its intended end (Ephesians 1:13-14), actually starts to produce His fruit inside 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 as we count ourselves dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:11). It also requires continual moral striving, even as refuse to let sin dominate us, yielding the individuals our bodies to righteousness instead of to sin (Romans 6:12-13).

It is a battle we fight, yet Paul assures us, "[S]in will have no dominion over you" (Romans 6:14). The struggle contributes to holiness and the end is eternal life (Romans 6:22). When Christ returns, on the eschaton, the Spirit will have performed His work in us: "[W]e shall be like Him, for we shall see Him while 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 through us. He is the one that will bring it to completion on that day (Philippians 1:6). Meanwhile, we image Christ nowadays. 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 much more than what he did for (hyper) us (see Mark 14:24; Luke 22:19-20) and what he does 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 look at the atonement. In fact, many think that the substitutionary nature of the atonement is the central aspect of all.

Several types of the substitutionary atonement come from Genesis. The word used in 1 John 3:12 to describe Cain's murder of his brother will be the word for "slaughter" (Greek: esphaxen), as with the offering of a sacrifice. This has led some to view our planet's first murder, recorded in Genesis 4:8, since the offering of a substitute sacrifice. In effect, 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, because of it cried out from the ground against the perpetrator (Genesis 4:10).

When the angel stops Abraham from stabbing Isaac to death, Abraham finds a ram caught in a nearby thicket that he can offer in place of (Septuagint: anti) his son (Genesis 22:12-13). The passage assumes that some sacrifice has to be offered, and the one is replaced from 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 usage of anti in v. 33). In this instance also, some substitute needed to be provided. There was no chance of mere escape from the demands of the master.

Yet all three of these are one-for-one substitutions, similar to the "eye-for-eye" provisions of the Law. Christ's sacrifice (one for many) is more like the sin offering in behalf of all of the people or the sacrifice of the goat on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 4:13-21; 16:15-19). He's the "atoning sacrifice for our sins, rather than only for ours, but also for the sins from the whole world" (1 John 2:2). He could be the "Lamb of God, Who eliminates the sins of the world" (John 1:29).

One for that world? How can that be just? Its justice is dependent upon the identity of the Sacrifice. Just one human deserves infinite punishment as a result 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 with the Infinite One for these sins beings one infinity into contact with the other--just payment.

Our sins brought us under the curse of the law, but Christ was 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, however the sinless Christ became "sin" for us, so 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 could be diverted to Him rather than 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 choose from them? No! By its very nature the atonement is more than any one metaphor or perspective can contain. We must always be answering, "Yes, and much more besides." Like astronomers surveying the universe, the greater we study it, the greater vast it becomes. Our inability to fully comprehend its dimensions doesn't nullify what we can understand, nor does it rob us of the amazement we sense at that which you know was accomplished.