It felt like a contest between “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” and “Love Is All You Need”—except it had very little to do with romance or music. But make no mistake, it was no trivial matter. The very essence and foundation of our faith was at stake. Or so we thought.
Why did Jesus have to die? It was that simple question that provoked all manner of debate among my professors, colleagues, friends, and parishioners. The answers given at the time (1970’s and 80’s) clustered around two basic assumptions: That divine justice required the payment of divine sacrifice; and the counter assumption that divine love was demonstrated by divine sacrifice. At first hearing, those assumptions may not sound like they differ all that much. But back in the day, the contrast between payment and demonstration, and between justice and love appeared huge with far reaching implications.
The highly esteemed and senior scholar Edward Heppenstall, for example, used to say, “The cross is more than just a naked demonstration of love.” He taught that the love of God, by itself, failed to explain what happened at the cross. He and a majority of bible students, both lay and professional, promoted a forensic or legal theory of atonement. That view held that the violent death of Jesus was a legal necessity in order for God to forgive sinners. I remember a Christian radio announcer phrasing the concept somewhat naively but elegantly: “Jesus did not die because he is a good person—although he is. Jesus did not die because he loves us—although he does. Jesus died in order to pay the price for our sins.”
In other words, love has nothing to do with it.
In direct contrast, Malcolm Maxwell said, “The cross did not change God’s mind. It changes ours.” For him the cross was all about revealing the character of a loving God, a Father who is already loving and does not need to be persuaded to forgive. The cross was not a legal maneuver to change the Judge’s verdict. He, his brother Graham, and others promoted the great controversy theory of the atonement. That view explained the cross not as punishment or appeasement, but as the pivotal moment in the war between good and evil; God and Satan. The conflict was not about changing God’s mind so that he would declare sinners innocent. It was about convincing the universe that God was innocent. The cross revealed decisively and for ever after that God is love.
In other words, love is all you need.
I tried for a long time to harmonize these two atonement theories. Both had strengths and weaknesses but should, I thought, be compatible on some level. Early on I favored the great controversy view because it was so all encompassing, progressive, and at the same time faithful to my Adventist roots. It provided an elegant solution to the problem of how God responds to evil and the human condition. It taught me that God really was the kind of person I could love by choice rather than obligation. God wins by being winsome, not by being coercive and cruel. And that, I discovered, opened the way to an alternative view of hell. In the end love would win, and evil would prove unsustainable and self-destruct. Fire and brimstone were then the apocalyptic symbols of that destruction, not the torture chambers of divine rage.
But the great controversy theory did have one glaring weakness, at least in the way it was sometimes presented. Its interpretation of atonement did not always deal convincingly with the sacrificial and legal language in the Bible. This led, in my experience, to a lack of assurance in salvation. The notion of justification, in particular, always seemed a bit weak. The Maxwells said the word meant to be put right with God. Because it was built on the same root as “righteousness,” justify had to mean more than just declaring that a sinner is not sinful, even though he still is. But what did “put right” actually mean? Did it mean objectively righteous? No, that would be arrogant and perfectionistic. Did it mean put right by a maturing process of growing in Christ? Yes, of course. But how is that different from being declared righteous? The answer given was that unlike the forensic version of justification, being put right included regeneration. But I had to ask (if only to myself), if justification includes regeneration or growing in Christ, how is that different from sanctification? And if it’s the same as sanctification, what benefit is justification and why does the Bible make a big deal out of it?
By contrast, a pure forensic theologian like Desmond Ford provided very clear answers to the question of justification and other issues. Unfortunately his clarity sometimes got him in trouble with the hierarchy—but that’s another story and one that has many sides to it. Whatever else people may have thought about him, he moved the conversation forward by going backward—to the Reformation view of justification: It is God’s work, finished at the cross, of making things right between God and us. Period. It is objective, completely outside of ourselves, and granted to us upon repentance, because Jesus died for us. Justification is therefore not a process. And it is not a God and me cooperative effort. It is a gift. So any subjective, ongoing experience called regeneration, growing in Christ, or sanctification, although an important result of justification, is not justification. For someone like myself who grew up with a strong sense of guilt, law, and perfection, a clear declaration of justification by the blood of Christ took a heavy load off.
The glaring weakness of the forensic view, of course, was that if taken to its logical extreme it made God out to be a legalist who had to satisfy a law. Many of the forensic people objected to that characterization, of course. But in their explanations, the law seemed to somehow be above God because he was required to satisfy it. The forensic view described a God who needed a loophole or legally binding exemption, by which he could forgive sinners. So although the Father might in some sense be considered generous by giving his only begotten Son. That generosity could seem twisted and insincere, especially if the cross was interpreted as the wrath of God falling on his own Son. In some presentations the whole loophole-substitutionary idea got so literal that God came off as downright terrifying, arbitrary, and even barbaric. I heard one church leader say that on the cross Jesus suffered what human beings born into sin actually deserve. I asked him if babies then “deserved” to be crucified. He said yes! I still don’t think he could have meant what he actually said. But sometimes human theories, words and even biblical interpretations fail us.
So on an intellectual level I knew the great controversy theory was right about God. I needed to know that the universe was being run by a good God who’s love and forgiveness was infinite and unconditional. You would think that would be enough in order to have the assurance of salvation. But it wasn’t. For awhile anyway, I needed the visceral and legal assurance that Martin Luther had when he read “the just shall live by faith.” (In general, recent scholarship supports Luther’s teaching on justification. But “living by faith” and “the faith of Jesus” may not mean precisely what Luther thought they meant at the time.)
I look back at those old discussions with nostalgia. But I’m also happy that we can continue to look forward. Although forensic ideas remain helpful to many, the pastors, scholars and laity I now know have moved on. Most acknowledge the loving character of God as their theological center of gravity. Even those who might quibble about Gods love and justice as if they are two things opposed to each other, still give love it’s due as the motive for Godlike behavior. The cross is also now more than ever regarded as the central and most important event-symbol in salvation history, something Paul argued for back in the first century. But even when using substitutionary language, most thoughtful bible students reject any implication that the Father God received any kind of satisfaction or change of heart by the death of Jesus. Sometimes even theologians win by being winsome.
But the more things change, the more they also stay the same. If you want to spark a debate, for example, try asking the following question in a university class or in a church discussion group: In view of the biblical approval of bloody sacrifices, wars, the conquest of Canaan, and brutal warrior heroes like David and Jehu, would you say that genocide or ethnic cleansing has occurred with God’s approval and even participation at times?
For those with a high regard for scripture this can be a particularly difficult question and one with serious political implications as well. It might seem counterintuitive, but questions like this give our perception of God’s character its greatest challenge and at the same time its greatest opportunity.
So the discussion still needs to go forward, even if the sharply defined divisions between old theories no longer exist. But we still need to know if love has anything to do with it. Can love still win by being winsome? And if good must use the methods of evil, is it still good? And how do we reconcile all that with the fact of religious violence past as well as present.
If we are to find reasonable and at the same time biblically authentic answers we cannot settle for easy answers or just ignore the difficult passages. In that regard, the next blog is entitled, “Sacrifices and other Forms of Religious Violence.”
