Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Why Did Jesus Die?




He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?”
Mark 8:34-37

The most common (most frequent and crudest) explanation of Jesus' death on the cross is that God sent him to die for our sins. Someone had to pay for the sins of humanity. Jesus suffered so that I didn't have to. He was perfectly sinless and it was a perfect sacrifice.

That is a caricature of what is called the theory of "substitutionary atonement." I have deliberately used the caricature to make a larger point. In spite of the fact that it's the theology I grew up with, and it's still the most common theological understanding of the crucifixion, I am convinced it is wrong. It is wrong biblically, historically, morally, and theologically.

On Good Friday, Jesus was tried, and convicted, and tortured, and killed. It was a triumph for the powers of darkness, and there was nothing good about that Friday. Or so it seemed.

But in his death he exposed the moral bankruptcy of the Empire and the shallow religiosity of the chief priests and elders who collaborated with the oppressors. Good Friday is the story of a collision between the goodness of God in Jesus, and the evil of a violent empire.

Before we go any further, we need to clear up two major misunderstandings:

  • The Jews did not kill Jesus; the Romans did. 
  • He was not executed for blasphemy; he was executed for treason. 
The Jews did not kill Jesus. We know this as an absolute fact because they did not have the authority to carry out capital punishment. We also know this because if he had been sentenced to death by a Jewish court, he would have been stoned to death. The Romans were the only ones with the authority to kill him, and they did.

We know that the Romans executed Jesus for sedition because they crucified him. Crucifixion was a death reserved for those who committed treason against the empire. It was a form of state terrorism designed to torture its victims and terrify the populace. The Romans did it often so that the people were kept constantly aware of the consequences of defying the empire.

So why did Jesus die? And what does it mean?

I don’t believe that God sent Jesus to die. I don’t believe that it was God’s plan.

That’s partly because I think that speaking of God’s plan is too anthropomorphic. It imagines God as some sort of supernatural version of a human being. But it’s also morally suspect. It suggests that somehow God was sending Jesus on a suicide miss

Jesus died because he was completely faithful to God and his faithfulness collided with the sinfulness of humanity in the form of the Roman Empire. He died because he proclaimed the Kingdom of God as an alternative vision of how the world could be. Against the normalcy of violence, he proclaimed nonviolence. Against the normalcy of self-interest, he proclaimed self-sacrifice.

The commandment to love our enemies is about as subversive of what passes for normal as anything could possibly be. And two thousand years later, even those of us who claim to be his followers have a very hard time even imagining what that path looks like, let alone following it.


When he invited his followers to take us the cross, he invited them to follow the path of self-sacrificial love. And he promised that the way of self-sacrifice is also the way that leads to life.





Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 


*An original version of this post was first published on April 5, 2015


5 comments:

  1. I, also, do not resonate with substitutionary atonement, and I well-know God was in the business of forgiving sins long before Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. What, then, is the relationship between (1) Jesus' life, death, and resurrection and (2) the forgiveness of sins?

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  2. It is not the forgiveness of sin, it is the power of sin. Jesus death and resurrection said to all who are willing to hear: sin no longer has power. It was sin that caused the death of Jesus. Of the cruelest kind. Sins of violence, betrayal, denial, mockery, selling out to the highest bidder, etc. All of these conspired during that one week to lead to the cross. And none of them had any power in the end.

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  3. Yes, the Romans executed Jesus, but I think it was for political reasons, not treason. It looks to me that Pilate knew Jesus was innocent of the charges but was afraid the Jewish leaders would stir up a riot if he let Jesus go.
    Not sure that affects your argument, but an important distinction, IMHO.

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  4. "It is wrong biblically, historically, morally, and theologically." Don't see any research or really much here other than opinion and a little talk of self-sacrifice. More you describing what you're pushing away, then what you're replacing it with.

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  5. In my book of fictional conversations between God and me (called God Explains It All), God explains the reason for Jesus' death in this way: "Imagine all of my hesed made visible, made human just like you, walking around in plain sight and telling people the truth about what I’m like and what I want you to be like. It was more than some people could handle."

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