May 27, 2012
David Timbs
Did God will that Jesus should be sacrificed?
During
the years of the Babylonian Captivity, the Israelites had a great deal of time
to think and, above all, to ask some very fundamental questions. They wanted to
know why God had exiled them, was God still with them in their alienation; what
had become of their Covenantal status as God’s chosen people?
The
Templr priests, now fellow exiles, struggled to provide answers to these
questions. They did so by telling stories. They began with the Creation with all
of the original hopefulness through the ‘Fall’ to the original hopelessness
and despair of estrangement from God. The priests taught them that all of the
evil and suffering abroad in the human condition resulted from this fundamental
break in right relationship with God.
The
whole narrative of Israel’s salvation history is about the unfolding drama of
this personal relationship between God and the people. It is a story of sin,
alienation from God, punishment and restoration. It is a story of God never
abandoning the promise to and the relationship with humanity.
After
the catastrophic flood, the global inundation willed by God to punish humanity
for its downward spiral into sinfulness, Genesis recounts that God repented of
it all. God resolved that such a catastrophic punishment would never happen
again. God made a covenant to that effect with the survivors. This covenant is
known as the Noahide Covenant or Code and is recognised by many as the
fundamental law written into the human heart. The second of these laws is, You
shall not kill.
From
the beginning of the Patriarchal cycles, it was God who would be measure against
this divine command and it occasioned a whole subtext in Salvation History
namely, theodicy, or defending God
against the almost indefensible. How could God, the author of life be seen to be
one who not only allowed death but commanded killing. This strange, confronting
paradox has occasioned profound questions about the mind and motives of God.
Some examples of this will suffice: God’s attempt on the life of Moses the
messenger (Ex 4: 18-26); God orders the ethnic cleansing and mass extermination
of the enemies of Israel (Exodus/Joshua).
Even
deeper questions linger today about God’s mind and intention in permitting the
near extinction of European Jewry itself in the Holocaust – Elie Wiesel’s Night
and God on Trial! It is a problem, a dilemma and a question that goes
back to Abraham. Did God ever intend human death to be some kind of a blood debt
in exchange for the original offense against the divine command to Adam and Eve?
Did God ever demand the sacrifice of human life as the price for the restoration
of relationship?
In
the Hebrew Scriptures, God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac
should be seen in the perspective of the tests the Patriarchs experienced to
prove their faith in God’s covenantal promise. It is evident from the text
that God never intended the blood sacrifice of Isaac to be anything like the
repayment of a debt, however the question never disappeared. For the Rabbis of
the Talmudic period the issue was that even if God had intended Isaac to die,
did the victim go willingly? The commentary from the Genesis Rabbah make this clear.
The
Sacrifice of Isaac
Gen
22: 9-12
When they came to the place
of which
God
had told him, Abraham built an
altar
there, and laid the wood in order,
and
bound Isaac his son, and laid him
on the altar, upon the wood.
Genesis Rabbah
56:8 (6thC, CE Rabbinic
Bind
me hand and foot because the instinct
for
life is strong. It is likely before the knife
comes,
I would tremble and be disqualified as
a sacrifice. Please bind me, my father,
lest a blemish be inflicted on me.
Then
Abraham stretched out his hand,
and
took the knife to slay his son. But
the
angel of the Lord called on him from
heaven,
and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’
And
he said. ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Do not
lay
your hand on the load or do anything to
him;
for now I know that you fear God, seeing
you
have not withheld your son, your only son.
Clearly,
in this commentary, Isaac is prepared to be the willing, cooperative victim. The
integrity of the sacrifice would not be compromised.
Did
God will the death of Jesus?
The
Gospel record makes it clear that the mission of Jesus in Galilee was a failure.
The initial response was fickle and followed by rejection,
And
then he began to upbraid the cities where most of his mighty works had been
done, because they did not repent. ‘Woe to you, Chorazin, woe to you Bethsaida!
For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would
have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes….. (Mt
11: 20-24).
Jesus
had also come into mortal conflict with his principal opponents the Pharisees,
their unlikely political allies and the Jerusalem Temple establishment: The
Pharisees went out, and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him,
how to destroy him (Mk 3: 6). Jesus, aware of his prophetic calling and
message knew that some sort of showdown or resolution would need to happen. In
the synoptic tradition, Jesus made deliberate predictions of his future
rejection, suffering and death and he said this quite
plainly (Mk 8: 31b).
Perhaps
the Lucan account of the Transfiguration gives a clue to the point of Jesus’
resolution and acceptance of this likelihood, And while he was at prayer, the appearance of his face changed…(Lk 9:
29) and, When the days drew near for him
to be received up, he set his face to
go to Jerusalem (Lk 9: 51). Jesus made good on his resolve despite the
mounting threats, At that very hour some
Pharisees came, and said to him. ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill
you.’ And he said to them, ‘Go tell that fox, “Behold, I cast out demons
and perform cures today and tomorrow and the day following and the third day I
finish my course. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the
day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from
Jerusalem’….” (Lk13: 31-35).
While
the most confronting of Jesus’ passion predictions carries a very strong sense
of imperative and even predestination, these probably indicate that, in the
memory of the Jesus Movement, he suspected the worst about his future, the
son of man must suffer many things… (Mk 8: 31). From a narrative point of
view, they might also represent a wisdom after the fact and the confirmation
through bitter experience that the way of discipleship is
the way of the Cross. None of the texts parallel to Mark indicate that God was
intentionally sending Jesus off to his death.
What we do know from the embarrassing and very disturbing tradition is
that Jesus agonised over and was tortured by the implications of his call to be God’s
Son.
While
there is no question that parts of the New Testament such as the letter to the
Hebrews, the Book of Revelation and passages in Paul attempt to make sense of
the death of Jesus in terms of sacrifice there is no suggestion that God
intentionally willed that death as some sort of blood debt or the price of
atonement for sin. What is clear from the words of Jesus at the last supper is
that he interpreted his whole life, including his death, as being for
you. This radical selflessness and unconditional love are the final
statements about who Jesus was and is. His physical dying did not transform the
world, redeem humanity, re-establish right relationship with God. His death was
simply the final statement on a human life, lived completely and utterly in
union with God. The death of Jesus was the greatest achievement of his life. The
cross only makes sense in terms of the life that led up to it. For Paul, Jesus
was everything that Adam was not. Jesus in the fullness of his life of
selflessness and communion with God re-established the original relationship
that existed before sin and dysfunction entered humanity,
Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God (image and likeness), did not count equality with God a thing to be seized by theft (Adam’s sin), but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave (Adam’s state after sin), being born in the common likeness of humanity. And being found in human form, he humbled himself (unlike Adam’s pride) and became obedient (Adam was rebellious) unto death, even death on a cross…….. (Phil 2: 3-11).