A precis of chapter 9.

This chapter deals with ‘the myth of redemptive violence’.

‘Sometimes love leaves us with no other choice but to let go of a loved one and allow them to suffer the consequences of their own self-destructive decisions.’

Does God resort to violence when dealing with sin?

‘We humans rely on brute force to stop evil only because we lack the character and wisdom to see alternative ways of arriving at peace (Luke 19:42). But the cross reveals a God whose loving character and unlimited wisdom is such that he never needs to resort to brute force. Rather, the power and wisdom that God has always used to punish sin and overcome evil is the same nonviolent “power and wisdom” he used to punish sin and overcome evil on the cross.’

According to the penal substitutionary view of atonement,

‘God the Father needed to vent his wrath toward Jesus by killing him so that he wouldn’t need to vent his wrath against  us by sending us to hell.’

But:

• This renders the rest of Jesus’ life and ministry superfluous.
• It fails to clarify how our guilt could be transferred to Jesus, or how God could be just in pouring his wrath out on Jesus, rather than on us.
• It sets the pattern for ‘redemptive violence’ on the part of the church.

Prior to the 11th century, the Christus Victor view of atonement prevailed.  This did not implicate God in any violence.

According to the NT, the violence accorded to Jesus was not perpretated by the Father, but by wicked people influenced by the Evil One.

The only thing that the Father did when Jesus died was to withdraw his protection so that wicked humans could do their worst.  This is reflected in Rom 4:25 – ‘God delivered him over’; and Rom 8:32 – ‘god did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all.’

Jesus himself used the language of being ‘handed over’ to be crucified.  And such was God’s foreordained plan, Acts 2:23; 4:28.

The abandonment is also reflected in Jesus’ cry from the cross: ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ (Mt 27:46).

This divine abandonment was the cup of God’s wrath from which Jesus freely chose to drink, Mk 14:36.

‘In choosing to drink from this cup, Jesus suffered the death-consequences of sin, which included the curse of being separated from God. This is the wrath that Jesus experienced, and it involved no anger or violence on God’s part.’

Jesus grieves when he sees that God must turn people over to the consequences of their sin, Lk 19:41-44; Mt 23:36-38.  And we must suppose that Jesus reveals the heart of God in this, as in all else.  God longs to protect and save people, and grieves when they come under his wrath.  But when they refuse to be protected, and God’s kindness simply encourages them in their sin, he has no choice but to ‘hand them over’ to the consequences of that sin.

Sin is rejection of God, who is the source of life.  Sin, then, leads to death.  God in his mercy restrains the consequences of sin, in the hope that they will turn from sin and death and embrace life.

God’s grief over sin and its consequences is expressed in Jer 48:31; Mic 1:8; Hos 4:17; 11:8.

The ancient Israelites only caught glimpses of the truth.  Therefore, they only intermittently expressed the divine grief that lies behind divine wrath.  At other times, God is represented as violent and bloodthirsty.

The cross itself shows God’s pain in turning people over to the consequences of their sin.

Moreover, since Jesus suffered the consequences of sin for the purpose of redeeming the whole world, it follows that suffering is always with a view to redemption.  God strikes Egypt so that they will turn to the Lord, Isa 19:22.

‘In this light, I believe we must envision the Father wailing rather than raging, and hopeful rather than vengeful, when he abandoned his Son on the cross to suffer the judgment we deserved. And since the cross reveals what God has always been like, we must envision this same grieving-yet-hopeful posture whenever God sees he has no choice but to abandon people to suffer the destructive consequences of their sin.’

God’s strategy in dealing with sin is to turn the sin back on the sinner; to let sin become its own punishment.

It it by the crucifixion, which the powers of evil helped to orchestrate, that God disarms those very powers (Col 2:15).

Of course, demonic powers cannot understand love, or how love works.  That is why they were mystified when the Son of God came to earth.  Nor could they understand that it was God’s loving plan for people’s salvation that would bring those powers to nothing.

All these evil agents knew was that the Son of God had become mortal and had entered Satan’s domain, the human world.  That meant he could be killed.

‘Only too late did these rebel “rulers” realize that, by crucifying the Lord of glory, they had played into the loving and wise plan of God that had been kept hidden throughout the ages.’

‘Satan and the powers thought they had overthrown the Son of God when they got him crucified, but it was by this very crucifixion that Satan’s kingdom was disarmed (Col 2:15) and “the prince of this world” was “driven out” (John 12:31). So too, it was by means of this perfect expression of God’s self-sacrificial love that God in principle “destroy[ed] the devil’s work” (1 John 3:8), broke “the power of him who holds the power of death,” and thereby freed “those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Heb 2:14).’