tony on why jesus died

As with so many things emergent, I found Tony Jones' post for today a mixed bag. I love how Jones reminds us of the humanity of Christ. I especially appreciate this part of his analysis. It brings much needed balance to a culture that tends to focus on Christ's deity.

Another key to my understanding of the end of Jesus' life is what he did with the three previous years of his life. It seems to me that he did just a few things: 1) He taught about the Kingdom of God; 2) He performed miracles; 3) He developed a following that included 12 close followers and, by the end, hundreds of others.

The importance of 1) and 3) are pretty obvious to Jesus' mission. The significance of the miracles, however, is sometimes misunderstood. They were not significations of Jesus' divinity (as evidenced by the other magicians and sorcerers on the scene in Jesus' day). Instead, they were little in-breakings of the new age that Jesus, as the Messiah, was inaugurating.

Especially in the healing miracles, Jesus touched the people who had been condemned as "unclean," and thus unworthy of Temple worship -- woman with an issue of blood, blind men, lepers, paraplegics, a crazed demoniac -- and cleansed them. He upset the order of things by bringing the people who had been marginalized -- now you can include tax collectors and whores -- by the dominant religion of his time and place and making them "right" with God again.

But like many other emergents, he steps too far and begins to redefine God and love in mans own image to the point of seeming to ignore Scripture. Jones writes the following.

Some people today may find it compelling that some Great Cosmic Transaction took place on that day 1,980 years ago, that God's wrath burned against his son instead of against me. I find that version of atonement theory neither intellectually compelling, spiritually compelling, nor in keeping with the biblical narrative.

Instead, Jesus death offers life because in Christianity, and in Christianity alone, the God and Creator of the universe deigned to become human, to be tempted, to reach out to those who had been de-humanized and restore their humanity, and ultimately to die in solidarity with every one of us. Yes, he was a sacrifice. Yes, he was "sinless." But thank God, Jesus was also human.

The hope he offers is that, by dying on that cross, the eternal Trinity became forever bound to my humanity. The God of the universe identified with me, and I have the opportunity to identify with him.

Today, and every day, I hang with him on that cross.

I just don't get this innate aversion folks have to the sacrificial aspect of Christ's work on the cross. Kevin DeYoung provides a simple response to Jones.

Leviticus 16:20-22 "And when he has made an end of atonement for the Holy Place and the tend of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat. And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness."

Isaiah 53:4-6 "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Mark 10:45 "For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Hebrews 2:14-17 "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people."