Saturday, 13 June 2009

• What or Who did Christ Save us From?

  (This is what I've been up to while I've been away from Xanga.)

  We have probably all learned that our sins are so black that God can't look on us or forgive us, so Christ had to die to pay our debt of sin to God. Christ had to cover us up so God wouldn't be offended by our sins when he looked at us.

  This is an orthodox, acceptable, well-thought-out view of the atonement, but it's not the only one. The early church fathers give us a different view of the atonement, one that predates the 'substitutionary atonement' doctrine by hundreds of years, and I'd like to share a bit of it with you. I do this because all of us who have suffered from religious abuse have had ideas like the one above held over our heads by our abusers. They scared us with images of a wrathful, displeased God. They reminded us what miserable, sinful beings we are. They basically kicked the stuffing out of us when we tried to defend ourselves, because, after all, if we're so bad Christ had to be killed to pay God off to save us, then we have no business defending ourselves at all.

  The early church fathers had a different view. It was victorious, triumphant, joyful, exciting, dramatic and freeing, and all of this without minimizing the reality of sin and our need for salvation. They just see salvation differently. Their idea of salvation is more like what we mean when we say "I was saved from a fire" or "I was saved from kidnappers." This is difficult stuff and we'll have to have many conversations about it to flush it all out. I look forward to it.

  Let's look at Mark 3:27: "No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house. "

  Here's what Irenaeus has to say about this passage (thanks to Mr. Darcy for finding this commentary):

  The adversary enticed humanity to transgress our maker’s law, and thereby got us into his clutches.²² Yet his power consisted only in tempting the human will toward trespass and apostasy. With these chains he bound up the human will.²³ This is why in the economy of salvation it was necessary that he be bound with the same chains by which he had bound humanity.²⁴ It would be through a man that humanity would be set free to return to the Lord,²⁵ leaving the adversary in those bonds by which he himself had been fettered, that is, sin. For when Satan is bound, man is set free; since “none can enter a strong man’s house and spoil his goods, unless he first bind the strong man himself.”²⁶ It is in this way that he became exposed as the opposer of the Word who made all things, and subdued by his command. The new man showed him to be a fugitive from the law, and an apostate from God. He then was securely bound as a fugitive, and his goods²⁷ hauled away. These goods are those who had been in bondage, whom he had unjustly used for his own purposes. So it was a just means by which he was led captive, who had led humanity into captivity unjustly. In this way humanity was rescued from the clutches of its possessor by the tender mercy of God the Father, who had compassion on his own handiwork, and gave to it salvation, restoring it by means of the Word, Christ, in order that humanity might learn from this actual event that they receive incorruptibility not of themselves, but by the free gift of God.²⁸ Against Heresies 5.21.3.²⁹

  I'd like to talk about this further in another post.

  
  

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  22 ²² Cf. Gen 3:1–6.

  23 ²³ At issue is why in the plan of salvation it was necessary that the devil be bound up by one truly human.

  24 ²⁴ Namely, through his own twisted willing.

  25 ²⁵ Cf. Rom 5:18.

  26 ²⁶ Mt 12:29; Mk 3:27.

  27 ²⁷ Humanity in bondage.

  28 ²⁸ Cf. Rom 5:16.

  29 ²⁹ AHR 2:383–84; ANF 1:550**. As Satan had unfairly led humanity into bondage of the will, so the God-man had fairly bound up the will of the strong man.

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