Speaker 1: What is up?
Speaker 1: Everybody, ryan, here in Mike's Beats Laboratory?
Speaker 1: We are almost on episode 30.
Speaker 1: Or what episode is this, mike?
Speaker 1: Episode number 28.
Speaker 1: We are getting close to 30.
Speaker 1: I think when we hit 30 we're gonna celebrate.
Speaker 1: I might get myself a crumble cookie and put 30 candles in it.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do that, I'm not gonna ruin that cookie like that, but hey, everyone it is.
Speaker 1: Uh, I think when this episode goes to air it'll be Holy Week and this is honestly one of my favorite holidays.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course I'm a pastor you're thinking he's gonna say that, of course, but I love Holy Week and I love Good Friday and I love Easter, resurrection Sunday, and I've for a for the longest time.
Speaker 1: I have often wondered about this question.
Speaker 1: So even when I was younger, as a, I grew up kind of in the church, going to church, but the theology of the church I grew up in was not super deep and so we didn't really talk a lot about theology.
Speaker 1: We mostly talked about, like, how to be a good person or how to have a good marriage or how to manage your finances, and so it was fine, but but the theology was not very deep.
Speaker 1: So I remember when I was like in my 20s, after years of going to church, I still didn't think.
Speaker 1: I don't think I fully grasped the idea of why did Jesus die.
Speaker 1: Now you might be thinking to yourself of course he died for our sins.
Speaker 1: And yeah, of course that's the right answer and that's what the song tells us and the Bible verse says and that's what we always have learned growing up.
Speaker 1: But honestly, why did he die?
Speaker 1: What happened on the cross?
Speaker 1: What were the elements that contributed to leading to lead him to a death on the cross, and what was happening?
Speaker 1: And how does a man's death 2,000 years ago impact us at all in any way today?
Speaker 1: And so I began to like read and research and study and then ask questions, and I was actually quite embarrassed at first because I didn't.
Speaker 1: I thought I should have known the answer to why did Jesus die on the cross?
Speaker 1: Beyond just, he died for our sins, of course, but.
Speaker 1: But I felt kind of embarrassed and almost ashamed, like I should know the answer to this question.
Speaker 1: But I asked anyway and I came across just a ton of helpful information, including this Historically, this they call these, by the way, atonement theories or theories of the cross, and historically there's no single atonement theory that the churches agreed upon, like it wasn't ever talked about really in any of these historic councils.
Speaker 1: It's not a part of sort of orthodox you know belief systems for Christians.
Speaker 1: You know more modern days, people have begun to kind of hover around one or two different versions of atonement theories or reasons why Jesus died, and flesh those out.
Speaker 1: But historically there's really no consensus about the reason why Jesus died, other than, of course, more of a general he died for our sins.
Speaker 1: But these atonement theories, they're almost a conversation that has been had for 2000 years.
Speaker 1: But I want to explain one of the more modern ones that is probably pretty prevalent, maybe even in your own psyche, in your own you know community or wherever you are, and you might recognize this theory.
Speaker 1: And then I want to, and then I want to pose it to us, and then I want to maybe poke a few holes in it, rather, I would say, ask a few questions about it.
Speaker 1: And then I want to do maybe a couple weeks long series on some other alternative views about the cross.
Speaker 1: Because here's, I think, my foundational view of what happened on the cross and that's this that what happened on the cross was multifaceted and multi-layered.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of things happening on the cross.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of reasons why Jesus died.
Speaker 1: There were political reasons, religious reasons, of course, spiritual reasons.
Speaker 1: There were all kinds of things happening within the story of God, from Genesis all the way to the Gospels when Jesus dies.
Speaker 1: And there's lots of wonderful, amazing, dark, sinister things happening on the cross that we can, I think, unpack as we go and I really think to hold on to maybe one, only one atonement theory as like maybe the pinnacle one, there's nothing wrong with it, probably, but I think that it's.
Speaker 1: It diminishes the beauty of the cross to not look at it, at least I would say To not look at it from multiple angles.
Speaker 1: So okay, that being said, here's, I think, the predominant cultural, in the western world anyway, cultural view of the cross.
Speaker 1: It goes something like this it says that God sort of created the universe and the universe was good, and then humankind fell or rebelled or sinned, and this fall or this sin was against God and specifically, it was against God's infinite goodness and mercy and justice, and by justice I think we mean in this case a legal, almost like a heavenly scales in the heavens that were like imbalanced, and so it's a sin against the holiness of God, the justice of God.
Speaker 1: So this creates a problem, because God cannot simply forgive these sins.
Speaker 1: Only an infinite payment will balance those scales once again.
Speaker 1: So the scales are imbalanced because God is holy and just and God can't somebody just like turn a blind eye to it or forgive it.
Speaker 1: He has, to like, there has to be a payment paid to balance these scales.
Speaker 1: And so he demands God, in this case, demands that the humans pay for this rebalancing the scales.
Speaker 1: They give a payment, but of course humans can't, because we're finite mortal beings.
Speaker 1: How could we ever repay an infinite, just and holy God?
Speaker 1: And so God, though at the same, all the while, still demands for a payment to balance these scales and to be appeased, if you will, to have his wrath satisfied, you might have heard.
Speaker 1: And so to do so, he sends Jesus and then pours out the payment, or pours out his wrath, his anger, onto Jesus, and we're kind of hidden behind Jesus, thereby saved from, in this case really, the wrath and the anger and the punishment from God.
Speaker 1: And so this is probably something like this is probably the predominant view that you've inherited or that you've heard, but I think when I was younger, that was definitely the image and the theory that I had inherited.
Speaker 1: And, man, I began to ask some serious questions when I was in my late teens, early 20s.
Speaker 1: Like in this picture, I'm totally down with Jesus.
Speaker 1: I mean, jesus is blocking the punishment from God to me, and the anger and the wrath and the violence of God is being blocked.
Speaker 1: And so I'm like, hey, jesus, thank you, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: But I'm also a tad terrified of God in this picture.
Speaker 1: That God is like.
Speaker 1: I don't want anything to do with God in this picture and I also wonder this in zooming out a little bit more does God, is it true that God really needs to punish in order to restore relationship?
Speaker 1: Is it simply a matter of a heavenly scales in the heavens?
Speaker 1: That's been imbalanced and God can't just forgive it.
Speaker 1: God has to send a punishment or a penalty.
Speaker 1: There has to be a payment paid to himself.
Speaker 1: Is that how it works?
Speaker 1: Why can't God just forgive?
Speaker 1: Where's grace in this picture, whereas now some would say that grace comes in Jesus and not fair enough.
Speaker 1: But I just wonder, like, why can't God just forgive sins like God asks us to do?
Speaker 1: Or you see Jesus do, and so you almost have, I would argue, a split in the Godhead, in the Trinity.
Speaker 1: So you have this division between God and God, the Father and Jesus.
Speaker 1: Where God is angry at sinners, jesus is like forgiving of sinners, and you almost have this dichotomy or a contrast between within the Godhead itself, which is rather bizarre and not healthy for a Trinitarian theology.
Speaker 1: And so I just wonder, if that is that what has to happen, is it really God who demands a payment, or is there another way to think about this?
Speaker 1: And is there another way to think about the justice of God?
Speaker 1: Because the earliest church, the one thing they did agree on, and I think most of us would agree on in theory anyway, is that God sends Jesus because he loves the world John 3.16,.
Speaker 1: For God so loved the world.
Speaker 1: God came into the world not to condemn the world but to save it, and the earliest thinkers all wrote that what motivates God to come to earth to rescue us, to go to the cross, is not some kind of grand payment being demanded or the anger or wrath of God, but instead it's the love of God, this incredible move of rescue and restoration.
Speaker 1: And of course, god is angry at sin.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that, but it's not this idea that God is sort of bound by the sin of humanity and therefore, in order to balance things out, he has to demand this payment.
Speaker 1: Rather, it's the love of God.
Speaker 1: So how can we talk about the cross in a way that reflects the love of God?
Speaker 1: The great thinker Abelard says it is the love of God which is visible on the cross of Christ.
Speaker 1: So, friends, I wanna unpack the next couple of weeks, a few different theories, and I'd love to hear your thoughts right back.
Speaker 1: Text me, email me, comment down below what your thoughts are and we can have a conversation about what.
Speaker 1: Does it mean that Christ died and that he loved the world?
Speaker 1: Our sins are certainly involved.
Speaker 1: How does it all fit together?
Speaker 1: So the theory we'll talk about next week but we'll start with is a theory, that in which it's not God who demands the payment, but rather the evil one or the Satan.
Speaker 1: So, hey, tune in next week and we'll start unpacking these different atonement theories and I'd love to hear what you think.
Speaker 1: All right, peace.
Speaker 1: Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share with some friends.
Speaker 1: And don't forget, you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 830, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering.
Speaker 1: Or you can check us out online at clclkriverorg Peace.