On Atonement Part II: The Incarnational Model

So finally I'm going to try to put into my own words what the Incarnational model of salvation is. I'm going to try to explain it as best I can and also try to explain how I see it doing a good job making sense of the whole of scripture. In my next post I intend to explore how it might be possible to understand other theories (penal substitution/satisfaction, ransom, exemplar, etc.) in light of this one.

I'm going to try to do this generally and intuitively. I'm not going to prove it, define terms rigorously, cite a lot of scriptures, deal with all objections, or anything like that. Just a hand-waving kind of explanation of the direction I'm leaning. I'll still refer to particular points by contrasting them with the corresponding points in the penal substitution or satisfaction theories. Once again that's because that's what I know.

What is Justice?

In the west, we seem to have an abstract concept of justice that boils down to people getting what they deserve. For every crime there is an appropriate punishment, and if the guilty go unpunished then there is this concept of justice which is unsatisfied. So in theologies that buy into this western concept of justice, there is a conflict or tension between God's justice and His love. His love would seem to draw Him to forgive us while the fact that He is just means He must punish us. There are attempts to try to resolve this tension, but I don't think it can be done away with completely as long as we hold this western view of justice.

But from the perspective of an incarnational theory, justice is understood as right relationship. To satisfy justice is to stand in right relationship with God and with men, for there to be shalom. So taking this view, we see the problem of the Fall a bit differently. It isn't that there is an offense against an infinite God that necessitates infinite punishment, but instead that the relationship between God and man has been broken. God isn't concerned so much with the fact that He has to punish us to satisfy justice and conflicted about how to pour out His wrath but still save His children. Instead we have a picture of God who is solely and infinitely concerned with restoring His children to right relationship with Him at whatever cost.

This seems to make the most sense of the ethical views Jesus puts forth in the sermon on the Mount. It is actually more just to turn the other cheek than to fight against an evil person. If you wrong me and I forgive you without demanding retribution, that is more just than if I had demanded that you suffer the same wrong you inflicted on me. Why? Because these things all increase and restore shalom, and push the humanity towards right relationship with God. And these are in fact the very ways that God behaves towards us. So in this view God can and does forgive sins freely, but He also punishes, and whatever else is necessary to bring us into right relationship with Him.

And if we read the prophets, this is exactly the motivation they ascribe to God over and over. After those lengthy passages about God actively bringing destruction and judgment on Israel or, more often, about God allowing Israel to suffer the natural consequences of her actions, there's always the reason: so that man would turn back to God and shalom be restored.

What is Salvation?

Traditionally with the penal substitution model, there are two parts to salvation: justification and sanctification. The division here is pretty sharp: justification is the immediate removal of guilt, which presumably means if you died you'd go to heaven, while sanctification is the gradual increase in holiness that Christians should experience throughout their lives.

Justification here is tied to the debt/wrath idea. Once we appropriate Christ's sacrifice in our place, our debt/punishment is removed, and we are justified. But it is clear enough that salvation in the Bible also has to do with being freed from sins, and with living in righteousness and obedience rather than just being forgiven. On the other hand, proponents of penal substitution want to avoid sounding as if it is this obedience that merits salvation, so we have this idea that you are initially justified by faith, and the Holy Spirit also sanctifies you so that over time you are able to obey more fully.

In the incarnational model, salvation means sharing in the divine life of God. God does not merely want our relationship with him to be set back to zero, but the actual goal is theosis, or unification with God (forgive me if I'm not using the word technically, but it gets the general idea). We are created in His image, but we are to grow into His likeness, and share fully in His life. Because of our sin, and our broken relationship with God, we cannot do this. God remains alien to us. So God finds a way to repair our broken relationship and invite us to take part in His life.

Thus in the incarnational model the division between justification and sanctification is not so sharp. We are justified, or restored to justice (which is our right relationship with God) by entering into the covenant He has initiated. But that right relationship, that covenant, means not a legal transaction erasing debt, but participating in His divine nature and properly bearing His image, growing into His likeness.

So what is needed is away for us, fallen though we are, to participate in the life of God. It isn't a question of being worthy, or of merely having our sins removed, but rather being empowered, enabled, invited, and taught, to participate in the life of God as God intended.

How Jesus Saves

With this understanding of justice and salvation we can then move to a discussion of how it is that Jesus achieves our salvation in this model. So given that we needed to be saved, we needed to be brought into the life of God, what does God do? Does He call us to some infinite height that we cannot reach? Does He violently and painfully rip away all the parts of us that are unworthy? Does He purge the sin so that He can stand to look at us? I submit not. The thing that God does is to come down to that very point where we are and join us.

This is the incarnation. In Jesus, God lowers Himself into our situation. He comes alongside us and offers healing, love and compassion. He defends us from all that would oppress us, teaching us the true about God's nature, and opposing all human and spiritual forces that would keep us from participating in the life of God. He casts out demons, heals diseases, and opposes religious authorities who weigh down God's children with heavy burdens. He teaches us to restore Shalom, and He invites us to join in with Him in doing it.

Not only so, but He lowers Himself into our situation. He suffers what we suffer: temptation by the flesh and by the devil, alienation from God and from men, fear, doubt, uncertainty, and ultimately, terrible, violent, and unjust death. Jesus does not preach to us from above, but comes right down into the dirt with us. Yet He does it all with perfect submission.

As a result, we have a way through. God is no longer alien to us since He brought Himself down to where we are. So participating in God means participating in Christ. Participating in Christ means placing our faith in Him and learning to do what He did. We confess our sinfulness, the ways we have rebelled against God, and we resolve to repent and to join with Him. We see that God has come and participated in our lives, so we resolve to participate in His.

From this view, the crucifixion is the climax of God's participation in human suffering: alienation from God and finally death, which is the final result of sin. And the resurrection, more than just confirming that Jesus was right all along, is the decisive victory of God in a man over death. Salvation means joining in the divine life at the cross, at that moment of perfect submission poured out freely for us.

Some Symbols

God has given us a myriad of symbols to understand this more clearly so it is appropriate to try to parse those symbols in light of this view, to see if it is capable of giving meaning to (and receiving meaning from) them.

Looking at the ritual sacrifices, we can see the beginnings of the incarnational view. As the Hebrew writer says, the sacrifices themselves do not atone. But it does point to what is necessary. The penitent is required to lay his hands on an animal, cut it open and pour out the blood on the altar. The laying hands on points to identification with the animal. The blood symbolizes the life of the animal being poured out. So what we see in the sacrifice, from a Christian perspective, is the idea of identifying with another and receiving life from them, poured out freely. Jesus then is the perfect sacrifice, willingly pouring out his life so that we may receive it. To participate in this we must identify with Him, joining in His life.

This is why blood is such an important symbol in undertstanding Jesus. In John 6 when Jesus says his followers must eat his flesh and drink his blood, He is radically interpreting himself as the fulfillment of the sacrificial system. He is saying they can receive from Him the new life, the divine life.

This is why communion is such a powerful act. We invite in the divine life of Christ, knowing the tangibility of what Jesus offers us. New life, divine life, is no longer alien to us. We can take it and eat of it. It is offered to us, and our bodies and spirits are capable of processing it, as we can eat and process bread and wine because it is similar enough to ourselves. This is what Christ accomplished for us that was not available before. And He still accomplishes it when we take the sacrament together.

Anothing symbol for what's going on here is in John 15. Jesus in the vine and we are the branches. We receive life and nourishment from the vine. Branches can be grafted in, now as opposed to before, because now the divine life has become something which we can receive from. God is the gardner, but the gardner is not capable of nourishing the branches. There must be a vine to nourish branches, and so that is Jesus.

Indeed, from this perspective we can see the importance of the continued role of mediator that Christ has in Hebrews. He is our high priest. If it were merely a debt to be paid, then Jesus could be the sacrifice with no more need of a priest. But Jesus is still the contact point between us and the Father, we receive the divine life of the Father through Him.

Baptism, as Paul says, means joining in Christ's death so that we may join in His life. Taking on the baptized life means rising with Him and therefore doing what He does. We rise and become ministers of reconciliation, the body of Christ. We join in His life by spreading shalom and restoring the world to justice the way Christ did. Understood from this perspective, there is no division between evangelism, serving people, helping people mature who are already Christians, and helping to bring about social justice. All of this is part of the divine life of God, part of restoring justice, part of bringing about shalom.

The last image I'll mention is the image of the church as the Bride of Christ. That God would use the image of the intimacy of marriage speaks volumes. In Genesis it is said that a husband and wife become "one flesh." So it is with us and God. We become of one substance, and part of that becoming is God taking on flesh. The other part is us taking on Spirit. And I can think of no more potent image of intimacy, of sharing of space, than the act of marriage. And this is the language we are given.

On The Next Episode...

So that about covers my understanding of the incarnational theory of atonement, and I pretty much buy it. Next time I'll talk about how other theories can be understood and grounded by this one.