Rediscovering the Gospel

There’s a popular idea among Christians today that Jesus had to die in our place to satisfy the wrath of God. This is actually what is known as an atonement theory, of which there are quite a few, and the formal name for this particular one is Penal Substitutionary Atonement. But the gist is this: unless Christ took our place, we would remain guilty for our sins and deserving of the wrath of God—something many conservative Christians agree equals eternal torment in a literal place called hell. But is that really what the Bible teaches? That we needed Jesus to save us from God?

Some 60 years ago, a religious crusade of sorts was launched when the Revised Standard Version, published with both Testaments in 1952, made a substitution of its own, choosing against the familiar word “propitiation” in Romans 3:25 (which first appeared in the King James Version) in favor of the Roman Catholic-sounding “expiation.”

The verb propitiate simply means “to please someone or make them less angry by giving or saying something desired.” Within a theological framework, however, the meaning of the noun propitiation is twofold: first, it is something which satisfies the wrath of God, and second, it is something which reconciles to him those who are cut off through sin.

By comparison, the noun expiation, in its natural sense (if there is a “natural sense” for a word no one uses outside of this context), is anything which atones for wrongdoing. In its fuller, theological sense, it is something which removes the guilt of sin. To most conservative Christians, it is a weaker word. After all, if there is wrath stored up for sinners, then God cannot be just by simply pardoning them and removing their guilt. Somebody has to pay for sin! And after all, the author of Hebrews clearly says, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (9:22, NRSV). So it’s either Jesus whose blood is shed, or it’s ours. But somebody has to pay, or else God’s wrath (aka, Justice—and they really tend to be the same thing, in conversation) won’t be satisfied. Or so it is said. But is God really sovereign if he is subject to some concept of Justice and has to do what it takes to satisfy her?

As those who have been in a church setting can affirm, the gospel—the good news for the world—is usually reduced to this: Jesus died for our sins. It is concise to say that, but I don’t believe it’s correct. Not that that’s untrue, of course. It’s absolutely true. But that’s not the gospel. A piece of it, maybe, but not even the central piece.

The point has been made by people more articulate than I that the message of Jesus dying for our sins wouldn't have resulted in the widespread persecution of Christians in the Roman empire. For one thing, the Roman empire recognized and worshiped many gods, so if the Christians were to add one more to the mix, it wouldn't have mattered, though they did accuse them of atheism for their refusal to believe in the pantheon of Greek and Roman deities. The same could be said of the idea that Christians would receive a reward in the afterlife or that their God had made some way of atoning for their sins. But that wasn't the gospel the early church shared.

Instead, the early church believed the gospel made a claim that could—and should—turn the entire world upside-down. It was simply this: Jesus is Lord.

In the days of the Roman empire, everyone knew the saying, “Caesar is lord!” It was even printed on their money. But to say that a crucified Jewish man was instead? That could cost you your life. And for many of our first brothers and sisters, it did.

It’s popular to say the gospel message is that Jesus died for our sins, and it’s frequently made known that he had to do so in order to satisfy the wrath of God. But that’s a half-truth and therefore ultimately untrue. That’s not the message that cost so many Christians their lives 2,000 years ago, and it’s not the message that cost 21 Coptic Christians their lives earlier this month on the other side of the world.

There is another problem with this false gospel: it makes the resurrection of Jesus to be of little or no significance. The four Gospels all witness to the resurrection of Jesus. The early creeds confess that he was born, was killed, and was raised to life again. And Paul says, to the church in Corinth, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17, NRSV).

Without the resurrection, our sin has not been forgiven.

Read it again.

And again.

Again.

The gospel can’t only be that Jesus died for our sins, and debates over whether Jesus was the propitiation or the expiation for our sins begin to sound a little foolish. Because apart from the resurrection, the death of Jesus still doesn't reconcile us to God—now or in the age to come.

Let me say, as a disclaimer, that I do believe sin has separated us from God. But let me go deeper: it was death that truly separated us from God; our sin was simply the broad road—the wide gate—that led us to death’s door in the first place.

“The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord,” says Paul, in Romans 6:23 (NRSV). Jesus didn't die to save us from a wrathful God. If satisfying God’s wrath was really the bottom line, then the resurrection was nothing more than a nice epilogue to the “real” story. Instead of dying to save us from a wrathful God, Jesus demonstrated the limitless love of God, a love that lays down its life for friends and enemies alike. There is no greater love (see John 15:13). And it’s not a free gift of God if he was demanding someone’s payment in order for us to receive it.

Jesus died to absorb sin once and for all and to ransom us from its control—to pay the price for our freedom from sin, not our freedom from God or his wrath. But sin itself isn't the curse; death is. And death is precisely what Jesus overcame through his resurrection. By tasting death and even descending to hell (as some church traditions have believed) only to be raised again to physical life, Jesus defeated something far more powerful than Caesar—because every Caesar still had to submit to death in the end—and established himself as the true and rightful ruler over all creation.

Jesus is Lord.

Right now.

And that is the gospel—the good news for the whole world. For those who believe it now and for those who haven’t heard or believed it yet. For humanity—past, present, and future—and for every living thing. For those made from the dust—Earth’s dust and stardust—and even for the dust itself. We may return to the dust for a brief time, but we will rise again. We may die, but Death personified can no longer hold us captive. Because Death is not Lord. Jesus is.