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from The Gospel of John, by John Wijngaards, Michael
Glazier, Wilmington 1986, pp. 145 - 155.
Pointing at Jesus John the Baptist said, “There is the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world” (John 1, 29). It expresses in one
sentence the whole mystery of salvation through Jesus’ death and
resurrection. Jesus would die as the paschal lamb, sacrificed at noon on the 1
4th Nisan, like all the other paschal victims in Jerusalem (John 19, 14). In
the fact that Jesus’ legs were not broken by the Rom~ soldiers, John sees
a fulfilment of the paschal rite which prescribed that the bones of the lamb be
kept intact (John 19, 36; cf. Ex 12, 46). But unlike the other victims which
were limited in their effectiveness, Jesus was ‘the Lamb of God’, the
true lamb, the lamb that would truly be able to forgive sin in general,
‘the sin of the world’.
Now
if Jesus purified us by his blood ( 1 Jn 1, 7), and if everything he did was on
the command of his Father, it would follow that it was the Father who wanted
Jesus to die. He wanted the hour of suffering to come upon Jesus (John 12, 27).
In other words he wanted to see blood. At least that is how things are
presented in a rather widespread form of what we might call medieval
satisfaction theology. Through humanity’s sins God’s honour had been
hurt. This could only be made up for by someone bringing
‘satisfaction’. God showed his love, we are told, by appointing his
own Son to bring that satisfaction. That is why the Father wanted Jesus to die
so that by his blood we could be purified from our sins.
Perhaps we are so used to this line of thought that its incongruity no longer
strikes us. But I remember one of my non-Christian friends once telling me how
the idea of Jesus’ suffering horrified her, and how she could not help
thinking that the celebration of that suffering as something pleasing to God
struck her as sadistic and weird. A notorious critic of Christianity, Friedrich
Nietzsche, expressed similar feelings in 1878:
“I hear the church bells.... How is it possible?! All this for a Jew who
died on a cross two thousand years ago and who maintained he was the Son of God
.... What a religion! A God who begets a child from a human wife.... A
so-called just God who accepts an innocent person as sacrifice instead of the
sinner. A teacher who is supposed to give his blood to his followers to drink
Prayers to have miracles done Sins committed against one God, expiated by
another God .... The symbol of the cross in a time when the penalty and shame
of crucifixion are no longer known—how abhorrent is all this! Like ghosts
of an ancient past visiting us from the grave". F. NIETZCSHE,
Menschliches Alizumenschliches Schmeitzner Verlag, Chemnitz 1878, no
113; Goldmanns Pocket 1960, p.119; translation my own.
Divine Cruelty
There
would be little need for us to be concerned if these were only impressions of
outsiders, based on misunderstanding and even prejudice. But the psychological
dangers inherent in a misdirected theology of atonement and satisfaction can,
unfortunately, be documented in the history of Christianity. Quite a few social
studies show that Christians are less peaceful than other members of society;
that they are more authoritarian, power conscious and inclined to justify
violence and warfare. Moreover, it has been shown that this attitude can be
related to their concept of God. Some of the ‘hardness’ of God rubs
off on Christian believers. The same hardness becomes apparent when we study
the history of Christianity. The torturing and burning of heretics instigated
by the Inquisition, the persecution of witches, the Christian justification of
the slave trade, and so on, manifest an unbelievable lack of humane feeling. If
we look at some of the right-wing military dictators of today, we see that they
find no problem in squaring violent oppression with their so-called Christian
principles. What has gone wrong?
Through the wrong presentation of the ‘satisfaction theory,’ many
Christians attribute to God an incredible measure of cruelty. not only do they
fill the ‘Father’ concept with their own experience of paternal
dominance; they add to it the trait of vindictiveness. God refused to forgive
human sin without full reparation being paid. He would only forgive after
seeing blood. God, therefore, has a hard streak in him. He insisted that his
own Son, though completely innocent, suffer a most painful death for no other
purpose than that his wounded pride be satisfied.
Such
a concept of God cannot fail to have a profound influence on one’s faith.
If God is so hard, one can never be sure he is not waiting for a chance to make
us feel his lordship. The result is a spirituality of fear. When will God
strike me? When will he exact his toll in suffering and pain? Perhaps I can
forestall him by voluntary mortifications, otherwise who knows what he will do!
It will also cause our own attitude towards others to harden. We find it right
that criminals should pay the full price for their misdeeds. Law and order, and
their violent imposition, become our first concern as administrators. We accept
other people’s sufferings and misfortunes as unavoidable and
natural—the way God wanted things to be! In many subtle ways the concept
of a cruel, vindictive God will make us cruel, vindictive people.
Who Wanted the Passion?
The
crucial point is whether the Father wanted Jesus to suffer and die. Put in this
straightforward and simple fashion, the answer is clearly: No! John
consistently presents Jesus’ death as an unlawful murder, therefore a
crime. During his trial Pilate repeatedly asserts that Jesus does not deserve
to be put to death (John 18, 39; 19, 4). Jesus himself states clearly that
killing him is a sin, with the Jewish leaders and Pilate sharing the guilt
(John 19,11). Well, God cannot instigate a crime or want a sin. Jesus’
crucifixion was not something the Father had determined with his absolute will.
How then did it happen?
Jesus
came as the light. But people loved the darkness more than the light and
refused to accept him (John 3, 19; see also 1,11). This ill-will of those who
should have welcomed him with open arms had been foreseen by the prophets (John
12, 39-41), but was not what God had hoped would happen. He wanted people to be
converted and come to the light (John 12, 34-50). But when unbelief hardened
into active-opposition, when they planned to put Jesus out of the way (John 7,
25; 11, 53), Jesus decided to continue his mission even if it meant death. He
spelled out the reason very clearly. He was not like a hireling who is
unconcerned about the well-being of the sheep and who runs away in the face of
danger. No, he was the good shepherd who was willing to die for them (John 10,
1 l-15).
This,
we should note, was Jesus’ free decision. No one could take his life if
Jesus had not freely decided to follow the ministry of the good shepherd (John
10,18). The soldiers who want to arrest Jesus are thrown powerless to the
ground until he allows them to touch himself (John 12,6). If he had wanted to
organise an army to protect himself he could have done so (John 18,36). But he
wanted to be faithful to his mission. And that is what the Father wanted, that
Jesus be faithful to his mission. “The Father loves me because I am
willing to give up my life” (John 10 17). The Father, therefore did not
want Jesus’ death in itself, but as a necessary component of Jesus’
fidelity.
To
some people this may seem a subtle distinction, but it is a crucial one, a
distinction that makes a lot of difference. Imagine a father and his son are
both officers in a fire brigade. During a fierce fire in a block of apartments
it becomes clear that a mother and child have been left behind in the topmost
flat. The son climbs a ladder and wonders whether he should enter a window to
go and look for them. Flames are leaping out from the roof, the building may
collapse at any moment. Through his walkie-talkie he consults his father.
“Dad, do you want me to go in and try and find them? Remember when you
allowed me to join the brigade, you made me promise not to endanger my life.
What shall I do?” I imagine that the father would say: “Do go in and
try to save mother and child. Of course, I don’t want you to endanger your
life, but to do our job requires risks at all times. Go, may God be with
you.” And if his son were to die in the blaze, will we blame the death on
the father? Actually the last thing he wanted was his son to die.But he also
wanted his son to be faithful to his duty, to be true to himself. Only thus
could he be reconciled to his son’s death.
I
have given this long example to show how the Father came to acquiesce in
Jesus’ passion. It was not something he wanted, certainly not out of
cruelty or vindictiveness.
.St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274 AD) explained Jesus’ death in the
same way. If the Father had handed Jesus over to die against his will it would
have been “evil and cruel.” No, “God the Father only handed
Christ over to his passion.... in so far as he inspired him with the wish to
suffer for us, that is: by infusing love into him” (Summa
Theologica III, 9.47, a.3). “It was not wicked or cruel for God the
Father to want that Christ should die.... For he did not force him against his
will. Rather, he was pleased by the fact that Jesus freely accepted death out
of love. It is this love which the Father worked in him” (Contra
Gentiles IV, 55, ad 16). Once Jesus had made his decision, the Father made
use of it as the highest expression of his Son’s salvific action. The
Father saw to it that the grain that died would produce abundant fruit (John
12, 24). The Father would make the hour of suffering an hour of glory (John 12,
23; 27-28; 17, 1). What was in itself a tragedy became the highest expression
of Jesus’ love. “No person has greater love than the one who is
prepared to give his life for his friends” (John 15, 13). In this way
Jesus’ passion and death would express more than any other part of his
life the love of God which he had come to reveal.
The gift of mercy
Taking pleasure in suffering is just the opposite of what is according to
God’s nature. He is a God of love. In fact, of his own free initiative he
decided to save us. God loved us, human people, so much that he sent his Son -
not to condemn us, but to liberate us from our sins and to give us life (John
3,16-17). The Father loved the Son before the world began with an everlasting
love (John 17,24). The Son loves the Pather more than anything or anybody else
(John 14,31). Father and Son invite us to share in their love (John 14,21.23).
God’s salvific action proceeds from love and leads to love. The clearest
statement against the cruel-god concept we find in 1 John.
“We know and believe that God loves us. God is love and whoever is
immersed in love is immersed in God; and God is immersed in that person”
(1 Jn 4,16).
The
realization of this truth should fill us with an enormous sense of relief. For
however much we may have to suffer from natural causes or unjust treatment by
other people, of one thing we are sure: God, the ultimate ruler of our destiny,
loves us. He means well with us. He is a loving Father to whom we can always
turn with full confidence. It is obvious that such a Christian realization
liberates us from insecurity and fear. “There is no room for fear in love.
Perfect love gets rid of fear. For fear is related to punishment and a person
who is afraid does not love fully” (1 Jn 4,18).
One
still comes across so many Christians who have not understood, or rather
experienced, this fundamental reality of our faith. They practise their
religion mainly through a sense of duty. They transgress the commandments one
moment and are then tormented by feelings of remorse until they have ‘made
up’. They cannot believe that confession truly wipes out their sins. They
will obey scruples which they know to be silly and irrational. All this,
because deep inside them they harbour an unholy fear of God. Deep down in their
consciousness they still nurture the unliberated conviction that he is a
despotic ruler, a hard taskmaster who will one day strike back at those who
fall out of line.
What
a liberation when it dawns on us that this fear is unfounded! That God is love!
That he loves me. That he is fond of me as a Father is fond of his child. That
he allows me to be what I am. That he is happy when I am happy. That there is
nothing in the world that can take away my security in him. What a difference
it will make to my prayer! And to the way I can face my own position in the
world! The person who has not experienced this liberating sense of “God
really loves me”, does not know what it means to be a Christian.
God’s mellowing influence
This
same realization will also make us extremely sensitive to everything that goes
counter to love. For we ‘feel’ God, we ‘know’ his presence
in our life by the love we experience. “Let us love one another. For such
love comes from God. The person who loves another person is a child of God and
knows God. Whoever does not love others does not know God, for God is
love” (1 Jn 4,7-8). These are terribly important words. They link our
Christian experience of God directly to the way in which we are sensitive to
love in human society.
I
cannot help in this context to think back with horror at the incredible
hardness and cruelty displayed by Christians at times. I recall how heretics
were tortured by the Inquisition The instruments were applied to the accused
one by one, in a process of slowly increasing pain.... Tortures lasting three
or four hours were not unusual. A cloth was pushed into the victim’s mouth
to prevent the torturers from being distracted or irritated by his wild
screams. A heretic was tortured in this way until his or her body had become a
flayed, bruised, broken and bleeding mass of flesh. From time to time he would
be asked if at last he was ready to confess.... When the person had been
convicted, he or she was condemned to death. This often consisted in being
burnt alive. Bound to the stake which was raised high on a pile of wood, the
person either choked if the wind blew in the face, or experienced a slower
death by scorching.
I
recall these facts because they remind us that Christians have been hard and
intolerant on many occasions. The torture and burning alive of heretics were
condoned by a Pope (Innocent IV in his bull Ad Exstirpanda of 1252) and
executed by bishops, priests and Christian lay people. The cruelty and
insensitivity involved were only possible because the true nature of God as
Love had been forgotten. They were worshipping a primitive, cruel God instead.
It is this cruel vindictive God that allowed Christians to massacre Muslims
during the Crusades and capture black Africans as slaves. It is a terrible
distortion of what God really is like, what God expects.
Violence is a symptom of evil. It belongs to the realm of darkness (chapter
three). Genuine love for other people is a sign of Jesus’ kingdom (chapter
eighteen). The reason why we should be sensitive to love is our knowledge that
God is love. When we try to be good to other people, when we accept them the
way they are and confirm them in their own worth, we know God is in us. To be
immersed in love means to be immersed in God.
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