Alternative Views of Christ's Mission

On a couple of previous posts, two commenters offered their views on what the death of Christ means in Christian theology. Their ideas are an alternative to penal substitutionary theory. They said I could repost their comments in the context of this post, so I appreciate them contributing their points of view! I have really enjoyed reading them and thinking about them.

John pointed out some problems with penal theory by referencing the first book in C.S. Lewis' Narnia series. The character Aslan the lion is meant to represent Christ. He is the son of the Emperor Across the Sea (who does not directly enter the stories). The Witch represents evil, or perhaps even the devil.

"The penal substitution is so well described in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. It makes sense because the Witch WANTS Aslan's blood. She WANTS him dead. She is evil. Aslan lets her kill him so that Edmond may live. She is happy as she wants Aslan's blood. That all makes sense to me. However, in the sacrifice of Jesus my upbringing taught me that God was wanting Jesus to die on the cross. Essentially, God wanted Jesus's blood. That is really confusing. God and the Witch are playing the same role. I understand it better when the Witch is involved, not when God is involved. Plus, people always seem to state that two wrongs don't make a right. Well, does one wrong? Did killing Jesus really make things right? Or, was it a tragedy that he died for trying to get the people around him to open their minds to new ideas about who God is and what it means to have a close relationship with Him?"

John is quite right that in Lewis' version of events, Aslan is sacrificed to pay the Witch, not the Emperor Across the Sea. In penal theory, God is the one whose justice demands appeasement. Here is John's idea of the mission of Christ:

"My best interpretation of it is simply to say that, with the assumption that Jesus is God and that Jesus rose from the dead after being murdered, then He showed the ultimate level of forgiveness and mercy to all those around Him by still being forgiving and merciful even after being murdered viciously. So, i can understand the Christian thought process of following Christs example by loving, forgiving, and showing mercy to the same level He did on the day He rose from the dead and continued His path of love rather than revenge (so the opposite of retributive justice, right?). Anyway, that explanation only works with the assumption that Christ and God are one."

nuclear.kelly's vision of the atonement of Christ runs like this:

"Mainly, I see Jesus as "activist," if you will. Sage, prophet, commentator, charismatic leader. Social and political turmoil was high during the Roman occupation of the Palestinian coast. Without going in to much detail, I think that Jesus' life, as touched by and in tune with God, stands as a demonstration of what every person's life can be, and his death (reasonably inevitable though it was) became the proof that we must be willing to sacrifice everything for what is right (don't confuse this with sacrificing everything for what we think God wants!). Most of us would be willing to sacrifice most of what we have for a few people; Jesus was willing to sacrifice everything he had for all people (even those who hated him), because it was the only "righteous" conclusion to his life to that point (to run away from death would have made him simply another fleeting character in a history book, full of a sense of fairness but unwilling to fulfill what was necessary to plumb the depths of unfairness). In that sense, the atonement doesn't have anything to do with judgement or sin or debt, but is instead a beacon of what is attainable at the limits of human nature. Atonement is being willing to lose everything for nothing; the natural outcome of utter sacrifice."

Both John and nuclear.kelly's view are really meaningful to me and could lead to a lot of great discussion!

The version I will offer here is still one of substitutionary atonement. It maintains that Christ still takes the place of sinners in a sense. But it removes the "penal" part, which is the idea that Christ's sacrifice was to appease God.

Christ submitted himself to death at the hands of sinners. He showed us the wages of our sin by taking them on himself, for sinfulness responds to love in violent ways. Contemplating the death of Christ at the hands of men, who represent the imperfections we all have, convicts our hearts. This leads us to turn from the destructive ways of sin. Therefore Christ has substituted himself for us, showing and bearing the consequences of our sin and convicting our hearts in order to lead us to the more beneficial path of right action. And of course, this right action, leads us to "at-one-ment" with God.

Christ dies for our sins, because of our sinfulness. But not because God needed to be appeased, but rather because there is a natural, metaphysical suffering that comes about when we do not know love.

This interpretation is one along the lines of Ghandi's hunger strikes. By taking this physical burden on himself to protest potential combat between Muslims and Hindus, he convicted the hearts of both sides and, at least for a while, led them to avoid conflict. His was a substitutionary atonement.

If you are one that thinks about Christian theology, what is your view?