To recap: Sin is the problem and Jesus Christ is the solution.
Cool. Got it.
What does that mean?
I’m super glad you asked because this is when I get to write the thing I’ve been wanting to write since I started this Every Thursday Theology Shindig™:
Christ is the solution to Sin, and is our salvation, because Christ reveals God. Christ is the Revelator.
Now, there is a lot to this idea, and it’s an idea that may not jibe with what you think you’ve been taught over the years.
You might be thinking: “But, Landon, since I was a little kid I was taught that Jesus died on the cross to save me from my sins.” That is likely the case. I’d venture most (Western and/or American) Christians were taught precisely that. It may surprise you, however, that there are many different ideas about how exactly we are saved.
This is an area of theology known as “Atonement Theory.” When theologians and preachers and teachers (especially around Holy Week and Easter) talk about “being saved” this is what they are talking about. Something is off and amiss with humanity, we have given into our fears and anxieties, we have behaved in ways that are selfish and narcissistic and bullying, we have sought to alleviate our fear and anxiety by trying to eliminate anything that is not like us. We are a virus of pain and misery and we have to be stopped.
How do we get stopped?
Jesus.
As I said, there are several different theories of how Christ accomplished this, depending on how we understand humans and the problem of sin.
Most of us were taught that Jesus endured the cross to “save” us from the punishment of dying and going to hell. Why are we going to die and go to hell? Because we violated God’s laws and God is very mad at us.
“Well, when you put it like that…”
Well, I did put it like that.
Because that’s the way that theory is.
There’s no sugar coating that this theory teaches us that we are worthy of God’s love and affection ONLY if we repent and accept that Jesus died for us. It’s convoluted and messy and I admit I find it repulsive. This theory is called the Penal Substitutionary Atonement theory. It’s a legal argument that somebody’s got to pay, and if it ain’t you then it’s Christ.
The PSA theory was a development of a different theory called the Satisfaction Theory. Rather than a legal criminal idea, Satisfaction assumed that we owed God a debt for the ways we have sinned and participated in Evil. It’s not that we must be “punished” but that someone had to “repay” God for the ways we have impoverished God.
Jesus’ death “balanced the scales.”
Both PSA and Satisfaction are a version of what was likely the first BIG theory of atonement: Ransom Theory. In this theory, we have sold our souls to the Devil and someone has to pay to get us back. This idea has cropped up in stories and myths since the dawn of time. Rather than be patient and trust that an authority figure (God, in this case) has our best intentions at heart (even though we can’t see or understand them), we strike out on our own and try to make deals for ourselves to get what we want.
It’s Robert Johnson at the Crossroads.
It’s Aslan dying to save Edmund from the White Witch.
For most of Christian history, the dominant theory of “how we were saved” was called Christus Victor (Christ the Victor). It was similar to the Ransom theory, except no one was paying anyone anything. Rather, the action was one of defeat. Jesus’ sacrifice was a way of defeating sin and evil. Christ’s willing sacrifice overpowered the forces of sin, evil, and death, and we were set free. Think: the love of Harry Potter’s mother combined with his willingness to sacrifice himself for everyone else is what defeated Voldemort.
To the best of my understanding, our Orthodox siblings have a theory that views the situation not in terms of a courtroom or a ransom note, but as a hospital. We are not captured by sin and evil.
We are sick.
As a result of our sickness, we have rejected God and have separated ourselves and have no capacity to reunite and reconcile ourselves to and with God. Jesus becoming human does that. God in Christ shares humanity with us, enabling us to share divinity with him. Jesus dies as a human so we may join him in the defeat of death and live eternally. This theory is called the Recapitulation theory.
Likely the earliest theory of atonement is the Moral Influence theory: Jesus’s life and death change our hearts and minds. In this theory, God is not a brute seeking to punish us, but a loving parent seeking to show us love. The events of Jesus’s life are meant to convince us of that truth and turn us back to a loving relationship with God. It is similar to Recapitulation, but the action is not a “coming to get us and make us better.” Instead, it is “showing us the error of our ways.”
I certainly have my favorites among this group and ones that I flatly reject, but none of them solve the problem as I understand it. All of these theories presuppose a robust knowledge of who God is and what God wants and expects. Even the softest among them (Recapitulation) suggests that we know God’s commands, but we’re just too sick to do anything about it (it feels to me like the ways we think about some mental illness and behavior).
I am claiming that our Sin and participation in Evil is not the result of rejection or sickness. As I’ve written, Sin and Evil are the result of our ignorance.
The entire point of Christ is a recognition that humans have no idea who God is or what God expects of us. General Revelation has taught us nothing in that regard. Special Revelation is required for our spiritual education.
Maya Angelou famously taught us:
Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.
The problem of Sin and Evil is that we don’t “know any better.”
The full reality of Christ teaches us.
Christ’s person, life, and ministry is a pedagogical project. The entire existence of Christ is to show us who God is so we can know how to be in relationship to God. Christ has come to show us what “better” is so we can “do” it and “be” it. Christ has come to show us that what we thought the world was in our limited haze of knowledge is incomplete.
Christ reveals who God is and how God has created the world so we can live and move according to God’s designs and intentions.
(This is different from Jesus as a moral influence – changing our contrary perception of God – or as a moral example – trying to convince us to behave differently to ensure our salvation.)
And the beauty of it all is, while Christ may be (for Christians) the supreme special revelation from God, it was not the first and isn’t the last.
Say what? Next time…
PLGRM 
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