An Encounter with Calvary:
A Departure from the
Sacrificial Death of Jesus

Lauren Santerre

Introduction

After twelve years of having professed myself to be an ardent believer in Jesus and the Church, at age twenty, I began to doubt the sufficiency of my God. During my junior year in college I nearly lost my faith; clinging desperately, I could not hold on to the teachings of my youth, the Sunday school lessons, and most of all to a God that was as small as the doctrines of my tradition portrayed Him. The project that I set before you is a representation of my theological and faith journey that has occurred in my life over the last year. The words and thoughts contained in this paper are a beginning; they are a place for me to start a different relationship with God. I acknowledge that in many ways I am very young and lack the extensive knowledge of so many great theologians who have preceded me. In my culminating academic project at Colorado College, however, I venture to set before you how my understanding of the defining characteristics of a Christian have changed in meaning and purpose over the past four years of college.

Integral to this change is how I understand the purpose, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as the central figure in my faith. My claim rests in an intimate experience of the love of God that has propelled me to find an intellectual and scriptural justification for my understanding of Jesus. I propose to you that Jesus' death was not a pre-set needed sacrifice in order to redeem people from their sins so that they might be justified in the eyes of God. Instead, I propose that Jesus was the ultimate example of God's nature. Jesus was in his life, death, and resurrection a gift of God to show the world God loves His people and that His ultimate design for humanity is union with Him. The most difficult question any person of faith must ask is how do we explain suffering and pain? For it is easy to believe in a loving God when life is free from difficulty, but what do we believe about the nature of God when we experience pain, despair and hurt? I present to you that God in Jesus answers this question, because He was willing to suffer with us, even unto death. My examination of Jesus will link how He was an example of God's nature through His willingness to suffer along with humanity, which revealed God's great love for people. Jesus' example calls us to a relationship with God through a life, lived like Him; a life not free from suffering or persecution, but one sustained by the power of God. Now we approach a description of what will guide our exploration about the nature of Jesus as a representation of God.

            In this paper I will use Marcus Borg's idea that the images we construct of Jesus strongly influence our Christian life, [1] to provide a framework for the exploration of different ways we can understand Jesus' death as an example of God's nature instead of a sacrificial offering to pay for the sins of the world.  To begin, however, I will need to explain the traditional model of sacrifice in relation to the crucifixion using Hubert and Mauss that I might clearly contradict the inadequate model of sacrifice. In order to illuminate the way in which Jesus' death can be seen as exemplary instead of sacrificial, I will trace a variety of example theories presented by theologians over many centuries. Included in my examination of Jesus as representative of the nature of God, I will present the theories of Clement of Alexandria, Horrace Bushnell, and Hans Küng. Their different illustrations of Jesus have the potential to be constructive images of the way we understand Him. Finally, I will include my own analysis of how these models assist in my own understanding of Jesus, and what implications I believe a revised conception of Jesus from the sacrificial model to the exemplary model holds for the present-day Church.

            The goal of this paper is to bring into focus how my faith has changed through new theological concepts as well as offer another voice in the effort to reconstruct our image of Jesus as human beings, especially Christians. I would also like to add here that these thoughts are a process, one which will be refined and changed over many years. As I stated earlier, I see my final project as a new beginning for myself, and an offering to a large community of believers as a way of believing in Jesus that does not rely upon a sacrificial negotiation.

Hubert and Mauss: The Sacrificial Model

In presenting the model of sacrifice as set forth by Hubert and Mauss there needs to be a distinct emphasis on their fundamental understanding of the nature of human beings and their relationship with the Divine (in whatever form one may term it, here we are referencing God). According to Hubert and Mauss there is a recognizable and undeniable separation between humanity and God. God exists in the world of the sacred, while people exist in the world of the profane, and they see sacrifice as the act which allows the two worlds to interact with each other, and "yet remain distinct." [2] The separation of human beings from God provides the foundation for the argument that Hubert and Mauss make in regards to the nature and purpose of sacrifice. The canyon of space between God and human beings is necessary if we are to enter into the sacred world, for one must exist only in the profane outside of the sacrificial ceremony otherwise there would be no purpose for the sacrifice.

            Hubert and Mauss are very clear that the killing of the victim [3] is an act that seeks to create a sacred space for the exchange between God and humanity in their definition of sacrifice. They define sacrifice as follows: "Sacrifice is a religious act which, through the consecration of a victim, modifies the condition of the moral person who accomplishes it or that of certain objects with which he is concerned." [4] In the sacrificial ceremony one wants to be changed in his or her moral person from one who exists in the profane to one who shares in the reality of the sacred. The divide between human beings and God is inherent in the definition of sacrifice formulated by Hubert and Mauss, which reinforces our understanding of how they construct the model of sacrifice and relate its importance.

            In sacrifice as an act which seeks to transform the moral person through the consecration of a victim and, in doing so, connect the sacred with the profane there are two types of sacrifice, sacralization and desacralization. In a sacralizing ceremony the participants seek to desacralize the victim in order to use the parts of the victim for the benefit of the community. In the reverse, the desacralizing ceremony makes the victim sacred and somehow other than the profane people surrounding the sacrifice. [5] These two categories of sacrifice construct a framework for the examination of three essential ideas within sacrifice. These three elements are the contractual nature of sacrifice, the expiatory function of sacrifice, and the communion function of sacrifice. [6] An examination of how these three essential parts of sacrifice relate to the sacrifice of the victim will bring us back to how the death of Jesus functions in the model of sacrifice developed by Hubert and Mass. Our exploration will acknowledge how these elements have formed for centuries the theology of the sacrificial death of Jesus, as well as the inherent problems with this schema.

The beginning element of contract, indicating a covenant formed through sacrifice between human beings and God represents the classic [7] understanding of Jesus' purpose as redemptive savior. By redemptive and savior I am referring to the nature of Jesus attributed to Him by the Church that places Jesus as the victim of a contractual negotiation between man and God to reconcile the world to God through death. [8] Hubert and Mauss explain that due to the contractual nature of sacrifice the entry, sacrifice of the victim, and exit constitute a give and take offering from people to God in order to receive some benefit. [9] Hubert and Mauss state, "Fundamentally there is perhaps no sacrifice that has not some contractual element. The two parties present exchange their services and each gets his due." [10] It is important to note, here, that Hubert and Mauss make this statement regarding the sacrifices offered to "the gods," such as gods of harvest or rain, and not in regards to the God of Christianity. In fact, the authors actually state that the sense of contract is not applicable in the case where the god sacrifices himself (which one could argue is the case in the sacrifice of Jesus because he was willing to die.) In reality, however, Jesus was sacrificed by those outside of himself. He did not kill himself and there is a distinct difference here which gives validity to my point about the association between Jesus' death as sacrifice and a contract between Jesus and God. Jesus as God did not commit the act of sacrifice, so if we take the analysis of Hubert and Mauss, we can make the argument that the doctrine formed by the Church leads to a bargaining price established through Jesus for God to save the world. There is a contract between God and man with Jesus at the center. This understanding of Jesus leads to the conviction that Jesus' death on the cross was necessary for God to reconcile the sinful world unto Himself, to once and for all reconcile human beings to God.

            Inherent in the contract enacted through the death of Jesus that was necessary for the redemption of people are the elements of expiation and communion. Through the blood of Jesus that washes all things in order to make them pure, [11] we as human beings are forgiven. The blood of Jesus expiates our sins. The communion aspect follows directly from the expiatory, because we are now allowed back in the sacred presence of God so that we might have fellowship with him. Through becoming clean we are a new creation that can stand purified before God. [12] In these two facets of sacrifice the Christian (as one who accepts the sacrifice of Jesus on his or her behalf) completes the contractual agreement so that the sacrifice of Jesus fulfills its purpose, reconciliation.

            I find many problems with the notion of Christ as a payment in a contract between God and man. Through reading the gospels and studying the life of Christ for several years I do not believe that Christ came to fill some contractual clause that would provide God with a reconciliatory sacrifice. I think that this analysis and belief about what Jesus' purpose on earth leads to some very complicated questions such as: Why would God be so cruel as to send his son to die a horribly painful death? Was there not another way? How is it possible that God would need to send his son in the form of man to redeem the world because this indicates a dependency of God on a Savior in order to forgive? Finally, what about the salvation of the people previous to Jesus? These are some of the basic questions that challenge me to look at the death of Jesus in a different way than as a sacrificial offering as defined by Hubert and Mauss.  I want to explore another option, that Jesus came to be the living God among the people of the world. I will start from John 3:16, a verse which is often used to support the traditional sacrificial understanding of Jesus, that states "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." I, however, do not find any concrete support for the sacrificial model of Jesus in this verse. I use this verse as a beginning point to examine Jesus as God's ultimate example of His love for the world and how belief in Jesus implies submission to the spirit of God. In order to approach the idea of Jesus as example we will take up different example theories offered by three theologians as we use Marcus Borg's idea that our images of Christ influence our understanding of Christian faith.

Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria portrays Christ as our educator, a teacher who provides the perfect example of a life lived for and with God thereby instructing us as to how to live so that we avoid sin, strive for moral perfection, and create a community of believers that enacts the Kingdom of God on earth. The image of Jesus that Clement constructs is one of an intimate guide that provides the motivation to strive for perfection. Jesus educates in order to teach us how to choose the right moral choices in order that we may accomplish the Father's will. [13] Clement perceives Christ's teachings and ministry as a practical example that awakens the revelation of the Word so that the way leading progressively to salvation may come to fruition. He describes Christ's purpose in a twofold manner saying:

                        As Teacher, He explains and reveals through instruction, but as

                        Educator He is practical. First He persuades men to form habits

                        of life, then He encourages them to fulfill their duties by laying down                    

                        clear-cut counsels and by holding up, for us who follow, examples

                        of those who have erred in the past. Both are most useful: the advice,

                        that it may be obeyed; the other, given in the form of example, has a twofold-

                        object--either that we may choose the good and imitate it or condemn and

                        avoid the bad. [14]

Clement addresses the role of Jesus as the one who leads through persuasion and example. Clement also states that he believes that humanity is the height of God's creation because God has put so much time and effort into instructing man in the spiritual path to move towards salvation. [15] What is interesting here is that Clement explicitly does not see salvation as a momentary saving grace that guarantees one's place in Heaven. He sees the act of salvation as living deliberately a life like Christ through the example Jesus himself laid out in his life. This conception of salvation would be considered radical in the church today, but I think it offers an interesting alternative to our understanding of salvation.

            Only through God's power does one have the ability to begin on this journey, remain on the narrow path, and live in salvation, but it is a relationship and partnership between a person and God that leads to salvation. Salvation requires faith in God and that comes through perseverance in following Christ. Faith, if defined as "to give one's heart to" or "to submit to," joins together the life of the believer as an act of submission to the life of Christ as ultimate example of union with God through submission. I want to make sure to highlight that this idea is not opposed to salvation through faith, but it gives a different definition to faith and what faith requires. Salvation, then, becomes dependent on a life lived in submission to God seeking to follow the example of Christ. Faith is not only an "I believe" statement, but also a life commitment to run towards the goal that Christ sets before us.

            While Clement eloquently accomplishes his description of Christ as Educator, I find fault with a central premise in his model. Clement claims that Christ was a being without passion or emotion, and so encourages the Christian to "cultivate reason, the god within him." [16]   I disagree vehemently with Clement on this portrayal of Christ, and I criticize his contribution to the image of Jesus as one without feeling or passion. I think that were Christ to have been devoid of these characteristics he would not have been motivated to heal the sick and forgive the wretched. Scripture again and again speaks of Christ being moved and having compassion for people who were sick, outcasts, or morally reprehensible. [17] I must depart here from Clement's model because it ceases to be useful in my analysis. I am arguing that because Jesus was an embodiment and full example of God's love for human beings He, of course, had passion and emotion. God in Christ was willing to suffer even unto an incredibly painful death to communicate the love of God, and God's love is not without passion or emotion.

Christ's willingness to suffer with humanity forms the essential aspect of his life as example. Jesus endured an unjust death to show that God must suffer because through God's love for us He abides in us; and without being willing to die He would have negated His basic nature, love. Through the love of God He necessarily identifies with His creation, and without being willing to suffer in death he would have not fully have identified with the suffering inherent in human life. This idea of suffering and its necessary place in the life and death of Christ is one that I will be tracing and exploring throughout my paper. Clement of Alexandria missed an incredibly key aspect of Christ as educator through his negation of Christ having emotion or passion. We will examine further in future sections how later theologians develop the idea of suffering as integral to Jesus' example. For now we leave Clement and proceed to another exemplary model of Jesus found in the writings and sermons of Horrace Bushnell.

Horrace Bushnell

Horrace Bushnell brings a different image of the person of Jesus from educator to incarnate God, a finite instance of God's nature. The image that Bushnell develops does not rest on human pictures like teacher, friend, or counselor, but instead associates Jesus with God himself so that the image we see is the nature of the Father exhibited in a tangible human form. The usefulness of Bushnell's model of Christ allows us to see Christ as a testimony to God's nature. Through Christ God imparts knowledge of the depth of God's love that suffers with human beings and exemplifies the union between God and human beings that has been since the beginning of time, this knowledge gives people access to live in Truth. [18] “Truth,” as I use the term here, is the intended state of union between people and God. In order to investigate and delve into the ideas of Bushnell we must look at what he perceives to be the nature of God and how that nature manifests itself in Jesus in order to understand how Bushnell can be claimed as one who is an exemplar theorist even though his model is often not grouped with other exemplary models of Christ. [19]

             The underlying theory in Bushnell's theology is that the nature of God is love. God involves Himself in the world through the act of creation, and therefore sustains the world through a relational nature that is inherent in God as a component in the definition of God's character. [20] Through the discerning of God's nature human beings begin to understand that God is a movable God in His spirit, that is, that we can affect God's sensitivities, passions, and emotions. We also begin to grasp, however, that only in God's submission to a finite existence, Jesus Christ, can God be moved upon physically. [21] Before Christ human beings only knew the moral passibility of God, but in the incarnation God submits himself to a physical passiblity. A physical passiblity indicates 1) God's power in choosing to become passible and 2) His desire to communicate forgiveness and redemption to His created children. From this results recognition of the freedom that human beings have inherent in their nature, a freedom that contains salvation in its very definition. [22] The cross becomes the definitive representational act of an eternal truth, that God in his nature desires relationship with his created children by restoring man who has forgotten this truth. Browning illuminates the nature of God in relation to forgiveness and the crucifixion in saying:

                        In vast contrast to the position held by Anselm, Bushnell understands

                        forgiveness to spring from the eternal necessity of the law of God's

                        nature. It is not a contingent or secondary phenomenon. It is fundamental

                        to the structure of God in its most primordial sense. Bushnell believes that

                        God's forgiving dispositions are "dateless, and are cast in eternal mold,"

                        that the "cross" is in God before the Son arrives, and that the "Lamb was

                        slain from the foundation of the world." As we will see more fully later,

                        although it may well be that the death of Christ reveals that God is a suffering

                        and forgiving God, Christ is not the occasion or the cause of God's forgiveness.

                        The cross of Jesus Christ is the manifestation of what Bushnell calls the

                        "everlasting predisposition of his nature. [23]

The idea that forgiveness and suffering have always been in the nature of God, but that the forgiveness and suffering of God are not dependent on the death of Christ upon the Cross, makes for a very interesting dynamic to God's character and the purpose of Calvary. There are many people who would most likely claim heresy at this point, but we are brought back to the original question of how can God be dependent on human sacrifice in order to redeem the world? I think Bushnell offers a plausible theory to negate the necessity of God's dependence on Christ. If we look at Christ as one who is fully God, His act of submitting to suffering and death brings a different meaning to the cross. Bushnell spends considerable time exploring the nature of God through this lens.

            Bushnell speaks of Christ's perfect ability to subdue evil through patient suffering saying, "Christ conquers evil by enduring evil," and later, "Evil can argue against everything but suffering patience disarms it." [24] The death of Jesus on the cross takes on a different image entirely, moving from a contractual idea to one of conquering evil through suffering to redeem humanity from the darkness of blinding lies. Bushnell would not go so far as to say that Christ on the cross is the exemplary model of redemption, but there is the idea that we learn from Christ's experience, which is the incredible importance of Christ's sacrifice. Bushnell poignantly captures how effective is the incarnation saying:

But perfections lived, embodied physically and acted before the senses under social conditions, have quite another grade of meaning. How much then does it signify when God comes out from nature, out of all abstraction and abstractive epithets, to be acted personally in just those glorious and divine passivities that we have least discerned in him and scarcely dare impute to him! By what method, so entirely new and superior to all past revelations, can he then meet us so effectively as by coming into our world-history in the human form,—that form most eloquent in its passivity, because it is at once most expressive and closest to our feeling? [25]

God in his ultimate love for human beings brought himself from behind the cloud [26] into the person of Jesus that we might understand that God would suffer even unto death for the sake of communicating the freedom in God to be in relationship with Him as forgiven children.           

            Through Christ we have the ultimate expression of the gospel, the good news, or the understanding that the Kingdom of God is here and we are to live as formative members in that Kingdom. Christ continually preaches and teaches about the Kingdom of Heaven, and urges people to delve into being in relationship with God. We know the love of God, according to Bushnell, through Christ because He is a tangible and physically accessible demonstration of the nature of God. Bushnell vehemently urges the Christian to understand that there is so much more in the cross that mere justification through expiatory sacrifice. [27] The cross is the ending to a physical incarnation of God, and that incarnation reveals important elements of God's nature. Bushnell stresses that in knowing and encountering Christ in scripture, heart, and prayer we begin to walk in the truth of the nature of God, and Bushnell confirms that is impossible for the Christian to navigate the Kingdom of God apart from Christ when he states:          

It is no Christian idea that we are going to be converted and sanctified through the truth, in the sense that we are going to manipulate and manage, convert and sanctify ourselves by good abstractions installed in our heads. Our Christ is to be the truth beheld in living expression. No matter what notions we have gotten booked for a gospel, he is all the gospel there is himself. [28]

Christ is very important, but he is not necessary to God; however, I think perhaps He is necessary for us. God in His wisdom knew that we as human beings needed a physical manifestation of the Word in order that we might more easily submit our lives to Him. The suffering God, in Christ, identified Him as the God who would and will go to the most extreme measures to communicate His love for His children, to invite us into His loving arms. At this point we find a good place to look closer at the idea of suffering and how in Bushnell's understanding of God as love the importance of Christ's suffering communicates the nature of God.

            Bushnell makes the case that through the willingness of Christ to suffer unto death there is an intimacy established between the Creator and his created children; an intimacy that is the fruit of God's effort to communicate His love for us. Dorothee Söelle interprets the suffering of Christ in a similar way that illuminates Bushnell's understanding of the nature of God as love. Bushnell acknowledges that God understands the inherent suffering in the nature of humanity and chooses to participate in it that we might understand that in all things God is present and redemptive, including pain, suffering and death (in effect, the ultimate purpose of the cross). Dorothee Söelle offers great wisdom to the Christian community in speaking of how we learn about the nature of God and his presence in and with us through the cross, through His willingness to suffer. We as human beings, she claims, must in fact identify with God in suffering otherwise he is beyond and other than we are and cannot relate to our nature. We have to understand that only in suffering do we understand the cross; therefore, suffering is necessary because it reveals the depth of God's love in an inescapable element of our humanity. Dorothee Söelle states:

The desire to be in God's image without attaining Christ's image is a desire for the immediacy, which wants everything without detour and without self-actualization, a narcissistic desire of the ego to settle down in God, immortal and almighty, that doesn't find it necessary "to let its life be crucified" and to experience the night of pain. To meditate on the cross means to say good-bye to the narcissistic hope of being free of sickness, deformity, and death. Then all the energies wasted on such hopes could become free to answer the call for the battle against suffering. [29]

Söelle engages the idea of suffering and regards it as essential to the understanding of the man Jesus and therein the life of the Christian. Without suffering we cannot identify with the extreme sacrifice (in the sense of self-denial) that God performed through the incarnation and crucifixion. Suffering is the key to experiencing faith, for it is in the valley that God must pull one through the dark night and only when we realize that our Lord walked through the dark valley that we might know He is capable do we understand the ultimate love of Christ. As we move from the experiential description of suffering and faith through the witness of Christ as an individual experience, we will move into how experiencing the suffering of Christ as a corporate body, the church, becomes an effective model for interpreting Jesus.

Hans Küng

Hans Küng perceives the body of Christ, the Church, as a representation of the nature of humanity. The Church as a body of believers is a community that acts both as individuals and also as a cohesive unit in the world in relation to God. What Küng brings to our discussion is a very passionate understanding of the nature of our relationship to God and how much God loves his creation as a whole and as individuals. Hans Küng believes that in Christ we have the power to participate in the fullness of the Kingdom of God, that our purpose on the earth is to manifest the heart and mind of God in the world through belief in Christ. Küng sees that our active engagement with the risen Christ manifests itself through many different images of Christ; but, ultimately that Jesus' purpose was to remind human beings of our natural relationship to God, one that has been perverted by the universal burden of sin, but is not broken through inherited sin. [30] Küng believes that there are many different levels to the meaning inherent in the Cross, and they all point to a way to understand our relationship with God. He says, "Neither in the New Testament nor in the works of the Fathers, is there any exclusively normative model of interpretation. There is a diversity of interpretations, shading into one another, at many levels." [31] Through the lens provided by Küng we are going to explore some of the different levels of interpretation that shade our understanding of the cross in order to see how the image of Christ as a gateway to participating in relationship with God informs the faith of the believers in the body of Christ.

            Küng spends a significant amount of time refuting Anselm's theory of satisfaction in which God's honor that has been infinitely offended must be restored through the sacrifice of Christ as satisfactory redemptive act. Küng finds, however, that in placing a greater significance on the death of Jesus one negates the importance of the incarnation and the purpose of his life and ministry before the day of Calvary, as well as the resurrection. Küng says that if we follow Anslem's legalist theory then:

For the sake of this logic, Jesus' death on the cross is isolated from his message and life and at the same time also from his resurrection: essentially Jesus came simply in order to die…Concrete human beings, for whom all this is supposed to be done, thus largely disappear behind the figure of God's Son; they are not inwardly affected and for the most part are simply put off with promises of the afterlife. [32]

If we see Jesus as a necessary part of a legal compensation for human beings’ insult against God, then we have the problem that Jesus was sent here for the benefit of God. There is, of course, also the theological problem inherent in this argument that we as human beings have the power to insult God's honor; a thought that is, one, disturbing to me and, two, ridiculous that we would consider ourselves so important and yet powerless. The point, however, that Küng makes is that we as human beings are left out of any type of relationship with God, and without reason to exist in the Kingdom of God as agents of change. [33] Küng sees the entire purpose of the Church having a "collective faith" as an opportunity to manifest the Kingdom of God on earth through belief in Christ as not merely redeemer, but as the example of the fullness of God's nature and desire for relationship with His created children. We thereby become an extension of God in the world.

            Küng views Christ's entire existence-- the incarnation, death, and resurrection-- as a sacrifice in the way of "self-sacrifice," not a legalistic redemptive act to restore God's honor. As this as Küng's basis for interpreting the life of Christ, we can employ new words to help with our image of Christ, as Küng states:

The term "sacrifice," understood in the sense of cult ("expiatory sacrifice"), is therefore to be avoided in practice as much as possible in modern proclamation and replaced by more intelligible terms like "reconciliation," "representation," "redemption," "liberation." If it is used, however, it is to be understood in a personal sense as "offering," "self-offering," and not with reference only to Jesus' death, but for his whole way of life. [34]

These new words lead us into the image of Christ as God whose whole life is a sacrifice in the sense that God becomes finite, an offering of love to His children. Jesus’ sacrifice as an entire way of life reveals that God suffers with us even in human and this is indeed a beautiful realization. If our God can suffer and still be God then He has the power to redeem our human suffering as well, and in this way Christ becomes redemptive (as stated earlier, but provided here again for emphasis). Küng beautifully articulates the importance of the redemptive nature of Christ, because God through Christ has the power to bring us out of what we cannot save ourselves from (unavoidable suffering). [35] Küng states:

Redemption (liberation of man by God) alone makes man free at a depth which emancipation (liberation of man by man) cannot reach. Redemption alone can lead to a person liberated from sin, aware that he is accepted for time and eternity, to a meaningful life, to an unreserved effort for his fellow man, for society, for the new men liberated from the misery of this world. [36]

It is through Jesus' willingness to bear the cross and be crucified in order to communicate to his disciples, and essentially humanity, that God's kingdom is not one where suffering is negated or not understood. Jesus in all his humanity experienced pain, heartache, and humiliation that we might understand that in suffering the greatest trust of God is required and in that moment God will resurrect that which seems lost. This is the meaning of sacrifice upon the cross.

            The cross allows for human beings to seek God in humanity, in suffering. As Küng says, "God's love does not protect us against all suffering. But it protects us in all suffering." [37] The key here is that this is how we are to live in the Kingdom of God that is present here and now, and will be forever. God moved by humanity's insufficiency to live in relationship with Him sent Christ to suffer in love that we might love in suffering. Finally, as Küng states:

This is the harmony which is not simply given without expiation, but established in the cross. The definitive victory of the love of a God who is not an unconcerned, unloving being, whom suffering and injustice cannot move, but who himself has assumed and will assume men's suffering in love. The victory of the love of God as Jesus proclaimed and manifested it, as the final, decisive power: this is the kingdom of God. [38]   

We know the love of God through suffering, for it was in suffering that the love of God was shown to us. If we fail to identify with suffering on a deep level in our faith, then we live in a shallow relationship with God, disconnected from the world. We are separated from the innermost part of God, and the most basic part of humanity because suffering always comes, even if only by death.

            Dorothee Söelle, whom I mentioned earlier in relation to Horrace Bushnell, offers a critique of Christians who believe that they may understand and be in relationship with God without enduring suffering. As I also mentioned previously, her contention is that we learn about the nature of God at its greatest depths through suffering, a point congruent with Küng 's. Soelle critiques those who want to be in relationship only with the "sweet Christ" saying:

By trusting the "sweet Christ," a person wants "to be in the image of God so that he no longer wants, does not even completely desire to attain the image of Christ." To want to be in the image of God signifies a way without suffering, without fear. Faith remains unexperienced. It is merely received outwardly. To be in the image of God without attaining the image of Christ is a suffering-free Christianity—which, however, means at the same time one that leaves suffering to others. [39]

We cannot leave suffering out of an understanding of Christ, and we can by no means live in the image of Christ without suffering. Jesus’ life consisted of a sacrificial element at almost every turn, over and over again laying down his own life to instruct others and follow the will of God. Jesus’ suffering in life and death, redeemed by resurrection to an eternal life, promises that now we have hope in a new life after suffering. Many people have attributed our new life only to the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth in its fulfillment after Christ comes to earth once more, but I do not believe this is the only opportunity for new life. I think that the resurrection points to the power of God to redeem even the greatest suffering and those smaller redemptions take place daily. Over and over again we die to a part of our innermost being, and God restores a new creation in the place of what was lost. As Söelle says, "…but how the man Jesus suffered means a strengthening, a presentation of human possibilities, a hope of humanizing even our suffering." [40] We are not without hope for there is life in suffering.

            So, through the corporate body, understanding individually and as a whole that suffering leads to communion and fellowship with God we participate in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. For Hans Küng this reality finds its greatest sacramental representation in the Eucharist, but for the body of Christ it is really an ever-present, inescapable reality because it is the nature of God.

Scripture Passages

We have discussed many thoughts about the nature of Jesus' life, death and most recently about the hope inherent in his resurrection. I could offer you more developed examples, more arguments about the reason for the incarnation. There, however, must be some point at which we look into the scriptures to discover where arguments against the sacrificial theory of Jesus may be substantiated. I do not claim to have full understanding and interpretation of the Bible, and so I merely count myself as one ardent seeker among many who wants to encourage the body of Christ to change our world of brokenness into one of hope through the examination of scripture that motivates us to life-changing action. At this juncture I turn our focus to familiar passages in the New Testament in order to critique the sacrificial model of Jesus to gain a preliminary basis for the exemplary theory in Scripture.

            Many scholars do not attribute the book of John found in the New Testament to the actual words of Jesus, and in many ways they discredit its authority in regards to a historical and accurate account of Jesus’ life. On this point I defer to those who are much more learned than I, but I would like to draw our attention to a passage from John that is so often quoted to enforce the sacrifice of Christ as one that pays for the sins of the world, to save the world. In John 3:16-17 it is written: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." [41] There is nothing in this passage that indicates a plan of God to kill his son in order to save the world, in fact if anything in my interpretation the verse implies that we would be saved by the life of Christ. [42] Christ was sent so that in his life we might know life, and how to have an eternal relationship with God. An encounter with the world in the person of Jesus was not to condemn, to essentially kill the world, but to save it through the possibility of our submitting our lives to Christ in relationship with Him. To "follow him," and to give our lives as He did, that we might recognize the Kingdom of God at hand. For so long, I have always thought of this verse as one that implied the death of Christ was what saved the world, but looking at this verse through a different lens casts a new light entirely on its possible meaning, that in the living Christ we have salvation because He is truth. He is the truth that God desires a connected, intimate relationship with all his children in suffering, joy, and hope.

               I start with John because this verse is familiar to nearly everyone who is a Christian, but also familiar to many outside the Christian tradition as it is so often quoted. I want to begin in a place where what seems to have been a long-accepted interpretation of a passage of scripture may in fact be contrary to its original meaning. From this verse I will now move into some passages of scripture that point to how we are in our faith to emulate Christ as well as rest in our relationship with Him that we might follow his example and bring the Kingdom of God into the world. It is interesting to note here that there is the possibility of being confounded by the idea that we as human beings establish the Kingdom of God on earth, but in reality is there any other way for it to happen? How is the Kingdom of God supposed to appear on earth if it is intimately connected with human beings, other than through the words, actions, and deeds of people? I answer this question by saying that it is impossible. We must be the initiators of the Kingdom otherwise we would not be a part of it, for without participation we are necessarily excluded. Christ was the ultimate example of how to enact the Kingdom of God on earth because He realized that He was not separate from it, He was in it and it was in Him. If we desire to be in relationship to God, we must set out after this example as it is written in Hebrews 12:1-4:

                        Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of

                        witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin

                        that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the

                        race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author

                        and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured

                        the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand

                        of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition

                        from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

                        In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point

                        of shedding your blood.

In this passage we are given the charge to run after the goal, to seek to follow the example of Christ even to the point of shedding blood. The image here presents a radical surrender to do the will of God, turn from sin (that which leads us away from God), and follow Christ who suffered for our benefit.

            The image of radical surrender and relinquishing our own desires for the honor of God, lived out in the world through our actions and deeds, becomes the ultimate act of giving everything we have to our Lord just as Jesus did in His life and on the cross. In First Peter the believers in the early church were encouraged to go to lengths that no rational person would for a different type of glorification, as it is written:

                        Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect,

                        not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to

                        those who are harsh. For it is commendable if a man bears

                        up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious

                        of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating

                        for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing

                        good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To

                        this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving

                        you as an example, that you should follow in his steps. [43]

I do not think that God condones slavery. What I believe the author of this book was suggesting was that life is not always just, slavery exists, suffering is inherent in many different ways; but the believer who perseveres even though life is not fair will be admired by God for he or she acts in a godly way towards those who are his or her persecutors. Those who follow Jesus are commanded to be the example for the world on God's behalf in this passage--a challenging commission. What I find to be very interesting in this passage is that it transfers the responsibilities of Christ to Christians; we are required to be Christ in the world because his lifestyle, spirit, and actions were all centered on pleasing the Lord. I see this as the call of the cross, to follow Jesus even to the depths of humanity because we love our God. I am sure that there are many who would use this passage to promote the practice of slavery; but I do not believe that was its intention, but instead an encouragement to those who were persecuted to bear the unbearable so that they might represent another type of man, a man freed from hate, despair, and desperation through the power of God.

            When one enters into relationship with God there is necessarily a change from lesser to greater. There is a change from being a human being who considers one’s own self the center of the universe, to an understanding that God is the center of life, pain, joy, suffering, death, and resurrection. We are encouraged over and over again to experience the change God produces in our hearts, minds, and lives through an intimate encounter with Christ. We can engage Christ in our search because he lives and reigns through his resurrection. When we seek this transformation we become examples like Christ, perhaps not perfect but radically new in witness to the power of God. As Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ," [44] and "We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us." [45] We are continually identified as the body of Christ furthering His work on the earth as we await His return. Paul again questions the believers' awareness of their identity in God saying, "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?" [46] The act of placing the justification of the crucifixion as the forgiveness of sins at the center of one's theology seems to somehow miss much meaning inherent in the cross and the life of Christ. These scriptures indicate the transforming power of God's grace and love, a power that can not only change the life of a few disciples but all of humanity.

My Analysis/ Conclusion

Through all of my life experience, prayer time, and especially the last week that I have spent reading about the nature of God and His Son Jesus who died so that we might have eternal life, I am brought to a few conclusions. The greatest conclusion is that no matter what theological doctrines we formulate about God and Jesus, somehow and in some very mysterious way God shares in our humanity. I do believe that God is great because He is beyond our world and being, but I believe that He is awesome because He chose to share in the very humanity which He transcends. What I have to come realize is that in the cross, Christ gave the greatest gift He had to offer to both God and humanity--his very life. He surrendered everything unto death that we might understand the immanent presence of God and His kingdom. There are other conclusions about the reasons why the cross as a legal negotiation for sins does not seem adequate as mentioned earlier in my paper, but what I want to conclude with in my analysis is how the presence of God stimulates my love for him, and the possible influence the exemplary theory has for the future of the body of Christ.

            In accordance with becoming aware of how God is ever-present, I have come to understand that it is only in being willing to take up the cross, lay everything down in order to be in relationship with Him, that I have life. It is not a life free from pain, and yet it includes a greater joy than I could ever have apart from God. It is a realization that God because he was in our suffering is also in our joy and, as Dorothee Söelle says, apart from identifying with the God who suffers we are not fully in relationship with him:

It is difficult to speak about this experience [Auschwitz]. One has not yet traveled the way that leads from the question [where is God in suffering?] to the answer [God is in our suffering] simply by reflecting on it theologically. The reflection stands in danger of missing the way [the experience, the living in relationship with God] itself since it is bound to other situations and thus cannot comprehend the question. [47] [ [] and emphasis mine]

The daily living out of my relationship with God is the time and place where I find God; it is in the power of Christ that I learn about endurance. In perseverance God proves His faithfulness, often a mystery because there are many moments when my weakness seems consuming, but God's strength always completes my insufficiencies. There is also an eternal gift that comes with enduring suffering, and that gift is salvation. Salvation becomes the life inside of me that God sustains through His power and might in order that I might live both as a child of God in this life and the next. Ultimately to me this is the point of the cross, to live!

            If we can truly become of a body of believers that are living, truly living, then I think the potential of where the model of Christ could take our world would surprise even the greatest of optimists. Our world would look completely different if we began to take on the identity of Christ; there would still be suffering, but there would be so much more grace. I do not think humanity can ever be completely free from suffering, but I do believe we have the potential to be free from sin and by “sin” I mean that which confuses our understanding of who we are in God. I think that the point of Christ's life, death, and resurrection was to create a wellspring of hope for the world to become the Kingdom of God in every sense. Were we to take up a new understanding of Christ, our identity in God, our place in the world, and the power we have in the Holy Spirit that lives in us, we would be capable of dramatic change. How exciting!

            The models offered by Clement of Alexandria, Horrace Bushnell, and Hans Küng offer us three ways to begin to understand the transition from seeing Christ as a sacrificial payment to the model of what we as individuals and the body of Christ have the potential to become. The cross was “the way” in the sense that it signified the reality that God created humanity to be involved in a Kingdom, a Kingdom of God that is the nature of reality. I hope that these models and the ideas in this paper have brought up once again significant questions about the nature of Jesus and His purpose. The point in analyzing, reading, seeking, and praying should always be to seek the face of God and understand to a greater depth the nature of the Creator of the Universe; this paper has been for me an opportunity to continue my journey of searching for God. I hope that it brings both intellectual thought and sincerity of heart to a discussion that needs to develop and continue as the Christian church moves into the future.

            I see the church seeking to find a "new version" of Christianity, mainly evangelical Protestantism, to fulfill its needs of fellowship, hope, and communion with God in an increasingly broken and heartless world. I do not know if the exemplary model of Christ has the potential to take root in such congregations, but I think its potential is to bring the Christian community into a greater and deeper understanding of the nature of God. The exemplary model in my opinion might be able to resolve problems within Christian theology present for centuries if people are willing to make the effort. I hope that we do, because I think we need to resolve divisions among ourselves so that we can become more unified. In unification comes greater strength and less fear which might lead to more tolerance and extension of love towards those outside the Christian church. My greatest prayer is that Christians in the body of Christ would become a people so hungry for the spirit of God that we would see a generation changed in focus, action, and purpose in a world that threatens to tear us away from any identity we have as children of God. In the exemplary model of Christ I think there is great promise for such a change. I offer my thoughts in this paper as one who God has humbled and changed in the hope that we might depart from the sacrificial understanding of Jesus and encounter the meaningful depth of Calvary.

Bibliography

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