-
Chapter 4: Jesus as the Suffering Christ
- Augsburg Fortress Publishers
- Chapter
- Additional Information
73 The Gospels describe Jesus as healing people, casting out demons, and miraculously feeding multitudes .TheseactionsareportrayedassignsofGod’s salvific power working through Jesus. Instances where Jesus “could do no deed of power”1 are recorded, but the former greatly outnumber these. Shortly after Jesus’ death, his disciples and others came to believe that God had raised him to new life. They saw this as another act of divine power associated with his person. These perceptions of God’s saving power in Jesus’ ministry before his death and afterward in his resurrection led Christians early on to claim that God’s saving power was at work in his death too. Jesus’ death became proclaimed as something he underwent for the salvation of others. His execution is portrayed in the New Testament as a sin on par with the murder of prophets yet also as willed by God for the salvation of the world. Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) developed a distinct interpretation of the saving significance of Jesus’ suffering and death.2 According to Anselm, each person, as a result of their sin, owes an infinite debt to God, which they as finite and sinful can never repay. Christ, as fully human and fully divine, is able to pay this penalty by suffering in our place on the cross. As sinless, Christ owes no penalty to God. CHAPTER 4 u Jesus as the Suffering Christ Jürgen Moltmann, Douglas John Hall, Marilyn McCord Adams 74 Contemporary Christologies Because he is human, he is able to suffer in our place. Because he is divine, his suffering can fulfill the infinite debt that sinners owe God. Thus, through Jesus’ suffering and death, sinful humanity is reconciled to God and assured of salvation. Paul Tillich judged Anselm’s theory of atonement the most effective in Western Christianity.3 Tillich disputed Anselm’s view that Jesus’ sufferings substituted for humanity’s, but he affirmed that “the suffering of God, universally and in the Christ, is the power which overcomes creaturely self-destruction by participation and transformation.”4 Anselm’s theory addresses the alienation between people and God that results from peoples’ sinful actions and condition. This is experienced as guilt. In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, this guilt is represented by an imaginary blood stain that Lady Macbeth sees on her hand and cannot wash away.5 The guilt she feels for urging her husband to murder the king causes her to see blood on her hand and continually try in vain to wash it away. Guilt is a form of spoiled identity. It arises from actions contrary to what one should have done. It indicates that one’s person has become separated from God. According to Anselm, this separation is overcome by God in Christ entering into the guilty person’s place. In the New Testament, Jesus’ suffering and death destroyed his identity as God’s Messiah, until his resurrection. Yet after his resurrection, his death was seen on another level to be part of his work and being as the Christ. Jesus is seen to have overcome sinful humanity’s alienation from God through entering into the human condition of guilt and condemnation by suffering death on the cross. The idea that Jesus’ death was required by God for the forgiveness of sin has long been criticized as contrary to the idea of God as love. Late in the twentieth century, a renewed wave of protest against this valorization of Jesus’ suffering arose from feminist, womanist, and other theologians. For many, this is summarized in a frequently cited article by Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker.6 They argue that the glorification of Jesus’ suffering as salvific encourages women to accept abuse, creates a conflict within children who are being abused, and sustains a culture of abuse. They concludes that if “Christianity is to be liberating for the oppressed, it must itself be liberated from this theology.”7 Despite this critique, others continue to argue that Jesus’ suffering and death have a special saving significance. An Anselm-like emphasis on the efficacy of Jesus’ death is central to the Christologies of Jürgen [34.228.168.200] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 18:38 GMT) 75 Jesus as the Suffering Christ Moltmann, Douglas John Hall, and Marilyn McCord Adams. None accepts Anselm’s theory of atonement entirely, but each sees Jesus’ agony on the cross as an expression of God’s love, an event in which Jesus accomplished something of decisive saving significance. Jürgen...