In this issue, we are happy to be offering
our readers a free copy of the book,
The Biblical Revelation of the Cross by Norman McIlwain. Free upon request to readers of Global Missiology until
Email: <brcfree@maran-atha.com> or Fax: 0044 (0)1639 61812
The Biblical Revelation of the Cross:
A Bible Study of the Atonement of Jesus Christ - the Righteous Servant
Norman
McIlwain
ISBN 0955102901 (9780955102905)
Oak Wood Publishing House,
2006
Why did Jesus
die?
It's a simple
enough question at first glance: he was crucified. That's what happens:
crucifixion kills. But for Christians, as well as for anyone else who wants to
understand Christianity, that's inadequate: deeper questioning is called for.
Why did Jesus deliberately put himself in a situation where his arrest and
crucifixion were inevitable? What, if anything, did his death achieve? What was
God's involvement in his death?
In recent
years that last question has caused controversy within evangelical circles in
particular, and it's a question that won't go away. Steve Chalke and Alan Mann
drew the question to popular — or rather, unpopular! — attention in their book The
Lost Message of Jesus, referring in passing to evangelicalism's
shibboleth, penal substitution, as "cosmic child abuse", leading none
other than Don Carson, that doyen of evangelical conservatism, to suggest that
Chalke has "largely abandoned the gospel." [1]
But has he?
Is the notion of penal substitution — the idea that on the cross God was
punishing Jesus in place of humanity [2] — truly a core belief
of Christianity? Or is it, rather, an inversion of the Christian message, a
perverted twist that evangelicalism has swallowed hook, line and sinker?
This book addresses
this question in the most straightforward way possible: by studying Scripture.
It is, as the subtitle says, a Bible Study, and to follow the discussion
clearly you'll need to have either a Bible or BibleGateway available. After a brief
preface in which the author explains his reasons for writing — to offer a
positive view of the atonement, in which God's mercy and righteousness are
revealed, in contrast to the prevailing negative view, with its emphasis on
God's judgement and wrath — the study takes Proverbs 17:26 as its starting
point: "It is not good to punish an innocent man" (NIV).
McIlwain
asks, "Could God have done that which is not good?" He then takes us
on a conducted tour of key biblical passages about innocence and guilt, notably
Ezekiel 18:20, "The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the
guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The
righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the
wicked shall be upon himself." (NKJ); and Proverbs
From this
McIlwain demonstrates that the concept of penal substitution represents a
complete travesty of justice. It's a notion that not only goes counter to any
form of natural justice that intelligent beings might understand but also runs
contrary to the Bible itself: for anyone who accepts the Bible as God's
authoritative word, penal substitution as an explanation for the atonement
simply will not do — it both misrepresents Scripture and dishonours God
himself.
So if this
model collapses under its own weight, what does McIlwain offer in its place?
How does the atonement work? How does Christ's crucifixion reconcile God and
humanity? A study of atonement follows, showing Christ's offering of himself as
a covering of righteousness that does away with our sins not by some sort of
bizarre economic transfer of guilt but through love, by grace. Forgiveness does
not require punishment, least of all the punishment of an innocent victim in
place of the guilty party: forgiveness flows from grace, is freely given. When
Christ was crucified, it wasn't the wrath of God he was facing: it was the
wrath of humanity. Christ wasn't condemned by God: he was condemned by a human
court, murdered in one of the worst miscarriages of justice humanity has ever
perpetrated.
God's
response? The resurrection, the most mind-blowing reversal of a court's
decision ever made. "Not Guilty!" declares God, and turns humanity's
verdict upside down: God's righteous servant vindicated, raised victorious.
McIlwain
avoids the dramatic hype of such terms as "cosmic child abuse",
presenting his case with a calm dignity that leaves his readers in no doubt
that this is a writer who has thought the issues through from a biblical
perspective rather than in reaction to pop culture. Whether your concern is to
rediscover a biblical understanding of the atonement or to seek to draw back
those who have been driven away from Christianity by the idea of penal
substitution, this is one book you can't afford to miss.
The Debate
Goes On...
Headline
Issues: Atonement: Papers from the Evangelical Alliance (EA) / London School of Theology (LST)
Symposium on the Atonement (July 2005)
Atonement
and Unity: The EA reaffirms penal substitution as central to its
understanding of the atonement.
An Open Letter to
The Evangelical Alliance: A Response to the EA.
The
Crucifixion - Self harm or child abuse?: A Discussion in the Soulspace
Forum
1. Don Carson, Becoming
Conversant with the Emerging Church, p.186
2. Or, to give it a more nuanced trinitarian formulation, that
God in Christ was taking his punishment for sin out on himself. This, of
course, raises its own questions: penal substitution, with its idea that God
the Father turns his face away from God the Son, breaks the relationship at the
heart of the Trinity — it divides God against himself, introducing a dangerous
instability at the centre of God's own being. How can a God divided against
himself bring reconcilation to humanity? How can destroying a perfect
relationship repair a broken one?
Phil Groom, September 2006
Phil Groom is this site's Webmaster and Reviews
Editor. He's a regular contributor to Christian
Marketplace magazine and is the manager of London School of Theology
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