Today a non-Christian who often comes to our church asked me how it could be just that if we deserve punishment due to our sin, it is just for that punishment to be received by another.
It is shamefully a difficult question for me to answer well. I say it is shameful because it is so close to the heart of the Christian faith. My response (so far - I have agreed to get back to him) pointed at a few things which would help us some way towards an answer:
- Jesus was not a third party to the dispute, but God himself who chose to take the punishment upon himself.
- Jesus chose to do this willingly and not under coercion.
- We should get our idea of justice from God, and not impose it on him.
- Connected to that, God is not seeking to satisfy another god called Justice, but seeking to satisfy himself.
- We do not just have an individual identity, but also a corporate one. As a corporate unit we were judged in Christ who is our head.
Sadly my answer, nor that of others, was found to be very satisfactory.
I think the heart of the issue is point 5. Corporate responsibility is an alien concept to us now. Most Christians struggle with the numerous OT passages where God punishes the families of those who rebel (e.g. Num 16) and find that Exodus 20:5-6 ('I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments') sticks in the throat. We are much more comfortable with Ezekiel 18:20 ('The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself').
I need to think more this week about:
- How to fit together individual and corporate responsibility in God's justice (because there is clearly both).
- How to communicate the justice of corporate responsibility to a contemporary Western non-Christian.
Any help would be gratefully received (even book recommendations).
Apart from your help my first points of call will be John Stott and PT Forsyth.
BTW this is a different person to that person who asked this question.
what is justice?
ReplyDeleteis it fairness?
is it equality?
is it arbitrary convention?
is it righteousness?
is it putting things right?
I had this conversation in the pub after Alister McGrath had spoken on atheism & "the God Delusion" last thursday. I think there lurks beneath this question a feeling that sin is arbitrary, like a 50-50 mistake. He said Xty said if you don't believe in Jesus you go to hell. I asked him who said that & why on earth would we go to hell just if we didn't believe in Jesus?
he had no idea - so we talked about sin. Again, he said "xty says we're guilty of original sin", so as soon as we're born, God blames us for stuff we've not done. Now, I'm no theologian but it struck me that presumed (a) an unbiblical account of sinful humanity and (b) a radical, Kantian individualism when it came to morality. Once we'd talked about what sin was really, of sinful societies explaining but never excusing our own sinfulness, he saw his shame & guilt as real - and then his need for a saviour. Sin is far from arbitrary.
Suddenly we need mercy. That's when doctor Jesus shows up and when it makes the most sense ever to run to him.
That's a really helpful account of the conversation. You are right that many feel sin is a '50-50 mistake'. Beautiful to hear how you provoked that person to realise that is not what it is.
ReplyDeleteI sense, a lot of philosophy behind your possible descriptions of justice. I am feeling more and more that I need more understanding of old philosophical while approaching the scriptures.
The difficulty that the person I had was not particularly our guilt (this time at least) but was how it was just for the ungodly to be justified.
Thanks for your comment Chris. Helpful as ever.