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Abductions

What was God doing around the cross?. It constitutes a search for understanding of one of the crucial events of history, perhaps the crucial event. The entire New Testament focuses on the death, burial, and resurrection, events before and flowing from it, its theological significance and ethical implications. We are going to focus on the deep significance with the atonement, as explained from three perspectives: the dynamic, subjective, and objective views.

Dynamic view The dynamic view sees Christ's death and resurrection because the climax of a cosmic conflict with Satan and the demonic forces of evil. Christ came because the Second Adam (Romans 5:18-19), winning the contest that Adam failed. He also came because the new Israel, faithfully keeping submitting to God instead of to Satan as the first Israel tried (Matthew 2:15; 4:4; etc.). Just after His baptism, the Spirit "drove" (Greek: ekballei) Him in to the wilderness so that He might confront Satan (Mark 1:12). His victory there was clearly only one of what must have been many battles, for Luke records that Satan left Him until "an opportune time" (Luke 4:13).

Throughout his ministry Jesus offered His capability to cast out demons as a demonstration that He was stronger than Satan. Although He described Satan being a "strong man," He claimed a chance to "bind" the strong man and despoil his possessions (i.e., those who were demon-possessed). His ability to cast out demons "by the finger of God" He presented as evidence of the arrival of God's kingdom on earth (Luke 12:20-22). Jesus got His disciples involved in the warfare; their successful preaching, healing, and exorcism mission He afterward described as the fall of Satan from heaven (Luke 10:18).

Satan was behind the betrayal of Jesus by Judas (John 13:2, 27), his abandonment from the other apostles (Luke 22:31-32), in addition to his trial and murder (John 8:40-41, 44). Jesus recognized Satan as His principal enemy, and even before His death, He was so confident of victory he spoke of it as a fait accompli (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11, 32). The moment before His death Christ Himself uttered the triumphant words, "It is finished" (John 19:30; compare Luke 12:50). The glorious resurrection is proof that His death was obviously a victory and not a defeat (Revelation 3:21).

As part of his confrontation with false teaching at Colossae, Paul presents the cross and resurrection as a conquer spiritual enemies. The Colossians were at risk of being deceived by a syncretistic combination of Judaistic legalism, Hellenistic philosophy, and Eastern mysticism. Apparently the heretical teachers weren't advocating a rejection of Jesus, nevertheless they denied Him the primacy and only intermediary beings. "Go beyond Jesus to greater realities," they may have taught. Paul replies that there's nothing beyond Jesus Christ, in whom God's fullness dwells. He it is Who "disarmed the powers and authorities, [making] a public spectacle of these, triumphing over them by the cross" (Colossians 2:15).

Not only did Christ conquer Satan, demons, principalities, and powers. Also, he conquered death (Acts 2:24; Revelation 5:5-6). Paul uses militaristic terms to talk about the resurrection, e.g., "destroyed" and "victory" (1 Corinthians 15:24-26, 54-56).

Because Christ has triumphed as our representative, we share in His triumph (hence the super-conquerors of Romans 8:37). In Ephesians 4:8 Paul applies Psalm 68:19 to Christ's triumph, picturing Christ being a conquering general returning to Rome for a victory parade: "When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men." The ensuing passage explains that the gifts He gave will be the offices for building up the church. The captives are bypassed, but Colossians 2:15 seems suitable commentary.

In 2 Corinthians 2:14, Paul says that "God... always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and thru us spreads everywhere the fragrance with the knowledge of him." In cases like this the apostles (see 1 Corinthians 4:9), and possibly all Christians, are probably those types of following along behind--themselves conquered, yet joyously sharing in the victory celebration. Our struggle against Satan and demonic forces continues (Ephesians 6:12). Because He is victorious, we also can be victorious (Revelation 3:21; 1 John 2:14-15; 4:4; 5:4-5).

Subjective view It is a fact that we are the subjects of His daring rescue (Colossians 1:13-14), but we also participate. This is the subjective nature of the atonement: it transforms us. While we are united with Christ through faith-repentance-baptism, God's Spirit begins the whole process of transforming us from one amount of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18).

The Spirit, Himself the guarantee that this beginning will reach its intended end (Ephesians 1:13-14), actually starts to produce His fruit in our hearts (Galatians 5:22-23) as we cooperate by "walking within the Spirit" and being "led by the Spirit" (Romans 8:4, 14; Galatians 5:16). The metamorphosis just isn't automatic; it takes constant mental concentration even as count ourselves dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:11). In addition, it requires continual moral striving, as we refuse to let sin dominate us, yielding the individuals our bodies to righteousness instead of to sin (Romans 6:12-13).

It's a battle we fight, yet Paul assures us, "[S]in could have no dominion over you" (Romans 6:14). The struggle leads to holiness and the end is eternal life (Romans 6:22). When Christ returns, in the eschaton, the Spirit will have performed His work in us: "[W]e shall be like Him, for we shall see Him because he is" (1 John 3:2).

Though this really is work that changes us from the inside and in which we ourselves participate, the financing still belongs to God, because it is His work being done in us and through us. He is the one that provides it to completion tomorrow (Philippians 1:6). Meanwhile, we image Christ in this world. He was our representative within the cosmic conflict; we are His representatives inside the existential struggle against the world, the flesh, as well as the Devil.

Objective view Yet Christ's death is a lot more than what he did for (hyper) us (see Mark 14:24; Luke 22:19-20) and what he does in (en) us (see Colossians 1:27). In addition, it involves what He did as opposed to (anti) us (see Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45)---the objective view of the atonement. In fact, many believe that the substitutionary nature of the atonement is the most important aspect of all.

Several types of the substitutionary atonement originate from Genesis. The word used in 1 John 3:12 to spell it out Cain's murder of his brother will be the word for "slaughter" (Greek: esphaxen), such as the offering of a sacrifice. It's led some to view the world's first murder, recorded in Genesis 4:8, since the offering of a substitute sacrifice. In effect, Cain may have said, "So, You didn't like my vegetables as a possible offering? Let's see how You like THIS! (slash)." The murder certainly involved the shedding of his brother's blood, for this cried out from the ground against the perpetrator (Genesis 4:10).

If the angel stops Abraham from stabbing Isaac to death, Abraham finds a ram caught in the nearby thicket that he can offer instead of (Septuagint: anti) his son (Genesis 22:12-13). The passage assumes that some sacrifice has to be offered, and the one is replaced from the other.

abductions - More than a hundred years later, when Joseph's testing of his brothers developed a crisis situation involving the enforced servitude of Benjamin, Judah stepped forward and freely offered himself as an alternative for his brother (Genesis 44:18-34, especially not the Septuagint's utilization of anti in v. 33). In cases like this also, some substitute needed to be provided. There was no potential for mere escape from the demands from the master.

Yet all three of these are one-for-one substitutions, just as the "eye-for-eye" provisions of the Law. Christ's sacrifice (one for a lot of) is more like the sin offering in behalf of all of the people or the sacrifice with the goat on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 4:13-21; 16:15-19). He is the "atoning sacrifice for our sins, and never only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2). He is the "Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29).

One for your world? How can that be just? Its justice depends on the identity of the Sacrifice. A single human deserves infinite punishment because of sins. Adding the punishment of one other human adds no more than was there already (for infinity plus infinity equals infinity). This is also true for "the sins of the [whole] world." The slaughter of the Infinite One for these sins beings one infinity into connection with the other--just payment.

Our sins brought us under the curse of the law, but Christ became a curse for us by hanging on the tree (Galatians 3:10-14). Because of Christ's death, God surely could effect what Luther called a "happy exchange": i was the subjects of God's just condemnation, the objects of His righteous wrath, however the sinless Christ became "sin" for us, so that we might become God's righteousness by Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). God established Him because the propitiation, the appeasement, so that the all-consuming fire of His wrath could be diverted to Him rather than destroying the rest of us humans (Romans 3:25). As Isaiah said, "The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6).

Must we choose? resurrection - Dynamic, subjective, and objective--must we choose between them? No! By its very nature the atonement is higher than any one metaphor or perspective can contain. We must always be answering, "Yes, and much more besides." Like astronomers surveying the universe, the greater we study it, the greater vast it becomes. Our wherewithal to fully comprehend its dimensions will not nullify what we can understand, nor will it rob us of the amazement we sense at what we know was accomplished.