The Breadth and Depth of the Atonement: The Vicarious Humanity of Christ in the Church, the World, and the Self: Essays, 1990–2015

The Breadth and Depth of the Atonement

The Vicarious Humanity of Christ in the Church, the World, and the Self: Essays, 1990–2015

Christian D. Kettler

The Breadth and Depth of the Atonement

The Vicarious Humanity of Christ in the Church, the World, and the Self: Essays, 1990–2015

Copyright © 2017 Christian D. Kettler. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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paperback isbn: 978-1-4982-8901-6

hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-8903-0

ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-8902-3

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Kettler, Christian D., 1954–

Title: The Breadth and Depth of the Atonement : The Vicarious Humanity of Christ in the Church, the World, and the Self: Essays, 1990–2015 / Christian D. Kettler.

Description: Eugene, OR : Pickwick Publications, 2017 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: isbn 978-1-4982-8901-6 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-4982-8903-0 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-4982-8902-3 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Jesus Christ—Person and offices. | Atonement.

Classification: BT265.3 .K48 2017 (print) | BT265.3 .K48 (ebook)

Manufactured in the U.S.A. 02/13/17

Table of Contents

Title Page

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Atonement as the Life of God in the Ministry of the Church

Chapter 2: The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and Cultured Identity

Chapter 3: The Vicarious Beauty of Christ and the Aesthetics of the Atonement

Chapter 4: God’s Joy in Action

Chapter 5: He Has Seen the Stars . . . For Us

Chapter 6: For I Do Not Do the Good I Want . . . And I’m Tired of Trying

Chapter 7: Image and Substitute

Chapter 8: Advocate and Judge

Bibliography

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The following essays were granted permission for republication:

Used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers. www.wipfandstock.com: The Atonement as the Life of God in the Ministry of the Church, originally published in Incarnational Ministry: The Presence of Christ in Church, Society, and Family: Essays in Honor of Ray S. Anderson, edited by Christian D. Kettler and Todd H. Speidell, 58-77. Colorado Springs: Helmers and Howard, 1990.

‘For I Do Not Do the Good I Wish . . . And I’m Tired of Trying’: Weakness and the Vicarious Humanity of Christ, originally published in On Being Christian . . . and Human: Essays in Celebration of Ray S. Anderson, edited by Todd H. Speidell. (2002).

Used by permission of Edification: The Journal of the Society for Christian Psychology: Advocate and Judge: The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the ‘Ideal’ Self, originally published in Edification: The Journal of the Society for Christian Psychology, 1, Issue 2, (2007).

Used by permission of Sage Publishing:

The Vicarious Beauty of Christ: The Aesthetics of the Atonement, originally published in Theology Today 64, no. 1 (2007).

Used by permission of Participatio, Journal of the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship, www.tftorrance.org:

He Has Seen the Stars for . . . Us: The Vicarious Humanity of Christ, the Priest of Creation, Participatio: Journal of the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship, Vol. 5 (2015), accessible at www.tftorrance.org.

To the Allison family: Dale, Kris, Emily, Andrew, and John

Introduction

Atonement. For some, this word is the heart of the Christian faith. For others, it is irrelevant for Christianity and how they live their Christian lives. In recent years, many rose to its defense, particularly in its penal substitutionary form, that this is the center of the faith. Others have said quite the opposite; criticizing such a violent soteriology, and re-enforcing the long tradition of the cross as a moral example, simply a demonstration of sacrificial love. ¹ Both sides have elements of truth, I would contend. But do they present the richness, the breadth and the depth of the gospel of Jesus Christ? This is where I have found the understanding of the vicarious humanity, not just death, of Christ so illuminating. And so, this book, The Breadth and the Depth of the Atonement: The Vicarious Humanity of Christ in the Church, the World, and the Self is offered.

What began as a seminary student’s awakening in the classes of Ray Anderson at Fuller Seminary developed at first into a PhD, The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the Reality of Salvation at Fuller (1986). Even then I felt that such an understanding of the atonement had tremendous implications for areas into which the atonement rarely ventured. So after my dissertation was published (1991), previous books explored The God Who Believes: Faith, Doubt, and the Vicarious Humanity of Christ (2005) and The God Who Rejoices: Joy, Despair, and the Vicarious Humanity of Christ (2010). In between these years, I have written various essays and given papers on the vicarious humanity of Christ. These essays and papers consist most of this volume.

What was it that attracted and still attracts me to the doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ? Perhaps because it resonates so strongly with the Christian reality of grace. This was so important to me as an alienated teenager coming to faith. I did not need to bring popularity or achievement, but simply to the cross I cling. My first pastor, Bob Myers, certainly impressed that upon me. Whatever misgivings I have now about the dispensational theology he received at Dallas Seminary, one thing Bob hammered on to us kids was precious: grace. My subsequent discovery of Karl Barth only reaffirmed this. Many would say that the Protestant tradition in which I was reared is too much filled with what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called cheap grace.² Certainly that can always be a danger. Yet my experience of grace has been so overwhelming that what James Torrance said many times has always remained true for me: Unconditional grace means unconditional obligations. Was that not true for the father of faith, Abraham? Indeed, was that not true for the faith (vicarious?) of Jesus himself? As I entered my twenties, with new trepidations and anxieties, the understanding that Jesus Christ was not only the revelation of God, but also the foundation of our human responses, including faith, was liberating and dynamic. It started me on a lifetime theological quest to understand its breadth and depth.

A word about the outline of this volume: Although the section on Church is only one article, the fact that it begins these essays demonstrates the church’s foundational place. The church of Jesus Christ, the body of Christ, is the place where the atonement is realized, where it refuses to be abstract, where it is connected dynamically to the continuing ministry of Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, the vicarious humanity of Christ teaches us that the implications of the atonement widens out into the world, the second section, into such issues as dealing with culture and aesthetics. Still, even though the self is last in the order of this volume, it possesses the greatest number of essays. Why? Perhaps, despite (or because?) of the myriad of issues and choices that confront the postmodern self, the breadth and depth reaches deep into the individual who Christ calls to follow him, die, and live in union with him. Even the church and the world can be used to escape from that call to discipleship if one simply equates either church programs or the agenda of the world (missing the next step of history) with the ministry of Christ.

In one sense, the central place of the forgiveness of sins in the first essay, The Atonement as the Life of God in the Ministry of the Church brings the reader full circle, from ending with the self whose sins are forgiven, back to the context in the church. Here, one must remember that although the forgiveness of sins is that which the church can say that no one else can say (John Leith), one must remember its relation to the breadth and depth of the atonement. I think I even saw this in my PhD dissertation, published as The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the Reality of Salvation. The depth of salvation is seen in the cross, where Christ even repents for us.³ Yet the subsequent chapters include both an eschatological reality in the world (the Epistle to the Hebrews) and Christ and the Last Adam and his relation to the church as the body of Christ in Paul.⁴ As Ray Anderson has observed, forgiveness of sins goes beyond simply removing our objective guilt but leaving us spiritually powerless.⁵ For the church to leave a person with only forgiveness of sins without power to overcome sins is spiritual malpractice.⁶

In reviewing these essays and papers it occurred to me that the breadth and depth of their topics spoke of a wideness and richness to the vicarious humanity that needs to be expressed. The first essay, The Atonement as the Life of God in the Ministry of the Church does speak of the atonement, however, in its practical, concrete place in the church, not just in a theory. In a sense it frames all of the other essays and their place irrevocably in the church of Jesus Christ, his body, and his ministry. Yet that church goes out into the world, as the second part of the essays makes clear, and the atonement as the vicarious humanity of Christ has intriguing possibilities with it: culture in an age of globalization, aesthetics and beauty, the doctrine of creation, and Christ as the priest of creation are all explored. And then, lastly, the vicarious humanity of Christ does not allow us to forget the individual self, dealing with one’s emotional weaknesses, being questioned what is a self in an age of genetic engineering, and even quickly falsely seeking to satisfy oneself in a quest for an ideal self.

The harvest is ready. T.F. Torrance and his brother James, who articulated the doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ so well, have planted the seed, as it were, and it is up for others to wrestle with the implications of what they have found in Scripture and the Christian tradition: the vicarious humanity of Christ. I have found the possibilities to be greatly rewarding.

Many thanks go to Bonnie Dexter, our administrative assistant, Michelle Quinones, our student assistant, bookstore manager Michael Sullivan, Willis Overholt, and the staff of Edmund Stanley Library of Friends University, for invaluable assistance.

Reading these essays again was like revisiting old friends. We have both changed, but when we see one another again, we encounter a richness that we never knew existed before. Therefore, it became only natural to dedicate this book to old friends I have cherished through many years, the Allison family: Dale, Kris, Emily, Andrew, and John.

1. See the survey of atonement theories and debates between contemporary advocates in The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views, edited by James Beilby and Paul R. Eddy.

2. Bonhoeffer, Discipleship,

43

–

56

.

3. Kettler, The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the Reality of Salvation,

9

,

187

–

204

.

4. Ibid.,

205

–

32

;

263

–

88

.

5. Anderson, Dancing With Wolves While Feeding the Sheep,

77

.

6. Ibid.,

75

.

chapter one

The Atonement as the Life of God in the Ministry of the Church

In the heart of his seminal essay, ‘‘A Theology for Ministry, Ray S. Anderson states the guiding thesis of his theology of ministry: Ministry precedes theology and produces theology, not the reverse." ¹ The various contributions that Dr. Anderson has made to the continuing discussion on the integration of theology and ministry consistently reflect this thesis. The theologian does not construct a speculative mansion which the church should be forced to inhabit. There is no intellectually snobbish lordship which theology should possess to determine the ministry of the church. Anderson can be misunderstood, however, if one does not pay close attention to what he means by ministry: Ministry is determined and set forth by God’s own ministry of revelation and reconciliation in the world, beginning with Israel and culminating in Jesus Christ and the Church. ² So Anderson’s call is not to surrender to the banalities of an obsession with techniques, fueled by pop psychology and the theologically questionable belief that the consumers in the church and in the world know what they want and so the church, as a good supplier, should deliver the product according to supply and demand. No; the ordered priority of ministry before theology for Anderson means that God’s own ministry, revealed by his act of grace, first in Israel, then fulfilled in Jesus Christ, is an act of revelation and reconciliation on behalf of a needy world. God has his own ministry, and the church as the body of Christ is simply obligated to enter into and participate in the continuing ministry of Jesus Christ out of God’s grace alone.

Theology then follows this participation in the ministry of God. The purpose of this essay is to examine theologically one aspect of that ministry of God, the ministry of atonement from the sins of the world, and to seek to allow the reality of God’s ministry of atonement and reconciliation to inform and shape the contours and content of the ministry of the church, what the church is to do and say. Several dogmatic postulates will be offered and then tested in order to suggest some modest, yet it is hoped important, conclusions.

Much of what follows seeks to build upon the provocative and evangelical epistemology of Karl Barth and Thomas F. Torrance. Wilhelm Pauck remarks that Barth’s statement, God is known by God and by God alone is the essence of Barth’s theological epistemology."³ The statement does guide us into some of the far-reaching implications of the theology of Karl Barth, many of which are reflected in Ray Anderson’s pioneering work on theology and ministry. The knowledge of God is, first of all, God’s own knowledge. God possesses it. It cannot be the rightful possession of anyone else. If God is to be treated as God, it must be on his initiative if we are to truly know him. Thus theological epistemology is always an epistemology of grace. Knowledge of God, therefore, is not gained by works righteousness, by our attempts to know God, in the same way that salvation is not gained by the merit of our works (Eph 2:8–9). Knowledge of God, as well as salvation, comes by God’s initiative, God’s grace, alone. In recent years, Thomas F. Torrance has shown repeatedly how this way of thinking is in harmony with the Einsteinian scientific method which allows the nature of what we seek to know determine the means by which we know it.⁴ The connection to Anderson’s thesis, Ministry precedes and produces theology, not the reverse, is obvious: Ministry involves nothing less than the knowledge of God, if it is to be the ministry of Jesus Christ.

Despite Barth’s notoriety, his contribution has been met, unfortunately, by responses similar to Wilhelm Pauck’s: What a strange idea it is, what a disturbing idea to be entertained and explained by a human mind!⁵ For as Pauck explains, this can only mean either that God is unknowable, since there is no point of contact between God and humanity, or that a human being can make the claim that his thoughts are identical to God’s. The better alternative, Pauck says, is to construct a theology closely critiqued by the historical relativity of all theology, in the mode of Adolf von Harnack.⁶ The actuality of the revelation of God is to become predicated on the successful investigation into the possibility of knowing God. Given the problem of the revelation of God in a pluralistic world with any number of highly divergent claims of revelation, from the Ayatollah to Jim and Tammy Bakker, such a historical critical approach is very attractive to the thinking person.

But as safe as this may sound for the academic, when we consider such topics as the relationship of the atonement to the ministry of the church, such a theology is found wanting. The preacher, for example, does not have the luxury of purely cold historical analysis, if one is to be a preacher of the Christian gospel. One cannot and should not qualify and relativize to death each utterance one makes, if God has truly revealed himself in Jesus Christ.⁷ Christianity has never meant anything less than God’s self- revelation when it has continued to be Christianity. Ministry precedes theology!

The actuality of revelation means a great deal when we consider the reality of reconciliation and atonement.⁸ For if we believe that God is known by God and by God alone, we must approach the question of what God did for us based on who he has revealed himself to be. This, in turn, can set the church free to determine its ministry based on who God is and what he has actually done, rather than what would sell in the marketplace of ideas and religions and in self-help books.

My proposal is that such a theological epistemology allows the doctrine of the atonement to be centered on the healing effect of the very life of God communicated to humanity in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This life cannot be known by us except through God’s initiative. God is known by God and by God alone! And the Christian doctrine of the atonement is based on nothing less than this, for it seeks to penetrate to the root of the human dilemma: human sin, which affects not just our behavior but even our ontological core. Certainly, other emphases on the atonement have been proposed in the history of the church. But purely external, forensic pronouncements of atonement, based on Christ paying the penalty for our sins, or a political restructuring under the idea of liberation, are inadequate for the sake of the church’s concrete ministry to actual people in actual crises of life. Such a ministry needs to be based on the actuality of God’s revelation of grace. Only such a ministry is worthy of participating in the continual ministry of the Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ.

Both theological principles and ministry concerns will guide this investigation, which proceeds from four dogmatic postulates suggesting the actuality of God’s gracious revelation and reconciliation in Christ. This is in order to tie more