Jesus's Mission -- Irenaeus's View

In reviewing the book God Does Not . . . I commented on Daniel Bell's attempt to deal with the atonement. His point is that God doesn't demand blood -- that is Jesus didn't die so as to appease God's wrath or satisfy some need for blood to resolve legal issues. It is a challenge to traditional penal substitutionary atonement theology. I applaud him for the attempt, but feel it needs more work!

As we contemplate the biblical understanding of the Cross -- something that we will be doing soon on Good Friday (see my reflections in my book A Cry from the Cross) -- it is proper to remember that in the early years of the church there were a number of attempts to understand the cross and Jesus' life and death and resurrection. One of the most important early theologians was Irenaeus, whose Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies) attempted to refute Gnostic attempts to separate Jesus Christ from his body. In developing his defense of Christianity, he described Jesus' life in terms of "recapitulation" -- that is, in his life and death and resurrection, Jesus lived a human life so as to undo that which was lost by Adam in the fall. It was not merely Jesus' death that saves us, but the entirety of his life that overcame sin and death.

I will try to lay out some of what Irenaeus had to say (and let me say too that Elaine Pagels has given Irenaeus an undeserved bad rap!), because I think it's helpful. Consider this statement by Ireneaus about Jesus' words of forgiveness from the cross:

By the fact that on the cross the Lord said, "Father let them go, for they do not know what they are doing," the long -suffering and patience and mercy and goodness of Christ are shown, so that the very one who suffers is the one who forgives his persecutors. The word of God which he spoke to us -- "Love your enemies and pray for those who hate you" [Matt. 5:44 -- he enacted on the cross. He loved the human race so much that he interceded for those who were doing him to death.

If three is anyone who thinks that there were two Christs and passes judgment on them, he will discover that the Christ who, in spite of his own wounds and stripes and the other things they did to him, was beneficent and willing to forget the evil done him, was much better and more patient and truly good than the Christ who "flew away" and did not suffer injury or opprobrium. (Irenaeus, from The Christological Controversy, edited and translated by Richard A. Norris, Fortress, 1980, p. 53).

This one who suffered for us -- really suffered (unlike what the Gnostics were saying) -- has shown us a way of living before God. And as our teacher, we can become like him, but before that he has undone what has caused us pain.

But as our Lord is the only true teacher, he is also the true Son of God, who is good and who suffers in patience -- the Logos of God the Father become Son of man. He struggled and conquered. He was a human being, fighting on behalf of his fathers. Through his obedience he dissolved disobedience, for he tied up the strong man and set free the weak. He gave salvation to the being he had shaped by destroying sin. He is the most faithful and merciful Lord and the lover of the human race. (p. 53).

Nothing here is said about propitiating the wrath of God, or satisfying God's legal claims, but he does speak of Jesus expressing God's love for humanity.