Getting the Atonement Right or Wrong: Reflections on the Imitation of Christ’s Sufferings and Its Limits
One of the criticisms that substitutionary theories of the atonement has received over the past several decades has been that it encourages Jesus’ followers to suffer indiscriminately as they seek to take up their respective crosses. Rebecca Parker tells the chilling story of an exchange she had with a fellow clergy member who had once counseled a woman abused by her husband. After serving his sentence in prison, the woman let the man back into the home. The story tragically culminated with this woman’s life brutally ending at his hands after he re-entered the home. What is to blame for this horrific outcome? The author faults the expected imitation of Christ on the one hand and a soteriology that believes his death was necessary for salvation on the other. She explained to her fellow clergy member: “She heard, just like you and I have, that Jesus didn’t turn away from the cup of suffering when God asked him to drink it. She was trying to be a good Christian, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.”¹ The necessity of imitating Christ in just this way is further underscored by substitutionary atonement theories, which Rebecca Parker identifies as particularly susceptible to inducing passivity in the face of domestic violence.²
For some, this means we should either substantially revise substitutionary models or reject it entirely. In an earlier post, I contended that the solution does not require a new theology of atonement that dispenses with substitutionary models, especially since we see the basis for substitutionary atonement articulated in Jesus’ own words at the Last Supper. Instead, we should look for a more fully formed pastoral theology that can differentiate which kinds of suffering are in fact following in the footsteps of Christ and which are not. Without such a differentiation, we would become masochists. Rejecting suffering in all forms, however, leaves us with a theology of glory that minimizes the threat of evil in our world and dismisses the fact evil will seek to maintain its stronghold. In what follows are some considerations that will hopefully provide some parameters for understanding how Christ’s cross-bearing is unique and that imitation of Christ, even within a substitutionary atonement theology, does not require passive suffering in all situations.
Necessary Parameters
The first parameter is that only Christ’s death has redemptive and atoning value. One of the concerns about substitutionary models, as articulated by Marit Trelstad, is that by adopting a substitutionary model of atonement “one might extrapolate that these elements are redemptive for all time, rather than solely in the cross event. Through this, theology risks depicting God as one who insists on human passivity in the face of denigration and that this humiliation is a necessary condition and result of receiving grace.”³ In other words, substitutionary models of atonement might buttress the belief that suffering itself is redemptive in all circumstances including any we might suffer. To safeguard against this, I believe it must be specified that Christ’s death is the only death that has atoning value.
This can be substantiated biblically at the Last Supper where Jesus establishes his death as a “re-cutting” of the covenant with God’s people and the event necessary for the realization of God’s kingdom. In Matthew, Jesus says the following over the cup: “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matt. 26:27b-29, ESV).
We see two important things in these words. The first is that Christ identifies his blood uniquely as “my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” I would note that Jesus’ blood is the only one that is identified as being “for many.” This is the unique function of his death alone. Moreover, we observed in the earlier post that the connection between covenant and forgiveness suggests Jeremiah’s promise of the New Covenant has come into view, situating Jesus’ death as the moment when the New Covenant blessings of forgiveness are bestowed. Again, this is uniquely a function of Christ’s death and his alone. It is for this reason that the author of Hebrews can write, “But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26b, ESV). There is no adding to the value of his death by our own suffering. Thus, when we interpret other passages that speak of “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body” we are not to take this in the sense that Christ’s death somehow lacks atoning value (Col. 1:24, ESV) but rather as a reference to the way in which Christ remains spiritually connected with his people and their sufferings.
The second thing we see is that Jesus has an anticipation that the advent of the kingdom in its fullness would be the next eschatological event after his death.⁴ Substitutionary soteriologies have also been criticized for being juxtaposed to Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom. At the Last Supper, we see them come together, not as either-or options, but as integrated pieces of the larger symphony God is orchestrating in the world.⁵ Again, if Christ’s death is an integral and essential part of the kingdom’s coming in its fullness, then it stands distinct from any suffering that we might endure. While we might suffer for the king and the kingdom, our suffering does not bring the kingdom’s fullness to bear in our world in the way that his death, resurrection, and second coming do.
In light of this, I think we can affirm that Christ’s death alone has atoning value since it is the only death credited with bringing the fullness of the New Covenant to God’s people. It is his that is “for many,” and it is his death that is “for the forgiveness of sins.” Thus, I think one thing advocates of substitutionary atonement models should specify is that only Christ’s death has the ability to save in the sense of atoning for sin and putting humans in a right standing before God.
However, there are more parameters to be established. The call to take up one’s cross and follow Jesus is well known (Matt. 16:24; Mark 8:34; and Luke 9:23), and I imagine that it is in applying this imperative where the real questions about passivity in the face of abuse enters in. Do these appeals to cross-bearing mean one must accept all forms of suffering at the hands of others?
Essential Implications
I would contend that they do not. Here, I’d like to lean on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s explanation of what it means for the disciple to take up his or her cross. He helpfully limits the metaphorical “cross” to suffering for the sake of Christ alone:
The cross is neither misfortune nor harsh fate. Instead, it is that suffering which comes from our allegiance to Jesus Christ alone. The cross is not random suffering, but necessary suffering. The cross is not suffering that stems from natural existence; it is suffering that comes from being Christian. The essence of the cross is not suffering alone; it is suffering and being rejected. Strictly speaking, it is being rejected for the sake of Jesus Christ, not for the sake of any other attitude or confession.⁶
Bonhoeffer’s explanation of cross-bearing is clarifying in several respects. Consider the way people use the phrase, “this is just my cross to bear” in reference to sickness or some other calamity that has befallen them. According to Bonhoeffer, these would not properly be considered aspects of cross-bearing. This is not to restrict God from using such things for our maturity. However, it is saying that we are not confined to passively receiving the physical calamities that happen to us and not, for instance, seeking the medical treatment that could lead to a potential cure.
In addition, restricting cross-bearing to being “rejected for the sake of Jesus Christ” means that other forms of suffering, like domestic abuse, do not strictly fall under the command to take up one’s cross. There may be a scenario in which one’s Christian identity and domestic abuse overlap, say in a context where a spouse converts against the wishes of the other spouse. However, in the great majority of cases, this restriction to suffering for Jesus Christ means that suffering at the hands of an abuser would not formally fall under the command to take up one’s cross. As a result, it opens up the opportunity to discern the wisest and most biblically informed course of action in a given situation rather than assuming the path of acquiescence is the only faithful option.
Perhaps the most significant contribution Bonhoeffer might make to the conversation, however, comes in the final chapter of his own life, which ended at the hands of the crumbling Nazi state because he had joined up with the German resistance. It is not surprising that some authors, like Elizabeth Gerhardt, have leaned on Bonhoeffer’s ethics to support active opposition to violence done to women.⁷
In the manuscripts that have been compiled in Ethics, one finds Bonhoeffer articulating an explanation for his resistance efforts. In them, he develops an account of Stellvertretung, which is translated as “vicarious representative action.”⁸ Though this idea is present in earlier writings like Discipleship, there is a significant alteration in Ethics where this representative action now includes a willingness to “take on guilt” and not just in the sense of forgiving another but in the sense of being willing to risk performing an action that is morally compromising.⁹ For Bonhoeffer, this seems to be pointing to his work in the resistance which was actively seeking to assassinate Hitler. The demands of free responsibility and the task of thinking about a future for Germany meant he must engage in the morally dubious efforts of being a traitor and a saboteur of his own country.
What I want to point out, though, is that Bonhoeffer’s recourse to resistance comes from his understanding of the cross, which sees the cross as God’s judgment on human sin.¹⁰ It is only because Christ has acted as our representative and borne our guilt that we then discover the shape of the moral life is similar. While our “guilt bearing” never atones as Christ does, we are released to act responsibly for others. To live as one freely responsible for others just as Christ was the man for others means that I no longer act for my own goodness or to preserve my own sense of moral uprightness. It means acting in such a way that assesses the moral situation and responds to the call of God in the moment. As such, there is no universal call to greet every form of evil and oppression with suffering and submission. There will be times when resistance and opposition are the appropriate and necessary responses.
While saying all of that, some might wonder if Bonhoeffer’s notion of “guilt bearing” does too much and opens up a route to justify all forms of moral evil for the sake of utilitarian expedience. Bonhoeffer was clear that his situation was a “borderline case”¹¹ and that breaching a moral maxim must only be done in order to “reinstate” it.¹² As a result, he was not articulating a justification for revolution and opposition as a new moral law.
If we put all that has been said so far together, we have some helpful qualifications to cross-bearing as expected in the New Testament. The first is that whatever cross-bearing should look like in our life, it is not atoning for anyone’s sin. Christ’s cross alone does that. Second, if we follow Bonhoeffer and restrict the metaphor, cross-bearing does not encompass all forms of suffering but only that which is for the sake of Christ. As such, following Jesus does not require a passive approach in the face of all suffering, especially in the realm of domestic abuse. Finally, there are ways that substitutionary soteriologies have been understood to support active resistance to the oppression and evil in our world as we see in the case of Bonhoeffer. Thus, rather than revising our soteriology to safeguard against passivity in the face of suffering, I think we need a more nuanced theology of suffering and cross-bearing coupled with a fuller articulation of resistance to evil and oppression. To that end, Bonhoeffer might suggest one way that might be done. More of course can and should be said, but removing substitutionary atonement, especially when we have biblical grounds for adopting it in the first place, is an unnecessary avenue to keep suffering from being a moral obligation in abusive relationships.
Notes:
Rita N. Brock and Rebecca A. Parker, Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us (Boston: Beacon, 2001), 18.
Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker, “For God so Loved the World?” in Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse: A Feminist Critique, ed. Joanne Carlson Brown and Carole R. Bohn (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1989), 9
Marit Trelstad, “Lavish Love,” 113.
See Benjamin J. Burkholder, Bloodless Atonement?: A Theological and Exegetical Study of the Last Supper Sayings. Princeton Monograph Series 219 (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2017), 148.
See Benjamin J. Burkholder, “The Kingdom of Jesus and Atonement Theology: Friends or Foes?” Biblical Theology Bulletin 52, no. 2 (2022): 111-20. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/01461079211044935.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, ed. Geffrey B. Kelly and John D. Godsey, trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, DBWE 4 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2011), 85.
Elizabeth Gerhardt, The Cross and Gendercide: A Theological Response to Global Violence Against Women and Girls (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014) 113-45.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, ed. Clifford Green, trans. Ilse Tödt et al., DBWE 6 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress), 259.
Bonhoeffer, Ethics, 282-83.
For a fuller account of this, see Benjamin J. Burkholder, “Violence, Atonement, and Retributive Justice: Bonhoeffer as a Test Case,” Modern Theology 33, no. 3 (2017): 398-403.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. John W. de Gruchy, trans. Isabel Best et al, DBWE 8 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2010), 46.
Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers, 46.