Consider
the language and image surrounding the death of Jesus as paying the price for
our sins. We are saved by his blood. He paid the debt of sin. We are washed
clean in his blood, the blood of the lamb. He is the Lamb of God who takes away
our sins.
He restored us to life, after our death in
Adam’s sin. He conquered
death, once and for all. By his stripes we were healed. He offered an eternal
sacrifice to God.
He is our victim. He opened the gates of
heaven. He stripped the principalities and Satan of their power. He descended
into hell.
Accepting
the truth of his language is one thing, explaining it within the categories and
language of ordinary life is something else.
About Jesus’ death, we have a language but we don’t have
a vocabulary. We know its meaning, but we can never adequately explain it.
What exactly do we mean by these
statements? How does Jesus’ death save
me from being accountable for my sins? How does his death assist in
substituting for human shortcoming, including our own through the centuries?
Why does God need someone to suffer that
agonizingly in order to forgive me? How does Jesus ‘death open the gates of
heaven? Why had they been closed? What does it mean that, in his death, Jesus
descended into hell?
Literal
explanations come up short here. The words are more like an icon, an artefact
that highlights form to bring out the essence.
We cheat ourselves of meaning whenever we
treat scripture, the creeds, and the dogmas of our faith as simple statements
of history, newspaper accounts in literal language.
Remember
an atheist is someone once quipped, is just another name for someone who doesn’t
grasp the metaphor.
May you grasp the metaphor and sort out
the truth and live the truth and not the literal meaning of the word.
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