Redemption, Reductions

by Narkissos 48 Replies latest watchtower bible

Narkissos

As I have told before, one turning point in my exit from the WT was a conversation with a close friend about the "ransom".
We were in the (French) Bethel library, I don't remember what we were talking about until she said to me: "You know, I never understood why Jesus had to die for us." This surprised me so much that the only reply I could offer consisted in reciting the WT theology which she, of course, knew as well as I did. And as she kept smiling at that I began to understand what she meant by "I never understood".
This was the first in a series of conversations which led us very far from WT theology and started me reading the NT again from a completely different perspective.
This basic question ("why Jesus had to die") is central to Christianity and, when you actually read the texts, already produces dozens of (slightly to wildly) different "answers" in the NT itself, not to mention later theology.
However popular religion does not work with multiple or complex answers but with unique and simple ones -- the variety of which constitutes the complexity as they add to and combine with each other in "history," i.e. in memory and writing. So the complexity must be simplified and reduced over and over again to "work".
We are all familiar with the WT reduction of the "ransom" doctrine, illustrated by the "scales" picture: Jesus = "perfect man" = Adam; it is unscriptural (the parallelisms of Adam and Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5 are antithetical, they are not about ransom or even substitution; neither Adam nor Jesus are called "perfect," etc. It poses a number of logical difficulties within WT theology (the scales are not as even as they look on the picture, if you take into account the preexistence and resurrection of Jesus on one side, the role of Eve, the exclusion of Adam and Eve themselves from redemption, etc.). But more importantly, when you actually read the NT you cannot miss the fact that there is much more to the NT interpretations of Jesus' death (and resurrection!) than the commercial notion of "exchange value," and "recovering what has been lost" -- although the concept (metaphor?) of "ransom" is found as well among many others.
After leaving the JWs I associated for some time with an Evangelical church, and found out that popular Evangelicalism also rested on similar though different reductions under the general concept of substitution. The "simple answer" there is, generally, "Jesus suffered/died so that I may not suffer/die." Although the "prooftexts" for this view are mainly Pauline, the summary implies a gross reduction of Paul's own theology, where Jesus' death is inseparable from resurrection, the collective notion of his resurrected "body" as the church, to which the individual is introduced through baptismal initiation (and repeated Eucharist) which also implies his "death" (Romans 6), as well as a cosmic horizon (redemption of the whole creation). The 8th chapter of Romans is often quoted, but the qualification in v. 17 is rarely mentioned: "and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ--if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him." The "economy of suffering" implied in (post-Pauline) Colossians 1:24: "I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" is rather embarrassing to the Evangelical view and, in fact, very rarely quoted if not to be explained away. Not to mention the role of the "cross" theology in the Synoptic Gospels as bearing one's cross after Jesus.
Tuesday's recent thread reminded me of my experience in speaking about JWs to an Evangelical audience (about twenty years ago). A couple of times I had to explain the JW "ransom" doctrine to groups of Evangelical pastors and leaders and it brought some embarrassment: they actually found the "scales" illustration clever but failed to understand how it was "wrong"! I remember one hearer asking me: "but isn't that basically what we believe, too?"
My point is that the notion of "salvation" in the NT implies a complex and open network of interpretations and rationalisations (of which the diversified notion of redemption through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is only a section*). Making it a "simple doctrine" again is probably necessary for any Christian preaching to be popular, but it cannot be done without a measure of reduction of the NT material, which can be compensated by a measure of interpretive creativeness, as has often been the case in the history of theology. For instance, Anselm's feodal pattern in Cur deus homo (why did God become man?) was very different from, and not strictly more "scriptural" nor less reductive than the WT or Evangelical interpretations, but it was helpful to his historical context. Imo there's nothing wrong in the process, provided we don't lose sight of the fact that any interpretation is just another in an already complex and still growing network. Neither the first nor the last nor the only one.
* Here is fwiw a non-exhaustive list of NT interpretative schemes of Jesus' death and resurrection I have already posted earlier somewhere:
Condemnation and vindication of the righteous Mc 14—16//; Ac 2.24,32; 3.13ss; 4.10s; 5.30; 7.52; 8.32s; 10.38ss
Test and qualification Hé 5.7ss; 12.1ss
– Access to the right hand of God Mc 14.62//; Ac 2.33; Hé 1.3,13; 1P 3.22
– Access to the status of Lord Ac 2.32; Rm 14.8; Ph 2.8ss; cf. Mt 28.18
Revelation of the Son Ga 1.16
– Raising and glorifying of the Son of Man Jn 3.14ss; 12.32s; 13.31s; 17.1,5
– Constitution of the Son of God Rm 1.3s
Fight against evil, apparent defeat and victory Jn 14.30; 1Co 2.8; Col 2.15; cf. Mc 8.33//; Lc 22.53
Jesus’ will Jn 10.17s; 17.19; cf. Mt 26.53s
God’s will Ac 2.23; 3.17s,21; 4.11,25-28; 8.35; 13.29
According to the Scriptures Mc 14.21,27,49//; Mt 26.54; 27.9s; Lc 22.37; Jn 19.28,31-37; 1Co 15.3s
Strength of weakness, Wisdom of folly 1Co 1.18-25; cf. 2.2; 2Co 13.4; Ga 3.1
Proof of God’s Love Rm 5.6-8; 8.32; 1Jn 4.9ss
Saving deathFor many Mc 10.45; 14.24//
For all 2Co 5.14ss; 1Tm 2.6
For his own Jn 10.15
For sins 1Co 15.3-5,17
– Atoning Sacrifice Rm 3.25s; 1Jn 2.2; 4.10
– Paschal Lamb Jn 1.29,36; 1Co 5.7; 1P 1.18s
– Redemption and liberation Mc 10.45//; 1Co 6.20; 7.23; Ga 3.13; 4.5; 1P 1.18s
– Vicarious punishment and grace 2Co 5.21; Ga 3.13; 1P 2.21-25; 3.18-22
– Condemning sin Rm 8.3; cf. 5.19
– Justifying the sinner Rm 4.24s
– Intercessing for the guilty Rm 8.34; cf. Lc 23.34
Validating the covenant Mc 14.24//; Hé 8; 9.15-20; 10.29; 12.24
Reconciliation of the world 2Co 5.18ss
Founding the Church Ep 1.20-23
Firstfruits of the general resurrection Mt 27.51ss; 1Co 15.20; 2Co 5; Col 1.18; 1Th 4.14ss; Ap 1.5
An example
Die to the old and live to the new Rm 6.1-11
Die to the earthly and live to the heavenly Col 3.1-4
Die to oneself and live to Christ 2Co 5.14ss
Die to oneself and live to others 1Jn 3.16
Warlock

Nark,
I never understood why Jesus had to die until I understood that he had to die to make up for what Adam lost.
Does it REALLY have to get more complicated than that?
Isn't that the major point concerning the relationship between Adam, Jesus, and us?
Warlock
Narkissos

Warlock
My point is that no NT writer explained it this way and this is a modern understanding (which I suspect Russell did not invent, although I don't know its exact pre-history, which might be an interesting subject for research in itself).
This of course sits well with a Unitarian perspective (Jesus doesn't need to be more than a man, contrary to St. Anselm's explanation where he precisely needs to be nothing less than God); also with a global understanding of God's purpose as referring primarily to the earth (the heavenly Kingdom being "only" a means to this end, a very rare notion in the history of theology); the idea of perfection as something being "lost" and "recovered" is also wholly unscriptural (Jesus is sometimes referred to as sinless, which is not quite the same thing.)
The Pauline parallels between Adam and Jesus insist on the difference, not the equality between them. And it is not about something "lost" and "found". Adam is positively portrayed as the founder of the extant natural (psychical), mortal, sinful mankind; Jesus as the Second Adam is portrayed as the founder of a new, spiritual (pneumatical), immortal, sinless mankind -- something which the "first Adam" never was and never "lost". "Thus it is written, "The first man, Adam, became a living being (psukhè)"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit (pneuma). But it is not the spiritual (to pneumatikon)that is first, but the physical (or natural, to psukhikon), and then the spiritual (to pneumatikon). The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven." (1 Corinthians 15:45ff).
Warlock

My point is that no NT writer explained it this way and this is a modern understanding
Have you considered that this understanding may actually have been a revelation by God?
I don't say this as support to the WTS, it is just a thought.
Warlock
AllTimeJeff

Excellent thread....
When preparing my first and only Memorial talk, I was struck by the tendency the Society's outline had to jump to several scriptures on the subject. (sub-consciously) I realized that there no specific scriptures on substitution as a dogma. As usual, the "cut and paste" method of explaining JW dogma suited the Governing Body just fine.....
Until this thread, I never crystalized in my mind that the scriptures referring to the "last Adam", Jesus, were rather vague, and again, Pauline. I do not get too in depth on the bible right now, but I am a big believer in a "split" dogma in the NT between the Gospels and the Pauline writings.
Thanks for sharing Narkissos.
Narkissos

Have you considered that this understanding may actually have been a revelation by God?
Actually no, but I agree that to JWs it does work this way: the "scales" scheme is first explained (even pictured) and then select prooftexts are called in support, out of context as ever.
Warlock

Adam is positively portrayed as the founder of the extant natural (psychical), mortal, sinful mankind;
But this portrayal is AFTER the fall, no?
What about BEFORE the fall?
Warlock
BurnTheShips

Here is C.S. Lewis on the subject:
Why Did Jesus Have To Die? - C.S. Lewis Explains the Atonement
We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. Any theories we build up as to how Christ's death did all this are, in my view, quite secondary: mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us, and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself. All the same, some of these theories are worth looking at.
The one most people have heard is the one about our being let off because Christ volunteered to bear a punishment instead of us. Now on the face of it that is a very silly theory. If God was prepared to let us off, why on earth did He not do so? And what possible point could there be in punishing an innocent person instead? None at all that I can see, if you are thinking of punishment in the police-court sense. On the other hand, if you think of a debt, there is plenty of point in a person who has some assets paying it on behalf of someone who has not. Or if you take "paying the penalty," not in the sense of being punished, but in the more general sense of "footing the bill," then, of course, it is a matter of common experience that, when one person has got himself into a hole, the trouble of getting him out usually falls on a kind friend.
Now what was the sort of "hole" man had gotten himself into? He had tried to set up on his own, to behave as if he belonged to himself. In other words, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor - that is the only way out of a "hole." This process of surrender - this movement full speed astern - is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here's the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person - and he would not need it.
Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off of if He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like. If you ask God to take you back without it, you are really asking Him to let you go back without going back. It cannot happen. Very well, then, we must go through with it. But the same badness which makes us need it, makes us unable to do it. Can we do it if God helps us? Yes, but what do we mean when we talk of God helping us? We mean God putting into us a bit of Himself, so to speak. He lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another. When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it. Now if we had not fallen, that would all be plain sailing. But unfortunately we now need God's help in order to do something which God, in His own nature, never does at all - to surrender, to suffer, to submit, to die. Nothing in God's nature corresponds to this process at all. So that the one road for which we now need God's leadership most of all is a road God, in His own nature, has never walked. God can share only what He has: this thing, in His own nature, He has not.
But supposing God became a man - suppose our human nature which can suffer and die was amalgamated with God's nature in one person - then that person could help us. He could surrender His will, and suffer and die, because He was man; and He could do it perfectly because He was God. You and I can go through this process only if God does it in us; but God can do it only if He becomes man. Our attempts at this dying will succeed only if we men share in God's dying, just as our thinking can succeed only because it is a drop out of the ocean of His intelligence: but we cannot share God's dying unless God dies; and he cannot die except by being a man. That is the sense in which He pays our debt, and suffers for us what He Himself need not suffer at all.
Narkissos

But this portrayal is AFTER the fall, no?
In 1 Corinthians 15, strictly speaking, there is no "Fall". Or, if you prefer, "creation" and "fall" are tied in together, unseparably, under the name "Adam," which stands for extant mankind as earthly, natural-psychical, "made of dust," as well as mortal and sinful. The Second Adam does NOT come to restore what might have been "before the Fall" (in the WT paradigm: earthly, etc. BUT NOT sinful and mortal, mankind), but to bring about something entirely new which comes only after (heavenly, spiritual-pneumatical, as well as sinless and immortal).
I understand it is difficult to break free from the JW paradigm to read what the text actually says though ;)
BTS, very interesting text, and a good example of what I meant by creative interpretation. Still very Anselmian in structure, although it avoids the feodal connotations. And more importantly imo it does not separate Jesus' humiliation, suffering and death from ours (as is very frequent in Evangelical reductions): Jesus doesn't die so that we might not die, but so that we might "die" as we need to. Notice though how the (modern) notion of "perfection" naturally creeps in, even if in a totally different manner than in the WT equation.
BurnTheShips

And more importantly it does not separate Jesus' humiliation, suffering and death from ours (as is very frequent in Evangelical reductions).
One thing I hear in Catholicism that is new to my ear is to unite our suffering to Christ's. The separation is removed. Suffering can receive a higher meaning and purpose. This is a very different view from the way I saw things before.
BTS

Redemption, Reductions

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