The Breadth and Depth of the Atonement

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

Kettler

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781498289023
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

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. Often we do not see "the breadth and depth" of the atonement in the gospel. Christian D. Kettler, in his fourth book on "the vicarious humanity of Christ," suggests that we consider that the atonement is not only a vicarious death in our place and on our behalf--whether in the form of a "penal substitute" or a "moral example"--but also his vicarious humanity, having atoning significance for all of our lives, indeed, all of reality: the church, the world, and the self. These essays are collected from several years of Kettler's thought on the doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ and its implications for all of life and reality, seeking to demonstrate that the doctrine of the atonement is not to be restricted to one small part of the doctrinal agenda, but has profound implications that theology sometimes does not explore. These issues include the nature of culture, aesthetics, creation out of nothing, spiritual formation, emotional weakness, the priesthood of Christ and creation, genetic engineering, and trusting in the "ideal" self.

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 partici...

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