Before turning to our ontological predicament regarding the fall, one more post to tie up some loose ends and make some things clear regarding our hamartiological predicament and our relationship to the cross of Christ.
In the last two posts I described the hamartiological aspects of the fall and God's response. Though humanity fell at the instant of our creation, creating moral separation from God and incurring guilt, provision was made from the foundation of the world. Prior to our sin atonement had been made. Grace precedes our guilt.
The point to underline here is that, though we fell, we were already caught. Though we had opened up an abyss between ourselves and God, we discovered a bridge already spanned the distance between us.
The simplest way to describe all this is just to say "God is love." No matter what we do, no matter how bad it gets, God is love, always providing rescue simply because that is who God is and what God does. There is no "plan" of salvation beyond God being God's very own self. God is the plan.
So, in the death of Jesus we aren't seeing God "figure something out" in regards to human sinfulness. We aren't beholding God's "Plan B" after experiencing a setback. We aren't seeing God "responding" to our sin. We aren't witnessing God work through some sacrificial logic of appeasement that "allows" God to forgive us by reconciling conflicting impulses within himself (like love and justice, or mercy and holiness). There are no "impulses" within God that come into "conflict" (like his love and justice) and God doesn't "need" to do anything (like shedding blood) in order to forgive us. These are pagan notions. What we are witnessing in the crucifixion of Jesus is something that has already and always been true about God. What we behold in the cross is God's own self, God's very heart. That is what I mean by Calvary as a "theophany," atonement less as a "mechanism" than a "revelation." The love of God becoming visible within history.
As I described in the last post, we need this theophany. Imagine, for example, if the atonement were invisible to us. If the atonement were invisible a host of bad outcomes would follow. Living with the "knowledge of good and evil" is a severe moral burden. The weight of shame and guilt, as we contemplate our moral separation from God, is a crushing psychological burden. And while God could "tell us" that all is well, we really do need to "see it." A theophany is needed.
Jesus describes this in comparing his crucifixion to a story from Numbers. In John 3, in his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus says this:
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
This is a reference to events in Numbers 21, when the Lord sent "fiery serpents" to punish the Israelites. To save the people Moses cast a bronze serpent and placed it upon a pole. If bitten by a serpent the people could "look at the bronze serpent and live." To be sure, this is an odd story. Something pagan and magical seems to be at work in the cultural background. But setting that aside, in John 3 Jesus uses this story to make a comparison. Jesus will be like the bronze serpent. If we look at him hanging on the cross, like the ancient Israelites, we will live.
Sin is the poisonous bite of the serpent. And having suffered that bite we are dying. But like the bronze serpent, Jesus is lifted upon the cross within history so that we can look toward him and live.
There are a few points I want to underline here.
First, again, the theophany. Like Moses' bronze serpent, we need something visible to turn to. An invisible atonement would leave us lost, confused, and despairing. We'd have nothing to "look at" after suffering the sting of sin. Consequently, the cross of Christ is "lifted up" within history to give our despairing hearts a visible object of assurance and pardon.
Second, Jesus describes the "looking" of Numbers 21 as faith in John 3. To "look" upon the theophany of our atonement is to trust in it, to have faith in what we are beholding. From a hamartiological perspective, our having faith in Christ, our trust in him, is critical for our salvation. Though atonement has been made, the moral rupture between ourselves and God is volitional in nature. We have rebelled. We have chosen enmity with God. Consequently, to heal this rupture we must turn toward Christ and trust in the Lamb Who Was Slain from the foundation of the world. More than that, as it says in Revelation, we must "follow the Lamb wherever he goes." This is both atonement and ethics, justification and sanctification.
The fact that atonement has been made for us prior to our fall isn't a "get out of jail free card." The temporal priority of grace in relation to our sin doesn't lead to Bonhoeffer's "cheap grace." The eternal nature of our atonement, which is simply an expression in God's very own nature and life, doesn't imply that there is nothing we need to do on our side by way of trust or holiness. All is grace, but to make explicit another aspect of my theological system here, we need to exercise our free will in the "looking" and the trusting in the provision God has made for us. Our assent to being saved is necessary for our being saved.
Let me say that again: Our assent to being saved is necessary for our being saved, for without this assent the self-inflicted moral rupture separating us from God persists.
In the language of John 3, we must assent to "being born again." There needs to be a free and conscious embrace of the cross. Without this, we remain in a state of moral confusion, separation, rebellion, and enmity. As rebels, we need to lay down our swords at the foot of the cross. Our hamartiological predicament--our separation from God--can be healed in no other way. As prodigals in the far country, we must come to our senses and return home. Like the Israelites, we've been snakebit by sin and must look toward the cross in order to live. Fail to look, and the poison keeps running through our veins.
God has pardoned us, provision has been made, but we are dying. The cross has been lifted up within history. As a sin-bitten person, where are you looking right now?
Phrasing all this more simply and traditionally, we need to accept Jesus Christ as our Savior. Sin-stricken as we are, we must look toward the cross, trust in Christ's sacrifice, and accept Jesus as our Savior. This is the only way the hamartiological wound we've inflicted upon ourselves can be mended. You must assent to being saved.
