Sharktacos View of the Atonement

On Derek Flood's site, The Rebel God, there is another really good article that espouses a different view of the atonement called Penal Substitution vs. Christus Victor. It is a long article that deals in depth with the Christus Victor view of the atonement and how it compares with the PSA view. It has been a while since I read this article and if I get a chance this weekend I just may go back and read it again. After all the reading I've done about the atonement and the discussions I've been a part of, it may have a stronger impact than it did the first time around. If I do, I may post some thoughts I have.

There are several other writings on this web site that are well worth reading. Human Suffering and the Silence of God is an article that takes a look at the age old question of theodicy. How can there be such intense suffering in the world if there is a good God ruling over it? One of my favorite "quotes" comes from that article, although it may be too long to qualify as a quote...an excerpt perhaps...

I am posting it below with my thanks to Derek Flood (Sharktacos) who is the author of the following thoughts......

Since the question of Theodicy is essentially a question of the character of God, we are going to look at Jesus who is the embodiment of the very heart of God. It is my prayer that as you read this and meditate over it, that the truth of who God is as seen in Christ will go beyond mere concepts and theories and become a living reality in your heart and life. So I would ask that you would open your heart to God to encounter you, and that you would read on prayerfully.
We find in the gospel account of the resurrection of Lazarus profound insight into the nature and character of God in our lives in times of silence:

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."

It is clear from the text that Mary knew that Jesus loved her and her brother. It tells us that she is the same Mary who washed Jesus' feet with her tears, and in the letter the sisters refer to Lazarus as "the one you love", so the familiarity and trust between them is quite evident. But Jesus chose to remain where he was for two days. He only conveyed the message "This sickness will not end in death".

When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

Jesus did not come. Her brother died. Mary was absolutely devastated.

When she has most needed God's help he was inactive, and his promise that the sickness would not end in death turned out to be, in Mary's eyes, false. She felt abandoned, alone, helpless, and without hope. Even if we know that God loves us as Mary did, silence is crushing.

Four days after Lazarus' death, Jesus came. There were people all around who had come to comfort the sisters in the loss of their brother. Mary fell at his feet in tears and said to him "Lord if you had been here, he wouldn't have died".

Partially because we know the story and its outcome already we half-expect Jesus to respond by saying something like "Oh ye of little faith did you not know that this is for the glory of God?". But he doesn't. His response is extraordinary and offers great insight into God's character.

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.

The Greek word translated in the English as "deeply moved" means to make the snorting noise of a horse. In other words he was so overwhelmed with the sorrow that it literally knocked the wind out of him. It was the kind of pain where you can't catch your breath. Christ's second response is to be "troubled", the Greek word translated here conveys a feeling of outrage or anger- in his heart Jesus was instinctually insulted at the injustice of suffering. To anyone familiar with grief, these two reactions: on the one hand shock - an intellectual and spiritual numbness, and on the other hand anger at the evil of suffering - are exactly how we feel. And at the same time it mirrors God's heart as seen in throughout the Old Testament in the prophets. Jeremiah writes,

My grief is beyond healing, my heart is sickened within me, because of the plight of the daughter of my people from the length of the land to he breadth of the land. For the would of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded. I mourn and dismay has taken hold of me. Declares the Lord.

This all culminates in what Jesus does next: two powerful words:

Jesus wept.

Even though he knows that in a few minutes Lazarus will rise from the dead, the next thing he does is to weep. Not some pious controlled socially appropriate tears, but hot honest choking tears. He is deeply and intimately involved with us in our pain. God suffers with us, feels every anguish, knows every doubt. Being infinite does not mean merely infinitely large, but infinitely small as well, so that he understands and experiences our silence, our pain with us, not just in a theoretical way, but deeply and completely. Sometimes in our suffering, in the midst of silence we have the wind knocked out of us, and there is nothing left to pray with. God knows this, and you can be sure that he is at that moment praying for you.