Why Did Jesus Die?
If you’re from an evangelical background, the answer to this question is pretty straightforward: penal substitutionary atonement.
The theory goes that all sin must be punished, and even though God wants to forgive us and restore us back to right relationship, that simply can’t happen without a punishment for our sin. Since animal sacrifices won’t do the trick (and are cruel, while we’re on the subject), there’s no way we can make any offering that would facilitate the appropriate punishment in our place. Enter incarnate Jesus, who—by virtue of his sinless human life—can offer up himself as a sacrifice. While it’s still a pretty big mystery, some people believe by faith that his death takes the place of our punishment. He is punished instead of our being punished. But it only works for those of us who believe this account of things!
Many people, once they allow themselves to question and critique their beliefs, begin to have some real issues with this presentation. For instance:
Why does all sin have to be punished? Simply saying “God is just” doesn’t seem to explain this all-encompassing need for God to punish every single act of wrongdoing (with eternal torment).
What is forgiveness if the sin being forgiven has to also be met with a punishment? We say that we’re forgiven because of Jesus’ sacrifice, but at the same time we say that Jesus is paying our penalty for us. When someone pays my $30 bar tab so that I don’t have to pay it, that’s not the same as the debt being forgiven.
Why does the solution of Jesus’ death only work for some people? Whether you think it’s conditioned on a person’s faith or being part of “the elect,” why wouldn’t Jesus bear the wrath for all people’s sin, securing forgiveness for both the faithful and the faithless?
Isn’t this a picture of God saving us from… God? The thing Jesus is bearing in our place is God’s wrath, so it seems strange that we need God to come receive, and thus spare us from, the violence of God.
This is a sample of many questions. And believe me, I’m far from the first person to be asking them. In fact, in the history of the church, many other theological models have been developed to explain the effects of Jesus’ death.
There is a ransom theory that says Jesus was making a ransom payment to the forces of evil in order to liberate humanity. The related Christus Victor theory views Jesus’ sacrifice as his ultimate victory over death and the devil. Recapitulation theory holds that Jesus was undoing the failure of Adam, thus ushering humanity into eternal union with God. An alternate version is the moral influence theory, which says that Jesus’ death serves as a display of God’s love that can turn us back to God.
All this to say, penal substitution is not the only game in town.
C.S. Lewis, an Anglo-Catholic writer beloved by modern evangelicals, said that we don’t need to get bogged down in litigating these different theories:
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.
It matters, in other words, that Jesus died for us. It matters that as we follow Jesus, we discover a new life of forgiveness, hope, and love—God’s love for all people and our love for each other. What doesn’t matter is exactly what is going on theologically in the invisible places to make all this possible.
Maybe all of these theories are a little bit true. Maybe one is the best. Maybe they’re all quite off the mark. Either way, we have been told that Jesus died for us. If we believe that and live in ways that are shaped by God’s love, we are experiencing the part of Christianity that actually matters.
If we instead formulate an immaculate, airtight, “biblical” doctrine of atonement, but we do not move toward those in the margins with a message of liberation, we do not know why Jesus died.
