Image Credit: Matthias Grünewald, The Crucifixion | Dominicana (dominicanajournal.org)
Summary
Jack now turns to Christ’s redemptive acts of suffering and death. He emphasizes Christians are not asked to believe theories about how Christ’s redemption “works”; rather that Christians simply believe that His death and resurrection made us right with God. He reminds us to focus on the “what” and not the “how”. Jack says even though Christ was God, His death was the only way to get us out of the hole we created for ourselves. Repentance requires undergoing a kind of death. The catch is that we cannot repent perfectly (though we need it) and only Christ can perfectly repent (and He does not need it). To serve as the perfect penitent for men, Christ had to become a man and die as a man thus allowing men to share in His death. Jack reminds us that this method of repentance was possible only because Jesus is God.
Key Quotes
“Theories about Christ’s death are not Christianity: they are explanations about how it works.”
“Now what was the sort of hole man had got 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.”
“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.”
“To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?”
Outline
I. Theorizing About Christ’s Death: How vs What
a. Christ came to teach but Christianity emphasizes His death and resurrection as more important
b. Jack reminds us that theories about how Christ’s death redeemed us are less important than the fact that His death did redeem us
- i. Theories may differ but all Christians believe that His death and resurrection put us right with God
- ii. Example of eating dinner and nourishment – people have always known that they will feel better after eating dinner; even without fully understanding how vitamins or nourishment works
- iii. The fact He died and rose is more important than theological explanations
c. Christians are not asked to accept theories
- i. Picture and atoms example – pictures help us understand the real thing but they are not the real thing, itself
d. Jack says we do not need to understand how it all works in order to accept Christ
- i. A man can eat dinner without understanding how food nourishes him just as a man can accept Christ without knowing how His death and resurrection “works” in the process of salvation
e. The formula is that Christ died and disabled death – that is what Christians believe
- i. Is there a subtle “looking at and looking along” parallel here (Meditation in a Toolshed)?
II. Why Christ and Not Us? The need for repentance
a. Jack asks why Christ had to go through his death if God was willing to let us off the hook? Why did an innocent man pay the penalty on our behalf?
b. Jack says it makes sense if we look at it from a debt payment perspective – in life, sometimes it makes sense to have someone else help you pay a debt if you cannot because you are in a hole
c. Man has got himself in a hole – he has put himself first, he is a rebel who must lay down his arms (surrendering, continuation of militaristic themes here)
- i. Man must admit his error and surrender to get out of the hole
- ii. We must lay down our arms (see chapter quote above)
d. Jacks calls this surrender process repentance
e. Jack says repentance means undergoing a kind of death
f. We need repentance because we are bad but only a good man can repent perfectly and must be a perfect person who does not need repentance (see chapter quote above)
g. Jack says repentance is a willing submission to humiliation but not what God demands of us before He will take us back; this is the description of the process of going back to Him
- i. Not wanting to repent is like asking to go back but without going back
h. We need repentance because of our “badness” but this “badness” makes us unable to do it
- i. Jack says that God puts Himself into us and helps us as a teacher teaches a child to write
i. We need God’s help to suffer, surrender, submit, and die (things not in His nature); a road He never walked…until Christ came
III. Only God Can Show Us How to Repent
a. Jack asks what if God became man who could suffer and die?
b. He could do these things perfectly because He is God
c. If God is in us then we can repent perfectly but God must become man to show us how to properly repent
d. We can only share in God’s dying unless he becomes a man and dies
- i. This is what Jack means by God paying our debt and how He suffers for us even though He is not the perpetrator of our crimes
e. Some object to God becoming man and dying for us; saying it is too easy for Him and therefore unfair because He is God
- i. Jack agrees to a point but goes further: Christ’s suffering and death were easier because He was God, but these were possible only because He was God
f. Jack says this is like rejecting the help of your writing teacher because he knows how to write or refusing the help of a man trying to pull you out of a river because he has one foot on the bank