For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16 NRSVUE)

If you were approached by a stranger asking: “How does Jesus’s death bring salvation?”. What answer would you give?

Almost certainly, I can bet most believers reading this would have given an answer referencing John 3:16, perhaps along the lines of “Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins”. Not surprisingly, that has been the mainstream Christian position for generations. Today, different Christians might express roughly the same idea but using different words. Other variations you might hear from Christians include:

• Jesus was the unblemished lamb that was sacrificed on the cross so that the wages of our sin can be paid in full
• Jesus took on (or absorbed) all our sins onto Himself and hung them on the cross through His death
• Jesus’s sacrifice paid the ultimate price in order to redeem all of humanity from sin and death

etc.

These variations all reflect a common theme of atonement – where one person (Jesus) is sacrificed in order to compensate for the wrongdoing of others. Where these variations differ is defining exactly 1) what did Jesus embody (and how did he do it), 2) what does this process of compensation look like, and 3) to whom or what Jesus’s sacrifice is directed to? Suppose if the conversation continued and that same stranger pressed harder to ask any of the questions abovementioned. Would you have an answer in mind?

Pause and give some thought to this! Do you have clear answers to each of these questions? And can you articulate them concisely to others?

This leads me to the topic I want to cover today (and for next post) – how does Jesus’s death bring salvation, mechanistically?

Isn’t this as simple as “Jesus died for our sins?”

Jesus, like many Jewish prophets back in His day, did not see Himself as a revolutionary who was starting a new “religion”. Rather, what He taught built on the teachings of the Jewish prophets that came before Himself – think Moses, Elijah, etc. Even if one has never read a single page of the OT, the synoptics are filled with Jesus referencing to events and teachings from the OT:

• The Transfiguration, referencing ancient prophets
• The fulfilment of Jewish “prophecy” (the entire book of Matthew)
• Jesus constantly challenging the Pharisees on how they interpretated and lived out the Torah

If these accounts were to be taken to be historically true, this means that the historical Jesus would have aligned His teachings with traditional Jewish Scriptures – some of which do not easily fit with our later understanding of salvation. For example, Ezekiel 18 explicitly teaches that the sinner is expected to bear the penalty of their own sins (death in this case) – no one should bear that penalty on behalf of others (least of all, children of sinners in Ezekiel 18:20). Even so, this teaching is not applied consistently applied throughout the OT – see Exodus 20:5.

The person who sins shall die. A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be their own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be their own. (Ezekiel 18:20 NRSVUE)

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me… (Exodus 20:5 NRSVUE)

If we follow the teachings of Ezekiel 18, this raises a major objection against Jesus’s death as a penal substitution (that’s the technical term for the traditional view of Jesus’s sacrifice), though the atonement model is not our only option in understanding how Jesus’s death and resurrection brings us salvation. On the other hand, if we carried on the teachings of Exodus 20:5, the logical conclusion from Scripture would be we are all punished for the iniquity of our ancestors (since everyone came from Adam and Eve who committed the first sin). While that seems to be the understanding of early Christian thinkers such as Paul and would indeed necessitate Jesus’s death as an atonement, it isn’t clear whether Jesus Himself would approve of such a teaching (and in some areas, it seems like He does not!).

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned… (Romans 5:12 NRSVUE)

The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12:35-37 NRSVUE)

Next, in the OT, child sacrifice is generally highlighted as one of the most abhorrent practices in God’s eyes (see Deut 12:31), even though God appears to approve (or at least, not condemn) it in some places (see Gen 22, as well as Judges 11). The forbiddance of child sacrifices is often used as a marker to distinguish Israel from their neighbors in the Promised Land who worshipped foreign gods. If God doesn’t approve of child sacrifice, why is God’s one and only son sacrificed then? Why didn’t the Father intervene to stop a practice that He forbade? Paul explicitly highlighted in his letter to the Romans that “the Father willingly gave up Jesus for our sake”, reinforcing the parallel between child sacrifice and God’s sacrifice of His Son.

He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else? (Romans 8:32 NRSVUE)

Finally, if God is truly sovereign over all, why can’t He simply forgive sins instead of demanding an atonement? Even today, most Christians find it unimaginable that God could forgive sins without a sacrifice, often turning to Hebrews 9:22 as a core text.

Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. (Hebrews 9:22 NRSVUE)

Modern believers often offer arguments, such as it is required for God to be fair, or perhaps without atonement, there can be no justice. These arguments largely stem from Paul’s theology (again – notice a pattern?), where God gave His Son up in order to “demonstrate His own righteousness”. Only those who have put their faith in Christ who has shed blood for their sake can be declared righteous by God. Later, St. Anselm in the 11^th century puts forth his own rendition of this argument, now termed the satisfaction theory of atonement.

1. When we sin, we owe God a debt of honor. In Anselm’s eyes, this debt of honor is distinct from the penalty of death due to sin.
2. This debt is infinitely great, not because of the size of our transgression, but because God is infinitely great.
3. We cannot pay off this debt on our own.
4. Therefore, there is a need for Jesus’s sacrifice as an atonement, who serves as a being of infinite greatness and obedience rendered to God to pay off said debt of honor.
5. When the debt of honor is repaid, there is no longer a need for us to be punished for our sins, and hence we are saved from the penalty of death.

He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to demonstrate at the present time his own righteousness, so that he is righteous and he justifies the one who has the faith of Jesus. (Romans 3:25b-26 NRSVUE)

In everyday life, it seems natural to expect some form of compensation when someone wrongs us, so the idea of atonement makes sense at first glance. At the divine scale, though, the logic is harder to sustain. If God is omnipotent and able to forgive freely, it is unclear why any sacrifice would be needed at all. In the OT, this was almost certainly the expectation that people perceived God had, which explains the need for an elaborate system to make offerings for sins in the Torah. Jesus Himself may have adhered to similar teachings too. Or did He?

For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45 NRSVUE)

Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “speak.” “A certain moneylender had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” (Luke 7:40-43 NRSVUE)

For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him, and, as he could not pay, the lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. (Matthew 18:23-27 NRSVUE)

Conclusion

The main catchphrase of Christianity “Jesus died for your sins” appears to be straightforward and intuitive at the surface. However, if one stops to think through what this means, one will realize the sheer complexity behind the core message of the Christian faith. This complexity stretches through philosophy, theology and history, and took centuries of human thought to make sense of. Even till today, I would venture to guess there is no straightforward answer to many of these questions: Why should Jesus’s death bring salvation for others? If there is a debt to pay, who is it paid to? If it is to God the Father, why does He demand such a payment? If not, then who? And what is that “debt” in the first place? And perhaps most critical of all – among these things, what did the historical Jesus actually teach? One could legitimately scrutinize different parts of the Bible and come up with different answers to each of these questions.

This post is getting long, so I’ll reserve my next post to cover alternative models that thinkers over the centuries have proposed to make sense of Jesus’s death and resurrection.