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Healing Atonement

101

The Meaning of Jesus’ Death

 

Photograph: Photo credit: Nicepic & Pixabay | Public Domain.

 
 

  • What is the Bible about? What are we supposed to get out of reading it? Sometimes it gets treated like a list of rules about what Christians should and shouldn’t do, and while there is some of that, it’s only a small part. Most of the Bible is a story–a grand narrative about God’s relationship with humans. It starts with the beginning of our time here on Earth, where the first humans lived in harmony with God, each other, and the world around them, and ends with a vision for the future where everything will be made right again.

    Atonement

    But why does everything need to be made right again? If everything started out good, what went wrong? And if everything ends up good, how does it get fixed? What happened in the middle of the story? These are the questions that theories of Atonement try to answer. If we break down “atonement” into its syllables, at-one-ment, we can get a good idea of what the word means for Christians: at some point, the relationship between God and humans was damaged, and Atonement is about how that damage gets repaired.

    Implications

    These questions lead to others that get at the heart of the Christian faith. What is God like? How does he feel towards us? Why did Jesus become human? What was the purpose of his death and resurrection? What does God want us to do in response? Different theories of atonement have different answers to these questions, and our answers inform how we live our lives, how we share our faith with others, how we think about ourselves and our own relationship with God, and so much more. Our theory of atonement is the foundation for the rest of our thinking about our faith, so it is worth investigating to find the best answers that we can.

  • Part of the Anastasis Center’s mission is to proclaim the healing atonement of Jesus (sometimes referred to as “Medical Substitution”). What do we mean by that?

    Jesus shared in our fallen human nature so that we could share in his healed human nature.

    Human evil and immorality are bad, but they are symptoms of a deeper problem: a disease in human nature that messes up our desires and leads us towards wrongdoing. Any lasting attempt to defeat evil, bring justice into the world, and restore humans back into right relationship with God must deal with that root cause by first healing human nature. And that’s exactly what God has done through Jesus. Scripture tells a rich story about this.

  • A short version of the Bible’s story through the lens of healing atonement would be something like this: 

    God made humans to be in perfect relationship with Him, each other, and the rest of Creation. But humans damaged those relationships and corrupted human nature with a sin-disease, which became the primary cause of evil and suffering in the world. God partnered with a group of people — ancient Israel — to help them diagnose the sickness and try out a cure. But over time, it became apparent to them that they could not fully heal themselves. So God became human as Jesus, taking on our diseased human nature to heal it as one of us. In his life, he battled against the sickness, and through his death on the cross, he dealt the finishing blow. He rose from the dead with a fully healed human nature, and he offers that healing to us through relationship with Him. The Christian mission is to partner with Jesus to spread his healing and restoration throughout the world. One day, Jesus will return to fully restore Creation and defeat evil.

    To illustrate the Bible’s story in the Healing Atonement framework, we use the Five C’s: Creation, Corruption, Clinic, Cure, and Completion. For each of these Five C’s, you can find additional resources to explore below.

 



HOW TO LEARN MORE?

To listen to a helpful podcast, check out Beyond Penal Substitution on the Almost Heretical podcast when Mako discussed atonement.

To learn more about Jesus and Christian faith and life, see the Why Jesus? Study Guide, which is intended to be a collection of readings that you can consider at your own pace.

 
 

Implications of Atonement Theories

We compare this understanding to the dominant understanding in the Lutheran-Calvinist-Arminian traditions, which is called “Penal Substitution.”  If you are just learning about the significance of this difference, please check out the resources below.

 
 

The Work of The Anástasis Center

The Anástasis Center for Christian Education and Ministry seeks to help people experience Jesus with the understanding above.

We write on the Bible and Hot Topics for people to use for their personal enrichment, day-to-day life, and ministry.

We design tools for evangelism, preachers and pastors, counselors, and missionaries who seek to engage other cultures and belief systems.

We recover insights from the early Christians to help Christians today know that we stand in an honorable and respectable tradition, especially on the atonement and God’s restorative justice.

We engage with artists and storytellers as well, for example in the next two video clips. If you are familiar with either Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or Marvel’s Black Panther, you might enjoy these videos and appreciate how we relate them to Jesus.

 

This video is part 7 of our series on The Theology of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. It offers us as an illustration of a healing atonement. The hero’s journey is a successful retelling of the past stories of tragic heroes. The hero’s resistance to external evil and defeat of internal evil is atonement and salvation. Just as Gandalf retold Saruman’s story, Aragorn retold Isildur’s story, and Frodo retold Smeagol’s story (almost), Jesus retold Israel’s story, David’s story, and Adam and Eve’s story. He had to: they set up the conditions of sin-sickened humanity, exile, and conflict that we all inherit and must struggle against.

Our video series, The Theology of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, is found on our Arts and Theology page and our YouTube channel, where we put brief descriptions of each video. It’s a great way to engage people who have an appreciation for the stories. Each video has questions for group discussion and/or personal reflection.

 

This video is part 4 of our series on The Theology of Marvel Studio’s Black Panther, which offers us an illustration of a healing atonement. We discuss the parallels to Jesus, where T’Challa’s descent and ascent is rooted in his willingness to suffer again, for others, and even to honor others. That is unlike Killmonger’s refusal to suffer again. T’Challa is therefore a Christ-figure, in the framework of resisting the lure of Empire, and wanting to wisely share the gift from above. Jesus’ determination to lead his people to give to the world the gift from above — the Spirit of God — was the only real option for Israel and the good Creator God who called Israel into partnership.

Our video series, The Theology of Marvel’s Black Panther, is found on our Arts and Theology page and our YouTube channel, where we put brief descriptions of each video. It’s a great way to engage people who have an appreciation for the movies, especially if they are also activists at heart, and wonder why we firmly argue that Christian faith is not a “white man’s religion.” Dr. Vince Bantu, Assistant Professor of Church History at Fuller Seminary and Founder-Director of the Meachum School of Haymanot, joins Mako Nagasawa to appreciate Marvel's Black Panther.

 
 

Check Out Atonement 201

See the Atonement 201 page for more depth and application of how we live this out and teach.

We hope to foster and support a broad network of people who are interested in growing in Christ this way. Check out our Facebook group.

See the 2019 Conference: Healing Atonement page for some videos that will help you continue this journey.