Dr Henri Blocher

Speaker and Author

The Necessity of the Cross

"Crucicentrism" has been the hallmark of evangelical preaching and theology (David Bebbington), with penal substitution as the core interpretation of the role of Christ's death on the cross. It has been under attack in recent years with unprecedented vigor and vehemence, and some inroads have been made among professedly evangelical theologians. The talk will make a fresh probe of the issue, considering especially the import of metaphors and whether one should speak of a "necessity" of such a way of salvation.

Hebrews 9.15-28

A one-syllable word keeps recurring on Jesus’ lips, according to the Gospel records of his sayings: dei, expressing the sense of a necessity (occasionally one also finds the word “necessity”, anangkè, as in Mat 18.7). Most occurrences pertain to our Lord’s forewarnings about his death – the Son of Man must be delivered into human hands, and they will kill him… The necessity is that of the Cross (Mat 20.19, for instance, mentions crucifixion). The Gethsemane prayer dialogue expresses most dramatically how necessary it was for the beloved Son to suffer the most painful and shameful form of death: “My Father,if it be possible, let this cup (destiny) pass from me” (Mat 26.39); but it was not possible. How could the Father not grant the request, apart from the most stringent necessity?

On several occasions, Jesus refers to prophecies that foretold the death of the coming Agent of salvation: the Scriptures must be fulfilled. However, thenecessity of the Cross cannot be explained merely in terms of a formal necessity of Scripture validation. Why did the Scriptures indicate such a shocking way of redemption in the first place? The Scriptures convey God’s mind. The necessity they intimate surely belongs more deeply to God’s own wise counsel – in which he fore-ordained before the foundation of the world that his Christ should shed his blood in the manner of sacrificial lambs (1 Pet 1.19).Why was the Cross necessary in God’s eyes?

We can only summarise a biblical answer to this question (which has been the ground of our evangelical “crucicentrism”).

I The cross, necessary in what sense?

1.The question raised is only acceptable on the presupposition that God freely chose, in the overflowing generosity of his love, to save sinners. Speculations about an absolute necessity imposed upon God, as proceeding from his nature (God, being love, “constrained” by his nature), are lacking in the fear of God; they project onto God anthropomorphic patterns of thought. Let us repudiate vain curiosities!

2.The notion of necessity is not so simple after all! It admits of diverse degrees. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Calvin, hesitated to affirm a strong necessity: God, as he had decided to save sinners, had to use such means… At the same time, they were ready to confess a weaker form: it was the most adequate way, by far, the one that best reflected the divine attributes. Actually, in the biblical framework, we can hardly imagine God saving us otherwise. Without prying into God’s secrets, we may apprehend partly the “why” of God’s choices, in order better to attune our words and our thoughts to God’s revealed wisdom. This is the goal of our present reflection.

3.The spirit of our times is most adverse to the affirmation, even cautious and moderate, of a necessity of the Cross, especially in the form it has taken as the central conviction of our evangelical forbears. In such a situation we should exercise vigilance against twin temptations: either to yield to pressures that assail us from the “world” around us (and the church insofar as it compromises with the world), or to over-react and to make exaggerated claims. Only Scripture may help us to strike the proper balance and avoid drifting to the right or to the left (cf. Jos 1.7).

II The cross, necessary for our salvation

1.With overwhelming frequency, the NT refers the meaning of Christ’s mission on earth, that culminates in the Cross (Jn 12.27), and of his deadly passion, to our salvation, and salvation from sin. The angel, already, explained the name Ièsous/Ye[ho]shûa v in these terms (Mat 1.21).

2.We needed to be saved because we were lost. Christ came to seek the lost in the twofold sense of the word: unable to find the way, hopelessly confused, entangled in the nets of deception; and headed for perdition, the second death in “gehenna”.

3.We needed to be saved because we were unable to save ourselves. Scripture rents the deceptive veil of all wordly optimisms: it reveals the presence of sin in our lives as bondage (both as corruption of our faculties, including the will, and as a debt of guilt we can never repay). This is true of us individually and collectively: after the demise of the great social utopias, many still rely on recipes for individual fulfilment that entrap them to eternal loss.

III The cross, necessary to appease divine wrath

1.I choose the most offensive words in the ears of our contemporaries, that we may realise with sharpened lucidity how well-established it is in the Bible! But it must be understood in a biblical way! God’s wrath has nothing to do with all too human fits of anger (that do not fulfill God’s righteousness, Jas 1.20). It is the expression of his burning love, holy love, and is not wrongly interpreted as the passion for righteousness or justice.

2.Popular explanations of the saving efficacy of the Cross that bypass the function of propitiating the Holy One do contain a “particle of truth” but fall far below the mark. Christ did offer us the model of faithful witness, despite the world’s hatred, but if the Cross had not accomplished more, the problem of our guilt would remain unsolved. Christ did show us the extreme of divine compassion, through sharing our sufferings, but if it were the only meaning, sacrifice would border on suicide. As to the metaphor of sin “absorbed”, it is so crude (and unbiblical) that it should not even be considered.

3.The biblical answer focuses on the substitution of the Righteous Servant who bears the punishment of the unjust, of the spotless Lamb on whom the fire of intolerant holiness falls, instead of falling on the unclean worshipper who, then, may draw near in the Presence. The metaphors used have privileged statusin Scripture and yield a normative doctrinal scheme. Attacks on this explanation take their strength from a false individualism and a myopic ignorance of the “headship” structure that belongs, biblically, to humankind.

Mystery remains! But it is a blessed mystery of light – to which we gladly say our Amen!

See further: Hans Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross (Baker Academic, 2004); Charles E. Hill & Frank A. James, eds., The Glory of Atonement (InterVarsity Press, 2004); Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (Tyndale Press, 1955); James I. Packer, “What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution,” Tyndale Bulletin 25 (1974); “The Whole Issue,” European Journal of Theology 8/1 (1999). Also, Henri Blocher, “Biblical Metaphors and the Doctrine of the Atonement”, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 47/14 (Dec. 2004) 629-645.