Chapter Seven

1
Chapter Seven

• The Work of Jesus Christ

2
Four metaphors

• Sacrifice
• Victory
• Doing justice
• Demonstrating love

3
Sacrifice

• Two types of Hebrew sacrifices
• sin offering (guilt offering)
• a sacrifice for unintentional sin (blood
  sacrifice)
• a manifestation of Gods mercy
• gift offering
• a gift to God in response to Gods giving

4
Which type of sacrifice is more relevant to
understanding Jesus today?

• Gift offering Jesus self-giving
• Three levels
• compassion for the poor and needy
• sacrifice of the incarnation (Phil. 2)
• Gods giving of the Son (John 316)
• Significance for us
• Jesuss self-giving motivates and energizes our
  own (Gal. 219-20)

5
Victory

• Jesus is victorious over evil powers
• How?
• Moral and spiritual victory
• Liberation theology (see reserve reading)
• vs. evil as personifiable beings (the fathers)
• sin seen in concrete historical circumstances
  injustice, oppression
• important to see Jesus as enabler! (p. 164)

6
Doing justice

• Four conceptions
• Justification as an act of Gods mercy
• But how does Christ justify?
• Anselm
• Jesus satisfies the debt of sin
• Calvin
• Jesus takes on the punishment we deserve he is a
  substitute
• Both Anselm and Calvin believe that restitution
  must be made
• Re-creative approach
• not getting even, but
• reforming the offender and re-creating a
  relationship

7
How does Jesus re-create justice?

• Jesuss life and death represent Gods movement
  into the human situation and the depths of sin
• Jesuss has the power to turn others away from
  sin
• not just Jesus as good example, but . . .
• Jesus as faithful presence

8
Demonstrating love

• Jesuss life as a dramatic demonstration of love
  that changes humans into new persons
• Abelard
• rejects satisfaction of debt language
• God is always ready to forgive the obstacle to
  reconciliation is in human beings
• Gods act of love enkindles a change of heart in
  a person (Example Jean Valjean)

9
How to synthesize?

• Three criteria
• Does the metaphor do justice to the human
  situation as portrayed in Scripture?
• Does it clearly express Gods generous love?
• Does it recognize the objective presence of Jesus
  Christ at work within people and the cosmos?