Testing Tradition

Traditional protestant theology holds that the logic of the cross is that Jesus experienced something instead of His people .  In other words, He experienced something on the cross so that we don't have to.  He is substituted for His people on the cross. In what follows, I want to offer several passages to make the case that this actually is incorrect.  The logic of the cross is instead that Jesus experienced something that we might share in that experience with Him , both His experience of death and resurrection.  His people participate with Him on the cross. And these two are necessarily mutually exclusive.  The cross can't be both substitutionary and participatory because, by definition, substitution requires that the one being substituted for isn't participating.  When a class has a substitute teacher, that necessarily means that the regular teacher isn't participating in teaching the classroom that day.  If the regular teacher is there, then ano...

Note: In the development of my thinking unpacked in this post, I am indebted to Andrew Rillera and what he has written in his superb book: Lamb of the Free , specifically the penultimate chapter (Chapter 7: When Jesus' Death Is Not a Sacrifice).  Before reading his book, the Greco-Roman understanding of hilasterion he discusses there had never been brought to my attention. [21] But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—[22] the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24] and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [25] whom God put forward as a propitiation (hilasterion) by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. [26] It was to show h...