From Forde’s Caught In The Act, a slightly unconventional take:
Why does God abandon Jesus to be murdered by us? The answer, it would seem, must lie in that very unconditional love and mercy he intends to carry out in act. God, I would think we can assume, knows full well that he is a problem for us. He knows that unconditional love and mercy is “the end” of us, our conditional world. He knows that to have mercy on whom he will have mercy can only appear as frightening, as wrath, to such a world. He knows we would have to die to all we are before we could accept it. But he also knows that that is our only hope, our only salvation. So he refuses to be wrath for us. He refuses to be the wrath that is resident in all our conditionalism. He can indeed be that, and is that apart from the work of Christ. But he refuses ultimately to be that.
Thus, precisely so as not to be the wrathful God we seem bent on having, he dies for us, “gets out of the way” for us. Unconditional love has no levers in a conditional world. He is obedient unto death, the last barrier, the last condition we cannot avoid, “that the scriptures might be fulfilled” — that God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy. As “God of wrath” he submits to death for us; he knows he must die for us. That is the only way he can be for us absolutely, unconditionally. But then, of course, there must be resurrection to defeat that death, lest our conditionalism have the last word.
From Cash’s Gospel Road, one of the strangest Jesus-films ever made (with one of the greatest, sadly out-of-print soundtracks). Be sure to watch through to the end, as there is quite a twist:
Bonus track: Outer-space crucifixions do not get any more beautiful.
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5 responses to “The Passion According to Gerhard Forde and Johnny Cash”
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The Forde quote is a brilliant, subtle maneuver around the doctrine of substitutionary atonement.
That Gospel Road is an incredible video! Love the twist at the end!
Technically speaking, Michael, he is not rejecting substitutionary atonement, but a purely "objective" view of the penal aspect of the theory.
This is well beyond the scope of faceless dioblog, but I think that he, Forde, clearly states his position in two essays,both in A More Radical Gospel. One is entitled "In our place," and the other is called "Forensic Justification: triumph or tragedy?"
Clearly, he is not a Calvinist, but it is not true that he rejects the need for substitution, only the favoring of an "objective" view over that of a "subjective." Meaning, that he supports the idea (which is clear in his quote) that the onus of the problem lies primarily with us and our sinfulness rather than God and his need to be turned from wrath to love.
Not incidentally, perhaps this position of Forde's regarding God is not dissimilar to your view that we are the ones who misuse the Good Law? Forde is arguing that it is not God who is angry but we are those who, on account of sin, misinterpret his advances and refuse his Lordship–thus, in the BCP, "justly invoking his wrath and indignation upon us." This seems to be along similar lines to the way you have been arguing for the goodness of the law: it's not you (God), its me:) (I'm not wholly unsympathetic to your point, btw:)
At any rate, in this case, both an "objective," and "subjective" theory of the atonement require a theory of substitutionary because they view the problem with human sinfulness, not in a concept of human victimhood.
Substitute that last "substitutionary" with "susbstitition" —and my iPhone keyboard for a full sized one:)
JDK–I am impressed beyond words–all that from an iPhone on Good Friday?
I have read Forde's essays in _A More Radical Gospel_ and I'm just not so sure that Forde accepts the substitutionary atonement in any form, or that we can segregate an "objective" subset of the doctrine, peg that to "Calvinism" and therefore feel good about giving it the boot. I think that Forde is, with great skill and subtlety, undermining the idea that God's wrath against us in our sin is "just" and "good", and that when Jesus "became sin" for us, God's wrath against that sin was an expression of His goodness for which no apologies are in order. Forde says:
"So he refuses to be wrath for us. He refuses to be the wrath that is resident in all our conditionalism. He can indeed be that, and is that apart from the work of Christ. But he refuses ultimately to be that.
Thus, precisely so as not to be the wrathful God we seem bent on having, he dies for us, “gets out of the way” for us."
Now this sounds wonderful. And there is truth in it. But the problem is that Forde is attempting to imply that a God of wrath is an idea that we cling to as part of our desire for "conditionalism" and that, with Christ, that God is kaput. Well, yes, God's just wrath against sin is satisfied for those "found in Christ", but no, as far as God being the same God of wrath against sin after the Cross that He always has been. And we don't rely on our own "conditionalism" for that; we are compelled to that conclusion if we take about 80% of the NT at all seriously. Jesus talks a great deal about God's future, post-Cross wrath, the book of Revelation is full of it, Paul is full of it, Peter is full of it. We can dump James and Ephesians and a few odd others, talk about the Word within the word or what not, but we still are left with some major text problems if we want to go with Forde on this.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to like in Forde. But as for this part, not so good in my view.