Why Did Jesus Die?

[Lamb]

Why did Jesus die? - Living Lutheran

Why did Jesus die? People throughout the history of the church have asked. We give our best answers.

www.livinglutheran.org

Q: But why did Jesus die? How does the death of one person make us right with God?


A: Because Jesus is God incarnate. He is God in our very midst. God came to us in the person of Jesus to show us how much God loves us. Our human condition is a broken and messed-up one. However, God loves us so much that God entered as deeply as possible into this human condition, even to the point of death. When Jesus died, it wasn’t to appease some bloodthirsty God who wanted to kill you. Instead, God was there on the cross—saying that, even in this broken life, God loves us even unto death. But that’s not all. With the empty tomb and the promise of resurrection, God says that not even death can stop God’s love for us. God loves you so much that nothing—not your sin, not our broken human condition, not even death itself—can stop God’s love for you!


Q: That’s much more comforting than the other image. What about the need for a sacrifice, though?


A: There is still sacrifice. Jesus’ life—God’s life—is the sacrifice. God gave himself to you, to your messy human condition, to your death. However, God’s love is stronger than death. Jesus didn’t die as a sacrifice to make a vengeful God happy. No, Jesus died as a sacrifice to show you how far God was willing to go to love you. In other words, the sacrifice wasn’t given for God; it was given for you. God holds nothing back—not even God’s own life—in loving you. Then God gives you the promise of the empty tomb to show you that God’s love for you always wins. God has brought you back into a right relationship—and has done that by dying for you on the cross and by bringing you to new resurrected life. That’s why Jesus died!

 

[hedrick]

I would agree with that. However Paul might not. He thought we are trapped in sin, using slavery as a metaphor. He thought the only way out of slavery was through Jesus' death and resurrection. See Rom 6. His understanding has been called the "participatory" model of the atonement, because it is based on the concept that we participate in Jesus' death and resurrection, so we are part of the new life that came with the resurrection.

The quotations in the OP are what would be called an "exemplar" theory of the atonement, or "moral influence." My own tradition (and I) would be fine with that, but since the first few centuries, Christians have believed that it's important for Christ's death to do something objective. The danger of that is that the objective theories tend to say that the change is in God. But God isn't the obstacle. Our sin is, which is why Paul's idea is that our participation in Christ's death frees us from slavery to sin.

My own tradition has serious reservations about the concept of original sin. After all, Jesus himself has little to say about sin, other than forgiveness of sin. Notice that in his various teachings on judgement, he never says someone is condemned because they sinned too much. Mostly he shows people as being condemned because they didn't help others or because they rejected his message. If you see Jesus' main job to establish God's Kingdom, and you see this as a new way of life more than a way for God to forgive us when otherwise he couldn't, then the kind of theories in the OP make sense.

Romans 6 can actually be understood either way. Paul saw participation in Christ's death and resurrection primarily as freeing us from slavery to sin. But you can also see it as bringing us into a new kind of life, resurrection life (something Paul also alludes to be seems less important than freeing us from slavery).