If Christianity were my religion, I wouldn’t thank God for the Cross. But it’s not my religion, and on Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S. tomorrow, I will be giving God all the thanks I can for the Cross of Jesus Christ.
I know I need to explain that, and I will. First I’ll need to clarify what I mean about “my religion.”
Choosing Our Religions
We live in a world of religious pluralism. A recent Gallup poll says that 70% of North Americans believe that many religious could lead you to God. The Pew Forum surveyed Americans who belong to various religions in 2008. They found that 57% of Americans who attend Bible-believing churches (evangelical or black churches, in their study) believe that many religions can lead to God.
I take it that those 57% believe their choice of Christianity is an expression of their personal preference. Maybe it has to do with their culture, upbringing, friends in church, or what they’re comfortable with. As far as spiritual life goes, though, they think they have a choice, and the choice they’ve made is evangelical Christianity. They picked it out, and it’s their religion.
For my part, I follow Jesus Christ and his teachings, to the best of my capacity in Christ. I am a Christian. I do not, however, consider Christianity my chosen religion. I didn’t choose it off some religious clothes rack; I didn’t say, “I don’t really feel like a Buddhist or a Muslim for this life; I’m a traditional American, so the Christian thing just seems to fit me better.”
No, I didn’t buy it and I’m not trying to make it my own. Christianity is too big, too grand, too filled with God for that. I am a Christian because the one God has called me to relate to him in that unique way.
So as you see, my opening statement hinges on what i mean by “my religion.” If Christianity were my choice from a list of options, if it were my religion in that sense, I wouldn’t thank God for the cross.
History’s Most Despicable Act of Injustice?
How could I? Remember how at Gethsemane Jesus prayed that this cup could pass from him? He was asking the Father (though he knew the answer already), “Couldn’t there be some other way?!” He was arrested in humiliation and betrayal. Couldn’t that have been avoided? He was humiliated in trials before the Jewish court, Pilate, and Herod. Did he really have to go through that? He was mocked, beaten, tortured. Was that really necessary? He was hung on the Cross until he screamed the agony of forsakenness; and he died. Why, God? WHY?
Why? Because he loved us and wanted to bring us to God, and because there was no other way.
What if there had been another way? What if these 57% believe correctly that Christianity is one of many true ways to God? Then it should never have happened. The cup should have passed from the hand of the Son of God. There would have been no need for his brutal passion experience. Far from being something to thank God for, the Cross would have to been the worst of all needless atrocities in history.
Do not, I repeat, do not say, “All religions lead to God, but since I’ve grown up a Christian, I’ll follow that path for myself.” Do not make Christianity your religion that way. If you do, it is as if you are glorifying history’s most despicable act of cosmic cruelty. If you think there are multiple paths to God, then for Christ’s sake (I mean that reverently and literally), don’t choose Christianity! Don’t choose the religion that includes his torture and execution!
Or History’s Most Astonishing Declaration of Love and Justice
The question hinges on whether Jesus really did die on the cross for our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. If he did, then we can be sure he did it because it was the only way to God. He said so himself in John 14:6. I am convinced that he did; that the God who created us entered human history in the form of a child who grew to be a man; who taught, healed, and demonstrated a life given wholly to God; and who died on the Cross, was raised from the dead, and was glorified into heaven.
I am convinced he did it because it was the only way we could come to God. He did it for love; for the joy set before him, knowing the life it bring to us whom he loves. He was willing to endure it because it was necessary in order to reconcile humans to God. The Cross was good, but it was only good because it was the only good way to bring us to God.
I do not follow Christ because Christianity is my religion of choice. I have chosen to follow Christ, yes; but that doesn’t make Christianity my religion. It’s God’s. It’s his initiative, it’s his action, it’s his grace, it’s his revelation, it’s his plan; and I’m thankful he has given me grace to enter into the relationship he has called me to.
For that reason, tomorrow on Thanksgiving, as an every other day, I will humbly and heartily thank God for the Cross of Christ, where I was rescued from death. I thank God, too, that the story did not end in death, but in resurrection, glory, and a mission for us to pursue until Christ returns.
Finally: If like me you are thanking God for the Cross, but at the same time you’re trying to hold on to the impossible belief that other religions can lead to God, it’s time to make your choice.
Also at Thinking Christian
November 23rd, 2011 | 9:20 am | #1
‘He was willing to endure it because it was necessary in order to reconcile humans to God. The Cross was good, but it was only good because it was the only good way to bring us to God.’
Hi Tom,
Why was it (the Cross) ‘necessary’? Why was the pain and brutal passion and suffering and death all ‘necessary’? Could God have done it (reconcile us to Him) another way?
November 23rd, 2011 | 9:55 am | #2
Steve, I don’t think He could have done it in any way that did not involve extreme suffering and death. Atonement for the objectively guilty can’t be free, and death can’t be overcome except by literally overcoming it.
November 23rd, 2011 | 10:14 am | #3
Hi Pentamom,
Thanks for that answer. But I’m not sure it answers the ‘why’ of extreme suffering and death. Why not ‘no’ suffering, ‘no’ beatings, ‘no’ physical death at all? Couldn’t God have made it painless or spiritual in some way?
November 23rd, 2011 | 10:32 am | #4
Steve,
I don’t know the deep counsels of God on this one. Pentamom is certainly on the right track. There had to be a death. I believe that there was supreme value in his enduring what so many humans have endured: physical pain, injustice, humiliation, and all the painful rest, so that we can look to him as one who has experienced like sufferings with us.
Does that mean it’s the only way God could have done it? Probably, because I am quite sure he would have done it in a less painful way if it had been possible. I’m very confident of this, though: it is the only way that God did do it; and the fact that he did it that way is strong evidence that no other way comes close to satisfying our needs.
November 23rd, 2011 | 10:47 am | #5
Thanks Tom,
I guess my point is that so far, in your post, and in these few short comments that have followed, there is no mention of Adam’s sin and the idea that we ‘all’ sin in Adam, no mention of penal substitution and atonement. In recent attempts to dehistoricize Adam by some in the evangelical camp, and the Bible’s clear teaching that Adam’s sin brought death (1 Cor. 15:21), does not this have a direct bearing on the Cross, and the why, the necessity, can one even say, the requirement, for Jesus’ death?
November 23rd, 2011 | 11:01 am | #6
The exact words were “could other religions LEAD to God”, not “do other religions have salvific qualities in themselves.” Another religion can act as a mentor when taken in the right spirit. Were not the three Magi devout enough Zoroastrians to be willing to search when they saw the star in the East?
As for “I take it that those 57% believe their choice of Christianity is an expression of their personal preference,” you do people a disservice. A lot of people would just find the belief that someone is damned just because they didn’t find a missionary who could convince them in time, to be not only unmerciful but unbelievably dependent on the chances of mortal life; and the idea that other religions should be treated as a vice in the same sense that drug abuse is a vice to be a sign of gross pariochialism and ignorance. That is not a straw man; they are the beliefs that is still generally held in the church I go to. I struggled with those beliefs for a while almost to the point of hating God, before deciding that they were not necessary for orthodoxy and that it is permitted to assume that if necessary God will miraculously visit him at the moment of death, if only there is not irrevocable rejection. One reason I belief this is that from what I have read of devout followers of other religions there is often not much to choose on Earth between them and me, and I simply don’t want to give them up for damned.
At the same time I recognize that all religions cannot be equal and thinking so is not only a violation of the law of non-contradiction but is an insult to other religions; it says that they are not important enough to be wrong and the questions they ask are trivial.
The point of all this, is that you must be careful in misinterpreting people’s motives. They may mean something different then what you think. Especially on polls which cannot capture nuances. The question is ambiguous; it can mean, “Are other religions salvific”, or “can other religions be a valid guide,”
November 23rd, 2011 | 11:10 am | #7
Steve, I’m confused. How does my saying “atonement for the objectively guilty can’t be free” not mention “penal substitution and atonement?”
And I guess I was just assuming that the idea of extremity of physical suffering was implicit in the idea that it “wasn’t free,” because I was assuming we both agree that the debt is very large, not something that can be dealt with by something less traumatic.
As for why physical death was necessary — like I said, death can only be overcome, by overcoming it. Again, how does that not address “why physical death was necessary?” Physical death had to be overcome, so it had to be defeated by direct confrontation, not just bought off or something.
November 23rd, 2011 | 11:20 am | #8
Steve, concerning your 10:47 am comment, let me quote from N.T. Wright, who was quoting someone else whose name I don’t remember. Wright said that the danger in speaking or writing on theology is that you have to say everything you believe every time you say anything, or someone will accuse you of not believing it.
I do not choose to say everything I believe every time I write. It would become altogether too ponderous, and it would obscure the point that I am trying to make. I do not disagree with you over the importance of the doctrines you have mentioned, but I disagree with you over the importance of mentioning them when I am talking about something else.
November 23rd, 2011 | 11:25 am | #9
Pentamom,
‘How does my saying “atonement for the objectively guilty can’t be free” not mention “penal substitution and atonement?”’
It actually doesn’t, does it? Unless you assume we all know what you’re talking about. The words ‘atonement for the objectively guilty’, carries several unstated assumptions. What are those assumptions?
Again, I think we do agree, but what is the unstated assumption that we agree about? Why is our debt large? What is it in the Biblical account that tells me I have a large debt that had to be satisfied in the Cross: and the painful, can one say, ‘excruciating’, physical death of Christ upon it?
Why should I accept your definition of ‘death can only be overcome by overcoming it’? What ‘death’ are you referring to? Can you specify this ‘death’?
November 23rd, 2011 | 11:26 am | #10
Steve,
Why are you trying to stir up conflict over this?
November 23rd, 2011 | 11:29 am | #11
Tom,
Agreed. The doctrine of penal substitution is foundational to the ‘why’ of the Cross, and is rooted in an historical Adam however. As I mentioned, with recent attempts to dehistoricize Adam, this makes meaningless the Cross, and the painful suffering and death that Christ went through on it.
November 23rd, 2011 | 11:31 am | #12
Tom,
Your words not mine, my friend. I am thankful for the Cross. It only has meaning when rooted in ‘all’ of Biblical teaching and thought.
November 23rd, 2011 | 12:54 pm | #13
Relating to Thanksgiving Day, this makes an excellent meditation for reflecting on our responsibilites for the day as described in this blog:
http://www.danieldarling.com/2011/11/dads-should-lead-on-thanksgiving/
November 23rd, 2011 | 3:07 pm | #14
Steve, I share Tom’s question. Is your only problem that Tom or I didn’t say everything that could be said about something, when saying something about it?
A well known contemporary theologian (I honestly forget who) is known for saying, “If you have to say everything any time you say something, you’ll never be able to say anything.”
And actually, I’ve seen enough of you around here to make a fair guess at your assumptions, so I thought I could get away with leaving some shared assumptions in the background. Is there some reason that this is actually wrong?
“What ‘death’ are you referring to? Can you specify this ‘death’?”
Death is one thing, with many aspects. What is there to “specify?” I mean the whole thing.
November 23rd, 2011 | 3:48 pm | #15
@Pentamom #14,
‘Is your only problem that Tom or I didn’t say everything that could be said about something, when saying something about it?’
Dear Pentamom,
Am I not free on this blog to express my thoughts and opinions? That’s all I am attempting to do. To express thoughts that will generate a bounce back, whether in agreement or not, so that we might discuss their validity in accordance with Scripture.
‘And actually, I’ve seen enough of you around here to make a fair guess at your assumptions, so I thought I could get away with leaving some shared assumptions in the background. Is there some reason that this is actually wrong?’
Not at all. Yet there are hidden and unsaid assumptions that you and I and Tom might share that are not shared by all. The hidden assumption in Tom’s beautiful post is that the Cross had to mean something, had to be tied down and rooted in something. And what is that?
The question of ‘why the Messiah, the Christ, had to die, why the Cross was necessary, is fundamental to this discussion, is it not? It’s fundamental to our shared Christian doctrine.
The answer is fundamentally then rooted in Scripture. Specifically then in the book of Genesis and the history of one man and one woman, who historically disobeyed God’s command (Gen.2:17) and historically Fell from the sinless state of innocence they had been created in (Gen. 3:14-19).
In other words, if Adam was not historical, if his historical sin did not bring physical death per God’s warning, then Christ’s physical death on a Cross in payment for that sin, is meaningless. Christ’s death would bear no relationship to anything. It would not be the solution to man’s problem, man’s utter need for redemption and reconcilation. Why would man need to be saved? What would be the purpose?
November 23rd, 2011 | 4:18 pm | #16
I think for the answer to these questions, a little reading of a couple of 900-year-old works is in order. Anselm of Canterbury’s “Cur Deus Homo” (Why God Became Man) and “Epistola de Incarnatione Verbi” (Epistle on the Incarnation of the Word) deal with why Christ’s incarnation and death were necessary.
Sorry, I have Anselm on the brain, as I’m writing a paper for my church history class at seminary.
November 23rd, 2011 | 5:01 pm | #17
Steve,
You are free to express your thoughts and opinions, of course. Does it occur to you that that’s a weak thing to say in response?
You are free to speak, but your speech has a context and it has an effect. It would appear from your conversation here that you think the most important issue at hand is the historicity of Adam. Knowing you from prior conversations, you specifically think that the historicity of Adam at the beginning of days in a young creation is of crucial importance.
If you’ll re-read my post, you’ll find that it was directed to those who think there are multiple ways to God. They’re not asking about the historicity of Adam, Steve. Maybe you think they should be, but my point was that they should be thinking about the Cross.
Of course one could explore why the Cross matters, and there is a time to do that. I am fundamentally in agreement with you on that crucial set of beliefs. But as both pentamom and I have said, it’s not necessary to say everything every time one opens one’s mouth.
Note that in referencing the Cross I also did not go into the history of the OT sacrifices, the Passover, the progression of revelation, the canon, the hypostatic union, or my position on infralapsarianism vs. supralapsarianism. There’s a lot I chose not to say, in other words, and it wasn’t because I thought it was all unimportant. It was because I thought I could communicate my point better by focusing on my point.
So yes, you are free to say what you want to say. We are free to point out that you are riding a hobby horse of yours onto a different path than the topic of this post.
November 23rd, 2011 | 6:55 pm | #18
Tom,
Most certainly. Is it a weak thing to say that the Cross without it’s historical roots is meaningless? That the Christian path to God, in contrast to the multiple path way, does not go through Adam?
Have a blessed Thanksgiving brother. I am thankful that you are thankful for the Cross.
November 24th, 2011 | 6:55 am | #19
Jason and others, for more on the Pew poll see this article, which includes,
November 26th, 2011 | 11:18 am | #20
So can an argument then be made that the 57% don’t see the Adam-Christ connection? Don’t understand the implications of this connection so powerfully laid out by Paul in Romans 5? Don’t understand who the Promised Seed of Gen. 3:15 is, ‘…He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel’? Don’t understand the suffering servant of Isaiah 53? That the weakness of the 57% is that they don’t understand the history of their own Scriptures?
November 26th, 2011 | 11:36 am | #21
Yes, an argument for that could be made. Many arguments could be made with respect to this 57%.
November 29th, 2011 | 4:28 pm | #22
When Christ went through his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, and up to his crucifixion and death, was his goal to make salvation possible for all of humanity, or just a minority of those who would ever live on earth? Was his redemptive intent directed toward the Jews who died before him? Toward the billions of others, both before and after his time, who would die without a full opportunity to understand the offer he suffered so much to make available to them?
Since he is God over the dead who await resurrection, as well as the living, there is no reason to think that he cannot use the time between his death and their resurrection to offer them the opportunity to have redemptive faith in him. Surely it is within God’s power to direct the righteous dead to preach the gospel to the ignorant dead.
I am constantly puzzled as to why people insist that those who miss hearing the gospel before their own death are forever lost, and that this situation is necessary in order to motivate us to evangelize the rest of mankind. That looks like a sacrifice of a mass of eternal souls for the mere purpose of motivating some of us to care for the souls of a few. Since God is no respecter of persons, why would he not use his dominion over the not-yet-resurrected dead to complete his work of evangelization of all humanity? Is he too busy? Does he not care about them? Does he lack the power? NO. If we were to embrace this concept, that God seeks to perfect the evangelization of all mankind, that should be enough motivation for us to participate in God’s great plan for mankind’s salvation.
November 29th, 2011 | 6:07 pm | #23
Raymond, your question is of the order, “Why could God not …?”
There is nothing that God could not do, except for that which contradicts his eternal character or is just logically impossible (make a square circle). For that reason, we cannot understand God’s purposes and intentions just by what we think he could do. The range of possibilities is far too broad, and there is no way we could discern which way he might go from among them all. Rather we must go by his revelation, what he has said he will do, has done, or is doing.
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