Was the cross just a case of cosmic child abuse?

(Recent Insight from Rob Bell's "The gods aren't angry" Tour)

Until recently, I never asked that question. It was an absurd question, the kind that is unthinkable. Until, that is, the assumptions that created the foundation of my worldview began to shift, and space was made for such questions. A friend of mine mentioned in passing his struggle with the cross being "cosmic child abuse." And suddenly, I had eyes to actually "see" the dilema for the first time.

I mean, really, it certainly can seem that way. Here is a god, who, seemingly for arbitrary reasons, requires a blood sacrifice for forgiveness of sins. Why? We aren't told. It seems brutal and heartless, and meaningless. If someone sheds blood, they are supposed to shed additional blood for forgiveness? Sounds more like the primitive “eye for an eye.” The Hebrew writer, in Hebrews 9:22 even states, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (TNIV).

Since his creation is full of sin, and in need of forgiveness, he ordains a system of animal sacrifice. When that fails to “keep up” with the sin, he decides to send his son to endure beatings, mocking, and “dehumanizing” treatment (not to mention, de-dietization), and ultimately to have his son’s blood shed to appease some arbitrary need for blood. When looked at from this (traditional) perspective, it certainly seems like “cosmic child abuse” to appease a blood thirsty god.

But Rob Bell gave me a way of understanding the cross, that puts to ease my consternation about the abusiveness of the cross… well, really, he gave me more to work with, so that when added to what Jared shared a couple weekends ago (see prior post), I can be in awe of the cross once again.

First, I must address the Hebrew writer’s statement. It was taken out of context (as most verses used in doctrinal assumptions are). The whole context is comparing the old covenant system to the new system that Jesus ushered in. To give a little more context:

16 In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made
it, 17 because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes
effect while the one who made it is living. 18 This is why even the first
covenant was not put into effect without blood. 19 When Moses had proclaimed
every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves,
together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the
scroll and all the people. 20 He said, "This is the blood of the covenant, which
God has commanded you to keep." 21 In the same way, he sprinkled with the
blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. 22 In fact, the
law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the
shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (Heb 9:16-22 TNIV)

So, there are two ways in which the context influences my understanding. First, the writer is talking about blood as a way of proving the death of something; Christ’s spilled blood proved the death of the old “will” or covenant. Second, the Hebrew writer was contexualizing Christ’s death in terms of what the Hebrews were already very familiar – the temple sacrificial system. One could argue that the statement “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” really is only an extension of what “the law requires” referred to in the first part of that sentence, and that law has been done away. The Hebrew writer was not necessarily (though he or she could have been) saying that the shedding of blood for forgiveness of sins is some universal, cosmic, unaltering truth.

Having addressed that, then, brings me to a new way of understanding the cross that Rob Bell shared. Jesus came to do away with the old systems (powers, dominions) that caused oppression and suffering and violence. The old system of appeasing our own sense of guilt through blood sacrifices was based on violence (to animals, in the case of the Hebrews, but even to human children, in the case of the worshippers of Molech). Christ, in the cleansing of the temple, hints at the fact that the old order needed to change; that Christ (“something greater than the temple”) was the new order. He declared that he was the way to forgiveness (ie, freedom from guilt), not the old system based on the “vortex of the altar” as Rob referred to it. But if Jesus was to be victorious in overturning the system based on violence, there is no way that he could use violence to usher the new system of peace and reconciliation. Of course, those with a vested interest in the old system (the leaders who were made wealthy by the violence-based system) would use violence to defend their system. And they did. And he didn’t.

So when I look at the cross now, I don’t see some blood thirsty god requiring the blood of his son. I see a Son who was willing to take on our suffering to create a space for love (see previous post). I see a Son who was revoking the system based on violence and replacing it with a system of peace and love and reconciliation, and in the process, became a (albeit, willing) victim of the violence-based system.

The New Testament writers appropriated the language of the old sacrificial system for the situation of the cross. It was a system that the people of that day and age could understand, where sacrificial blood systems were ubiquitous.

No, the cross was not cosmic child abuse. The cross was the evidence of the failure of a sacrificial system of blood offerings – one that was designed to appease our own sense of guilt. The cross was the creation of space for love. The cross was the victory of love and peace over guilt and violence.

Praise God for the Cross.