Hard Questions / Thoughtful Responses
2. What part of the Bible is literal and what part is
story-telling (virgin birth, heaven, etc.)?
This question gets out the nature of truth. Is truth all about
facts, about literal history, or is truth bigger than facts? Can truth
really be captured in a literal retelling of history? Can an historian
even do that without his or her own prejudices creeping in?
When we read the Bible it is not always helpful to ask if what is
written literally happened. A more productive question tries to get at
what the author is trying to tell us about ourselves and our
relationship with God in Christ. What is the truth these words are
trying to reveal? Sometimes the truth is so big it can only be grasped
in story or myth. Remember myth is not lies or make believe. Myths are
stories that open up a world of truth simple facts can’t capture.
For example, some believe in a literal virgin birth. Others find that
preposterous and dismiss Christianity as unscientific and naïve. Sadly
they end up throwing out the baby with the bath water. A careful reading
of the scriptures would see that the Gospel writers understood Jesus
through some of the Old Testament prophecies that talked about a young
woman or virgin who would give birth to Emmanuel. In the Hebrew the word
to describe this mother could be either young woman or virgin. In the
Greek one has to choose. The Gospel writers chose virgin. They did this
for several reasons. First, many of the Roman emperors were said to be
the child of a virgin and one of their gods. Caesar was even called a
Son of God. Christians countered that assertion by saying Jesus was the
true Son of God. He, too, was also born of a virgin and God. This was
dangerous language for the early church to use. They were making a
political claim as much as a religious one.
In addition, to say that Jesus was the child of a woman and the Spirit
of God was to say that Jesus was fully human yet he uniquely revealed
God to us. Jesus was the human face of God as some have said. You can
see that the virgin birth is about so much more than biology. One does
not have to believe in a literal virgin birth to be powerfully impacted
by the truth that story is trying to tell.
Am I dismissing literal history as unimportant? Absolutely not. There is
an historical basis for Christianity and Jesus. It is not all just
stories or myths. But, we may never know exactly what literally
happened. What we do have is the Gospel writers and their accounts of
Jesus. Unfortunately they don’t always agree on what happened or in what
order. The gospels are not biographies with an agreed upon chronology of
events. They are more sermons trying to capture the essence and truth of
Jesus from the perspective of the author’s community. Do we trust their
witness or not? Do we hear the Word of God in their human words? Those
are better questions to ask of the text. Historically the Church has
answered those questions with a “yes.”
All of this is to say the Bible does not have to be believed literally
in every instance to be respected and taken seriously. In fact, to say
the Bible is literally God’s Word as if God were dictating it to human
scribes is to make it synonymous with God. We call that Bibliolatry, a
form of idolatry.
1. If God is all forgiving why did Christ have to die for our
sin?
This question gets at the meaning of the cross and how it relates to
forgiveness. One of the more traditional approaches interpreting the
cross is called “substitutionary atonement.” This approach says that we
have all sinned and failed to live up to God’s standards for Christian
behavior. God’s justice demands a consequence for our sinful behavior.
The just consequence is death. But, because God is also gracious, God
provided a substitute to take the punishment for us. This substitute was
Jesus. He paid the price God’s justice demanded. He died for our sins.
The older I get, the less persuasive this understanding of the cross is
for me. I agree with those who say Jesus died because of human sin, not
for human sin. He came preaching God’s radical, inclusive love for all
people. He stood up to the religious authorities who were abusing their
power for their own benefit. They did not want to lose their power, so
they killed him. Their hateful behavior was sinful. Jesus died because
of that sin. This does not mean that the rest of humanity is innocent.
We have all played our part in sin’s destructive ways. We have all done
or said things that were far from loving. That still does not mean Jesus
had to die in our place to satisfy God’s justice.
The crucifixion of Jesus does play a role in our understanding our
salvation. In spite of the horror of the cross, God’s love was revealed
in Jesus as he suffered. Jesus loved God’s people enough to keep
preaching and acting knowing it was probably not going to end well for
him. In Jesus’ love for the people, God’s love was made manifest. It is
that love, not Jesus’ substitutionary death that forgives us and “saves”
us.
I don’t believe the purpose of Jesus’ life was to die for our sins. I
don’t believe God needed a death to satisfy God’s justice enabling God
to forgive us. I do believe that there always seems to be a price to pay
when someone speaks courageously against those who are abusing their
power. The depth of God’s love for us was revealed in a powerful way in
Jesus death on the cross. If Jesus had lived a full life and died a
natural death we would still know God’s love revealed in his life and
words, but perhaps not as powerfully as in his crucifixion. But, to say
God could not forgive us unless Jesus was tortured and killed on a cross
is a very troublesome notion of God. It presents us with a picture of
God that does not fit the God revealed in Jesus’ life and words.