Other things to consider in addtion to those you've raised, Alex:

1. Questioning our perception of the cultures whose writings and customs we're drawing our contemporary concepts from -- are we seeing those people and their environments and their quaint pretechnology as we wish they'd been rather than as they said they were?

2. Questioning the assumptions behind our perceptions -- does the way we perceive ourself today require us to take a certain view of the past or of other groups, and if so, how does that affect how we read the timeline of history, our place in it, and God's acts through it?

3. Questioning the function of old rituals and current rituals in the broader belief systems they're a part of -- what do our rituals and tenets add to our view of the cosmos; what did the old ones' rituals and tenets add to theirs? How can we learn from them?

4. Questioning the presence, place, and function of paradox and contradiction in beliefs and practices then and now -- are certain threads of belief and practice attached to certain turning points in the old culture or in ours, and if so, what do those threads teach us about ourselves and about God?

5. Questioning the impact of new findings, new history, new archaeology, new scholarship, and new insight on our rituals, our tenets, and our view of the past -- what might change, and how will we respond to that change? Will we crumble, falsify, ignore/dismiss, integrate, adapt?

Building and maintaining a system of belief is more complicated than putting tradition and truth to spar in a ring and betting on truth to last 10 rounds. It is architecture and fine art: best done under inspiration in good lighting with an open heart and a steady hand -- and lotsa respect for the construction materials, gravity, pressure, and time.

Hi Alex,

Sorry I missed you and Jared this past weekend

Perhaps there is a misunderstanding that God did not "desire sacrifice" from Ps.51:16 and Ps.40:6 in the OT cultus. One should consider 1 Sam.2:29 as to the requirement of what God required of Israel.

The cultic practice was however completely unacceptable without the corresponding correct spiritual attitude. Then God would be pleased with His prescribed sacrifice and offerings. Ps.51:16-19 in the OT.Ps.40:6-8 points to Christ who came to do the will of the father in Mt.26:28. Nevertheless..."Not my will but thine be done."

The type prefigured the one sacrifice for all time of Christ. Heb.9:22-10:29.

The type was done away with but the once for all blood sacrifice of Christ last forever as an atonement for sin.

May I suggest a good academic and practical application book to those on this site…"The glory of the atonement" that also discusses the aspect of Metaphor. pp.154-156,158,215,370-371,375,381,401.

http://www.amazon.com/Glory-Atonement-Historical-Practical-Perspectives/...

I agree Alex that it should lead to each of us using the particular gift entrusted to each of us for the building up of the church community and for the service of humanity as a whole as individually empowered by His Spirit.

Regards,

pat

"a theology gets into trouble when it has to reconstitute a past cultural practice that we no longer find ethical to explain itself."

True. But as long as the literal reading of ancient texts are used to support doctrine, and they come from what is almost universally called "The Word of God" what are the solutions proposed?

Doubtless, there are thousands of SDAs and maybe millions of Christians who have walked away from the traditional explanations given for the need for Jesus' shed blood.

Is there anyone who can furnish definitive information on when and with whom, did the entire doctrine of Christ's death and its necessity to ensure man's salvation. Was it widely believed while Jesus was here and immediately after his Resurrection? Or, did it take several decades to begin formulating by the questions asked by his followers on "what do those things mean"?

Paul, the earliest writer both expounded and explained what Jesus' death and resurrection meant, but is he the final authority, and was he always consistent in his reasoning?

Shouldn't the words of Jesus be the last word regarding 'salvation'? Are 'atonement' and 'salvation' the same thing...or is 'atonement' one aspect of 'salvation'?

In reading this post and the ensueing conversations produced by it, I was reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's discussion on Jesus Christ as the reconciliation of God and the world in his book Ethics. After explaining that the love of God for the world is an engagement in the sufferings of the world at its very worst, Bonhoeffer gives this statement:

"The world exhausts its rage on the body of Jesus."

My point in that quote was its contrast to God exhausting his rage on Jesus.

Alex,

After reading your comments, I have the feeling that quite often we have the tendency of falling in love much easier with metaphors than with Jesus Christ himself. Dr. Guy did make a reference to the fact that the explanations for the death of Jesus are in fact metaphors, and Dr. Ford did admit that all the symbols we use for the atonement are metaphors, but he added that the king of metaphors is the forensic view of the cross, because the biblical reference to this symbol far exceeds that of other means of explaining the cross.

Personally, I am not impressed with the numerical count of metaphors, especially because most of the N.T. references to the legal model came from the pen of a single author, Paul, and he was a lawyer. No wonder Peter argued that some of his writings are difficult to understand, which some individuals tend to misinterpret.

We enjoy singing about the power of Jesus blood. This is fine, provided we don't forget what it means. When Jesus told the crowd that was following him after he fed the five thousand, "You need to eat my flesh and drink my blood," they were offended. Then Jesus explained what this meant. We find this in John 6: 53: "The flesh counts for nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, they are spirit and they are life."

Here is clear evidence that the healing power does not reside in Jesus literal blood, but in his words. His words brought the universe into existence, and brought Lazarus back to life. Physical blood circulates through our arteries and veins bringing life to each cell in our body. Likewise, the Words of Jesus bring healing and spiritual life to our souls.

Is this difficult to understand? Probably not, yet the crowd did not like this explanation given by Jesus, and they did stop following him. Sinful human nature is not impressed with spiritual reality, and prefers tangible symbols. When Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be born again, he was offended, and interpreted Jesus' statement in a literal manner.

Likewise, Jesus enemies insisted on a literal reading of Jesus' lips when he said to them: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will restore it." They accused him of plotting to destroy the Jewish Temple, when in fact he was talking about his physical body.

You reminded us that we are "saved by grace" instead of a few drops of blood. If Jesus told us that the healing and saving power is in his words instead of his physical blood, we need to believe that this is in fact where God's power resides: His words, which are full of grace.

Grace implies a gift. Forgiveness is a gift, and nobody demands payment for a gift. Payment would be an offense to the gift giver. Even Paul, who did use so often the legal model, made the following declaration in Romans 5:10: "Indeed, if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more once reconciled we will be saved by his life."

Isn't this amazing, Saint Paul, the champion of the forensic explanation for the cross, declared first: that we were the ones alienated from God--enemies; that we were the ones reconciled to God; and that once reconciled, we are saved by--his blood?--No way, but rather by his life. The words of a living Savior is what we need in our spiritual arteries and veins.

Perhaps the next time we sing "There is power in the blood," someone should explain that the actual spiritual power is not in the blood, but rather in the words of a living Savior! Following the afternoon session with Dr. Ford, I came home and turned my television to Channel 17, and I heard Pastor Randy Roberts explain the death of Jesus this way: "The cross was God's gift to us. The crucifixion was what we did to God."

I would probably rephrase this as follows: "Jesus was God's gift to us. The crucifixion was our response to his gift."

Nic Samojluk, Editor: http://www.sdaforum.com

I think we often try to over analyse metaphors too. Take the symbol of blood. What does it represent? Two things in the the Bible, the life of something and the death (often a violent man caused death). So in Christ the blood represents the same things, the life of Christ, the life of the one that men hung on a cross and killed. But that was not the end of life, because He rose again. So blood is the symbol of the one who lived and died and rose again, Christ who is God. And guess what that is the same thing that the cross is a symbol of.

These then are symbols of God's actions in the incarnation. How God acted to bring reconciliation. As with everything else however there is all the baggage of time. The way blood is used in the pagan world, the myths and beliefs of ancient Israel etc. and ultimately for us the myths and beliefs produced through the combination of those things with that of feudal Europe.

Every generation should probably learn to look at the stories as though they were reading them for the first time. Of course that would be impossible because we carry our own baggage and the writers of the story had their own baggage. So we are left with the only thing we can do, interpret the stories and symbols and metaphors into something that makes since and has relevance to our lives. Even then that relevance becomes tinged with our traditions. But some I fear can never get past their traditions and thus the relevance is often questionable and the reason is often illogical. It may be that such things have to crash and burn before they can rise again, maybe that is the decline of Christianity in the West that we see today. As tradition replaces relevance and the questions can't be answered with straigt forward answers but cliches of tradition.

Unfortunately that is something I saw in both of the reports of presentations this last week.