"Redemption through his blood." But why?

The other night some dear friends and I were discussing the different views of the atonement. Particularly we noted how so many view God as having basically punished His Son instead of punishing us. The very next morning the following was the verse of the day on www.Biblegateway.com. This is a random and rotating verse so I didn't think this was really coincidence.
 
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” - Ephesians 1:7

Make no mistake, we can only have redemption "  through His blood."    There is no way around it. We cannot redeem ourselves. Paul doesn't say "through our good deeds."   This redemption by blood is a major theme throughout scripture and to miss this point would be to miss the core of the gospel message. Nothing can redeem our fallen state and our sinful condition; nothing but the blood. But why? Is it because we need a buffer between happy us and an angry God?  The answer to "Why blood?" is right here in the same verse, "in accordance with the riches of God's grace."


There is a common misconception among so many that God woke up one day as an angry dictator, and we are just sinners in His crushing hands. He is the furious Father, and we are His condemned creation.  With a frown on his face and a hand clinched into a fist, He makes the awe-full decision to murder His own son on our behalf. He went through with the plan, even though His One and Only begged Him through tears for a different way. Now He's been upset about it for 2011 years... and counting. 

This misconception deeply effects the way we live our lives and how we see God's face. Miserable Christians pack the pews Sunday after Sunday with this picture of God in their minds. And many more have abandoned Church altogether just to dull the pain. Scholars often refer to this as the "Penal" view of the Atonement,  the idea being that God needed to "punish" someone, somehow, for this big, fat, sinful mess. The penal view is widely adopted by Christians everywhere. But it is not the only view.* And it is not a view that seems healthy to me because of the image it paints of God. 

Am I infected by this bad image of God? Are you? To test your view of God try this little exercise (because I learned this imaginative prayer stuff from Greg Boyd). Just close your eyes for a second, think about the blood of Christ flowing down for your sins, and then picture God's face. What do you see there? What's in His eyes as He looks at you? What is the shape of His mouth? His eyebrows? If you see anger, depression, guilt, or condemnation then you see His face all wrong. Read it again:


“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”

The key, I think, to imagining the true face of God in light of the great sacrifice of His Son's blood, is found in the word "riches." God is careful here to use Paul to pen these beautiful words and paint a glorious picture for us. Out of the "riches" of God's grace do we have forgiveness of sins. And now, if God's grace is RICH, and those riches He shares with us are out of His own free will (I mean, he didn't "have to" send His son to die, right?) then God's HEART is one of unconditional love. And this unconditional love not only puts a smile on His face as He sees the blood of redemption, it should put a smile on our face as well. The point is freedom; and that freedom is so that we may enjoy the Father.

God has 
set ... us ... free. 
Do you feel that!? 
God has SET ... US ... FREE!!!! 
And now we are free indeed!

Can you really feel free if you think God killed His son for you and is somehow bitter about it? Can you truly accept this Freedom in Christ if you are in some way paying a penance each Sunday, just trying to repay God for his incredible generosity? No way. In his blog post on this subject Boyd writes,  

• What is the intrinsic connection between what Jesus did on the cross and how we actually live? The Penal Substitution view makes it seem like the real issue in need of resolution is a legal matter in the heavenly realms between God’s holy wrath and our sin. Christ’s death changes how God sees us, but this theory says nothing about how Christ’s death changes us. This is particularly concerning to me because every study done on the subject has demonstrated that for the majority of Americans who believe in Jesus, their belief makes little or no impact on their life. I wonder if the dominance of this legal-transaction view of the atonement might be partly responsible for this tragic state of affairs. 

I wonder the same thing. What we believe should "compel us" and make us "no longer live" for ourselves (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). And I don't think we have to give up the farm when we relax a little on this judgmental view of God. One cannot deny the use of Blood in God's overall plan. It's everywhere, throughout History, and implemented and carried out by the His divine will. But if we stop and put this "sacrifice" in the context of the spiritual realm -- that other, over-lapping realm we also live in -- then we can see that God's use of Blood means so much more than we can probably even imagine. Perhaps the sacrifice was as much for the heavens as it was for us. This is where Boyd states it quite well:

• To me, these are all serious problems with the Penal Substitution view of the atonement. I do not deny that Jesus died as our substitute or even that it was God’s will to “crush and bruise” him (Isa 53:10). But we don’t need to imagine that the Father vented his wrath against sin on Jesus to make sense of these facts. One can (and I think should) rather see this as the Father offering up his Son to the principalities and powers to be bruised and crushed in our place, for this unsurpassable expression of self-sacrificial love is what was needed to destroy the devil and his works and to thus set humans free, reconciling them to the Father.

Freedom! See, if you only view the Atonement as a punishment for our sin then you are not free. You are in debt. (Or course we are indebted to God for all of this. But God still wants us to be focused on freedom.) This is true freedom from the principalities and powers which cause us spiritual death. This is not just freedom from "our" sin. But freedom from the accuser, from our flesh, from the sin-nature itself. How? Through faith, and by His Spirit's power. And through the Body of Christ. What's in view? Love. Incredible, overwhelming, deep love. But what's not in view? The spiritual realm, where the demons shriek and Satan quivers at the thought of that blood -- He has lost control over "this one" and over "that one." That's the real point of impact on my soul, and upon yours.
 
True: Nothing can redeem our fallen state and our sinful condition; nothing but the blood. But why blood? Because of God's love, affection, and grace towards us. He won't let us die in our sins. And if we'll let him He won't even let us die in our minds (although we Christians seem to hesitate at the renewing of the minds part). He wishes to renew our minds and our hearts with the riches of His grace, given through the redemptive blood of the perfect Lamb and experienced in His Body, the local church. If we are dead to sin then we are alive in Christ. Why? Because of the blood. Because of Grace. Because of unconditional love. Thus we can approach God with confidence. Like this: Eph. 3:12. "In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence."   (See also Heb 4:16).  

Now, did God also show us what true love is through the cross? Absolutely. "  This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters."   (1 John 3:16). But this is not the main reason for the blood. Just do a search for "blood" in www.biblegateway.com.  Blood = atonement. And God's atonement through Christ = confidence for you and me. Freedom! Within the context of complete freedom we then move to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Wrapping up: Ephesians is an incredible book of the Bible. We can't read it enough; for it is Spiritual and each time God will show us something new. But I especially love how Paul prays for the church in Ephesis. After a letter packed full of the Good News it's almost as if His heart and pin were about to explode with these thoughts of God's unfathomable love:

For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.


Do you feel it? Do you feel the forgiveness of sin and the redemption from the Blood of Christ? It is meant to be felt, you know. It is not some thought to hold in the mind or some mantra to chant each Sunday morning or some prayer to pray at the alter once or twice. It is a love-language bursting forth from the Creator of the Universe coming with such great conviction and mercy that it should penetrate our core being and make us change -- dramatically -- and in every way imaginable. This change starts with our own joy being a real and deep joy. It continues as the Spirit of God works into our hearts and lives the virtues of holiness and righteousness. And it extends to our brothers and sisters in Christ with great love and a shared passion for doing God's will.

Like a grand fountain, or a mighty waterfall, is our Lord's love. That's why. That's why the blood and redemption of sins. 

Because... 
He ... 
Loves ... 
US!

And oh, oh, oh   ...how He love us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`


*I think what we believe about the atonement makes a huge difference in the way we live day to day. It's what we think of God, of ourselves, and of our brothers and sisters. Beliefs lead to actions and attitudes. I'm digging into this topic more deeply now and looking back over the major views out there, beginning with this book: The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views I'll let you know how it goes.