Blood
enough
for the peace of the world
by Grant
Thorpe
Download
the  |
| A
series of four studies on the matter of covenant. Other
titles are: |
| |
| |
| |
| Spilling
blood signifies someone taking the life of another, or,
someone laying down their lives for another. Enormous
efforts are being expended today in trying to avoid the
spilling of blood—through negotiation, counselling,
intervention—but still, it goes on. It seems that
our world cannot continue without spilling blood.
|
| In the ancient
story of Cain and Abel, the older brother killed the younger—and
so began the saga of blood letting. Our own century has
had it in plenty. Our own era is filled with feuds. The
sophistication of modern statecraft is unable to suppress
the rising anger of a new generation. Anger boils over.
And when it does, others need to risk the spilling of
their blood to suppress the evil. |
| In our morally
tolerant society, we should take heed of Israel’s
ancient wisdom. A person who plays with another man’s
wife should expect vengeance (Prov. 6:27–35). He
is not concerned to tell us what is right or wrong in
this regard but just what we should expect. |
Vengeance?
Retribution? Yes! |
When someone
violently takes the life of another, their spilt blood
cries out for vengeance. It is not human justice that
requires this but God’s. He gave life to each person.
He taught Israel that the life of anything was in its
blood and that if that blood was spilt, they would have
to answer to God. The same applies to any person taking
advantage of another. |
| Jesus taught
the same in a heightened form. If I am angry with my brother,
though I spill no blood, I stand in danger of judgement
from God to whom belongs the life of my fellow human being. |
| If the word
vengeance seems inappropriate because it suggests a personal
vendetta, retaliation, gaining personal satisfaction from
seeing another suffer as oneself, then, the term retribution
may be preferred. The following Bible references show
that the real issue is not what we feel about this or
that, but what action God will take. If this is not clear,
we may well be confused about the feelings that remain
in us about wrong-doing. |
| Vengeance
is God’s to take—not ours (Deut. 32:35; I Sam
24:12). Vengeance is taken against God’s enemies
rather than our own (Num. 31:3). God takes vengeance against
his own people when they break his covenant with them
(Lev. 26:25). God’s people should love rather than
avenge themselves (Lev. 19:18). God himself mixes forgiveness
with vengeance (Ps. 99:8). The difference between God
and man in this matter is illustrated by God’s care
of Cain (Gen. 4:15) and, by contrast, his descendant’s
resentment (Gen. 4:24). God condemns vengeance with malice
(Ezek. 25:15; cf. v17 and Nah. 1:2). |
| We may look
with dismay, and perhaps distain, at the violence in other
lands, but our advantage is not our better living so much
as the better restraints that have been developed. We
have violence in our hearts and violence in our homes—even
if not physical. What, then, of the reactions to these
things? If there is no ointment for verbal and familial
spite, what peace can we expect to have? What violence
may we expect to erupt? |
| If we do
not dissolve the hatred and quench the violence within
us or among us, God himself sees the blood spilt on the
earth—actual or intentional, and it cries out to
him for vengeance. Is it any wonder that we have turmoil
in the earth? We are dealing not only with angry people
but an offended Father. |
| The myth
of an unengaged God is widespread. We distance him from
earth’s troubles. But this does no justice to what
he has told us about himself. It also leaves our consciences
uneasy—even if sedate. We do not diminish guilt by
saying that there is no Judge in the land. Nor do we have
any reference point for the outrage we feel when great
wrong is done. |
A
creed outworn? |
God gave
to Israel—and through them to the world—a worship
in which they could offer a beast instead of their own
life for the offence they had given to God. We may call
this primitive but Israel’s true worshippers were
not superstitious. The blood of beasts didn’t remove
their offence. Rather, the ceremony conveyed to them the
consequences of their sin—the reality of God’s
anger against it. It proclaimed the objective fact that
God had provided a way of atonement for them, and so,
their sins were declared to be forgiven. |
| Atonement
is the offering of a sacrifice to avert the wrath of the
one offended. Its Biblical name is propitiation. Some
scholars have sought to disprove that this element was
in Israel’s ancient sacrifices, and especially, that
it could not be part of what Jesus did when he was crucified.
Modern sensibilities revolt against the idea that God
could require this. |
| If Israel’s
sacrifices or Christ’s death are thought to be a
human action to placate a furious Deity, the idea should
certainly be rejected. God does not need to be persuaded
to be gracious. Rather, it is God himself who is gracious
and provides the offering to make atonement. In the case
of Christ, we are speaking of God’s own Son who understood
and was fully implicated in the love of making atonement. |
| The cross
stands in our history as the declaration that what we
have done—to the world, to one another, and especially
to God himself—is decisively rejected and punished.
But it is in this action, and especially because of it,
that love has been established forever. |
| Atonement
is not a fiction. For lack of a true atonement—by
God and for God—we must endlessly invent systems
of our own which we hope will put us in the right.—or,
which will extract proper reparation from those who do
wrong. This is our culture—the tent we build for
ourselves under the unfriendly skies of God’s being
offended with us. |
| Our lack
of true affection for one another and the violence that
broods in our minds when we cannot get what we want is
an offence to God. To protect ourselves from it, we must
endlessly be making provision to keep our fears sedated
and our consciences preened. |
| The sacrifices
of Israel were better than we can do ourselves. Their
coming to the temple, with a lamb to kill, acknowledged
that it was with God that they had to do; all life belonged
to him. Their slitting of its throat acknowledged that
their life was forfeit for their personal failure. Yet
they acknowledged in this substituted beast that God himself
would make atonement for them. All their attention was
focussed on God to atone for them and not on their deeds
by which they may have sought to excuse themselves. |
| Is it true
that—to use Wordworth’s lines in a different
setting: |
‘For
this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. —Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn…’
|
God has given
a Lamb for the sins of the world. It is a fact—God
has made atonement for the sins of the world. His own
Son, fully human, came to make atonement for us. He was
no helpless victim but a willing shepherd laying down
his life for his sheep, a priest offering his own blood,
a judge suffering his own penalty. His deed was no ceremony
needing constant repetition but God actually dealing with
our sin, and humanity actually standing under the judgement
of God. |
Blood?
Yes! |
I have spoken
of blood as I have for two reasons. Firstly, we may think
that mention of blood in regard to faith in God is merely
ceremonial, perhaps even pagan. But, for all our sophistication,
we retain an uneasy conscience, and, are unable to sedate
the thirst for reprisal. |
| Secondly,
there is no way for the truth about us and the truth about
God to be brought out into the open, let alone for reconciliation
to occur, without it costs a life—and it must be
a life that is significant to both God and ourselves.
Frankly, our ungratefulness and arrogance toward our Creator
means that our lives are forfeit. If someone is going
to try and avoid talking about death—a violent death—they
are not being real. |
| Jesus Christ
is significant to God because he is his Son—on whom
all his love is focussed. ‘Significant’ is hardly
the word; ‘everything’ is better. If something
happens to the Son, it happens to God. If the Son does
something, it is God who has done it. God will do anything
for the Son—whatever he asks. He has given the Son
total responsibility for us. He can save us. He will judge
us. The Son is constantly in the eye of the Father, and
everything he does, he does for the Son. If we kill the
Son, God sees that too. |
| But Jesus
Christ is significant to us also. We were created through
him and for him—our humanity has him for its prototype
and goal. He was sent to us to share our humanity. God
made him subject to every frailty and vicissitude of our
life. He made him feel every trial of our humanity. He
then ‘laid on him the iniquity of us all’—to
quote the prophet. |
| Here is
the man who really understands us, who penetrates what
we really are. Christ knows that our ‘problem’
is God—that we stand under his scrutiny and curse.
He knows that every day is spent in uneasy self-establishment
because we have no peace. It is into this hell especially
that Jesus descended in his death. |
| When he
had finished what he had to do and to bear—on the
cross—he had nothing left. His blood had been spilled
on the earth. |
| This Jesus,
God raised from the dead—again, for us. There is
nothing we need more urgently than to be delivered from
the fear of death and nothing other than Christ defeating
death is sufficient to accomplish it. |
| Theories
of atonement will be written and rewritten, but the fact
of atonement is written in the history of Jesus. It is
retold in the life of every person who receives God’s
gift of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. |
Forgiveness
|
If the blood
of violence calls out to God for vengeance, what does
Christ’s blood call out for? When God’s Son
offers up a true sacrifice, pleasing to God, on behalf
of us who offend him, it cries out for forgiveness. Jesus
uttered the cry himself, from his cross: ‘Father,
forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’ |
| The spilling
of the blood of Christ does not simply add to the hostility
and further the complications of human reprisal. Christ
is our Brother, not accuser. He called himself our friend,
not our enemy. Surely, we have been loved—loved personally,
and totally. Is there anything more God could do than
give his own Son, and is there anything greater Christ
could give than his life? |
| We killed
him. We kill him again when we don’t care that he
has loved us. But his blood is God’s gift—and
there is peace of conscience for anyone who comes to him.
Our lives were forfeit for our deeds, but his was forfeited
in our place. His life ascended to the Father as a humanity
pleasing to him, and, through faith in him, we also come
to the Father. |
| The sprinkling
of Christ’s blood on us (like Old Testament sacrifices)
is said to sanctify us. The taking of Christ’s life
is vengeance enough says God. Christ’s giving of
his life is pleasing enough says God. In his name, sprinkled
with his blood, we know we are at home with God. By his
deed we are made clean. |
For
whom? For the world! |
Around the
world, when Christians break bread and drink wine at the
communion feast, they repeat the words of Jesus: ‘this
is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many
for the forgiveness of sins’. God has a covenant
with this creation. He has bonded himself to it forever.
He will not forsake what is his. |
| God had
promised to make his covenant anew—through forgiveness.
It is this covenant which Christ sealed with his blood.
So, God’s covenant with creation is made valid and
potent and binding. Then, the prophet said, we would have
his law written on our hearts, we would know God. He would
have no quarrel with us, nor we with him. |
| Wherever
people believe in Christ—in his blood of the covenant,
they know that they have met with God, and have peace
with God, and need not be afraid in the world. The urgency
to defend their own culture (rather than simply contribute
to it) is gone—for their keeper is God. The blood
spilled once on the ground settles their hearts regarding
every other relationship. They have the friendship of
God. They can love their enemies. |
| God’s
covenant is with all creation. There is no opting out
of it. It is still the polity under which we live; it
is the constitution by which our days are regulated; the
government is upon Christ’s shoulder and he will
not fail or be discouraged until he has established justice
in the earth. The justice he will establish is not the
crushing of our enemies or, necessarily, the removing
of us from their sphere of influence, but rather, the
knowledge of his grace bringing our hostility to an end
and creating a whole new justice—based on love..
|
| What then
of those who refuse this blood of God’s covenant?
They have ‘spurned the Son of God’ and ‘
outraged the Spirit of grace’. God’s vengeance
is directed against all wrong doing, but, primarily, against
the ungrateful person who prefers his or her own sullenness
or indignation to God’s faithful dealing with our
humanity. |
| We crave
for a world without violence. But to ignore the blood
of God’s covenant is to give ourselves up to constant
festering of anger and perennial eruptions of violence.
|
| Then let
us trust in the God who establishes the truth and power
of his love through the blood of his Son. We may have
to wait for the peace of the earth. But we shall have
the peace of God in the earth, and shall pour it into
the relationships we have here and now. His peace shall
be established soon enough. |
To
consider |
When two
people take hostile action against each other, who is
their adversary? |
| Why is our
sophistication of sentiment and method unable to stop
bloodshed among us? |
| If Jesus
is the Son of God, and sent by God, what has happened
when his blood has been spilt on the ground? |
| If Jesus,
as humanity’s Shepherd, by God’s will, is pleased
to take our place, what happens to us when vengeance has
been executed on him? |
| If the shedding
of blood is the giving of everything that a person has,
what does it mean that Christ has given himself up for
us? |
| What does
Christ say to the people caught up in violence of all
kinds in our world? To those who suffer helplessly under
it? To those who perpetrate it? |
To
read |
Jeremiah
31:31–34; Matthew 26:26–29; John 6:52–65;
|
| Colossians
1:15–20; 2:13–15; Hebrews 10:26–31; 12:22–29 |
©
Grant Thorpe |
