#28 - Why did Jesus die? (Part 2) {Reflections}

What is up everybody?

My name is Ryan Brailey, I'm the pastor at Central here in Elk River, and welcome to our weekly podcast called Reflections.

We take just a few minutes five to seven to eight, maybe nine if I'm feeling the groove, I might get hot and get going, but but otherwise and just talk about all kinds of hopefully interesting things around the Bible, maybe a sermon or two or some other things that are happening in in culture.

But we are in the middle.

I well, actually in the beginning, part of a mini series I wanted to do about why does, why did Jesus die?

We were in the Lenten Easter season and the cross is like the central figure of this whole movement of ours anyway.

But I, as I mentioned last week if you haven't heard last week's episode, go back and listen to it but I grew up deeply entrenched in church life but never really understood or knew why Jesus died, and so of course I know it's because of our sin.

That's sort of this general idea is floating around there.

But why does Jesus die?

What happened?

So there are several theories that are out there that are trying to unpack the death of Jesus.

I love it, you know, in the Gospels, that's where you get, of course, the actual event that's written about in Matthew, mark, luke and John.

But even the Gospels themselves don't really have an explicit theological view of the cross, just hasn't been developed at that point in time in history.

They of course in the Gospels they tie Jesus's death to the Passover.

The entire passion narrative and all four Gospels takes place leading up to the celebration of Passover.

But there's not really any kind of consensual, you know, theological ideas presented in the Gospels.

Even Paul later on is trying to unpack this.

The the cross is central to Paul's theology.

But even later on, in the early church, the atonement has never been a defining trait of like theological orthodoxy and it was never debated in any of the councils or formulated into a creed.

And so what I want to argue for is like there are lots of beautiful ways to think about the cross, why Jesus dies, who kills Jesus, what does it mean for us as people of faith that Jesus died and how does it deal with our sin and so on.

And last week I talked about briefly the idea that the predominant view in many of our sort of you know psyches is this idea that you know we sinned against a holy god.

Therefore, god demands a holy payment to be to sort of balance the scales in heaven.

We can't, of course, offer that because we aren't holy enough and we're mortal beings, and so God then sort of offers up his own son, jesus, and in this way, god is the one responsible, according to kind of kills Jesus and?

And so are there other ways to think about this, because Jesus in this picture, sort of blocks the wrath of God of the anger of God.

Well, there are lots of other ways, so one of them I want to talk about today is called the ransom theory.

Every one of these theories has a name.

Doesn't really matter what they're called, though, with just the idea, but this one is called the ransom theory, and this is.

I love it, I really do like it.

One of my favorite books growing up was the lion, the witch in the wardrobe, and this is the atonement theory that's presented in that book.

Or if you saw the movie by CS Lewis, and here's how it goes.

So in the story, if you remember, if you haven't read it, go back and read.

It's awesome.

But there's a young boy who finds his way through a wardrobe into this magical land and he meets a white witch and she's called the white witch, and so Edmund is the young boy's name.

And Edmund meets the witch and she like lures him in with this Turkish delight, which I have no idea what that is I'm not British so I don't.

I think it's candy.

Okay, mike knows that sounds terrible, but in the book and in the movie these kids love Turkish delight, and so he keeps eating it, eating it all the while.

Does he doesn't know that in doing so he's betraying his family, he's kind of giving them up to the white witch and he betrays this deep magic.

And in doing so he's now in the pocket of the white witch.

He owes her his own life, his active betrayal against his siblings and against this great magic, sort of is in doing.

In doing so he like gives her the keys to his own life.

And now she owns him because of this deep magic from the dawn of all time.

And so now she has the right to execute Edmund.

Treasonous is crime and she has the right.

She owns him and she can do whatever she wants with him because of this deep, older magic.

And so she does, she keeps him captive and then she's going to execute Edmund and then, in the meantime, aslan who's the lion, also the Christ figure in this story aslan comes along and he pulls the white witch aside, as it were, and makes a deal with her, and instead of killing Edmund, he offers himself up to the white witch and suggests he she can kill him instead.

And so he takes the place of Edmund and offers himself up.

And of course, the white witch loves this, because aslan is her nemesis and she's like yeah, I'll take that, of course.

But what the white which doesn't know?

The white which doesn't know that there's this even deeper magic that says if an innocent person offers his or her life up instead of instead of a trader's life, then the curse is broken and death is undone.

And so aslan, in this act of love, offers his own life up for Edmund and setting Edmund free, and in doing so there's this deeper magic at play that when this happens, when an innocent person does so, it breaks the curse and death is undone.

That's the story, and it's very similar to what you might find in the bible story.

You can read into this, uh, the the hebru story, this ransom theory.

So here's the adam and eve story.

With the ransom theory in mind, adam and eve give up their freedom in exchange for the fruit, they're duped by the serpent.

And now, because they betrayed god and and sort of their own selves, they now owe the satan their very lives.

And satan has sway.

He has the keys of the kingdom, he holds them in bondage and they need to be rescued.

And so satan has control over humanity and, of course, the whole human race.

That comes from adam and eve, as the story goes.

But not to be outdone, god wants to rescue and ransom those people back.

So jesus himself says, for the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

So Jesus comes to earth, dies on the cross, so his blood is what he uses to ransom the people back.

And the Satan thinks he's won.

So he takes the, you know the, the son of God, jesus, and thinks oh yeah, I'll take that for sure in exchange for humanity.

So I'll give you humanity back, I'll take Jesus, I'll conquer and kill him, and I've won.

But the Satan doesn't know the deeper magic that when an innocent victim is killed in a traitor's stead, that the, the, the, the, the curse is undone and death begins to work backwards.

So resurrection then seals the victory over the evil one and sets the captives free.

And so Satan accepts this offer.

But he's duped.

He doesn't know that, like there's this deeper magic that that that God can't be vanquished by death.

God overcomes death and Jesus has risen again and is resurrected.

And so in this story I love this story because it's this idea of God the heart of God is to ransom people back, to rescue them out of the curse and the captivity of the white witch or the Satan in this case, god isn't full of anger or wrath at human beings.

He's not gonna punish anybody.

Instead he's he's sort of luring the Satan into this trap and winning the human beings back.

This is the ransom theory.

I love to know your thoughts on it.

If you have any, so shoot me a text, an email Comment below.

But this ransom theory is this idea that God has won at the humans back and ransom the back using the blood of Jesus.

So, all right, hope you're well and come back.

For next week We'll we'll do a couple more of these cross atonement theories and we'll catch you soon, peace.

Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share with some friends.

And don't forget, you are always welcome to join us in person at central in Elk River at 830, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering.

Or you can check us out online at clclriverorg.

Peace.