Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
170c onc ludes, ‘This is therefore what Jesus said at the Last Supper about the meaning
of this death: his death is the vic arious death of the suffering servant, whic h atones
for the sins of the “many”, the peoples of the world, whic h ushers in the beginning
of the final salvation and whic h effec ts the new c ovenant with God’ (231).
On Jeremias’ interpretation we have to suppose that Jesus, in E. P. Sanders’
words, ‘conceived in advanc e the doc trine of atonement’ (Sanders, 1985, 332), a
supposit ion whic h Saunders regards as hist oric ally highly improbable. ‘Aspects of
Jeremias’ view, for example that Jesus identified himself with the Suffering Servant
of Isaiah, have,’ he says, ‘been disproved, but there are general objections to the
whole line of thought that has Jesus intending to die for others, rather than just
ac c epting his death and trusting that God would redeem the situation and vindic ate
him’ (332). However, let us nevertheless suppose, for the sake of argument, that
Jesus did understand his c oming death as a sac rific e to God, analogous to the
original passover sac rific e, and that he thought of this as required to inaugurate
God’s coming kingdom. Suc h a self-understanding c ould only oc c ur within the
c ont ext of Jesus’ apoc alypt ic expec t at ion, whic h was it self a variat ion on
contemporary Jewish restoration eschatology. But Jesus’ expec tation, c onfidently
taken up by the early c hurc h, was not fulfilled, and had faded out of the Christian
c onsc iousness before the end of the first c entury. The identific ation of Jesus as the
esc hatologic al prophet inaugurating God’s kingdom went with it, being
progressively superseded by his exalt at ion t o a divine st at us. This in turn made
possible the various atonement theories whic h presuppose his divinity, eventually
seeing the c ross as (in the words of the Anglic an liturgy) ‘a full, perfec t, and
suffic ient sac rific e, oblat ion, and sat isfac t ion, for t he sins of t he whole world’.
However, as we saw in Chapter 3, even conservative New Testament scholarship
today does not suggest that Jesus thought of himself as God, or God the Son,
sec ond person of a divine Trinity, inc arnate; and so we c annot reasonably suppose
that he thought of his death in any way that presupposes that. It is mu c h mo re
believable, as a maximal possibilit y, t hat Jesus saw himself as t he final prophet
prec ipitating the c oming of God’s rule on earth, than that he saw it in anything like
the terms developed by the church’s later atonement theories.
It is inc ident ally not ewort hy t hat Swinburne depart s from t he t radit ional view
that the value of Jesus’ death was equal to, or exc eeded, the evil of human sin, so
as to be able to balance it. Swinburne says t hat ‘It is simply a c ost ly penanc e and
reparation sufficient for a merciful God to let men off the rest’ (154). But if a
merc iful God c an properly ‘let men off the rest’ without a full punishment having
been inflic t ed or a full sat isfac t ion exac t ed, why may not God freely forgive sinners
who c ome in genuine penitenc e and a radic ally c hanged mind? T he t radit ional
atonement theories explained why God c ould not freely forgive penitent sinners.
But what was int elligible – whether or not morally acceptable – on those theories
bec omes unint elligible, and doubly morally quest ionable, on Swinburne’s view.