God Never Said Someone Needed To Die For Your Sins

The other day I scrolled by a Twitter thread that said something like, "if you believe that Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment that you deserve then when God looks at you he no longer sees you, but he sees the blood of Jesus and he smiles."

You're crap.

Jesus isn't.

Believe in Jesus.

You're still crap.

BUT.

God looks at him instead of you and so you're good to go.

It had like a thousand likes and retweets and was well on its way to going viral.  For Lent, though, I'm giving up arguing with people on social media and responding to the dumpster fires they post on their pages and so like a good little Christian I kept scrolling.

Seriously, though - I used to believe that.  Like, I've literally said the very same sort of thing almost word for word from a variety of different church pulpits in New Jersey.  

I used to call it "the sweet exchange" (I went to seminary to come up with catchy cool phrases like that). "The Sweet Exchange" - when you put your faith in Jesus, God exchanges JESUS' righteousness for YOUR sinfulness.  

He gets your sin and your punishment.

You get his righteousness and his reward.

He gets your brutal and bloody death.

You get his perfect life.

... A sweet exchange.

OR.

Said differently, it's like you get into Harvard on your Big Brother's good grades. You're a miserable failure of a student, the laughing stock of such a prestigious institution … but because you believe that your Big Brother is amazing and wonderful and you admire his perfect and flawless life, Harvard looks at his grades instead of yours and (somewhat reluctantly) welcomes you in.

... And that, I would have said, is the Gospel Message.

BUT.

Hold up.

Let's slow this train down for a moment and think about what this doctrine or theology or whatever we wanna call it is saying about the God we claim to give our lives to.

Again - I used to believe this sort of thing point for point, word for word. 100%. But then I started to ask some questions.

Like ... is God a blood-thirsty warlord who demands penance?  Who demands that someone pays for their wrongdoing?  That someone must die for the sins they committed?  

Is this the kind of God we've given our lives to?

And if so, do we dare to call this God "good"?  And a "father"?  How about a "good, good father", like the song says??  I mean, would a good father look at the child he created and demand that blood be shed because of his or her wrongdoings?  Would we call that father a good father or would we put that father in prison for the rest of his life?  

And what constitutes "wrong doing"?  Like does a simple lie call for blood to be shed?  Or are we just talking big stuff like murder and adultery and that kind of stuff?

OR.

Is it because we all have a "sin nature" and that thing called "original sin"?  Is that what causes God to demand blood to be shed? For punishment to be handed out? And if so, does that really make any sense?  

I mean, have you ever seen a baby?

An infant?

A sleeping child?

If that child is born with a "sin nature" do we understand the repercussions of such an idea? In essence we're saying that the child was raped by the universe and forced to conceive something within itself that it never gave consent to. And that’s a load of BS.

Yeah, I said what I said - the doctrine of original sin essentially says that every child ever born was raped by the universe and forced to conceive something within itself that it never gave consent to.

Annnnnnd so our good God is going to do ... what? 

Come to the child's rescue?  

Walk with the child?

Help the child?

Console the child?

Nah.

How about demand that the child grow up to recognize his/her sin nature and put his faith in Jesus who was supposedly nailed to a cross to take his punishment all the while threatening him with eternal torment if he chooses not to believe all the right things.

Eh?  

What!

If we slow ourselves down long enough to really think about what this "Gospel Message" or "Good News" is saying we can begin to see that it's actually not good news, but really, really bad and terrible and awful news for the majority of God's creation.

And hey - I know all the verses that talk about "atoning for sins" and "redeeming" people from sin, the verses that talk about God's wrath and anger towards sin, and the verses that talk about Jesus "giving up his life" for his friends.  Please don't leave them in the comments, I'll seriously laugh at you.  

But, here's where I'm at.

Sometimes I wonder if we're reading the Bible wrong in regards to all of this talk about blood and sacrifice.  The Bible, remember, was written by a variety of different people in a variety of different times and places and cultures, many of which were surrounded by other cultures that believed that the gods were literal blood-thirsty warlords who required blood to be shed in order to be appeased.  

And.

So.

Doesn't it make sense that even though the God we see in the Bible is very often quite watered down compared to what we might see in other cultures of the day (i.e. Babylon) ... doesn't it make sense that cultures like Babylon and Assyria and others would influence how the Jews perceived YAHWEH ... especially since the Jews spent many years being held captive by these Empires? 

I think so.

I also think that when Jesus arrived on the scene and the Logos or Word or Breath (or whatever the heck John 1 is talking about) took up residence in the body of Jesus that he became empowered by some sort of Divine energy to show us exactly who God is and, therefore, exactly how God intends for you and me and everyone else to live.

And when I look at Jesus.

Well.

I see that God isn't a warlord who screams threats at his sinful creations, but a God who allows his creations to nail him to a cross, to beat him, to spit upon him, to mock him, to press him into a bloody pulp ... and then uses his very last breath to whisper forgiveness to an angry mob of his creations who never would have imagined to even ask for such forgiveness or think that they needed it.  

And so.

Yeah.

I really don't think God ever said that someone needed to die for your sins or my sins.  That theology isn't a picture of God as much as it's a picture of you and me.  God doesn't desire to see people pay for their faults, but you and I do ... right?  

I once heard someone say that they never killed a man, but have read some obituaries with great pleasure.

Why?

Because something in us likes it when the bad guy gets theirs, when karma strikes back, when the bad guy doesn't get the girl, when the most evil of the bunch pays the ultimate price.  And so I think that we (as humans) have made God in our own image just as the Babylonians did with Moloch, the Greeks did with their gods, the Israelites did at times with YAHWEH, etc.  

Why am I telling you this?  

Because it's my firm conviction that God isn't mad at you, never has been mad at you, and never will be mad at you.  It really doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, what you did, where you're headed, what you smoke, what you drink, or who you sleep with.  God doesn't require your blood or anyone else's blood to be shed on account of something that you did or didn't do or because the universe raped you when you were born and implanted you with some sort of sin nature that you had no choice but to conceive within yourself.  

God is love, my friends.  I don't white knuckle many beliefs these days, but that's one I'll take a bullet for.  God is love and love doesn't require someone to die on account of a sin or shortcoming or wrongdoing or whatever.  If he does, then God isn't love - God is a monster and if you need me I'll be in hell with marshmallows.

Peace.

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