All Christians subscribe to the view that Jesus’ death on the cross was
to be a good example for us. But some
hold that it was only that and deny the scapegoat theology in all its
forms. The scapegoat idea is that God punished
Jesus for our sins so we could go free. Today, the Christadelphians
adhere to the doctrine that it was an example only. The doctrine
was stressed by the Catholic, Peter Abelard, who was born in
Did Jesus merely die as an example of obedience to God for sinners that
inspires them to repent?
The most striking thing about the theory is the fact that it is so
unnecessary. There are plenty of deaths
endured in obedience to the conscience that has been allegedly bestowed by the
Lord God. There was no need for one
more. And the power of the cross and
many other gruesome events to inspire and instil goodness rapidly wears
off. We see crosses on television and
have watched Jesus being crucified so how could the meaning of the cross of
Christ be that it was just an example or something to shock us into obeying
God?
Furthermore, if we repent because we are shocked that Jesus had do die
for us to show us that we ought to then this repentance is fake. It is done to fulfil the feeling of guilt and
not for the love of God. The only thing
that is acceptable to God is us repenting because we choose to and not because
of feelings. This fact emphasises all
the more that if Jesus died as a mere example then he was a fraud.
There is no shortage of wiser ways to bring person’s need for repentance
home to them.
It is absurd to say that Jesus saved us by being an example or a
demonstration of what was due to sin.
Then it is not Jesus who has saved us but our response to him that has
saved us. It is chance that has saved
us. If we didn't react the way he wanted
we wouldn’t be saved. We save ourselves.
And a preacher of the cross would be a saviour more than Jesus. Yet the Bible says
Jesus is the Saviour. It is not his
teaching alone that saves for if it were then the person who tells us about him
would be our Saviour and not him.
Is it really fair for Christians to make Jesus the saviour for dying on
the cross when the Old Testament martyrs died as an example for us and are not
called saviours? It is an insult.
If Jesus was incapable of sin like the Christian religion claims then his
death was no example for us. He couldn’t
help dying for us for it must have been the only ethical option. His death would only be an example if he
could have chosen not to die or to sin.
If Jesus did not have to be crucified and die on the cross then this
example of his was superfluous. It was
suicide not a good example. And Jesus
said that God would have saved him from it if he had asked him (Matthew 26:53). So I can rest my case.
Jesus said that to do works of mercy is more important than to offer
sacrifice. But he meant animal sacrifice
and to say it was less important than mercy is not to say it is not important
at all. Sacrifice is not pleasing to God
unless it is offered by a person with a heart cleansed by mercy. And if Jesus had abolished sacrifice here he
wants animal sacrifice and not the one he intended to offer.
If we really needed Jesus’ gruesome example then he should have got
killed by the Devil on a cross in the Adamic world at
the dawn of the human race.
There is another aspect to the example theory.
It is that Jesus took the death we deserved to die so that if we admit
that this is what was due to us we will be saved if we repent. So instead of Jesus dying in our place or
anything Jesus merely dies to show us what we deserve. Jesus died as a sacrifice to take our sins
away in this sense for there is no salvation for one who thinks he our she
should not be punished.
There is no need for anybody to die so that we can look at them and say
we deserve it. A person can believe that
they deserve jail even if they never heard of anybody being caged.
Jesus did not show us what we deserve if we are sinners. What sinners deserve is infinite torture and
we cannot see if Jesus endured that. God
is unlimitedly good which makes sin infinitely offensive therefore infinitely
evil and deserving of eternal torment.
Death is no punishment. If we
don’t live on then it is no more a punishment than not having existed. If we do live on it is just going to another
place.
The entire theory is wrong because it assumes that death is
punishment.
If Jesus really died to give us an ethical message then why didn’t he
come in a time when the whole world could have seen the event on
television? God could have engineered
science so that the television could have been invented at the time of Christ
even if it made no other progress. If
God’s Son dies for an example then something of utmost importance happened so
we should be able to prove that death better than we can prove anything
else. But we can’t so the exemplarist theory is nonsense.
The death of Jesus expresses the duty to give one’s happiness and even
one’s existence for the love of a God you cannot see or hear or prove. The message of the cross then is a sinister
one. It gives its blessing to
fanaticism. The crucifix is pornography
of the worst possible kind. As people
get familiar with the cross they become insensitive to it. The Church bans pornography for the sake of
allowing worse. All psychologists agree
that sexuality has a role to play in all we feel. To love the crucified Jesus and make an
obsession of him is undeniably perversely sexual. There is a homo-erotic flavour in devotion to
Christ among devout Christian men. It has a sadistic strain.
Christian women also are conditioned to develop a sick subconscious
sexual attraction for the mangled man on the cross.
The inane example theory is taught in the Bible which also regards Jesus’
suffering and death as something vicarious, something that is done for us in
our place to make up for sin to God.