‘God So Loved’: Metaphors of Atonement

About two weeks ago I came across a new song by Ben Cantelon called ‘God So Loved’ and also known as ‘Saviour Of The World’. I was immediately struck by the power and beauty of the song, but also by its lyrical richness.

This week I’ve been reading a fascinating book called ‘The Justifying Judgement of God’ by Justyn Terry. It’s the published version of his doctoral thesis, and in the first half of the book gives a detailed analysis of various metaphors employed in Scripture to describe the atonement.

Terry charts the development and influence in British theology of images and motifs used by British theologians to describe the primary model or theory of the atonement. He concludes that the approach of Colin Gunton in ‘The Actuality of the Atonement’ provides the most helpful approach by adopting the language of metaphor to describe what Scripture tells us about the atonement. Thus, rather than various isolated images (victory, sacrifice, law, redemption or love) being attributed the prime position in any theory of atonement, they are to be seen as a variety of metaphors to convey the meaning of the atonement. Gunton describes the primary metaphors as being victory, sacrifice, redemption and law (justification).

Justyn Terry’s thesis continues to argue that in fact all these metaphors will find coherent unity and inter-relatedness when seen as contributing to our understanding of the Judgement of God as the primary paradigmatic metaphor of the atonement.

Anyway, with all this in mind, I found myself reflecting on the lyrics of the Ben Cantelon song. The lyrics are as follows:

God so loved, that he gave his son

To lay down his life for the sake of us.

He bore the weight of our sin and shame.

With a cry he said, ‘It is finished.'

Christ the Lord overcame the darkness;

He’s alive: death has been defeated.

For He made us a way, by which we have been saved.

He’s the Saviour of the world.

So we lift up a shout for his fame and renown.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord:

Jesus, Saviour of the world.

We must spread the word of His soon return

To reclaim the world for His glory.

Let the church now sing of this coming King,

Crowned with majesty: our Redeemer.

And He reigns, ruler of the heavens.

And His name is Jesus, the Messiah.

Christ the Lord overcame the darkness;

He’s alive: death has been defeated.

And He reigns, ruler of the heavens.

And His name is Jesus, the Messiah.

It struck me that Cantelon’s song manages to employ at least two of these metaphors in the song, with the kind of unity and inter-relatedness that Justyn Terry might be pointing us towards. The metaphors of sacrifice and victory are most prominent in the song.

Sacrifice is evident from the first couplet: ‘God so loved, that he gave his son / to lay down his life for the sake of us.’ Indeed, this couplet suggests a two-fold sacrifice – that of the Father giving (sending?) the Son; but also the Son laying down his life.

Victory is evident in the pre-chorus, which also forms a ‘tag’ in the middle of the song: ‘Christ the Lord overcame the darkness; / He’s alive: death has been defeated.’ In the second verse, Jesus is described as the ‘coming King / crowned with majesty’. In the second pre-chorus ‘He reigns, ruler of the heavens.’

But what other metaphors of the atonement might we find in the song? Well, in the second verse, the same Jesus who is the Victor, the ‘coming King’, is also ‘our Redeemer. And additionally, we might see the reference to ‘[bearing] the weight of our sin and shame’ in the third line of the first verse as a way of referring to the legal metaphor of the atonement: that is, that a judgement is made and that Christ bears the penalty (or even punishment) for our sin. (There is an interesting discussion of the distinction PT Forsyth draws between ‘penalty’ and ‘punishment’ in Justyn Terry’s book on p84.)

Yet amongst all these metaphors, we’d have to conclude that the dominant image is that of ‘victory’, since that is the metaphor repeatedly used during the ‘tag’ section: itself a confluence of the two pre-choruses. Whether allowing a single metaphor, and indeed this particular one, such a prominent position offer us a satisfactory way of giving an account of the atonement is something that readers of Justyn Terry’s book (and indeed the song) may want to reflect on further. But there are one or two other points worth making in relation to the success (in my view) of this song:

1. I’m impressed by the ‘completeness’ of the atonement image employed: ‘For He made us a way, by which we have been saved’ (emphasis mine). There is no conditionality of our faith response on which the saving work of Christ depends. This is an ‘objectivist’ account of the atonement – following Anselm and most of the orthodox Christian traditions, and avoiding some of the post-Enlightenment accounts of soteriology offered by the ‘subjectivist’ approaches rationalism (cf. Kant) or experience (cf. Schliermacher).

2. I also really like the way that Ben Cantelon moves from the indicative form of address in the first verse, spelling out the content of the Christian gospel, to the imperative form of address in the second verse, where he spells out the appropriate response for the Church.

3. I also like they intuitive way it engages with Christ in his post-Ascension state: ‘He reigns, ruler of the heavens’. Some of our contemporary charismatic songs imply to strongly the closeness of Jesus to us – his proximity – as though he were still present in the earthly sphere. (A prominent example would be ‘What A Friend I’ve Found’ by Martin Smith – which describes Jesus as ‘closer than a brother’, and his touch as being felt ‘more intimate than lovers’.) The shortcoming of the songs which emphasise the proximity of Jesus overlook the work of the Holy Spirit in mediating his presence to us, and concomitantly undermine the work of Jesus as Ascended great high priest who intercedes for us before the Father in heaven (Heb 7:25).

Finally, it’s got a great melody and is fantastic to play / sing – I’m sure we’ll be singing it in the church for some years to come.

What Size Are You?

I've been thinking recently about different church sizes... At St Mary Magdalene's, we're part of what I'd describe as a medium-size church in Church of England terms: we usually have around 120-150 people gather for worship on a Sunday, but probably drawn from a pool of around 200ish... A lovely feature of this size church is that I pretty much know every regular (frequent) worshipper by name, even if I know very little more about some of them!

Speaking with a Bishop recently, I got to thinking about large churches. He was advocating the theory that 'whenever a large church is flourishing, it has a positive effect on all the other churches in the area.' I certainly don't want to fall into the trap that some do of claiming a sort of idealised 'small-church' theory as a way of excusing laziness in relation to mission, evangelism and discipleship. However, there is a serious danger in very large churches that they have a negative effect on other local churches in several ways:

1. At an obvious level, they are often resourced to offer a level of service (children's work, music, facilities etc) which many other smaller churches cannot - thus providing a powerful attraction for Christian to gather to the larger church outside of their local community rather than supporting their local church.
2. In a less obvious way, they actually create and foster an experience of Christian life and worship which is very hard to sustain elsewhere. Thus, when life-stages / situations cause Christians to move on from large churches, they are often ill-prepared or equipped for worshipping life in smaller churches.
3. Large churches often have a large 'crowd' of regular worshippers. These must not be confused with Christian disciples! There are certainly some very good systems for pastoral care and discipleship in some large churches - but I have also encountered many Christians who should be on solid food by now, but still crave infant milk because they have stayed in an environment which caters very well for their appetite for spiritual experience, but not so well for initiating them into cross-bearing service and obedience.
4. This point about experience is important. We should probably all read Schliermacher again (and of course, Barth's critique) and recognise the dangers of letting our Christian experience be the validating and authenticating mark of the Gospel.
5. Large churches invariably have a strong prevailing culture. This is not necessarily a bad thing: we would hope for a strong prevailing Christian culture in any church. But the possibility of a dominant cultural group emerging in a large church is one to watch - a homogenous, like-attracts-like culture will not give us the kind of church St Paul envisages in Galatians 3:28 and similar.
6. We must watch out for sloppy metaphors! It is often said that 'healthy churches grow - it's in their dna'. But if we're using biological metaphors, we must also acknowledge that 'cancerous cells spread'! Growth has to be qualified and assessed beyond simple numerical models: success in the church is not the same as success in the world.

Now, there are lots of positive things to be said for large churches as well, and the only criteria we should reasonably accept for critique of our ecclesial forms is whether people are being led deeper into the life of Christ, and discovering and imitating his self-giving love for the world.

However, I was prompted to write this post when I was tidying my desk and discovered a scrap of paper on which I scribbled a note about Eugene Peterson's observations on church size. Ian Stackhouse writes:

'[Peterson's] convictions about pastoral ministry have been worked out over three decades, in a church that never reached a particularly large membership - a fact that in the North American context could be interpreted as an admission of failure. Peterson, as we shall see, does not think so. the issue of size, for Peterson, is related to a prior commitment to only pastor a congregation where personal knowledge of each and every member is possible. Therefore, a megachurch could not even be countenanced under such a scheme.' (Ian Stackhouse, The Gospel-Driven Church, p227)

Worth some more careful reflection and consideration I think...