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:
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment