Cur Deus Homo? (Why did God became man?) is one of the most famous works on the atonement.
Why did Jesus come into the world? In John 18 we hear Jesus’ own
answer: to testify to the truth (John 18:37). He says so in answer to a
question about whether he was a king, clearly implying that he is indeed a king.
Jesus is king by way of testifying to the truth, by gathering people around him
who listen to his voice. He is not a king over people who live in a particular
land or over people who are under his military thumb but he is king over those
who submit to the truth, who belong to the truth. He thereby implies that a true
king is someone to whom people listen, whom they follow.
As autonomous adults, mindful of many
bad historical experiences, we, by and large, don’t like to listen to someone
just because they are in a position of authority. Jesus earned the right to
be listened to by speaking the truth reliably. We do not trust Him because
He is the guy in charge. We acknowledge Him as being in charge because He is
trustworthy.
Alas, many post-moderns like their
own self-determination so much that they deny the very existence of objective
truth. Pilate was a precursor for such an outlook in his lack of concern for
truth – or justice, for that matter (ultimately it is hard to maintain a
concern for justice without a concern for truth). For him, as for many today,
it’s all power play.
In fact we find the same lack of
concern for truth being spoken in the Sanhedrin – and Jesus puts his finger on
it: ‘If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken
rightly, why do you strike me?’ (John 18:23)
But it isn’t just the drive for
self-determination, the exercise of power that leads people to turn away from
the truth, it is also the fear of power, of what might be done to them if they were
to speak truth. So we find Peter denying Jesus three times – out of fear.
It turns out that turning away from
the truth is not a modern phenomenon after all but has a long history. It is
because we so readily turn away from the truth that Jesus came into the world. Why
did God become man? To testify to the truth.
But why does this get highlighted in
the Passion story? Why
not in connection with the teaching of Jesus? The parables of Jesus speak of
God’s kingdom. The Sermon of the Mount offers kingdom ethics. But it is here
that the question is raised and answered: What sort of king is Jesus? One who
came to testify to the truth. Presumably this is because it is his passion that
profoundly testifies to the truth.
How so? E.g., by bearing witness to
the fact that our lives belong to God who cares for us which is why it would be
wrong, a denial of the truth, to seek our own comfort at the expense of doing
God’s will.
The passion of Christ also testifies
to the truth by showing up how readily we turn away from the truth, if it does
not suit us. Christ’s suffering embodies our rejection of God, of God’s rule, our
rejection of truth .It shows us that such rejection leads to death.
Best of all Jesus testifies to the
truth of who God is and that He is worthy of our trust even when it leads to
suffering and death because suffering and death will not have the last word.
Peter’s attempt at self-preservation
at the expense of truth leaves him wretched. Jesus, by contrast, having
sanctified himself in the truth of God’s word, as he had prayed for his
disciples (John 17:17–18), is vindicated in his resurrection from the dead.
Jesus earned the right to be listened
to by speaking the truth reliably and by committing his life to the
truth, rejecting the use of power to enforce his rule.
Can we independently verify the claim
of Jesus to testify to the truth? No, not really. But Jesus did not fall from heaven. He was
born to a Jewish mother as the culmination of a long history of God revealing
Himself to humanity. Jesus fulfilled a pattern laid down in what we call the OT
Scriptures. As Ian McGilchrist says about the “argument” he presents in The Truth
of the Matter (London: Perspectiva Press, 2021)
And yet it is also not an argument, in the conventional sense, at all. If we want others to understand the beauty of a landscape with which they may be unfamiliar, an argument is pointless: instead we must take them there and explore it with them, walking on the hills and mountains, pausing as new vantage points continually open around us, allowing our companions to experience it for themselves.
Come and see! Come and taste! The truth
will set you free and the new life vindicates the truth.
