Understanding the Death of Jesus

The Report of the Theological Committee

of the Evangelischen Kirche der Union*

INTRODUCTION

T HE DEATH of Jesus Christ has been proclaimed by the Christian

church throughout its history as God's saving deed for the world.
That is true particularly of the church of the Reformation, according to
whose confessions the faith stands or falls with the proclamation of
Jesus' death on the cross. With words and images of Scripture as well
as traditional concepts of the church, its significance is stated in connec-
tion with the doctrine of justification. It has, for instance, been asserted
that Christ paid with his own blood for our sins, redeemed us through his
sacrifice, suffered for us the wrath of God, freed us from sin and every
power of the devil; that substitution, satisfaction, and reconciliation
occurred through Jesus5 death.
This manner of speaking, in which such images and notions are often
still related to and exchanged with one another, is generally meaningless
today. It is, for instance, rejected as an expression of an objectivizing
theory of atonement, mythologically or metaphysically conceived, or it is
misused to support false devotion. Yet each modern attempt to master
these difficulties theologically has led to a new impasse. So the protest
is raised that current interpretations concerned to express the message
by adopting contemporary philosophical and anthropological categories
do not do justice to the content of the traditional way of speaking. Yet
it is not enough merely to repeat the biblical wording from which most
of the images and notions named above are derived.
* Translation by James L. Mays of "Stellungnahme des Theologischen Ausschusses der
Evangelischen Kirche der Union," Zum Verständnis des Todes Jesu, Fritz Viering, ed.
(Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1968), pp. 11-23.

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 Therefore the question has to be raised how we should speak of the
saving significance of Jesus' death today. Must we not say what the
fathers said, but in our own language? Can we do that without pro-
claiming another gospel?
That the proclamation of Jesus' death receives major attention in the
New Testament is uncontested. Recent exegesis has of course pointed
out that in the interpretation of Jesus' death the New Testament wit-
nesses fall back on already traditional concepts, that they often emphasize,
in accord with their varying situations, a particular aspect, and that they
make different or even contradictory assertions. It is even said that
there are bits and strata of tradition in which the death of Jesus plays no
explicit role or has no saving significance attributed to it. On the basis
of these exegetical observations, a question is posed which no preacher
can evade : In which theological context is the death of Jesus as saving
event correctly proclaimed? The answer is:

The death of Jesus is proclaimed, because Jesus Christ Uves.

But what does "Jesus Christ lives" mean? Contemporary theology
with its current understanding of the New Testament has no unanimous
answer to this question.
Those who take one position understand the predicate of the sentence,
Jesus Christ lives, according to the norm of the historically accessible
earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth exclusively. On the basis of the oldest
Synoptic tradition the earthly life of Jesus is conceived as a human life
through which in a unique way God is claimed absolutely for other men
so that the certainty of God comes upon these men as salvation. Jesus
"makes God happen." A life through which God is claimed absolutely
for other men unfolds necessarily in this godless world as a way of suffer-
ing. Jesus' earthly life would thus have been a "way of the cross" even
if it had not been ended by death on the cross. If the predicate "lives" is
to be applied to the Jesus who has died, then it must express precisely
this : The presence of God claimed through Jesus' earthly life continues
to happen in that the certainty of God mediated through Jesus still is
experienced by men as salvation. On the basis of such experiences,
certain, though by no means all, New Testament traditions made Jesus'
death the subject of christological statements which reflect the cer-

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 Understanding the Death of Jesus
Interpretation

tainty of God experienced as salvation in the event of his death, so that

Jesus' death on the cross gains saving significance.
Thus the death of Jesus can acquire saving significance because the
earthly life of Jesus has saving significance beyond his death.
Those who hold another position understand the predicate of the
sentence, Jesus Christ lives, on the basis of his resurrection interpreted
against the horizon of apocalyptic expectation. The significance of Jesus'
resurrection lies then in the fact that it anticipates the end of history
expected by apocalyptic. Thereby Jesus' claim to authority which was
dependent on a future legitimation from God receives eschatological
confirmation. In this context the death of Jesus makes clear the radical
character of this dependence. In the light of the resurrection, then, the
general meaning of his death would be that the vicarious suffering and
punishment of the man Jesus has robbed death of its character as judg-
ment for human existence, and vindicated the hope of man that reaches
beyond death.
Here the decisive accent lies neither on the atoning action of God in
the cross, nor on the work of the pre-Easter Jesus as such, but rather
upon the event of Jesus' awakening by which death is overcome and the
finiteness of his earthly life transcended.
Certainly there are specific dimensions of truth in these positions
which call for a continuing discussion with them. But the Committee
proceeded from a different point of departure : that the particular event
of the resurrection makes evident the exclusive saving significance of
the death of Jesus. Neither the earthly Jesus nor a Jesus kerygma as
such, nor the resurrection of Jesus understood only against the apocalyp-
tic horizon as such, but rather the crucified one alone who was raised to
living fellowship with God makes it known that he lives. Thereby he
also makes his death understood. The statements which result from this
position are developed in the following exposition as the position of
the Committee.
The decisive question is: How can the death of this crucified one
mean salvation?
The offense contained in this question cannot be removed by any
theological reflection. The following statements do not contain an ex-
haustive theology of the cross, but they do set forth several points of
view for the understanding of the message of the cross which in the

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opinion of the Committee are crucial. They are intentionally formulated
as principles because it was our responsibility to bring to light the
theologically basic questions which preaching and instruction have to
face. They are the result of the common work of the Committee to
which the already published essays are an introduction, and are not
offered as a conclusion to the discussion which has been initiated, but
rather to serve as further clarification.

I
CROSS AND RESURRECTION

The death of Jesus is proclaimed, because the Crucified LIVES.

i.
By raising Jesus from the dead God revealed himself as the one who
vindicates the Crucified. The one who died on the cross is by the power
of God so present and effective that it must be said of him, "He lives !"
Between the event of Jesus' death and the event of his resurrection
from the dead there prevails a unique relation which forbids that one
event be viewed in isolation from the other. The act of God's faithful-
ness alone establishes the identity of the Resurrected with the Crucified.
This identity of the Resurrected with the Crucified defines the reign of
God proclaimed by the earthly Jesus as the power of God's love which
triumphs in the powerlessness of the Crucified. It is the love of God
which manifests itself in the Crucified as life-making power of the
resurrection.
Seen in isolation, the death of Jesus of Nazareth is, as the violent end
of this life, subject to lesser and greater degrees of arbitrary human
interpretation. Death as such makes dumb, and is dumb. A dead Jesus
could not defend himself against an interpretation of his violent end on
the cross as the miscarriage of his life or as the fulfillment of his life, or
against the assertion that it is an event irrelevant for the significance of
his life. In like manner, a resurrection seen in isolation could not defend
itself against being understood as an accrediting miracle or as an occur-
rence which simply leaves Jesus' death behind as a mere transitory
phase. The resurrection as a particular event distinct from Jesus' life
cannot be reduced to a historical fact. Neither may it be misinterpreted

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 Understanding the Death of Jesus
Interpretation

as a postulate of reflection in connection with the memory of the histori-

cal Jesus.
Just as the living Jesus Christ does not simply leave his death behind
him, but rather lives as the Crucified, so neither can the proclamation of
Jesus' death which occurs in the power of Jesus' resurrection ever be
superseded. For the death of Jesus is proclaimed, because Jesus Christ
lives. And in that Jesus Christ lives, it is revealed that he died for us.
The significance of Jesus9 death on the cross is disclosed only through
his being raised. The proclamation of the Risen testifies who the
Crucified is.
2.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ makes the reign of God proclaimed
by Jesus during his earthly life manifest in the Crucified himself. It
follows that the earthly Jesus is not to be understood apart from the
living God, who on his side is not to be understood apart from the
Crucified. The crucifixion can therefore be understood neither as an
event which concludes the life of Jesus nor as one which is superseded or
canceled by the resurrection. As the Risen, the Crucified is not only the
one who has come, but also the one whose coming in glory we await.
Theology of the cross is always also eschatology, and eschatology is
based in the theology of the cross. All theological perception must begin
with Jesus' death on the cross. It cannot understand his crucifixion as
one event among others in a series of concepts arranged in an order of
salvation history (like préexistence, incarnation, kenosis, etc.), nor can
it derive its meaning from the scheme of the two-nature doctrine of the
early church. The correct understanding of these and other statements of
faith is to be gained only in connection with the understanding of Jesus'
death on the cross.
The connection between cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the
proper key to the understanding of the earthly Jesus and the congre-
gation's witness to Christ.
3·
That God's life-bestowing love vindicates itself in the death of Jesus
as the basis of salvation places the event of Jesus' death in both a positive
and critical relation to the Old Testament. In the New Testament it is
testified that Jesus' death and resurrection occurred "according to the

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Scriptures." The real necessity of interpreting the Old Testament from
the perspective of the New results from the fact that the law of the Old
Testament legitimated the execution of Jesus and at the same time its
promise was fulfilled in the death of Jesus. Thereby the Old Testament
has become the necessary context of the proclamation of Jesus' death.
The New Testament's relation to the Old is not disclosed by ascer­
taining that Jesus' life, death, and resurrection fulfill certain prophecies;
for instance, that Jesus' suffering and death are only a typical case of the
fate which the righteous man of God must inevitably suffer in a world
of sin, or that Jesus' suffering and death were only the testing of God's
elect before his entrance into the glory of God. Precisely because the
death of Jesus shatters Israel's concepts and expectations of salvation,
the righteousness of God promised in the Old Testament is revealed
rather as his salvation-creating action carried out in the cross of Jesus
Christ.
The Old Testament furnishes a necessary context for the message of
the cross in a way that is evident only from within the New Testa­
ment.

II
CROSS AS SAVING EVENT

The death of Jesus is proclaimed, because the CRUCIFIED lives.

ι.
The Risen is proclaimed as the Crucified, because his raising reveals
his death as God's deed. God, who vindicated the Crucified through
raising Jesus, willed that Jesus die this death. In Jesus' death on the
cross God reveals who he is : God for man. At the same time he reveals
here who man is: the one who can be truly man only as man of this
God. The self-definition of God and the definition of man through God
occur in the cross of Jesus Christ. Because God has defined himself in
the cross of Jesus Christ as God for man, therefore neither can a
metaphysical theism open up access to him, nor an atheistic humanism
block access to him. Because God in the cross of Jesus Christ has defined
man as belonging to him, therefore none of our images of man can raise
the claim to express the final truth concerning man. Where this is per-

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 Understanding the Death of Jesus
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ceived, our presupposed concepts and notions of God and man prove to
be inadequate.
God empowers us to proclaim him as God for man and to reclaifh
man as man for God by the proclamation of the cross of Jesus Christ.
In obedience to Scripture this proclamation ventures new articulation;
it does not take place in language that has been fixed once for all, even
in the New Testament. Older tradition and new formulation can aug-
ment, alternate with, correct, perhaps even contradict one another in the
process. The right proclamation of Jesus' death takes place in respon-
sible relationship to the situation of the hearer. The word of God which
becomes effective in the power of the Holy Spirit is concrete.
The word of the cross is the proclamation of the true God and the
truth concerning man in language that continually undertakes its
responsibility for being heard anew.

2.
Because God's indissolvable unity with the Crucified is revealed in the
raising of Jesus, therefore Jesus' death is not only an exemplary act of
human obedience, but God himself here subjects his Son to the sentence
and fate of death, which we have earned as the enemies of God. In the
cross he reveals not only what we justly deserve, but he himself here lays
on his Son what each sinner has drawn upon himself through his guilt—
the curse, which denies him every right before God, and death, which
erases his existence. In the obedience of his Son he has done what
sufficies before himself and for man, and so out of pure grace annulled
our guilt. God took the part of the godless, in that Jesus Christ took
our place. Therein God's righteousness occurs, the establishment of
covenant with men, the reconciliation of the world with himself. God
is not here reconciled through a third party who in the place of man
makes restitution to him in order to change his mind, but in Jesus Christ
he himself is the one reconciling the world. That God is able to reveal
his divinity in this man, his majesty in this helplessness, his reign in
such a sacrifice, is a possibility incomprehensible for any metaphysical
concept of God. Yet this possibility is the basis for preaching the uncon-
ditional, universal reconciliation.

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 The word of the cross is the message of God's reconciliation with all
men which took place once for all in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

3·
In the word of the cross God gives witness that Jesus Christ has died
on the cross, because God here wills to save and judge man and so bring
him to his true being. Man is judged in the crucifixion of Jesus because
God in the death of the one who took the place of us all abolished the
existence of the sinner irrevocably by his wrath. Man is saved in the
crucifixion of Jesus because God in the death of one who took the place
of us all assumed himself what we are guilty of before God and man
in order thereby to let us participate in the gift of his righteousness. The
true being of man thus has its source in God's righteousness which
brings man to life through the judgment carried out on Christ and the
grace made effective in Christ.
God offers to all men the reconciliation which took place in the death
of Christ. His offer summons to the community of believers. Thus it
transcends every limit set by men and makes the proclamation of Jesus'
death a request of God to all : "Be ye reconciled with God !"
The message of the cross is God's saving Tes to the sinner and at the
same time his judging No concerning ήη, and so the offer of life for
all men from the righteousness of God.

Ill
CROSS AND PROCLAMATION

The death of Jesus is PROCLAIMED, because the Crucified lives.

ι.
If the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is understood aright only in connec­
tion with the resurrection, then neither the form of a mere report about
the historical Jesus and his end nor a rationally constructed proof con­
cerning the necessity of our "ransom" can mediate genuine under­
standing of faith. The extensive "passion reports" of the Gospels are
already confessional narratives of suffering, interpretations made in the
light of the Old Testament, proclamation of the death of one man as

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 Understanding the Death of Jesus
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God's gracious act for all men. The historical facts are difficult to ascer-
tain in detail; the report has been shaped by the confession. The procla-
mation of the event of the cross is not intended to answer the question,
What actually happened? The message of the cross does not develop
a human idea; it does not communicate a general truth; rather, it
confers a share in the reality of salvation in that Christ says through us,
"Be ye reconciled with God!" This real presence of Christ in preaching,
baptism, and Lord's Supper, which appropriate his death for us as
salvation, guarantees the presence and certainty of salvation. The apostle
Paul shows that the proclamation of reconciliation belongs inseparably
with the saving event of cross and resurrection, and is not something
additional. Salvation or judgment already occur in hearing the procla-
mation.
The proclamation of the Crucified is neither historical report nor
rational demonstration of the necessity of the cross for salvation, but
assurance of salvation. The preaching itself is thus God's eschato-
logical action.
2.
The word of the cross does not simply seek acceptance as doctrine or
agreement as theory; but as God's sentence of acquittal it expects faith,
that is, trusting acceptance of the reconciliation given by God. To be-
lieve in the God who addresses us in the word of the cross means to agree
with God that as sinners we are justified alone by God. Only faith
recognizes in the cross of Jesus Christ the love of God for guilty and
lost men. Just as any achievement or cooperation on the part of man,
even in the form of some self-assumed humility, is excluded, so also that
cheap grace which does not lead to repentance and obedience. In faith
we live no more unto ourselves but unto him who for us was crucified and
is risen. This living for Christ can occur only in a discipleship of the
cross, that is, in the denial of ourselves and in the bearing of our weak-
ness in the midst of the world. The certainty of forgiveness includes hope
for the consummation of the new creation, which has begun with the
life of the Crucified.
The cry of salvation in the message of the cross can be received as
the justifying sentence of God only in that faith which empowers us
for obedient discipleship and to hope for the consummation.

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 3.
Man is not of himself able to recognize and acknowledge the sole
basis of his salvation in the Crucified. The truth of the message of the
cross is disclosed only in that God himself through the Holy Spirit brings
about faith and bestows certainty of the forgiveness of sin. Precisely
through the saving message of the cross, man recognizes his own lostness;
and only in recognizing his sin as disbelief and disobedience does he
comprehend the event of the cross as salvation. Man's knowledge of his
estrangement from himself and of the loss of his authenticity, and the
question about the meaning of history can all become for faith signs of
the need which is uncovered through the message of the cross. But
the key to theology and the comprehensive principle for understanding
the message of Christ is not to be gained from such clues. The word of
the cross, which proves itself irresistible to faith, is always offense and
foolishness to unbelief, which even a Christian never leaves behind him.
The message that life is revealed in Christ's death, grace revealed in
the cross, appears incredible. None of the exegetical-hermeneutical and
systematic-theological efforts, always so necessary for us to understand
the message, can remove or is meant to remove the offense of the message
of the cross.
That God remains Lord over the effect of his word, and in the Word
and the sacrament makes the event of salvation happen in us, is the
liberating certainty of the pastor and the congregation.

IV
CROSS AND DISCIPLESHIP
Because the Risen is proclaimed as the Crucified, therefore partici-
pation in his life is at the same time discipleship in the sign of his cross.
By faith in the Crucified we participate in the life of Christ, whose
revelation in glory we await and from whose power we already are
living in discipleship to the Crucified. Our life thereby becomes in
all its relationships a thankful and obedient living to God's glory.
God's acquittal in the death of Jesus frees us for service to his crea-
tures. This service is oriented to the way in which God in the recon-
ciling death of Jesus has vicariously done enough for all men. True
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 Understanding the Death of Jesus
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obedience must in every time test anew what God's will is. We empha-
size certain things which appear significant to us today.

I.
Represented before God by Christ, we are freed of the need to justify
and prove ourselves. We have thereby received the freedom
to acknowledge our individual and collective guilt instead of hiding
or denying or belittling it, or setting it off against the guilt of others;
no more to make our own achievements and social prestige criteria
for the meaning and worth of life;
to intercede for compassionate understanding and help where the
guilty are mercilessly and self-righteously condemned;
to be ready to forego our own rights and to intervene on behalf of
justice for those deprived of their rights.
Because God in the death of Jesus took the place of the condemned,
we must intercede on behalf of the guilty for the human right to life
and for mercy.
2.
Reconciled in Christ with God, we are commissioned, so far as we
are able, to reconcile men who are separated by so many differences
and conflicts and who stand in opposition to each other, and thereby to
bring them together in common doing of the good. We have received
the freedom
to oppose discrimination based on racial, social, and ideological dis-
tinctions;
to understand fairly the interests and thinking of others, and to keep
conflicts objective;
to oppose the interests of special groups which are advanced at the
cost of the community;
to work against all hate-propaganda, to diminish all that leads to war,
and to support all that makes for peace;
to confront every fundamental irreconcilability with the offer of
reconciliation;
to maintain and confirm the brotherhood of the one community of
Jesus Christ across every earthly barrier.

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 Because God in the death of Jesus has reconciled the world with him-
self, we must intercede for reconciliation in a hostile, divided world.

3·
Having become the children of God through Christ, we have as
Father of our earthly life the One who holds all things in his hands and
we are freed of anxious care about our own lives. We have received the
freedom
to participate responsibly ourselves in political work for the removal
of grievances and abuses, to support all endeavors to prevent the ex-
ploitation of the weaker by the stronger, to broaden the sphere of man's
responsibility so far as it is possible and useful within the limits of the
general welfare;
in face of the threatening danger of world catastrophe from hunger
to intercede with our currently rich nations, for instance, for necessary
and possibly incisive surgery on the economic system and the distribu-
tion of society's products, which is required to prevent that catastrophe;
to test our current social system to see how just provision can be
guaranteed to all and the dignity of man secured.
Because God in the death of Jesus Christ has done enough for the
salvation of the world, we cannot do enough for the welfare of the
world.

Because the church is founded on the word of the cross, therefore in all
it is and does it must live from this word. It must not strive for honor
before the world but serve its Lord and so also the world and provide
itself with the necessary form and order for this service. It cannot under-
stand its institution and organization as ends in themselves or lay claim
to authority and might that contradict the message of the cross. In a
world that rejects the gospel or wishes to use it for its own purposes, a
church which is faithful to its commission must count on opposition
and hostility. Neither by enticement nor by threat may it let itself be
misled into denying its solidarity with the world or becoming ashamed
of being a stranger in the world. When the church preaches the word
of the cross and is ready to take up its own cross, then it need not be
anxious about its work.

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