Christ the Scapegoat
Many Christians in the United States are familiar with the explanation of why Christ needed to be crucified. Simply put, God cannot stand a sinner. The “wages of sin are death” (Roman 6:23) and “none are righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). As such, Christ needed to stand in for the rest of humanity and bear the due wages for our sins through death upon the cross so that God’s righteousness may be satisfied and His fury turned aside to make room for his love and mercy. This is simply the reality of the matter and everyone knows there is no other way to look at it.
Or is there?
The idea I just laid out above is a rough outline of a concept known as the Penal Substitutionary Theory of Atonement. What many Christians don’t realize is that there is not just one idea of the cross and what it means for us and our salvation, and I frankly can’t fault anyone for that. Many churches in the United States, particularly those of a conservative evangelical stripe, tend to teach penal substitution, and they tend to teach it as the only possible reading of the cross. The reality, however, is far more complicated and historical Christianity has actually be filled with filled with different readings of the atonement. Today, I’ll be discussing one of the newer theories, and my favorite: the Scapegoat Theory.
This theory of atonement was first put forth by Rene Girard. The general idea goes as follows: Christ’s death on the cross was not an appeasing sacrifice for God, but rather a showcase of God’s true nature as opposed to ours. The crucifixion lays bear the inherent violence and disconnect of humanity towards God through humanity’s mass violence towards a figure of peace and reconciliation. Christ’s death does not pay a toll, but rather exposes the corruption of sin at the heart of humanity. Additionally, the showcase of God’s sacrificial, nonviolent love also lays bear the entirety of the Old Testament. Now, rather than reading the violence rampant throughout Israel’s history as divine mandate, we see that God’s love would never truly such a thing - we see that the violence and coercion so often found in the Bible is a reflection of humanity, not of God. Further, Christ’s death unveils the inherent injustice of sacrifice.
The Scapegoat Theory of Atonement requires us to completely reimagine our understanding of Christ’s death, as well as the purpose of his time here on Earth. It also requires us to revisit God’s heart. The Bible so often preaches a loving God while also teaching of a God of violence and war who orders genocides and destruction. But, at the same time, this is a God who cares for a people not his own (Jonah 4:11), who brings multiple nations out of slavery (Amos 9:7), whose mercy endures for generations (Psalm 136), who cannot accept the sacrifice of the wicked (Isaiah 1). If we truly believe that Christ is the vision of the invisible God, then we must reckon his nature as reflective of the Lord’s, and I would agree with Rene Girard in the assertion that Christ does not reveal a hateful, wrathful God who simply cannot look at his people unless there is a violent atoning sacrifice carried out on their behalf.
Rather, I see in Christ a reflection of a God who “so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son” (John 3:16). Maybe it’s time to do away with the idea of a wrathful God who delights in sacrifices and instead focus on a Lord who “desire[s] mercy, not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6), a God who reminds us that, yes, none of us are without sin, but that we are stilled made in His image and deeply loved. Ours is a God who desires to be with us, not to punish us.
It is we who nailed Him to the cross, and perhaps we should remember that.
