Did Jesus Change the Theme and Tone of His Parables? – Greg Albrecht

After his parables about love, forgiveness, grace and mercy why does it seem Jesus changes the theme and tone — late in his life it’s all about death.

Question:

Hello. I’ve been pondering an apparent difference between aspects of, for example the parable of the prodigal son and the last supper passages. I’ve been thinking that the parables give insight into the love and forgiveness of God and relating that to my experiences of life. In the prodigal son, nobody has to physically die for forgiveness and reconciliation to happen. That’s the same as throughout my life…both when others have forgiven me or me them. So extrapolating that…Jesus wouldn’t have had to die for forgiveness. Which in my understanding contradicts the meaning of Jesus own words at the last supper “…blood poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”.

My two sets of thoughts seem incompatible! Can you help me please? It seems Jesus is saying his death was essential in the last supper passages — but it doesn’t feature in (some of?) the parables…including the sheep and coin.

Response:

You have indeed been thinking — superb thoughts.  It is so easy when responding to a question to say “good question” — but in my opinion, your thoughts and queries are excellent, as they lead to a conclusion to which many within Christendom, for a variety of reasons, do not ever arrive.  Among those reasons, I maintain, they are given inadequate directions by spiritual professionals, and as a result they cannot navigate because the map they are given is incomplete.   

Some thoughts by way of a discussion on the issues you raise: 

    1) Are the parables of Jesus in some way a different message than the content of his last discourse (John 13-17) — given during the same evening of the “last supper”?

The parables are all about self-sacrificial love, an unheard-of divine love (unheard of to religion and its followers).  The underlying river of grace upon which self-sacrificial love flows is death.  Jesus told us that there is no greater love than one lays down his life for his friends (John 15:13).

You mentioned that nobody has to die in the parable of the prodigal son.  But the parable of the prodigal is one long litany of death — the father dies when his son leaves home.  The son dies in a far country when his life as he knew it ends and he is at the end of his rope.  The prodigal dies again, this time spiritually, when he “comes to himself” and decides to go home, repent, take whatever punishment is coming to him.  So he comes home, willing to be regarded as a dead son — willing to just be a hired son — with no right of inheritance.  And of course, the fatted calf dies (death of animals, the blood shed of animals, was central to the old covenant) so that the celebration of salvation, new life, forgiveness … can begin.  Death is everywhere in the Prodigal Son.  Death is foundational to grace.  

    2) Death is what happens when divine self-sacrificial love is poured out.  First of all, our death, for in accepting and receiving the love, mercy and grace of God our “old man” as Paul calls it, must die in the watery grave.  In terms of blood, the life of humans, that would be ours.  Second, we must then become a new creation, a new man or woman in whom the risen Lord Jesus lives. 

So when Jesus began to focus on his death on the Cross, he was in fact taking the basic teaching of his parables, his kingdom if you like, to a whole new level (as athletes often say about their athletic endeavors).  How does, he asks and answers, in rhetorical questions, all this forgiveness and love and mercy and grace of the parables happen?  What drives it all?  What is in the engine upon which the kingdom of God “runs”?

Earlier, before the last discourse, and before the last days of Jesus earthly life and ministry, Jesus has said that he longed to gather his own people, the people of God of the old covenant, the Jews, under his wings in love but now, just before he dies, he lifts the veil (thinking of the veil in the temple that was torn from top to bottom when he died), and further reveals the love of God by teaching, and then demonstrating on his Cross, that the only way that all people will be gathered to him — the only way that all people will see him is when he is “lifted up” and that his death will be a death inflicted on him by the people he loves!   

The Cross and the Resurrection are filled with divine paradox.  Winning by losing.  Fruit being borne out of death (Jesus the seed planted in the earth that, instead of “living” for itself, dies that much fruit can be produced).  Death is not final — it’s not over when Jesus dies — he lives again, and that life saves us now and forever.  We do not save ourselves, our salvation is outside of our ability.  Love is not a transaction, it is not a contract — love is a gift, and it is not a pure gift unless love realizes it may not see a response in kind.  Jesus dies and rises that we may live.  The greatest love is losing oneself that another may live.      

No one alive then, and unfortunately it seems, not that many now, can grasp the unforeseen twist of the plot that happens at the very “end” of Jesus’ earthly life.  Yes, God’s love is poured out, and yes, he willingly, in the person of Jesus, as a lamb is led to the slaughter, goes to his Cross — but the death of the lamb is inflicted, paradoxically, by those who hate and despise him … those for whom he is willing to die … those of us, all of us.  Yes, Jesus gives himself, self sacrificially in death, but his death was not a suicide.  It was murder.    

    3) The blood shed on the Cross of Christ does not save us in the way that many believe it does.  The blood shed on the Cross saves us from religion — most specifically, the kind of Christ-less religion that all of those to whom Jesus ministered knew and believed.  That is, what we call the old covenant.  

The Cross of Christ was the finale — the end of the grand tour de force of Jesus’ life and teachings.  It was the Hallelujah Chorus of the Messiah — both the composition by Handel as well as the Messiah, the Christ, our Lord and Savior.   

The Cross of Christ concluded the old and started the new.  Now, we live in and by and because of the new covenant in Christ, sealed by his blood.  He saved us from all religious rituals, regulations, regimens — from all priests, potions and prescriptions.    

The old covenant was centered and founded on law, the new covenant on grace.  

The old covenant was based on human deeds fulfilling the terms of the law, thus it was centered on human actions and obedience.  

The new covenant is centered and founded on Jesus Christ, who does for us what we, as humans, can never do for ourselves. 

The old covenant was a contract, it was transactional — the new covenant is a relationship of love, a marriage based on God’s grace.   

As Martin Luther said, “When I look at myself, I don’t see how I can be saved.  But when I look at Christ, I don’t know how I can be lost.”

    4) YET — folks in many churches hear that the Cross was not about love and grace, it was about wrath — and not just any wrath, but, they say, God’s wrath.  Really, God who is defined in Scripture as love — that’s who he is, not just an attribute, but his identity.  But no, says Christ-less Religion that enslaves and burdens and deceives so many, God is actually wrath… “sure,” Christ-less religion says, “he is love, but not just pure love, but wrath too.  Love if we please and appease him, but if we run afoul of the ‘old man’ then hide the women and children, bar the doors, batten down the hatches — God’s wrath will be unleashed.  Forget about all that wishy-washy love and grace stuff — real religion is about his wrath… and avoiding it … saving your neck… from him.”  

Some say the Cross saved us because God poured out his inevitable and justifiable wrath on his Son instead of on us.  So, they posit, and most Christians do, that the Cross saves us from… get ready for it… drum-roll…. God the Father.  The reasoning is that God the Father and God the Son must be different and unique and apart — miles apart.  But wait just a minute!  The testimony of Jesus is that he and the Father are one!  How can the Father kill the Son because he was so filled with wrath that in order to vindicate his laws — in order to save his own honor, his own holiness, our despicable sin had to be removed, paid for, dealt with — so someone had to take the fall.  Someone had to take the bullet.  

This is warped and twisted thinking.  It is corrupt in the sense that it poisons the gospel.  For a start, how can God the Father be at such odds with God the Son that he kills him so we can be saved from the punishment he would otherwise inflict on us?  They are, as all Christians believe, at one, they are the Triune God.  But this thinking divides the Triune God and by many definitions, this thinking (called penal substitution — penal, being penalty, substitution in that Jesus, according to this belief, took our place and died instead of us) is at best toxic, maybe even heretical.  

The Cross of Christ is God’s once and for all, forever demonstration of his love, ending, once and for all, the old covenant with all of its stipulations, regulations, laws and promises/threats of blessings (for obedience) and curses (for disobedience).  The Cross of Christ was and is the fulfillment and termination, the ending of all obligations of one covenant (old) and the beginning of another (new). 

The parables are possible because of the Cross.  The Cross and the Resurrection turns the parables from stories into reality… the beautiful reality of the kingdom of God.    

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