From the time of his betrayal to his death on the cross, Jesus was treated very harshly. Was this needed?
- I had understood the cross as a legally-oriented substitutionary death. Couldn't it then have been a simple clean execution? (Sacrificial lambs in the old testament temple system were killed without mistreatment.)
- I couldn't see how Jesus' passion - his torture and agony - was a necessary part of the mechanism for how God had saved us.
- People would talk about how the cross was glorious, but it is hard to see glory in all that cruelty.
Explanation
The purpose of Jesus' death was to take the consequence of our rebellious value systems onto himself. This consequence is a broken and dead relationship with God. Jesus experienced this death when he said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). That was the critical part of the substitutionary death that we talk about - this was the substitutionary payment for our sin, that sin which breaks our relationship with God.
But also on the cross, Jesus experienced the other consequences of our rebellious value systems. This included betrayal, disbelief, injustice, cruelty, and exploitation. These are primarily relationship evils. We as humans are responsible for all of these things in the world. Jesus experienced them to show us two aspects about value systems:
First, the cross shows us how bad our value systems really are. We can see that our value systems destroy relationships in many ways, and on the cross, Jesus received this full effect. And you know what? His value system handled all the terrible results of our value systems in a way that was pleasing to God, and brought God glory. The stresses and suffering of Jesus on the cross was horrific! And still, the value system of God did not fail.
The cross is embarrassing, gross, and ugly. It's not something to talk about in mixed company. And yet it is success and glory of the highest kind. By the cross, God implemented his plan to restore relationships with any who will trust in him. To do this, Jesus went through both hell as defined by God, and hell as made by humans and he still came out intact.
By doing this, Jesus showed us the second thing: that the value system of God - which is better than ours - will be victorious.
Jesus' awful experience as a human starting from his betrayal to what he experienced humanly on the cross, this experience itself was not a payment for our sin. That experience of Jesus was to encourage us that no matter what we might experience through life, the value system of God is strong enough to get us through life while also preserving what is most valuable - our relationships with God and with people.
The value system perspective used here is based on ideas from the work of Darren Twa.