“The Death Of Christ Was A Murder”: Jonathan Edwards And Blame For Christ’s Death

By Glenn R. Kreider

[Glenn R. Kreider is Professor of Theological Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.]

Abstract

In his sermon on John 10:18, “True and Voluntary Suffering” (April 1736), Jonathan Edwards claims that the soldiers who crucified Jesus murdered him. Yet Edwards also emphasizes that Jesus’s life was not taken from him without his permission. Prior to his death, Jesus claimed that he would lay down his life. As the God-man, Christ’s death was a priestly act, the free decision to give his life by submitting to the hands of the murderers, and through their unjust act, Jesus became the atoning sacrifice for sin.

Introduction

The film The Passion of the Christ, which tells the story of the last twelve hours of Jesus’s life in graphic detail, reintroduced questions about responsibility for the death of Christ into popular discussions. In the months before and immediately after the film’s 2004 release, people were talking about it and the questions it raised. Those conversations have continued, particularly in interfaith dialogue and in Christian theology.[1]

In his article in Newsweek shortly before the film’s release, Jon Meacham asked the question that was on many minds: “Who killed Jesus?”[2] Meacham does not answer the question directly, since his essay largely reports on the controversy about the anti-Semitism some saw in the film, especially the rough cut.[3] He concludes, “In the best of all possible worlds, ‘The Passion of the Christ’ will prompt constructive conversations about the origins of the religion that claims two billion followers around the globe, conversations that ought to lead believers to see that Christian anti-Semitism should be seen as an impossibility—a contradiction in terms. To hate Jews because they are Jews—to hate anyone, in fact—is a sin in the Christian cosmos, for Jesus commands his followers to love their neighbor as themselves.”[4]

Though Meacham does not answer the question posed in his article’s title, several evangelical writers have. In a book “written quickly to coincide with the release of the film,” John Piper asks and answers the question why Jesus died.[5] He asserts, “The most important question of the twenty-first century is: Why did Jesus Christ suffer so much? But we will never see this importance if we fail to go beyond human cause. The ultimate answer to the question, Who crucified Jesus? is: God did. It is a staggering thought. Jesus was his Son. And the suffering was unsurpassed. But the whole message of the Bible leads to this conclusion.”[6] Similarly, John MacArthur insists, “God put his own Son to death? That is precisely what Scripture teaches.”[7] Trevin Wax puts it this way:

God killed Jesus. I know that might sound harsh and it is, indeed, hard to wrap your mind around. But it’s true. God the Father sacrificed his Son. He killed his Son in order to spare us His righteous wrath. Now don’t think this is a picture of some vindictive God up there throwing down lightning bolts. He’s not a God who enjoyed seeing Jesus suffer. He does not delight in the wages of sin. God killed Jesus because this is what it would take for sin to be forgiven. This is what it would take for death to be no more. This is what it would take for God to remain just and holy in dealing with sin and loving and merciful in accepting sinners.[8]

Identifying the party or parties responsible for the death of the Savior has been the subject of biblical and theological discussion for millennia. This brief article could hardly treat the topic comprehensively. Rather, it has a modest goal to investigate how the eighteenth-century pastor Jonathan Edwards answered the question, Who killed Jesus?[9] It focuses primarily on one sermon where Edwards directly answers the question of who was responsible for the execution of Jesus. Although Edwards discusses the atoning work of Christ in a variety of places, he did not write a treatise on the subject. In this sermon, he declares that Christ’s death was a murder.[10]

“Free And Voluntary Suffering”

In April 1736, during the revivals in the New England colonies, Edwards preached a sermon to his Northampton congregation on John 10:18 with the title “The Free and Voluntary Suffering and Death of Christ.”[11] The sermon follows the typical Edwardsean style.[12] After an introduction to the text of Scripture, he develops a doctrine, which he then explains and defends. The sermon concludes with a series of improvements, or applications.

Exposition Of The Text: John 10:18

The pastor’s text is John 10:18, “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself.”[13] Edwards first explains the context of this saying by Jesus. In this discourse in John’s gospel, Jesus contrasts himself with false teachers. Specifically, Jesus identifies himself as a good shepherd, one who loves and cares for his sheep. In contrast, the false teacher or imposter is compared with a hireling, who is only concerned for himself. He does not care about the sheep. His lack of attention places the sheep in peril; he even sometimes comes to kill and destroy. But the good shepherd loves the sheep, even to the point of his own sacrificial death. Edwards explains, “But Christ, being the good shepherd, he stands between the wolf and the flock to defend them, though he exposes his own life by it. Yea, he receives the mischief all upon himself to defend the sheep from it: he yields up his own life to save their lives. And this is that which Christ speaks of in the text, and insists on [in] an argument of his being the good shepherd.”[14] Edwards notes that earlier, in John 10:11, Jesus claims that as the good shepherd he gives his life for the sheep, “I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.”

Edwards declares that as this good shepherd, Jesus is free and voluntary in caring for the sheep; he does not serve out of compulsion or because he is hired. Edwards concludes this brief exposition of the text by asserting that the text declares this truth in two ways. First, Edwards observes,

No other takes it from him. ’Tis not meant that others were not active and voluntary in taking away Christ’s life, or that those that had an hand in Christ’s crucifixion were at all to be excused, as if it was not their act; for they were guilty of the murder of Christ. The guilt of this is often charged upon them. Acts 2:23, “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and with wicked hands have crucified and slain”; and many other places.[15]

Further,

But what is intended is that no man took it from him without his voluntarily subjecting himself to death, and yielding up his life. Without this, no man could take it from him; and the reason is given, viz. because he had the power of his own life: “I have power to lay it down, and power to take it again.” Christ is the Prince of Life: he has life in himself, and is the sovereign disposer of life and death. And therefore ’tis impossible any should have such power over him, as to deprive him of his life, unless he voluntarily subjected himself to their power to that end, that his life might be taken away.[16]

Second, “ ’Tis positively affirmed that he lays it down of himself. Though Christ was cruelly murdered by his enemies, yet there was no act that Christ was more perfectly free in than laying down his life.”[17] Thus, from the text Edwards concludes that the death of the Savior was voluntary and free. Christ was killed by the hands of wicked men, yes, but no one could take his life and no one could make him submit to death. He submitted himself freely and voluntarily to his murderers.

The Doctrine

From his exposition of this text in John 10, Edwards develops a doctrine, which the sermon will defend and apply. The doctrine states the pastor’s thesis plainly: “Christ was voluntary in subjecting himself to these sufferings that he underwent.”[18] In Edwards’s view, the freedom and independence of the Son of God is expressed in his voluntary submission to the murderous hands of his enemies.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, Edwards states his claim again clearly and carefully: “Christ did not kill himself: the death of Christ was a murder. It was wholly and entirely done by those wicked men that from hatred to him sought his life, and imbrued their hands in his blood, and by Satan that instigated them.”[19] In this assertion, Edwards corrects two misunderstandings. First, Jesus did not commit suicide; he was murdered.[20] Second, the murder was “wholly and entirely done” by the men who killed him. They were doing the work of Satan, but the guilt is theirs. Finally, that his death was “wholly and entirely done by those wicked men” excludes the Father as the agent of Jesus’s death.

In the text of John 10:18 Jesus declares that he laid down his own life. Edwards explains, “But as it was a sacrifice, so it was entirely Christ’s own free and voluntary act. Nor was there ever anything done more voluntarily and freely by Christ than offering that sacrifice of his own life.”[21] In short, Christ was murdered by the men who put him to death, but they would have been unable to carry out their work without his permission. Jesus remained sovereign and in control of his life. He offered himself as a sacrifice, even for those who killed him.

Edwards understands the importance of distinguishing unmistakably between things that God causes and those that God allows. God’s sovereignty comprehensively includes both, but God is never the cause of evil. Christ submitted to the murder, but he was not the cause of the murder and neither was his Father. Rather, “it was wholly and entirely done by those wicked men.” God’s sovereignty includes evil acts, but he is never the cause of evil deeds. Edwards states this perhaps most clearly in Freedom of the Will:

They who object, that this doctrine makes God the author of sin, ought distinctly to explain what they mean by that phrase, “the author of sin.” I know, the phrase, as it is commonly used, signifies something very ill. If by “the author of sin,” be meant the sinner, the agent, or actor of sin, or the doer of a wicked thing; so it would be a reproach and blasphemy, to suppose God to be the author of sin. In this sense, I utterly deny God to be the author of sin; rejecting such an imputation on the Most High, as what is infinitely to be abhorred; and deny any such thing to be the consequence of what I have laid down. But if by “the author of sin,” is meant the permitter, or not a hinderer of sin; and at the same time, a disposer of the state of events, in such a manner, for wise, holy and most excellent ends and purposes, that sin, if it be permitted or not hindered, will most certainly and infallibly follow: I say, if this be all that is meant, by being the author of sin, I don’t deny that God is the author of sin (though I dislike and reject the phrase, as that which by use and custom is apt to carry another sense), it is no reproach for the Most High to be thus the author of sin. This is not to be the actor of sin, but on the contrary, of holiness. What God doth herein, is holy; and a glorious exercise of the infinite excellency of his nature. And I don’t deny, that God’s being thus the author of sin, follows from what I have laid down; and I assert, that it equally follows from the doctrine which is maintained by most of the Arminian divines.[22]

In short, Edwards’s interpretation of the death of Christ is consistent with his view of divine sovereignty and providence, and his view of God’s attributes. A good and holy God could never be the cause of evil, even though evil is somehow part of his good and perfect plan for his creation.

Christ’s death was voluntary. What follows in the sermon is an extended Edwardsean defense of orthodox Christology, that Christ is fully God and fully human. The pastor does not defend his claim that Christ was murdered; rather, he argues for the voluntary nature of Jesus’s death: “To show this I would first, show that it was a voluntary thing in him as God and, second, as man.”[23] Presumably, he does not think it necessary to defend what he asserted several times, Jesus’s death was a murder.

As God, Jesus Christ’s death was “perfectly free and voluntary . . . it was the life of a divine person that was laid down.”[24] Edwards explains that it was not the divine life but the human life he gave, but he offered it as the God-man. This is what made the act meritorious, “because it is not only the act of Christ as man, but also as God.”[25] The death of Christ was “an act of the priesthood of Christ.”[26]

This act of Christ, as performed by a divine person, could not have been forced, for “compulsion is a thing that is not compatible to the Deity.”[27] Further, Edwards explains, it would be inconsistent for a divine person to act in a way that is not free and voluntary. He argues that Christ was not subject to the Father before the incarnation. Christ’s mediatorial role was the reason for submission to the Father, and it was a free and voluntary act. According to Edwards,

it was by his taking upon him the office of a Mediator that rendered him subject to the Father’s commandment; and he undertook this office, because he was willing to die for sinners. This was the reason why he became subject. And therefore Christ mentions his having his being voluntary in laying down his life, and having his right in his own life, and also his laying it down in obedience to the Father, all together in the verse of the text, as not being inconsistent the one with the other.[28]

Edwards argues that a variety of biblical passages support the view that Christ’s decision to die was free and voluntary. He also has an extended discussion of “types and shadows” that reveal Christ’s voluntary involvement in this world.[29] Among the examples of types he cites, Christ was the cloud and the pillar of fire that led the Israelites. It was Christ who appeared to Moses at the burning bush (Exod. 3:2; Deut. 33:16) and to Manoah (Judg. 13:19-22). The ark of the covenant also represented Christ (1 Sam. 4).[30] This extended discussion leads to Edwards’s conclusion: “Christ came into the world for this end. It was the principal end of Christ’s assuming the human nature. It was chiefly for that that there was need of Christ’s becoming incarnate, viz. that he might be capable of suffering and dying. As he was God, he could not die; and therefore he became man, and came into the world for this very end.”[31] His incarnation was designed for this purpose; it was the primary reason the Son took on flesh.

Edwards concludes this section thusly:

And it also appears by his choosing that age to be born in, when it was so exceeding corrupt a time amongst the Jews, and that nation were so full of prejudices against such an appearance as he made in the world, and such doctrines as he taught. The scribes and Pharisees that then prevailed were of principles and dispositions to the highest degree opposite to Christ and his religion. If it had not been Christ’s choice to suffer, he would doubtless have chosen some other time, when the nation of the Jews were in a better temper, and more disposed to receive him, and treat him well.[32]

He does not cite Galatians 4:4, but the language seems similar to Paul’s assertion that God sent his Son in the “fullness of time” (ESV).

Christ’s voluntary suffering as a man. In the next section of the sermon, Edwards argues that Christ submitted to his suffering as a man, and voluntarily. According to Edwards, Christ “took great delight in the thoughts of his suffering for sinners, because he knew that that would be a thing greatly to God’s glory.”[33] He was motivated by his love for his Father and desired to glorify him (cf. John 12:28; 17:4; 21:19). In short,

Christ by his death in a transcendent manner glorified the authority of God, as it was to atone for the injury and offense done to God’s authority by men’s sins. Christ hereby gave his testimony that so sacred was the divine authority, that nothing less than his own blood would atone for the contempt of it. He who was wisdom itself manifested how sacred he looked upon the authority of God. If he had not known that nothing less would have been sufficient to repair {God’s authority}, he never would have consented {to atone for the contempt of it}.[34]

Christ’s suffering brought him delight and showed his love for sinners: “Other things show Christ’s love to his people—his bringing of the people of Israel out of Egypt, and many other things he did for the church under the Old Testament, blessings of common providence—but not fully. [It] did not show how great his love was, but this did. Therefore Christ settled upon it, and that any should object anything against it [offended him].”[35]

Finally, “Christ knew that thereby he should save sinners. He knew that God would accept of his sufferings, instead of the eternal damnation of sinners; and that poor sinners hereby would escape that dreadful misery, and would be saved. . . . It rejoiced his heart to think that he should in that way deliver sinners from so great a misery, and to bring them to such glory.”[36]

According to Edwards, the eternal Son chose the incarnation freely because it was the means by which salvation would be provided. In order to save sinners, the Son who was fully God became fully man.

The Application

Edwards draws several applications for his parishioners in the final section of the sermon. First, from the free and voluntary sacrifice of Christ, he explains, is seen Christ’s great love for sinners. “Suffering is the greatest trial and manifestation of love. And the sufferings of Christ were a great manifestation of love in proportion to the greatness of his sufferings, and the dignity of the person suffering.”[37] Jesus suffered knowingly; he was aware in advance of the agony he would experience.[38] He knew he “was to suffer the wrath of God, and the wrath of God is so dreadful that the nature of man can’t bear the sight of it. The foresight of it was so terrible to Christ that he put his soul into a dreadful agony, so as to cause him to sweat blood.”[39] Edwards apparently did not recognize any tension between his claim that the death of Christ was a murder at the hands of wicked men and that Jesus also suffered the wrath of God. Later, in another sermon, this same tension is seen, as will be shown below.

Edwards also observes that Christ knew the depth of human depravity: “There are these two things that make Christ’s sufferings wonderful, viz., that he should voluntarily endure so great sufferings, and that he should do it to make atonement for so great wickedness, or for those that were so vile.”[40] At the cross, “the sins of men appeared in its true nature, which is the utmost hatred and contempt of God. It now appeared in this hatred and contempt of the Son of God, who was God as well as man. Here the sins of men appeared in its ultimate aim and endeavor, which is to kill God.”[41] And yet, Edwards says, “This wickedness that wrought all these sufferings of Christ, was but a sample of that corruption and depravity that is naturally in all mankind.”[42]

Edwards emphasizes Christ’s love for sinners: “Christ suffered to make atonement for that individual, actual wickedness that wrought his suffering, in that he died for some of his crucifiers. That very wickedness that reproached, and buffeted, and spit upon him and crucified him, he then suffered to make propitiation for; with respect to some of them that were guilty of it, whom Christ prayed for, while they were in the act of crucifying of him, that they might be forgiven, and who were afterwards in answer to his prayer, converted and forgiven; as we have account in the Acts 2.”[43] He quotes Peter’s words in Acts 2:22-23: “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as you yourselves also know: him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain,” and in Acts 2:26: “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.”[44] Some of those who killed him responded in faith, “and so they had the remission of sins as Peter promised them, and so Christ’s prayer was answered when he cried, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’ ”[45]

Although Edwards does not belabor the point, Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost supports his thesis, as does apostolic preaching elsewhere.[46] The apostles attribute the death of Jesus to the hands of wicked men. God did not kill him; God raised him from the dead. And yet, this evil act at the hands of wicked men was God’s sovereign and predetermined plan. It was according to divine foreknowledge.

Edwards identifies another trial that Christ experienced, as his disciples failed him at his time of greatest need. They fell asleep in the garden when he asked them to pray. Later, Peter denied him and they all forsook him. Edwards writes,

These were those that Christ was going to die for, and that already were entitled to the benefits of his death. . . . But Christ, though he saw things thus, yet all this did not make him unwilling to die for his elect. Whom he loved, he loved to the end. Though their love for him was wavering, and subject to decays and shameful interruptions, yet it was not so with his love to them. He was willing to go on and die for his disciples notwithstanding.[47]

Jesus’s voluntary suffering was for the sake of those who failed him and fled in his time of need. He loved them in spite of their rejection of him.

From this, Edwards draws an inference:

If it be so that Christ was voluntary in subjecting himself to those sufferings that he underwent, then hence we may learn that Christ’s death may be considered as an act of obedience, by which he purchased heaven as well as a satisfaction for sin. Christ’s death, as it was his passion, as he was passive in it, it was a propitiation for sin, and delivers us from punishment. But as he was active in it, as it was that he was voluntary in it, so it was an act of obedience, and a part of his positive righteousness by which he purchased heaven.[48]

In short, “It was both satisfactory and meritorious. As it was his passion, it was satisfactory: he underwent our punishment, and set us at liberty from it. As such, it was a paying our debt. But as he was voluntary and active in it, it was meritorious. For so it did more than merely pay our debt for it made a positive purchase for us.”[49]

One might object, Edwards notes, that “that righteousness of Christ that we are justified by, is his obedience to the Law that we broke; but that commandment of laying down his life was not part of the Law that we broke. I answer that it must be the same law as to moral precepts; but there is no need that it be the same as to the positive precepts. That great positive precept by which we fell; viz., not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, was what Christ never was under.”[50]

The sermon ends with this: “All Christ’s sufferings from his first incarnation were of a propitiatory nature, as every act of obedience from his first incarnation was meritorious. Indeed his last sufferings were his principal sufferings, and so ’tis by them principally that we have propitiation. So it was by his last act of obedience, viz. in yielding himself to death, that was as much his principal act of obedience, and so that by which principally he merited heaven.”[51]

In “The Free and Voluntary Suffering and Death of Christ,” Edwards argues that Christ voluntarily submitted himself to suffering at the cross. Further, he insists that Christ’s death “was a murder. It was wholly and entirely done by those wicked men that from hatred to him sought his life, and imbrued their hands in his blood, and by Satan that instigated them.”[52] The crucifixion was part of God’s plan, but God did not murder his Son.

A Brief Look At Other Statements

Although it is not possible to examine Edwards’s entire corpus here, a brief overview of several other writings will surface an unresolved tension. Were this the only place Edwards dealt with the atonement, the only place he discussed the cause of Christ’s death, his position would be clear. But it is not. Elsewhere, he uses similar language as in “True and Voluntary Suffering.” But he is not consistent. Sometimes he attributes the death of Christ to the hand of the Father. Thus, any conclusion about Edwards’s view of the cause of the sacrificial death of Jesus can be only preliminary.

“The Excellency Of Christ”

Several months after “Free and Voluntary Suffering,” in “The Excellency of Christ” (August 1736), Edwards proclaims:

There are conjoined in the person of Christ, infinite worthiness of good, and the greatest patience under sufferings of evil. He was perfectly innocent, and deserved no suffering. He deserved nothing from God, by any guilt of his own; and he deserved no ill from men. Yea, he was not only harmless, and undeserving of suffering, but he was infinitely worthy, worthy of the infinite love of the Father, worthy of infinite and eternal happiness, and infinitely worthy of all possible esteem, love, and service from all men. And yet he was perfectly patient under the greatest sufferings that ever were endured in this world. Hebrews 12:2, “He endured the cross, despising the shame.” He suffered not from his Father, for his faults, but ours; and he suffered from men, not for his faults, but for those things, on account of which, he was infinitely worthy of their love and honor; which made his patience the more wonderful, and the more glorious. 1 Peter 2:20-24, “For what glory is it, if when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? But if when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God: for even hereunto were ye called; because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow his steps; who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: who his own self, bare our sins in his own body, on the tree, that we being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed.” There is no such conjunction of innocence, worthiness, and patience under sufferings, as in the person of Christ.[53]

At first glance, Edwards seems perhaps to claim that Christ suffered “not from his Father” but from the hands of men. But that seems not to be his point; rather, he appears to be attributing Christ’s suffering to the Father for our faults, not any fault of his own: “He suffered not from his Father, for his faults but ours.” In short, he suffered from his Father for our faults.

Later, Edwards explains, “This was the greatest thing in all the works of redemption, the greatest act of Christ in that work; so in this act especially does there appear that admirable conjunction of excellencies, that has been spoken of. Christ never so much appeared as a lamb, as when he was slain: he came like ‘a lamb to the slaughter’ (Isaiah 53:7). Then he was offered up to God as a lamb without blemish, and without spot: then especially did he appear to be the antitype of the Lamb of the Passover: 1 Corinthians 5:7, ‘Christ our Passover sacrificed for us.’ ”[54]

In this section, Edwards again appears to attribute the suffering Christ endured to the hand of God:

In Christ’s great sufferings, did his infinite regard to the honor of God’s justice distinguishingly appear; for it was from regard to that, that he thus humbled himself: and yet in these sufferings, Christ was the mark of the vindictive expressions of that very justice of God. Revenging justice then spent all its force upon him, on account of our guilt that was laid upon him; he was not spared at all; but God spent the arrows of his vengeance upon him, which made him sweat blood, and cry out upon the cross, and probably rent his vitals, broke his heart, the fountain of blood, or some other internal blood vessels, and by the violent fermentation turned his blood to water: for the blood and water that issued out of his side, when pierced by the spear, seems to have been extravasated blood; and so there might be a kind of literal fulfillment of that, in Psalms 22:14, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels.” And this was the way and means by which Christ stood up for the honor of God’s justice, viz. by thus suffering its terrible executions. For when he had undertaken for sinners, and had substituted himself in their room, divine justice could have its due honor, no other way than by his suffering its revenges.[55]

And then this:

And yet then Christ was in the greatest degree treated as a wicked person. He was apprehended and bound as a malefactor. His accusers represented him as a most wicked wretch. In his sufferings before his crucifixion, he was treated as if he had been the worst and vilest of mankind; and then, he was put to a kind of death, that none but the worst sort of malefactors were wont to suffer, those that were most abject in their persons, and guilty of the blackest crimes. And he suffered as though guilty from God himself, by reason of our guilt imputed to him; for he was made sin for us, who knew no sin; he was made subject to wrath as if he had been sinful himself: he was made a curse for us.[56]

He continues, “And he suffered from the Father, as one whose demerits were infinite, by reason of our demerits that were laid upon him. And yet it was especially by that act of his subjecting himself to those sufferings, that he merited, and on the account of which chiefly he was accounted worthy of, the glory of his exaltation.”[57] And finally, he writes:

Christ in his last sufferings suffered most extremely from those that he was then in his greatest act of love to. He never suffered so much from his Father (though not from any hatred to him, but from hatred to our sins), for he then forsook him (as Christ on the cross expresses it), or took away the comforts of his presence; and then “it pleased the Lord to bruise him, and put him to grief,” as Isaiah 53:10. And yet never gave so great a manifestation of love to God as then, as has been already observed. So Christ never suffered so much from the hands of men as he did then; and yet never was in so high an exercise of love to men. He never was so ill treated by his disciples; who were so unconcerned about his sufferings, that they would not watch with him one hour, in his agony; and when he was apprehended, all forsook him and fled, except Peter, who denied him with oaths and curses. And yet then he was suffering, shedding his blood, and pouring out his soul unto death, for them. Yea, he probably was then shedding his blood for some of them that shed his blood: he was dying for some that killed him; whom he prayed for, while they were crucifying him; and were probably afterwards brought home to Christ by Peter’s preaching.[58]

And yet, in this sermon, Edwards also attributes Christ’s suffering to the executioners:

Christ never was so in his enemies’ hands, as in the time of his last sufferings. They sought his life before! but from time to time they were restrained, and Christ escaped out of their hands; and this reason is given for it, that his time was not yet come; but now they were suffered to work their will upon him; he was in a great degree delivered up to the malice and cruelty of both wicked men and devils: and therefore when Christ’s enemies came to apprehend him, he says to them, Luke 22:53, “When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hand against me: but this is your hour and the power of darkness.”[59]

“The Sacrifice Of Christ Acceptable”

In “The Sacrifice of Christ Acceptable” (October 1729), Edwards argues that the Old Testament sacrifices were designed to instruct the Israelites:

By the sufferings of those beasts there being slain, they were put in mind that the wages of sin was death; and by their being burnt in the fire, they were taught how they deserved to suffer God’s fiery wrath for their sins, and that God would not pardon sin without suffering, without its being punished.[60]

The sacrifice of Christ was efficacious, the fulfillment of the sacrifices that had been offered:

Christ suffered the death of his body with extreme outward pains, and he suffered in his soul great darkness from God’s withdrawing his comfortable presence and extreme agonies as the effects of God’s wrath against our sins that were laid upon him.[61]

The wrath of God poured out on the Son was thus the cause of his suffering and death.

“East Of Eden”

In “East of Eden” (August 1731), Edwards explains:

Christ undertook to lead us to the tree of life, and he went before us. Christ himself was slain by that flaming [sword]; and this sword, having slain the Son of God appearing in our name, who was a person of infinite worthiness, that sword did full execution in that. And when it had shed the blood of Christ, it had done all its work, and so after that was removed. And Christ arising from the dead, being a divine person himself, went before us; and now the sword is removed, having done its execution, already having nothing more to do there, having slain Christ. There is no sword now, and the way is open and clear to eternal life for those that are in Christ.[62]

The flaming sword is the wrath of God: “This terrible anger of God towards fallen man is well represented by the emblem of a flaming sword in our text, and it being such would effectually prevent man’s any way coming at the tree of life.”[63]

A History Of The Work Of Redemption

In A History of the Work of Redemption (1739), Edwards describes the suffering Christ experienced at the hands of the Jews and Romans and then concludes:

And then Jews and Roman soldiers all together: bow the knee, spit, take the reed; and then lead him away to crucify him, and make him carry his own cross till he sunk under it, his strength being spent; and then laid it on one Simon, a Cyrenian. And then they execute the sentence. They nail him to the cross. And now Christ’s sufferings come to the extremity, now the cup is come. This used to be in those days the most tormenting kind of death. No death wherein he [who] dies [endures] so much of men’s torment; the Roman word for torment [is] taken from it.[64]

Here it is the human agents of execution who are responsible for the death of Jesus.

Conclusion

In the sermon “True and Voluntary Suffering,” Edwards affirms that the death of Christ was a murder. It was carried out “wholly and entirely” by the wicked men who nailed him to the cross. Then, in an act of grace that provides salvation, God raised him from the dead. The cause of Christ’s death was the sinners who murdered him; the cause of his resurrection was the act of God. This act of Christ in submitting to his murderers was a free and voluntary act of the Savior. He was not coerced or taken against his will. He laid down his life. God did not kill him; the murderers did.

And yet, elsewhere Edwards seems to attribute the death of Christ to the Father. Is there an inconsistency there? Is it a matter of different perspectives? Could both be true? If God is the killer of his Son, and those words ought to give us pause, how can we affirm that God is just? Is not the execution of an innocent person, one who is perfectly righteous, an act of injustice? How would we affirm with integrity the words of the Scripture:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:21-26, ESV).

How could the unjust act of the Father killing his Son be evidence of God’s righteousness and the basis of justification? On the other hand, if the death of Christ was a murder, and God uses that unjust act as the means of justifying sinners, he remains both just and the justifier of those who come to him by faith.

The death of Christ was a murder. He died at the hands of evil men, not at the hands of his Father. Yet it was the will of God that the Son suffer and die. It was God’s will, determined in advance, but carried out by the wicked men who put him to death. This seems to be the view of the apostles. Hear the word of the Lord, from the apostle Peter: “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:22-24, ESV). Again, from Peter: “And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (10:39-41, ESV). The Apostle Paul preached similarly:

For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him. And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people (13:27-31, ESV).

Jonathan Edwards states it well: “Christ did not kill himself [He did not commit suicide]: the death of Christ was a murder. It was wholly and entirely done by those wicked men that from hatred to him sought his life [He was not murdered by his Father], and imbrued their hands in his blood, and by Satan that instigated them.”65 God’s action in response is the gospel: God raised him from the dead.

What then of the wrath of God poured out on him? How can it be both that the death of Christ was a murder, “wholly and entirely done by those wicked men,” and that he satisfied the wrath of God? Richard Mouw explains that it is best to

locate the redemptive significance of Christ’s suffering, not so much in pain that can be thought of as being actively inflicted upon him by the Father, but rather in his profound experience as the innocent one of the cursedness of being abandoned by God on behalf of those who do deserve that abandonment. Thus the greatest redemptively significant agony that he experienced on the Cross, on this view, is not when he gasped in pain when they pounded the nails into his flesh, or when he pleaded that his thirst be quenched, or when he heard the mockery of onlookers, but when he cried out in utter forlornness, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).[66]

Mouw continues:

There is one very good reason to emphasize this forsakenness as being at the heart of Christ’s experience of God’s wrath on our behalf. In his redemptive suffering, Christ was experiencing the agonies of hell that we deserve as sinners. If we were to understand hell to be God’s actively inflicting violence on sinful persons, then it would indeed be important for Christ to take on that kind of violence as our substitute. But if we see hell—as I think to be theologically appropriate—as a state of radical separation from God, then it was not necessary that Christ be actively punished by the Father; rather it was fitting that he experience something far worse. It is a terrible thing to be punished violently by someone who is capable of loving us but who instead turns upon us in anger. But it is even worse to have so provoked that person’s wrath that he or she simply gives up on us and turns away. This is the hellish abandonment that Christ experienced when he hung as our substitute on Calvary.[67]

In short, the wrath of God is perhaps not an active unleashing of punishment but the removal of his hand of protection. So when Jesus bore the wrath of God on the cross, he was not punished or killed by his Father. Rather, he experienced the horror of being forsaken by God, the horror of watching his Father do nothing. The only one who could have delivered Jesus chose not to do so. And Jesus, “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2, ESV).

Jesus endured the cross, freely giving himself for the sins of the world, as an act of love. He submitted himself to the hands of his murderers for their sake and for the sake of all humanity. They murdered him, but only because the Son laid down his life and the Father allowed it.

The apostle Paul declares that the death of Jesus “was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:25-26, ESV). The murder of the innocent Son of God was the most unjust act ever committed in the universe. If God killed his Son, Paul’s claim that God is just is vacuous. God did not cause Jesus’s death, but he also did not stop the murder. God was active not in causing Jesus’s death but in raising Jesus from the dead (Acts 2:23; 3:15).

The omniscient God is aware of everything that happens in his world, even before the events occur. Just and unjust acts are part of his plan, but he is never the cause of injustice. The most unjust act, the death of the innocent Lamb of God, is the basis of salvation, even the salvation of the murderers themselves of whom Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:33, ESV).

Notes

1. For a sample of the reaction, see “ ‘The Passion of the Christ’: Jewish Response to the Movie,” May 21, 2004, accessed October 31, 2016, http://www.relig-ioustolerance.org/chrgibson7.htm. See also Rose Pacatte, “A Decade Later ‘The Passion’ Still Raises Questions of Anti-Semitism,” National Catholic Reporter, February 22, 2014, accessed October 31, 2016, https://www.ncronline.org/news/art-media/decade-later-passion-still-raises-questions-anti-semitism.
2. Jon Meacham, “Who Killed Jesus?,” Newsweek, February 15, 2004, accessed October 31, 2016, http://www.newsweek.com/who-killed-jesus-131113.
3. For different reactions to the rough cut, see Reg Grant, “A Few Notes on ‘The Passion of the Christ,’ ” May 27, 2004, accessed November 8, 2016, https://bi-ble.org/article/few-notes-passion-christ; and “ADL and Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of the Christ,’ ” http://www.adl.org/education-outreach/interfaith-affairs/c/adl-and-mel-gibsons-the-passion.html.
4. Meacham, “Who Killed Jesus?” Meacham reports that an early version, which I also saw, included Matthew 27:25; this text was deleted in the theatrical version. There is a vast bibliography of literature dealing with anti-Semitism. For a helpful discussion, see “Abraham H. Foxman Recommends the Best Books on Anti-Semitism,” “Five Books,” December 15, 2010, accessed October 31, 2016, http://fivebooks.com/interview/abraham-h-foxman-on-anti-semitism/. See also the reading list “Anti-Semitism,” accessed October 31, 2016, http://www.jewish-bookcouncil.org/subject-reading-list/antisemitism.
5. John Piper, “Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die,” accessed March 20, 2017, http://www.desiringgod.org/books/fifty-reasons-why-jesus-came-to-die.
6. John Piper, The Passion of Jesus Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004), 11. The book was republished with the title Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006). See his discussion of the purpose for writing the book in “Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die,” accessed March 20, 2017, http://www.desir-inggod.org/books/fifty-reasons-why-jesus-came-to-die. For a helpful response to Piper that resonates with Edwards, see Zach Hoag, “3 Reasons God Did Not Kill Jesus (But Jesus Still Had to Die),” accessed October 31, 2016, http://zhoag.com/3-reasons-god-did-not-kill-jesus-but-jesus-still-had-to-die/.
7. John MacArthur, “Who Killed Jesus?,” Grace to You, July 10, 2009, accessed October 31, 2017, https://www.gty.org/resources/articles/A336/Who-Killed-Jesus. Later, MacArthur explains, “For all the evil in the crucifixion, it brought about an infinite good. In fact, here was the most evil act ever perpetrated by sinful hearts: The sinless Son of God—holy God Himself in human flesh—was unjustly killed after being subjected to the most horrific tortures that could be devised by wicked minds. It was the evil of all evils, the worst deed human depravity could ever devise, and the most vile evil that has ever been committed. And yet from it came the greatest good of all time—the redemption of unnumbered souls.”
8. Trevin Wax, “Who Killed Jesus?,” The Gospel Coalition Blog, March 20, 2007, accessed October 31, 2016, https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/trevinwax/2007/03/20/ who-killed-jesus/.
9. Edwards is well respected among Christian theologians, particularly by John Piper. See “The Pastor as Theologian: Life and Ministry of Jonathan Edwards,” April 15, 1988, accessed March 20, 2017, http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-pastor-as-theologian, where Piper asserts, “Alongside the Bible, Edwards became the compass of my theological studies. Not that he has anything like the authority of Scripture, but that he is a master of that Scripture, and a precious friend and teacher.”
10. Bruce Stephens correctly observes, “Unlike ‘Edwards on the will’ or ‘Edwards on original sin,’ there is no extant treatise by Jonathan Edwards on the atonement and therefore it is necessary to piece together his theory of the atonement from a number of published and unpublished sources.” Bruce M. Stephens, “An Appeal to the Universe: The Doctrine of the Atonement in American Protestant Thought from Jonathon [sic] Edwards to Edwards Amasa Park,” Encounter 60 (1999): 57.
11. Jonathan Edwards, “The Free and Voluntary Suffering and Death of Christ,” in Sermons and Discourses, 1734-1738, ed. M. X. Lesser, vol. 19 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 491-515.
12. For Edwards’s sermonic style, see Wilson H. Kimnach, “General Introduction to the Sermons: Jonathan Edwards’ Art of Prophesying,” in Sermons and Discourses, 1720-1723, ed. Wilson H. Kimnach, vol. 10 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 3-258.
13. Edwards, “Free and Voluntary,” 495. Edwards’s quotations of Scripture are from the King James Version.
14. Edwards, “Free and Voluntary,” 495-96.
15. Ibid., 496.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid. His use of “wholly and entirely” seems designed to emphasize the point he is making.
20. See the discussion by David Capes, “Did Jesus Commit Suicide?,” accessed October 17, 2016, https://davidbcapes.com/2014/04/22/did-jesus-commit-suicide/. John Piper argues that Jesus did not commit suicide, sin did. “How Did God Make Evil Commit Suicide at the Cross?,” accessed October 17, 2016, http://www.desiring-god.org/interviews/how-did-god-make-evil-commit-suicide-at-the-cross.
21. Edwards, “Free and Voluntary,” 496-97.
22. Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will, ed. Paul Ramsey, vol. 1 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 399. This distinction between what God allows and what God causes is lost when, for example, John Piper asserts that God’s sovereignty is undermined when one says God did not cause calamity. “Why I Do Not Say, ‘God Did Not Cause the Calamity, but He Can Use It for Good,’ ” September 17, 2001, accessed November 3, 2016, http://www.desiring god.org/articles/why-i-do-not-say-god-did-not-cause-the-calamity-but-he-can-use-it-for-good. See also Piper, “Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained That Evil Be?,” July 1, 1998, accessed November 3, 2016, http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/is-god-less-glorious-because-he-ordained-that-evil-be. See also Andy Naselli, “How Could a Good God Allow Suffering and Evil?,” June 2009, accessed November 3, 2016, http://www.reformation21.org/articles/what-is-evil.php. Naselli claims, “God ordains and causes evil, but He cannot be blamed for it.”
23. Edwards, “Free and Voluntary,” 497.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., 498.
29. Ibid., 499.
30. For this extended discussion, see ibid., 499-501.
31. Ibid., 502.
32. Ibid., 502-3.
33. Ibid., 503.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid., 504-5.
36. Ibid., 505.
37. Ibid., 506.
38. Edwards unpacks Jesus’s experience in Gethsemane as evidence of his advance knowledge. Ibid., 506-8.
39. Ibid., 507.
40. Ibid., 508.
41. Ibid., 509.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid., 510. He discusses Peter’s sermon in Acts 2.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.
46. See also Acts 10:34-43; 13:26-33; 1 Cor. 2:6-8. The passion narratives in all four Gospels also attribute Christ’s death to the Jewish leaders and the Roman executioners, not to God the Father.
47. Ibid., 512.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid., 513.
50. Ibid., 514.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid., 496.
53. Jonathan Edwards, “The Excellency of Christ,” in Sermons and Discourses, 1734-1738, ed. M. X. Lesser, vol. 19 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 570.
54. Ibid., 576.
55. Ibid., 577-78.
56. Ibid., 578.
57. Ibid., 579.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid., 579-80.
60. Jonathan Edwards, “The Sacrifice of Christ Acceptable,” in Sermons and Discourses, 1723-1729, ed. Kenneth P. Minkema, vol. 14 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 447. He continues: “This put them in mind of the evil nature of sin and taught them the holy jealousy of God, and how that he would in no wise clear the guilty. And so this type and shadow, together with God’s declarations of his being a holy and jealous God that would in no wise clear the guilty, secured the honor of God’s jealousy and justice, and tended to bring off the sinner from a trust in his own righteousness. It taught him the strictness of the law, that sin must be suffered for notwithstanding all that he could do to make amends.”
61. Ibid., 452.
62. Jonathan Edwards, “East of Eden,” in Sermons and Discourses, 1730-1733, ed. Mark Valeri, vol. 17 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 346. The text of this sermon is Genesis 3:24.
63. Ibid., 340. Later Edwards calls this sword “vindictive justice” (p. 341), “God’s dreadful wrath” (p. 342), “God’s wrath and vindication” (p. 343), “God’s justice and vindictive wrath” (p. 347), and “God’s vengeance” (p. 348).
64. Jonathan Edwards, A History of the Work of Redemption, ed. John F. Smith, vol. 9 of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 330-31. This work “originated as a series of thirty lecture-sermons that Edwards preached to the church in Northampton between March and August 1739.” Smith, “Editor’s Introduction,” 5.
65. Edwards, “Free and Voluntary,” 496.
66. Richard J. Mouw, “Violence and the Atonement,” Books and Culture, January/February 2001, 9, accessed November 10, 2016, http://www.ctlibrary.com/bc/ 2001/janfeb/3.12.html. The language of Mark 15:34 is sometimes described as “the Father turned his face” from his Son. For a helpful critique of that phrase, see Ben Trigg, “Did the Father Turn His Face Away?,” May 8, 2011, accessed March 21, 2017, https://bentrigg.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/did-the-father-turn-his-face-away/.
67. Mouw, “Violence and the Atonement,” 9.