Christopher D. Marshall, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001, 342 pages.
Reviewed by Wayne Northey
In 1965, noted New Testament scholar C.F.D. Moule published an article
in a little known Swedish academic journal. Entitled “Punishment and
Retribution: An Attempt to Delimit Their Scope in New Testament
Thought”, he began with this observation: “It is likely, I know, that
many readers – perhaps most – will find themselves in disagreement with
the radical thesis I am about to present. But my hope is that time will
not have been wasted – whatever the conclusions reached – because the
thesis leads us in any case to ponder, once more, the very heart of the
Gospel.” He continued with a terse summary of his conclusions: “What I
offer for your consideration is the thesis that the word ‘punishment’
and other words related to it (especially ‘retribution’) have, if used
in their strictly correct sense, no legitimate place in the Christian
vocabulary.
His
article argued that in New Testament witness vengeance is at God’s
initiative (Romans 12:19) – and is never the Christian’s prerogative
personally, nor to will for the state. But even from God’s perspective,
if God “… has willed the dire consequences that ensue on sin, it does
not necessarily follow that he has willed them retributively,
punitively. It may be that he has willed them as the only way of doing
justice to the freedom and responsibility of the human personality, as
he has created it.”
Thirty-six years later, New Testament scholar Chris Marshall has
published a book-length study with similar conclusions. There has been
nothing like it in the interval.
The study is wide-ranging. Section one, “Introduction”, considers
various Christian sources of moral guidance; early Christian witness
from the “underside” (“they write as, to, and on behalf of the victims
of abusive state power (p. 16)”); how Christian faith speaks to the
public arena (neither “directly and legalistically to the machinery of
the state” nor “irrelevant to wider social issues (p. 31).”) Marshall
states that his “main intention is to survey a broad range of New
Testament texts pertinent to the subject of crime and punishment in
order to ascertain the extent to which they reflect what might be
called a vision of restorative justice (p. 32).” As to the contour of
that vision, “My premise is that the first Christians experienced in
Christ and lived out in their faith communities an understanding of
justice as a power that heals, restores, and reconciles rather than
hurts, punishes, and kills, and that this reality ought to shape and
direct a Christian contribution to the criminal justice debate today
(p. 33).”
In the second part Marshall considers “The Arena of Saving Justice”,
with a look at Paul and Jesus, seeing in Paul Justice As the Heart of
the Gospel, Divine Justice as Restorative Justice, Justification by
Faith as Restorative Justice, and the work of Christ (atonement) as
Redemptive Solidarity, Not Penal Substitution. With this last heading
Marshall challenges directly the longstanding dominance of atonement as
“satisfaction” and “penal substitution”, both retributive constructs,
which historian Timothy Gorringe in a study of the impact of such
understanding upon the development of western criminal law declares to
be a “mysticism of pain which promises redemption to those who pay in
blood (God’s Just Vengeance)”. Marshall writes: “The logic of the cross
actually confounds the principle of retributive justice, for salvation
is achieved not by the offender compensating for his crimes by
suffering, but by the victim, the one offended against, suffering
vicariously on behalf of the offended – a radical inversion of the lex
talionis (pp. 65 & 66).” Finally, he sees Jesus as embodiment of
God’s justice, and his way as non-retaliation.
In the third Section, “Punishment That Fits”, Marshall looks at the
Purpose and Ethics of Punishment, and after discussing all the main
theories considers the notion of “Restorative Punishment”, which he
believes is Punishment as the Pain of Taking Responsibility.
With the fourth Section, “Vengeance is Mine”, Marshall looks at divine
and human justice, including the issue of “Final Punishment”, the
doctrine of hell. His overall conclusion is, “Restoration, not
retribution, is the hallmark of God’s justice and is God’s final word
in history (p. 199).” In the Preface to Larry Dixon’s recent The Other
Side of the Good News: Confronting the Contemporary Challenges to
Jesus’ Teachings on Hell, theologian J. I. Packer suggests that eternal
conscious punishment of unbelievers, as argued in Dixon’s book, is the
only biblical view allowed. Marshall begs to differ, stating “For our
purposes, the point to notice is that God’s final word is not
retribution but restoration… (p. 197)” Of hell itself, based on the
biblical material, he says: “Maybe a humble agnosticism is the wisest
option (p. 196).”
The fifth Section, “Justice That Kills”, spends fifty pages on the
issue of capital punishment. It should be no surprise that Marshall
finds no biblical mandate for the death penalty. “Capital punishment is
incompatible with a gospel of redemption and reconciliation (p. 253).”,
he sums up.
The final Section, “Conclusion”, presents Forgiveness as the
Consummation of Justice. Marshall discusses the South African Truth and
Reconciliation Commission headed by Bishop Desmond Tutu as illustrative
of the attempt at a political application of forgiveness. He quotes
Tutu saying, “[W]ithout forgiveness, there is no future (p. 283).” This
is also argued persuasively in Donald Shriver’s AN ETHIC FOR ENEMIES:
Forgiveness in Politics. “Forgive and forget” gives way to “Remember,
forgive, and be free.”
The book is well written, cogently argued, and widely researched. (Few
key books are left out of discussion, such as Shriver’s noted just
above. Another is Sister Helen Prejean’s Dead Man Walking.) In the
words of a reviewer on the back cover (Graham N. Stanton), “There is no
comparable discussion [anywhere].”
Richard Hays in The Moral Vision of the New Testament (Harper, 1996)
states that tradition, reason, and experience throughout history have
prevented biblical Christians from living out the radical nonviolence
of the Gospel. Chris Marshall has pointed the way of such a biblical
reading in response to crime and justice. Will biblical Christians rise to the challenge, or settle as so often for sub-biblical, even
non-biblical views about retribution? This book stands as direct
challenge to embrace a justice “beyond retribution” “that manifests
God’s redemptive work of making all things new (p. 284).”