Is the claim "We were not in existence on this earth when Jesus finished the work on the tree" substantiated by scripture or tradition? One of the lynchpins of this theological reasoning is that Christ was the ‘lamb slain from the foundation of the world’, that is, Jesus is perceived as having wrought some sort of sacrificial atoning work in God’s own self, prior to creation or even incarnation. The problem here is that if one asserts that then one must also reckon with the fact that economies of exchange have been imported into the doctrine of God from the start. In order for this atonement to have occurred ‘prior to creation’ within God’ self, then there must have been sacrificer and sacrificed. This justifies the advocates of PSA and thus makes no sense why FW (Finished Works) people would reject PSA; it is already implicitly there when they speak of Christ’s ‘work’ being finished prior to creation or incarnation.
Let’s take a closer look at the phrase ‘from the foundation of the world.’
John 17: 20-16 indicates that Christian unity is the unity found by accepting God’s verdict that we are all persecutors and that we stand under the love shown to us in the cross of Christ. This is indicated in two ways, first in the use of ‘doxazo’ (to glorify) which we have seen refers to the glory revealed in Jesus’ suffering and second in the phrase ‘katabole kosmou’ (vs 24). It has two potential meanings which are not necessarily mutually exclusive. ‘Katabole kosmou’ can mean from the ‘creation/foundation of the world’ the created reality or nature) or from the ‘false creation of the world’ (the foundation of human culture). The phrase occurs in Matthew 13.35 (as an LXX quote from Psalm 78.2), and again in Mt 25.34, Lk 11.50, Jn 17.24, Eph 1.4, Heb. 4.3 and 9.26, I Peter 1.20, Rev 13.8 and 17.8. It is foreign only to the genuine Pauline letters. The translation of ‘katabole kosmou’ will depend upon whether or not we see the ‘kosmou’ as referring to the created order or to the ‘order’ which we have created in victimage. In most cases, the ‘katabole kosmou’ refers to the founding myth of Genesis 3-4. There are two foundings, the founding or creation of God and the founding of human culture. The Johannine use of ‘kosmos’ seems to us to indicate that it is the origins of the sacrificial mechanism that is in view, particularly when we take into account the use of ‘doxazo.’ Thus ‘katabole kosmou’ in the Fourth Gospel should be understood as ‘the foundation of human culture.’
As ‘the lamb slain before the foundation of the world’ Jesus is the archetype of all victims, this is particularly true of Matt 25.34 and Luke 11.50 in the Synoptic tradition as well as Eph 1.4, I Peter 1.20 and the references in Revelation. There is no unity apart from the victim, the only question is whether that unity is unity against or with the victim. In the Johannine prayer of John 17, the unity that obtains between the Jesus and the Father is the unity given to the believers, to those who have ‘believed Jesus ‘logos’ (message). The purpose of this unity is so that the ‘kosmos’ might believe that the Father has sent the Son (17.21). Somewhere it is has been pointed out that on the road to Damascus, Jesus does not ask the apostle Paul, ‘Saul, Saul, why don’t you believe in me?’ but rather ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ It is our persecutorial or retaliatory tendency (our ‘original sin’) that is queried. Faith arises when we recognize our place as persecutors, as those who unjustly victimize and repent and take the side of the victim, thus breaking the false unity of the victimage mechanism. As long as those in Rome or Geneva or Plano, Texas insist on marginalizing others in the name of Jesus they will not bear witness to the Lamb slain from the ‘katabole kosmou’ but to the sacrificial myth and thus will never experience the unity found in the Trinity.
The point of this study is to indicate that the phrase ‘katabole kosmou’ does not refer to some pre-history before Genesis 1:1, but is a reference to the duplex of texts Genesis 3 and 4. FW proponents have erred in assuming that the work of Christ was ‘finished’ prior to space, time and history. In the Gospels, there is a real threat, a very real possibility that Jesus could go over to the dark side, to the use of retributive violence. Orthodox theology at this point makes the observation that ‘risk’ is a theological category. Jesus could have blown it on any number of occasions by giving in to the test: use violence to achieve objectives. FW advocates have a docetic Jesus: one who already in eternity past has done everything so his appearance on earth was to go through the motions and give us true information about our mislaid identities. In this theology, revelation or gnostic knowledge saves. This will always be its bane.
“Foundation of the world” is taken by Finished Works aficionados to refer to creation, and election occurs before creation (supralapsarianism). But what if instead of translating ‘katabole kosmou’ as ‘creation of the world’ we translated it as ‘the founding of human culture?’ There is a specific Greek word for ‘creation’ (ktisis). ‘Kosmos’ as a term for the broken reality of our existence can be found in the Gospel of John. The ‘kosmos’ is humanly constructed reality, it is how we live and think and believe and act. It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
In this reading, “the lamb slain before the foundation of human culture” suggests an implicit reference to Abel’s murder in Genesis 4. Has not Girard demonstrated that human culture originates in ritual sacrifice? Clear as bells he did. Andrew McKenna puts it this way, “In the beginning was…the weapon.” Jesus articulated this line of thought also in Matthew 23 by noting that the Jewish “canon” was bookended by murder.
Looks like there is a political hidden message in this: "Faith arises when we recognize our place as persecutors, as those who unjustly victimize and repent and take the side of the victim, thus breaking the false unity of the victimage mechanism. As long as those in Rome or Geneva or Plano, Texas insist on marginalizing others in the name of Jesus they will not bear witness to the Lamb slain from the ‘katabole kosmou’ but to the sacrificial myth and thus will never experience the unity found in the Trinity."
Why do we specifically point out Plano, TX?
Jesus was a victor and not a victim.
Whatever your stance, don't put your political view in it.
Posted by: Loan Tran | October 19, 2018 at 09:28 AM
Changing the meaning of this particular verse doesn’t circumvent the metaphysical paradox of an eternal being participating in temporal reality. There was never a time when God was without the knowledge of his creation. God’s knowledge is his being. Changing the interpretations of this verse does not change this reality. It also seems that the concept in question is the meaning of the word kosmos rather than katabole, and the meaning of kosmos is not ambiguous, and to my knowledge cannot be read as “human culture.” The deeper problem I see arises from the attempt to distance God’s economy from his being. I tend to lean the other way and see the cross not as the one time God shared in the suffering of humanity, but the one act that reveals he has shared our suffering all along.
Posted by: Mattlarimer | October 16, 2018 at 07:10 AM