Continuing our study of Jurgen Moltmann's book The Crucified God - here Moltmann offers four streams of theological interpretation of the cross in Christian history. These are not meant to be exclusive of each other, but as examination of the significance that the cross has had for streams of theological thought, for communities, and most importantly, in the lives of individual believers in whom the cross of Jesus has become part of their reality.
"All of the societies of antiquity into which Christianity came were at heart religious, and at the heart of their social religions were the cults; (Note 1) and at the heart of the cults were the sacrifices to the gods of the state and the fellowship with them established at festivals... The church suppressed pagan sacrificial actions and cultic drama, but replaced them by its own cult. It radically altered the meaning of cultic sacrifice. The gods no longer had to be reconciled by men's sacrifices... It was the one God himself who by the sacrifice in the self-offering of Christ had reconciled sinful men to himself and provided the basis of their life by his grace, so that it was to him that thanks had to be offered for it, and to him it had to be consecrated." (42)
"The Christian cult of the sacrifice of Christ retains a manifold significance... the sacrifice of the mass and the eucharist are ambiguous. On one hand, the understanding of the mass as a sacrifice is based on biblical tradition, according to which it is the symbolic actual presence of the unique atoning sacrifice of Christ... But on the other hand the sacrificial death of Christ is thereby recognized as a divine, transcendent background for the cultic practice of the church, and as a result the unique, historical and eschatological event of the self-offering of Christ is absorbed into the cultic repetitions of the church, which are celebrated in a modified analogy to (the practice of) sacrifice in religions in general." (42-43)
"What is maintained and made a present reality by the continuous and repeated cult is that which in the cross on Golgotha seems to be of eternal significance: the divine value of the self-sacrifice of Christ for the relationship of God to man and of man to God, for grace and thanksgiving. What was unique, particular and scandalous in the death of Christ is not retained, but suppressed and destroyed. How did this come about, and how should it be regarded? 'His cross is not found in the intimacy of the individual, personal heart, nor in the sanctuary of a purely religious devotion. It is erected beyond these protected and separated precincts, 'outside' (the city), as the theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us. (Note 2) The curtain of the temple is torn forever.' (JM quoting J.B. Metz)" (43)
By his language, Moltmann seems to diminish the individual or ritual significance of the cross in the life of the believer. I take his intention to be an emphasis on the possibility that the adoption of the cross as (merely) a matter of personal or ritual significance diminishes (he uses the word "destroys") the fact of the cross as a singular, unprecedented and unrepeatable historic fact of world changing import. I believe his meaning becomes more evident as the discussion continues.
"But this means that basically the crucified Christ represents the end of the cult. He has died 'once for all', as Paul emphasizes. His death is not a sacrifice which can be repeated or transferred. He has finally risen from the death which he died once for all, as Paul emphasizes again, and 'will never die again' (Romans 6:9). He cannot be turned into an eternally dying and rising cultic god... It is true that the eucharist or the celebration of the Lord's supper recalls and makes present the death of Christ 'until he comes' (1 Corinthians 11:26), but in the form of 'proclamation', not in the form of the 'repetition' of Christ's death on the cross on Golgogha, which happened once for all, and the constantly repeated celebration of the hope which remembers him, to the point of using different terms. The unique historical nature of his death on the cross, outside religion and the temple, makes the identification of the crucified Christ with the cult impossible. The eschatological finality which associates the preaching of the resurrection with the one who was executed at a particular time and place makes it impossible for him to be part of cultic repetition, and both ultimately make the separation of cultic and profane in Christianity impossible, and demand the Christians should break down this separation." (44)
"Thus it is not enough simply to Christianize the cults of religious societies. It is not enough simply to 'do justice' in the theology of the cross to the sacrificial concept of comparative religion by accepting it in an analogical and modified way. Cultic religion must be replaced by the spreading of the word of the cross, the celebration of faith and the practical following of Jesus. The cultic division between the religious and the profane is potentially abolished in faith in the Christ who was profaned by crucifixion. Thus the eucharist, like the meals held by Jesus with 'sinners and publicans', must also be celebrated with the unrighteous, those who have no rights and the godless from the 'highways and hedges' of society, in all their profanity, and should no longer be limited, as a religious sacrifice, to the inner circle of the devout, to those who are members of the same denomination. The christian church can re-introduce the divisions between the religious and the profane and between those who are within and those who are without, only at the price of losing its own identity as the church of the crucified Christ." (44)
Notes:
(1) In the study of religious history, the word "cult" is a technical term for a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies and symbols. (dictionary.com) The usage does not connect with the other common definition of "cult" which would refer to a small or fringe religious group often with unusual, strange, or dangerous teachings.
(2) Hebrews 13:12-13 Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctity the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. So, let us go to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jurgen Moltmann. The Crucified God. 1974. Harper & Rowe, Publishers. (First Fortress Press edition published in 1993.)