Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

In Mark’s gospel Jesus concludes this complex of interpretation with an eschatological outlook: “Truly I tell you: I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the [reign] of God” (Mark 14:25). Here again Jesus utters a prophecy of his death: from now on he will drink no more wine, certainly not the wine of the Passover meal, because he will be killed. But the death prophecy is not the whole of the matter. Jesus points toward the great banquet of the end time as described, for example, in Isaiah 25:6-8. When that meal takes place, death will be destroyed forever. The shroud of sorrow that covers all the nations will be torn asunder. All disgrace will be removed from Israel (Isa 25:7-8). But above all, on that day God will finally and forever be shown to be king (Isa 24:23). The reign of God will dawn in its perfection, in all its fullness. With this eschatological outlook Mark concludes Jesus’ last meal.

Since there is no serious reason to regard Mark’s presentation of the Last Supper as a scribal construction by the early communities (who, after all, would have had the chutzpah to make up such a story about Jesus?), and since the tradition about the Last Supper that Paul cites in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 agrees in essential points with Mark 14:22-24, we may say that this is how Jesus celebrated his last meal, and this is how he understood it.

Thus at the end of his life Jesus performs a last and crucial sign-action. He does so in face of his approaching death. It interprets that death, but at the same time it is the sum and climax of earlier sign-actions. It reaches back to the constitution of the Twelve, because Jesus celebrates the Passover meal with the group of the Twelve. But it also refers back to the preceding entry into the city and the action in the temple. Jesus had made himself known as the Messiah of Israel and as the one who was entitled to submit even the temple to the rule of God. He was thinking of the eschatological temple, which would be altogether holy and altogether fitting for God. Now, in his words of interpretation over the cup, he makes his own life and death the place of atonement for Israel (and thus also for the nations). In this way, of course, the concept of the temple is redefined and placed in a new frame of reference. Its innermost center is no longer the many sacrifices, but the one sacrifice of life, Jesus’ surrender of his own life. He himself is the new and final “place” of atonement.

This is so bold, even outrageous, that a great many New Testament scholars simply deny that Jesus had any idea of atonement, not only in celebrating his last meal, but altogether. They still grant him an eschatological outlook in his last meal, but not the interpretation of his approaching death as an atoning action on behalf of Israel. The questions thus raised are so fundamental to an understanding of what Jesus wanted that we must devote an entire chapter to them.

Chapter 16

Dying for Israel

Skepticism and inability to understand the idea of atonement are widespread, not only in society, but also in many church circles.¹ At least in Germany the word “atonement” does not appear in newer prayers and hymn texts. We may say there is resistance to any formulation that alludes to atonement. This is connected, first of all, with the fact that the word “atonement” has become narrower and narrower in meaning. It was always a component of legal language, but in the medieval period Old High German suona and Middle High German suone acquired, besides the meaning “recompense,” the additional nuances of “judgment,” “contract,” “settlement,” “compensation,” “conciliatory ending of a legal conflict,” “making peace,” and even “forgiveness.”² Of this originally broad spectrum of meanings there remained, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, only the means by which a debt was paid. Atonement thus came to mean the punishment imposed by a judge so that the crime committed by the offender may be compensated for.

Modern people don’t like such things. They don’t want criminals to atone for their crimes, but instead that they be improved and resocialized or, if that is impossible, that the general public be protected from them. If they hear “atonement” in a theological context they connect it with the specter of a cruel God who is profoundly offended, mercilessly demands the payment due him, and can only be appeased by an infinite atonement. That, or something like it, is what many people imagine as “atonement” in a Christian context, and they turn away with a shudder.

A Jesus without Atonement