THE CRUCIFIXION

Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ

Fleming Rutledge

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.

© 2015 Fleming Rutledge

All rights reserved

Published 2015 by

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 /

P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rutledge, Fleming.

The crucifixion: understanding the death of Jesus Christ / Fleming Rutledge.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-8028-4732-4 (cloth: alk. paper)

1. Jesus Christ — Crucifixion. I. Title.

BT450.R88 2015

232.96′3 — dc23

2015010111

www.eerdmans.com

This book is dedicated

to those who did the most to help bring it into being:

Reginald E. Rutledge

servant of Christ

and my husband of fifty-six years

and

Wallace M. Alston, Jr.

who designed and directed the pastor-theologian program

at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton

from 1996 to 2007

and the resident scholars at CTI in 1997–98 and 2002

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1: The Crucifixion

1. The Primacy of the Cross

2. The Godlessness of the Cross

3. The Question of Justice

Bridge Chapter: Anselm Reconsidered for Our Time

4. The Gravity of Sin

Part 2: The Biblical Motifs

Introduction to Part 2: Motifs of the Crucifixion

5. The Passover and the Exodus

6. The Blood Sacrifice

7. Ransom and Redemption

8. The Great Assize

9. The Apocalyptic War: Christus Victor

10. The Descent into Hell

11. The Substitution

12. Recapitulation

Conclusion: Condemned into Redemption: The Rectification of the Ungodly

Bibliography

Index of Names

Index of Subjects

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Literature

Preface

Boso. I wish you would go further with me, and enable me to understand … the fitness of all those things which the catholic faith enjoins upon us with regard to Christ, if we hope to be saved; and how they avail for the salvation of man, and how God saves man by compassion.… Anselm. Now God help me, for you do not spare me in the least, nor consider the weakness of my skill, when you enjoin so great a work upon me. Yet I will attempt it … not trusting in myself but in God, and will do what I can with his help.

anselm of canterbury, Cur Deus Homo?

When someone asks me how long I have been working on this book, I usually say that I started it when, after twenty-one years, I retired from parish ministry—in other words, about eighteen years ago. In the truest sense, though, it has been the work of a lifetime. When I was about thirteen—that would be 1950—I was already beginning to wonder what it meant to say that Jesus died for the sin of the world. I knew the impassioned saying of Paul, that “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), but was not sure what that meant. Did Paul really intend to place the cross at the exclusive center of his message? What about the incarnation, the ministry of Jesus, and the ...