For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.
—Saint Paul
At the heart of the universe is the shocking love of the blessed Trinity, a love that bears all injustice and Great Sadness to reach us, that we may taste and feel and know the trinitarian life. Note these beautiful words from three theologians—one from the ancient Church, one from the Reformation, and one from our own day:
… our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through his transcendent love, become what we are, that he might bring us to be even what he is himself.1
This is the wonderful exchange which, out of his measureless benevolence, he has made with us; that, becoming Son of man with us, he has made us sons of God with him; that, by his descent to earth, he has prepared an ascent to heaven for us; that, by taking on our mortality, he has conferred his immortality upon us; that, accepting our weakness, he has strengthened us by his power; that, receiving our poverty unto himself, he has transferred his wealth to us; that, taking the weight of our iniquity upon himself (which oppressed us), he has clothed us with his righteousness.2
The prime purpose of the incarnation, in the love of God, is to lift us up into a life of communion, of participation in the very triune life of God.3
Each of these theologians set forward the meaning of the apostle Paul’s famous comment: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.”4
Each of these quotations describes a “wonderful exchange”5 between Jesus and the human race. For the apostle, the One who was rich before all worlds became poor in order to exchange his eternal wealth with our poverty. For Irenaeus, the Son of God became what we are to bring us to be what he is in himself. For Calvin, Jesus became one with us to make us sons and daughters with himself, and to share with us his own immortality, strength, wealth, and righteousness. For Torrance, the Father’s Son became incarnate to give us a share in the very triune life of God. Here recall Young’s Jesus: “I came to give you Life to the fullest. My life” (182).
In the words of the apostle Paul, Irenaeus, Calvin, and Torrance, we see that the life and death of Jesus Christ are about a wonderful exchange in which all that we are in our sin and pain and shame is taken into Jesus, and all that he is in his life with his Father and Spirit is given to us. “For he assumes the poverty of my flesh, that I may assume the richness of his Godhead.”6 Jesus is the place where the two worlds meet. At the heart of this exchange is the submission of Jesus, and indeed of the Father and the Holy Spirit, to us in our darkness. “Genuine relationships are marked by submission even when your choices are not helpful or healthy,” says Jesus in The Shack (147). Mackenzie, like all who hear this news, was astonished:
“Why would the God of the universe want to be submitted to me?”
“Because we want you to join us in our circle of relationship. I don’t want slaves to my will; I want brothers and sisters who will share life with me.” (147–48)
Here our thoughts must move in multiple directions at once. First, in drinking the dregs of the cup of our abuse, Jesus truly entered into Adam’s world and into our terrifying mythology and its pain. He saw through our eyes. He identified with us in our hurt and brokenness in the most profound and personal way. It is here in the bowels of our trauma, not by mere observation or extrinsic command but by personal experience of our rejection, that Jesus became our merciful and faithful High Priest,7 able to meet us in every form of human hurt. What aspect of our personal hell has Jesus not experienced? What shame or abuse, what betrayal, rejection, or condemnation has he not suffered? What snide whisper has he not heard? Is there a single stone in our gnarled and traumatic existence that Jesus Christ left unturned?8
This is important. Think about it. We don’t need a priest to twist the Father’s arm, for the Father is for us forever. As Jesus said, his Father loves the world and judges no one.9 We do, however, desperately need a God who knows, a God who has been there, who has suffered, bled, and died in the foxhole of human pain, a God who can identify with us in the trauma of living, who can speak to us from personal experience, and One who knows how to meet us where we are in our terrifying mythology. “Only pierced hands are gentle enough to touch some wounds.”10 “The Bible directs man to God’s powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help.”11
Jesus learned through the things he suffered, through loud crying and tears.12 It is this Jesus, the Father’s Son incarnate, crucified and resurrected, who is our Savior, our Brother, our High Priest, and our Salvation. “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”13 “For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”14
Second, in suffering our rejection Jesus became our representative and substitute in the depths of our unfaithfulness. As the one in and through and by and for whom all things were created and are sustained, Jesus already had a relationship with us; in submitting to our condemnation he established this relationship with us in the trenches of Adam’s fall, putting himself in the place of sinners, the one for the many. And in our place, Jesus filled the covenant relationship with his own love for his Father, so that at the heart of our rebellion now stands the faith and faithfulness of Jesus himself.
The question “Where are you?”15 asked by the Lord in Eden, echoes from Adam through Israel’s history without answer. In Jesus, “Where are you?” is answered fully, personally, completely: “I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”16 “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”17
Our contribution to the new covenant was summed up in the treachery of Caiaphas, the high priest who presided over the trial of Jesus. Jesus was causing a stir, and the priests feared that “the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” Addressing the council, Caiaphas said, “You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.”18 As a shrewd political move, Caiaphas and the priests sacrificed Jesus to save their place. But it was an unwitting move of dramatic irony, which became the occasion of infinite grace. For in sacrificing Jesus, Caiaphas became the only high priest in Israel’s long history to actually do his job: he offered up the one, true Sacrifice—though he never knew it, and did it for the wrong reason.
As Jesus humbly gave himself to the murderous intrigue of the religious and political machine, he formed a new covenant in the deepest, darkest pit of our treachery, bringing his faithfulness into our disobedience, replacing our hiding and fear and religion with his fellowship with his Father, and filling our rebellion with his love for his Father. Our hypocrisy became the place and the means whereby the new covenant relationship between the Lord, Israel, and the whole human race was cut into flesh-and-blood existence and filled with Jesus himself—and all that he is with his Father and the Holy Spirit.
Third, in dying in the terror of our hostility, Jesus made his way inside the cosmic headquarters of the domain of evil. “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”19 “Since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”20 Evil has its stronghold in our doubt as to God’s goodness, and thus in our fear of separation from God. In believing the lie, we are irretrievably trapped in its confusion, pain, and projecting mythology. As Jesus bowed to be condemned by us, he suffered fully from our terrified faith in the lie of separation, and from the traumatic world of darkness that lie had engendered.
Despised, abused, and beaten to a pulp, Jesus experienced the shame and humiliation of our rejection. Therein he followed the trail of the lie through our darkness to the original sin and “the schemes of the devil”21 behind it. In the words of one writer, “God ‘defeats’ evil not by ruthlessly punishing guilty parties, but by faithfully untwisting every step of false response with true submission to the Father’s will.”22 At each step of Jesus’ life inside our darkness, the father of lies found himself face-to-face with Jesus’ undiluted trust in the love and goodness of his Father and the power of the Spirit. The victory of Jesus over the evil one was not by command, or by angelic warfare, but by willing submission to us and our evil, and to the will of his Father:
Did not the Lord cast himself into the eternal gulf of evil yawning between the children and the Father…. Did he not foil and slay evil by letting all the waves and billows of its horrid sea break upon him, go over him, and die without rebound—spend their rage, fall defeated, and cease?23
In allowing himself to be banished by us into the abyss of evil’s shame, Jesus pitched his tent in the stronghold of evil, faced the strong man, bound him, and plundered his house.24 Herein lies the new exodus, for Jesus “condemned sin in the flesh,” “disarmed the rulers and authorities,” and “led captive a host of captives.”25
In the genius of the blessed Trinity, our cruel rejection of Jesus became the way of our adoption; our bitter abuse became the way of the Father’s embrace and the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. For how could our unfaithfulness and contempt and treachery, or the enslaving lie of the evil one, or death itself break the love and oneness and life of the blessed Trinity? In dying at our hands, Jesus brought his life into our death, his relationship with his Father into our miserable destitution, his anointing by the Holy Spirit into our despair. Out of his boundless love “he was dishonored that he might glorify us,”26 and “he endured our insolence that we might inherit immortality.”27 Suffering our abuse to give us grace, he met our cruelty with his kindness, our rejection with his mercy, and our dead religion with his joy; he exchanged our world with his, transforming the shack of Adam’s fall into the house of his Father and the temple of the Holy Spirit.
In a variation on Saint Paul’s great statement we might say, “For you know the stunning grace of the Father’s Son: that though he was rich in the shared life of the blessed Trinity, yet for our sake he became poor, suffering our wrath to meet us, and that now through his suffering we who were so poor have been included in Jesus’ own rich relationship with his Father in the Spirit.”