Should 'Christianity Today' Support 'The Passion'?

Now, Contending for the Faith. In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here’s this week’s question: “Dear Dave and Tom, Perhaps you two can sort something out for me. I picked up a copy of Christianity Today, and one article featured an enlarged quote by Mel Gibson. Since the article was favorable toward Mel, I assumed that the magazine was concurring with the quote. It stated, ‘In the old covenant, blood was required. In the new covenant, blood was required. Jesus could have pricked his finger, but he didn’t. He went all the way.’ I can understand Mel not recognizing that Jesus pricking his finger couldn’t save anyone given his Catholic beliefs, but it seems inexcusable for CT to give the impression that what he said was spiritually edifying. Or have I got this wrong?”

Tom: Dave, I went through Christianity Today—I’m just gathering research information, and so on. And I missed it the first time, but then, sometime later, going back and referring to the article, there it was—big, bold quotes! Now, as this person says, given Mel’s Catholic background, the idea of suffering, and paying blood, you know, he’s thinking about blood physically. But we know in the Scripture, blood refers to life. It’s Jesus’s life.

So the penalty is not just the spilling of a little blood, pricking a finger. So, why would Christianity Today endorse this, or promote it?

Dave: Well, Tom, Christianity Today has endorsed an awful lot. They’ve endorsed theistic evolution, they endorsed Sir John Marks Templeton, an occultist. The entire back cover was an ad for one of his books, which was basically saying that there is no heaven and no hell—this is in your mind, and it’s incredible what they’ve endorsed. But now, Tom, I did not read that article, and I want our listeners to know—and please, tell me, you read the article. Did you still get the impression that Christianity Today found no fault with this statement by Mel Gibson?

Tom: Not only on this issue, but a number of other issues. The articles were written by the—by David Neff, the editor of Christianity Today. And…

Dave: Who, by the way, would not accept an article from me. I was writing in defense of someone who had trashed me and John MacArthur, actually, for our views on Christian Psychology, and he would not accept our response, and you remember when we wrote The Seduction of Christianity, we had some pretty bad reactions in Christianity Today, as well. And again, they would not allow us to respond, and it seems like there’s a bit of prejudice—a bit high-handed to impose things on people…

Tom: Well, prejudice, bias, whatever term you want to use, one of the things that I point out is that, Dave, you know, I’ve been tracking Evangelicals and Catholics Together probably since the beginning. I’ve been at conferences, their conferences, in which I’ve attempted to address this personally. We’ve written to these individuals and so on. If you look at the signers—mostly evangelical signers—of Evangelicals and Catholics Together, you’ll find a number of them as contributing editors and so forth to Christianity Today.

So this is where their head and their heart is, based on what I’ve read. So, no, this is not—they’re not taking Mel to task for this; they’re going along with it.

But, Dave, what about this? What about—could Jesus have paid the penalty for our sins just simply by pricking His finger?

Dave: Of course not. The Scripture says, “Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.” We know what “shedding blood” means: “Whosoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” That means to kill someone. When you shed someone’s blood, that means you kill them. So Christ had to lay down His life for us. So every—you know what “Kosher” is—every drop of blood had to be drained. You do not eat the Passover lamb, for example, with any blood in it. It must all be drained out. This, of course, is a picture of our redemption: “The life of the flesh is in the blood.” Christ was raised from the dead without blood in His veins. If He had blood in His veins, He would be bleeding from five open wounds. He even said to Thomas, “Thrust your hand into my side, the wound in my side. Stick your finger into the nail prints in my hands and feet.” He lives in the power of an endless life, a new life. So the life of the old flesh, the old man, the old creation, was in the blood that coursed through the veins. That all had to be poured out so that there could be new life—resurrection life. And that is very clear from Scripture.

So for Mel to make that statement, it’s just pure ignorance. I don’t know that it has anything to do with Catholicism…

Tom: Well, it has a lot to do with Catholicism, Dave, because physical suffering has to do with expiating our sins.

Dave: Well, yeah, but pricking your finger is hardly suffering physically.

Tom: Right.

Dave: So to say that just a prick of the finger would do it, that doesn’t even make sense. But, Tom, it’s shocking. You see, what’s happening is the whole basis of our redemption, the whole basis of forgiveness of sin is being just turned around, and artistic license is being taken, and so forth. For example, Mel tried to make it look like Christ suffered more than anybody ever suffered. He was being beaten continually. No, Christ didn’t suffer more than anyone suffered. There were other people who hung on the cross for days. They turned you on a grill in the Inquisition. The Assyrians skinned you alive.

It wasn’t the physical sufferings, although that was in fulfillment of prophecy, and the physical sufferings were horrible. But it was that as He hung on the cross, God laid on Him our sins. He paid, as you said earlier, the spiritual penalty that His own infinite justice required. He paid that for the whole world, and that did not happen through the physical suffering.

Tom: Well, I think it’s important that, no matter what you think about the film, the gospel needs to be clarified, and I think not just for those who may come to Christ, but for believers as well, because I think we’re losing some of them.

Dave: Amen.

Tom: Christianity Today certainly is…