Some thoughts on Jesus' death in Colossians

Colossians 1:20 and 1:22

Jesus' death is mentioned in both Colossians 1:20 and 1:21-22:

• 1:20: and through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of the cross of him.
• 1:21-22: and you once having been alienated and enemies in the mind by evil works, yet now he reconciled in the body of the flesh of him through his death to present you holy and blameless and without reproach before him.

I want to argue that what it is about Jesus' death that atones or "does the work" is Jesus' obedience and not necessarily Jesus as an animal-like sacrifice.

The first argument pertains to the structure of 1:21-22:

• 21a and you once  ------  22a yet now
• 21b having been alienated and enemies in the mind ------ 21b he reconciled
• 21c by/in evil works ------ 22c by/in the body of the flesh of him through his death

The structure of verses 21 and 22 suggests that the counterpart to the evil works is the good work of Jesus' death on the cross.  This goes along the same tracks as Romans 5:12-21, where the sin of Adam is countered by the righteous act of Jesus.  Nothing in Colossians 1:22c points to Jesus as animal-like sacrifice.  One might point to the word "present" later in verse 22 and claim that this pertains to the sacrifical system, but this is not necessary because the word "present" could be a legal concept just as much as a cultic one.  The connection to Romans 5 is instructive because some of the very words in 1:22 occur in Romans 5:10 and in Romans 5:7 we have a likely reference to martyrdom (for rarely will anyone die for a righteous man--though perhaps for a good man someone might dare to die).  Also, on my website I claim that in Romans 5:1 we have a reference to the faithfulness of Jesus.  The important thing is that an act of martyrdom or a righteous act can reap benefits for others without it being an animal-like sacrifice.  Also, the focus of the description in Colossians 1:22 does not invoke the language we would expect if an animal-like sacrifice is meant ("blood" for example).

This brings me to Colossians 1:20, which does mention blood.  However, there is no reason to assume that an animal-like sacrifice is meant.  "Blood" could just be an example of metonymy (as "Hollywood" would be a stand-in for the movie business).  "Blood" could still be a reference to Jesus' obedience and could even pertain  to the "war" Jesus waged against the forces of evil (see Colossians 2:14-15).  "Blood" elsewhere in the Scripture can refer to death and not animal-like sacrifice (see Genesis 9:6 for a famous example).

It's true that Paul does not spell out the mechanism of atonement in Colossians but he tends to use language of incorporation which is not the language of animal-like sacrifice (see Colossians 2:11-12 as just one example).