Christ the Perfect Medium

Early one morning, a man finds himself stuck in Southern California traffic on his way in to work. He lives north of the city but drives to his downtown office every day. Every morning, he finds himself in the heart of rush hour traffic, surrounded by others who commute to their job from outside the city. On this morning, the highway looks more like a parking garage than a road. “Unbelievable!” the man exclaims. “I could walk faster than this!” This is what media ecologist Marshall McLuhan would call the reversal of new technology: When pushed to its limits, technology may revert to an older medium, or its user may wish for the older ways.

McLuhan argued that all technology is useful as an extension of the human body and that “all media are extensions of some human faculty—psychic or physical.” The telephone, for example, is an extension of the mouth, allowing the human voice to reach farther and wider than ever before. The automobile serves as an extension of the human foot—think Fred Flintstone’s anachronistic town of Bedrock where the cars have no bottom. Instead of pressing the gas, the driver uses his feet to propel the car forward, his legs doing all the work. The technological advancement of the automobile replaces the need for Fred to run while seated. The car has become an enhancement of the human foot, and the man stuck in traffic has greatly helped his commute to work by connecting his foot to the gas pedal of the car. While it may be true that he could walk faster than his car in the heavy early-morning traffic, the same man would likely not wish away his car altogether. The car has become far too valuable to his lifestyle. In the same manner that we can evaluate technology as an extension of the human body, so McLuhan argues that we can analyze technology by comparing it to prior technology.

In Understanding Media (1964), McLuhan suggests that we’re often so distracted by the medium’s message or content, we don’t question the influence of its medium. The solution is to evaluate the effects of the medium. McLuhan says he has found that “everything man makes and does, every process, every style, every artefact, every poem, song, painting, gimmick, gadget, theory, technology—every product of human effort—manifested the same four dimensions” or effects of the new medium. These four dimensions are important effects in relation to old media and technology. In Laws of Media: The New Science, McLuhan analyzes the four effects at length: New media and technology enhances, retrieves, reverses into, and obsolesces the old technology. This tetrad can expose new media’s unobserved qualities. Each of these effects must be evaluated in order to consider how new media is utilized and how it brings change to the modern world. Moreover, McLuhan writes, “The tetrad is exegesis on four levels, showing not the mythic, but the logos-structure of each artefact, and giving its four ‘parts’ as metaphor, or word.” Each technological advancement can be expressed as a medium through which the messages of enhancement, retrieval, reversal, and obsolescence are expressed. As his famous quip goes, “The medium is the message.”

Though the medium often functions as the message (and vice versa), there is but one example where the medium and the message are one and the same. God the Father sent his Son Jesus Christ both as the medium of his love for us and the message communicating his love; “in Jesus Christ, there is no distance or separation between the medium and the message: it is the one case where we can say that the medium and the message are fully one and the same.” The Son of God is the perfect medium expressing the perfect message, that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19 ESV). Since, as McLuhan recognizes, “Christ is the ultimate extension of man” and all technology is an extension of man, we can consider the tetradic effects of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. This, however, leads to the question: What is the old media or technology that Jesus Christ enhances, retrieves, reverses into, and obsolesces?

This essay will attempt to consider Christ’s tetradic effects as the perfect medium, with the old medium in question being the Old Testament sacrificial system. Whereas the way to make oneself right before God was once the old covenant sacrificial system, the new way is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. Although McLuhan may have first put to words to the tetrad, tetradic analysis of new media has been under way in some shape or form for years. Using Hebrews 10 as the source code, we will explore Jesus Christ as the new media and the tetradic effects of enhancement, retrieval, reversal, and obsolescence of the old media, the sacrificial system.

An Analysis of Tetradic Analysis

McLuhan’s tetrad of media effects seeks to answer the following questions: What does the new medium enhance in past media? What does the medium retrieve that was once made obsolete? In its extreme state, into what does the medium reverse, or what does it become? And finally, what does this new medium obsolesce going forward? Each of these complete tetrads “gives the etymology of its subject . . . and provides its anatomy in fourfold exegetical manner.” These effects have no chronological order deriving from each medium; all parts are simultaneous. Each effect, while equally present in every advancement, “may appear more readily in some tetrads than in others, [while some] suggest the need for a little more tuning.”

The tetrad can be dissected for any new form of media. It can reveal its effects in comparison with new media or as an extension of humanity. McLuhan offers the cigarette as an example of the latter: It enhances calm and poise while providing a burst of nicotine and giving smokers something to do with their hands. It retrieves a sense of community and ritual as a ritualistic and often communal activity. Look no further than the smoking section of any public place to see both group security and the ritual of smoking taking shape. It makes obsolete the feeling of awkwardness and loneliness, because smoking gives you something to do and is often done in groups.

While cigarettes may be a simple medium to analyze for its tetrad, we can see how all four effects are upheld in even the most complex medium. Hebrews 10 reveals how Jesus: (1) enhances the role of priest in his sacrificial work by his payment for sins once for all; (2) retrieves the foretold new covenant and christological prophecies from the old covenant; (3) when rejected, reverses into the old covenant sacrificial system that demanded an unattainable perfection; and finally, (4) obsolesces the need for daily sacrifices in order to be right before God.

“A Single Sacrifice for Sins”: Christ’s Enhancement of the Priestly Sacrifice

The first of Jesus’ effects of the old covenant sacrificial system shown is enhancement (Heb. 10:1–4; 11–14). Christ enhances the old covenant priest in two ways: Christ’s qualifications are better, and his functions are better. Although this study is mostly limited to Hebrews 10, Christ’s better qualifications are clear throughout the book. Jesus’ personal holiness is greater than that of the previous priests for he is the Son of God, “holy, innocent, unstained . . . made perfect forever” (Heb. 7:26–28). Jesus enhances the priestly sacrifice because of his better functions, which are twofold: Christ’s sacrifice for cleansing, and Christ’s intercession at the right hand of God.

First, Christ’s sacrifice enhances the priestly idea of cleansing. Priests continually had to enter the temple and make sacrifice offerings to cleanse the people of their sins. This system, however, was fatally flawed. Its repetitive nature showed that no animal sacrifice could truly cleanse the people. These sacrifices were ultimately doomed because “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (10:4). However, Jesus Christ is a perfect priest, one with the capability to “make perfect” the people (10:1). He brings the perfect sacrifice, his own sinless body. The author tells us later in the chapter that by Christ’s single sacrifice, “he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (10:14). Our guilt has been expunged; our debt has been paid. Jesus serves a better function in that his one sacrifice atones for all the sins of those he represents. Christ’s sacrifice accomplished what the sacrifices of the priests were incapable of doing: truly taking away sins (10:11).

Second, we are told that “when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God” (10:12). Christ is a better intercessor than the high priests. High priests could enter the Most Holy Place in the temple, but no high priest was able to sit at the Father’s right hand. Only the perfect, greater high priest could do that: Jesus remains at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us forever. The previous intercessors were human priests, but now we are represented by the God-man. Christ is the last necessary sin offering because he has won ultimate forgiveness.

“The Covenant That I will Make with Them”: Christ’s Retrieval of Prophecy

Christ does more than just enhance the priestly sacrifice; his coming was foretold throughout the old covenant itself. In this, his coming is a kind of retrieval. Hebrews 10 quotes from the Old Testament to reveal how Jesus Christ recovers these prophecies. In retrieval, we understand that the new will inherently point back to the old. More than just pointing to the old, the new draws out an aspect of the old. McLuhan argues that “older clichés are retrieved . . . as archetypal nostalgia figures with transformed meaning in relation to the new ground.” Using Old Testament quotes in relation to Christ serves as retrieval, transforming the original meaning via the New Testament’s lens.

First, the law contains a shadow of the good things to come. Jesus Christ retrieves the shadow the law contained, as he is that good thing. John Owen writes, “For [Jesus] himself firstly, principally, and evidently, was the subject of all promises; and whatever else is contained in them is but that whereof, in his person, office, and grace, he is the author and cause.” Moreover, Owen argues, the law itself pointed to a coming Messiah. The standard to which the law held Israel is retrieved as Christ perfectly obeys the law on our behalf. We could never keep it; we needed someone to keep it for us.

Second, in this letter, we see the writer’s retrieval of prophecy concerning Christ through Old Testament passages. Hebrews 10 pulls quotations from a number of passages such as Psalm 40, 110, Jeremiah 31, and Isaiah 26. Some of these are explicit prophecies: Jeremiah 31 tells of the coming time when God would make a new covenant with his people, writing his laws on their hearts.

Perhaps the most interesting utilization, however, is Psalm 40. The English translation usually renders Psalm 40:6, “In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear.” This is, however, an interpretation of a Hebrew idiom. A literal reading of the masoretic text (MT) would say, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire; ears you dug for me.” The LXX (the Septuagint), with which the author of Hebrews was likely working, changes this phrase slightly by translating the verb כרה, “to dig,” as κατηρτίσω, “to prepare.” In Hebrews 10:5, the writer therefore understands the psalm this way: “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me.” The phrase in the MT “ears you have dug for me” is taken by both the translators of the LXX and the writer of Hebrews to indicate that a person’s body has been prepared upon whom the sins of the world would be borne. This interpretation, what Karen Jobes refers to as “paranomasia,” is an intentional misquote used to draw the audience’s attention. The author of Hebrews is intentionally calling to mind a psalm that may not have been understood as christological to show how the sacrificial system points to Christ. Whereas a literal translation of Psalm 40 in the MT shows the limitations of the sacrificial system to declare one right before God, the book of Hebrews uses it to show that Jesus is the one who fulfills it. God desires a “dug ear,” but he has prepared a body to bear the sins of the world.

Finally, Jesus Christ retrieves the underlying truth of the sacrificial system. These sacrifices stood in place to represent reparation between God and humanity, but the sacrificial killing of an animal could never change a heart. These sacrifices were ultimately insufficient to save, but were “for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah.” The very sacrifices offered under the old covenant pointed to a coming Messiah, in whom the people of Israel “had full remission of sins and eternal salvation.” Jesus as media not only retrieves prophecy concerning himself, but he also calls to mind the ultimate hope of the sacrifices offered by the priests. The elect of the Old Testament did not rely on sacrificed animals for true forgiveness but “drank from the same spiritual rock”: Christ himself.

“No Longer Remains a Sacrifice for Sins”: When Rejected, Christ’s Reversal

Not only does Jesus enhance and retrieve aspects of the old media (that is, the old covenant sacrificial system), but he also rejects it, reversing the new media into the old. This process of reversal can be better explained through a proper understanding of a figure-ground relationship. In all new media, the figure or medium must operate through and must relate to its ground or context. Reversal deals with ground: When a medium is pushed to its limits by its context, how will the ground (or in this case, the audience hearing Christ) respond? When rejected or pressed to an extreme, what does the media produce or become? Although this reversal may be difficult to observe, we can see it in Hebrews 10:26–29 where Christ provides the full assurance of faith. There are those who don’t accept that full assurance can be provided via a once-for-all work. They receive “the knowledge of the truth” yet go on sinning deliberately (10:26). For them, there no longer remains a sacrifice of sins. Instead, this trampling underfoot of the Son of God leads to a reversal where Jesus and his blood serve as judge. A further consideration of Hebrews 10:26–29 follows.

The letter to the Hebrews is notable for its warnings against apostasy: Be careful not to drift away from what you have heard; do not “neglect such a great salvation” (2:2). Those who have “tasted the goodness of the word of God” and then fallen away, turning back to an old religion of dead works, cannot be restored to repentance (6:5). Possibly feeling outside pressure, the original Hebrew audience may have been tempted to turn back to the faith practices of their forefathers. This would be a grave mistake: Those who receive “the knowledge of the truth” yet turn away reject the sacrifice for sins that Christ offers and can expect nothing but fearful judgment. When Christ’s sacrifice is rejected in favor of keeping the law of Moses, Christ reverses into the law of Moses itself. The law of Moses held all to perfect obedience, and any failure resulted in death without mercy (10:28). If someone rejects Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice of sins, they trample underfoot the Son of God and will face much worse punishment. This rejection of Christ leads to reversal of new media into the older, where strict judgment awaits.

McLuhan emphasizes this point: The reversal of new media is most seen when the current media system faces an inbreaking of another, older system. Reading Christ’s sacrificial system as the new, “one of the most common causes of breaks in any [new] system is the cross-fertilization with another system.” This break spawns a reversal that cannot be undone. Similarly, when the system of Christ for salvation—acquired by “receiving the knowledge of the truth” (10:26)—is broken, cross-fertilized by a desire to save oneself through the law of Moses, then the Son of God is rejected, blasphemed. The sacrifice of Christ reverses into terrible judgment. “How much worse punishment,” the author of Hebrews asks, “will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God?” (10:29). The author warns his audience that allowing or even desiring a cross-fertilization of the law of Moses into the pure law of Christ will cause the reversal of new media into the condemning, righteous judgment upheld in the old. Similarly, Owen is helpful here: To the one who has received knowledge of the truth but goes on sinning deliberately, “that is, obstinately, maliciously, and with despite . . . and do it by and with the preference of another way of religion before or above the gospel,” they are now without such a sacrifice of Christ, it has reversed. There is no longer a sacrifice for sins but rather a just judgment. This reversal of Christ “is a fearful thing” (10:31).

“A Reminder of Sins Every Year”: Christ’s Obsolescence of Old Covenant Sacrifice

As we consider the final point of McLuhan’s tetrad, it must be asked: What does Christ displace or render obsolete? When we consider Jesus Christ as the sacrifice once for all, we see that he obsolesced the law’s sacrificial system by doing the Father’s will and serving as our sacrifice; “he does away with the first in order to establish the second” (10:9). Whereas the people of Israel had earlier adhered to an extensive sacrificial system, they could now look to Christ. Hebrews quotes the psalmist who says that God has “neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings (these are offered according to the law)” (quoted in Heb. 10:8). This sacrificial system under the law is no longer necessary, for now we are sanctified by a single offering: “the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (10:10).

A wonderful example of this obsolescence can be seen in the author’s extended metaphor in 10:19–23. Jesus’ blood has granted us access to the holy places the old covenant had prohibited sinners to go. The old covenant temple was constructed in such a way that the further one entered, the more holy the area was. The most holy places could only be entered by the high priest one day a year when sacrifice would be made for the sins of the people. However, Christ’s sacrifice renders obsolete the old sacrificial system and its prohibitions. Our new intermediary is not a priest who enters places we can’t, but Christ’s flesh, pierced for us so that we can enter the holy places without a human priest. In Jesus, we have confidence to enter the holy places via his once-for-all sacrifice—the only sacrifice with the power to take away sins. We are no longer left with a system that serves as a “reminder of sins every year” (10:4), but now we see the cross, the reminder of Jesus’ payment of sins.

Much of the book of Hebrews can be seen as an exhortation to the original audience to stay the course, not to turn back to their previous ways and religious rites (Lev. 5:10). Different sacrifices stood in place for different offenses, with the ultimate goal being a repaired relationship between sinners and their Lord. As already discussed, this priestly system could never take away sins; it could never truly repair the relationship between God and humanity. The very nature of the repetitive priestly system showed its flaws; the same sacrifices were “continually offered every year” because no sacrifice was truly sufficient (10:1). The author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice, once for all for sins. This doubles as a warning: Do not turn back to what can never truly save.

In this manner, each effect of the tetrad is fully visible at the same time. Jesus enhanced the priestly sacrifice while rendering obsolete the old system. The old system ultimately served as an arrow pointing toward the true and perfect sacrifice, Jesus Christ; Jesus retrieved these prophecies about him. However, the author of Hebrews issues a stern warning—do not turn back to the old system. Doing so would cause Jesus’ self-sacrifice to reverse into the assurance of coming judgment for that person. If one clings to the work of Jesus for salvation, then there is no need to fear. He has made obsolete the old system, granting us confidence to enter the holy places through his once-for-all shedding of blood. Our confident access to God is based on Christ’s saving work (10:35).

“The Audience, as Ground”: Conclusion

As posed by McLuhan’s book Laws of Media (1988), a tetrad is a way of understanding new media and its effects—which are fourfold and simultaneous. New media through any medium enhances, retrieves, reverses into, and obsolesces old media in some way. This can also be aided in a proper understanding of a figure-ground relationship through which the medium is seen through its context or the ground. An important part of understanding this concept, McLuhan argues, is that “the audience, as ground, shapes and controls” a new medium. Jesus the Christ can be seen as the ultimate fulfillment of the tetrad, in which his audience is the ground and the old medium with which he interacts is the old covenant sacrificial system. Through careful study of Hebrews 10 and its portrayal of Jesus, we can see how the Son of Man completed every part of the tetrad. In sending God’s Son as the perfect medium, God reveals how Jesus enhances the role of priest in his sacrificial work, how he retrieves the foretold new covenant and christological prophecies found in the old covenant, and when rejected, it reverses into the old covenant sacrificial system and obsolesces the need for daily sacrifices. The perfect man, Jesus, perfectly fulfills the tetrad of media effects.