In light of a series on the Atonement that I have been following on another site (http://drmsh.com/dr-johnson-responds-questions-atonement-discussion/) and Philip Augustine’s recent reposting of a piece by Geoffrey Sales, whom we all miss, I thought it might be good to revisit this post by Rob, who is also much missed. I very much empathise with Rob’s concerns shared in this post about evangelism and one’s own understanding of the character of God.
The cross is meaningless to those who are perishing. Christ crucified is a stumbling block for Jews and foolishness to Gentiles but to us who are being saved it’s the power and wisdom of God seen in Jesus Christ. In this manner of redeeming us God’s foolishness proves wiser and His weakness stronger than we can conceive. I began in faith simply knowing God gave Jesus for me and that believing I would experience His life.
However as time moved on there was an underlying disturbance in my soul over the explanation I was receiving of how Christ was given for me. The picture emerged gradually that Jesus agonising death on the cross was in order for God the Father to punish Him for my sins so that I could be released from the punishment I deserved.
Love for Christ was the response whenever I considered His suffering, but accompanied with…
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All Along the Watchtower 
If one agrees with the following it is fundamental to the love that God has for these human creatures that were made in His image and likeness. What a lofty goal and life we have been given that is second only to the Triune God itself.
“Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.
The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in attaining the end for which he is created.
Hence, man is to make use of them in as far as they help him in the attainment of his end, and he must rid himself of them in as far as they prove a hindrance to him.
Therefore, we must make ourselves indifferent to all created things, as far as we are allowed free choice and are not under any prohibition. Consequently, as far as we are concerned, we should not prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, a long life to a short life. The same holds for all other things.
Our one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are created.”
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When Rob originally wrote this post, I was against it. Part of me still is – but there is also a large part that says there is something wrong in the way that (some) evangelicals present the Gospel. Our Romans Road format and similar things do not look like the Gospel proclamations we see in Acts – and that worries me.
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I think of Acts as the first book of the history of the Church and its subsequent development. Then we read the Early fathers etc. on to the writings of our Pope’s and accepted theologians of the Church. I wouldn’t expect the Church to remain in a static state. It is a living thing; the Bride of Christ, the Mystical Body of Christ. And we are meant to be a member of it and to nourish it and guide it through history. We don’t do such a good job but the Holy Spirit still seems to ensure that this trust given us by Christ will not be in vain. We will work out our salvation in fear and trembling as we have no choice. God gave us this task and it is irrevocable. So are we doing the best we can? No. But will the teachings of Christ be persevered until the end of human history? Yes.
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Luke 21:33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
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I didn’t reread the comments on Rob’s original article so we may have covered this. Jesus was tortured and killed for our sins. OK, fine. But there is more to that story. God is a rational being, our Father, we say. Our earthly father’s punished us when we were children to correct us, this doesn’t apply to Jesus, who was without sin (presumably, although I would like to hear from Joseph on this. 🙂
But I can see where Rob is coming from here and it does seem a bit vindictive, punishing someone else for humanity’s sins. But it is not exactly correct, either.
Jesus is the Triune God, as well. What we have here is God Himself, in his earthly guise (I guess will do) taking on his own being our sins, not pawning it off on someone else. How many of our fathers would have willingly paid for our transgressions against others – indeed – how many did, monetarily if not in other ways?
For me, it puts a different light on the subject.
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Yes, and I always remind myself that Christ willingly suffered: it wasn’t like a natural man who is held down and can’t do anything about it – He could have called on angels instantly to stop the Romans and the chief priests. I get God saying: “I hate sin; this is what sin deserves” and demonstrating that to us. It’s the link between that aspect and the forgiveness that is confusing. Maybe that is where your Trinity point comes in, because it would seem pretty immoral if a human said, “I’ll only forgive you if I get to punish someone else.” It’s the forgiveness being conditional on the Cross that makes things confusing.
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Well God instructed the OT Church extensively on vicarious sacrifices (the substitute for our own destruction). The innocent victim, the shedding of blood were all necessary for the incalculable sin of turning away from Our Father Whose image and likeness is in ourselves. These sacrificial lambs of God did not have that in them. It is also what murder of another man is so heinous a crime; for we bear the likeness of God. We are, in a smaller way, killing God by doing so. All of our sins against one another are sins against God for the same reason. So if we are to have a meaningful substitute for that which demands, by justice complete annihilation, God’s mercy allows a substitute sacrifice that is of the same value as the one who was wronged; God Himself. In a way, we share in this death of Christ, and He foresaw this when through Adam’s sin He saw fit that men should suffer in the this life and then die. It has no redemptive value unless you tie it to the death of Christ and then rise with Him as the scriptures say.
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Well, the Levitical system is quite problematic for a lot of this stuff, and I was searching through Leviticus last night in my insomnia trying to understand the problem. A lot of the sacrifices are not for what we would call sins: they are for things unintentionally done and for things that have no moral dimension to them – like touching a corpse. The sacrifice in those cases is to purify humans so that they can be in sacred space with God – for God to be in the presence of death, that was a big no-no, and the pagans knew that too – see the end of Euripides’ “Hippoytus” when Artemis says she cannot watch Hippolytus die. So in Leviticus we get sacrifices for where there is an actus reus, but no mens rea. Where mens rea is present, generally there is no sacrifice, only restitution or death – by stoning.
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Then one must also look at the development that God is making through these prefigurations or themes. But all themes are not alike. I speak of that which has to do with death and life not of the development of the special requirements of the priestly caste of Levites. Although that is a good topic to follow and rather instructive as well.
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Remember too that a lot of the rules in the Olt Testament have as much to do with (a very enlightened) public health code as anything else. That’s part of why so many of them have been set aside, not always to our benefit.
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Yes, that would be immoral. But it is not immoral to give one’s life to save others, it is in fact, heroic.
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Also, everybody is concerned because of the Father allowing this. Christ too (true God and true Man) is a person of God. He desired to do what He did and it was the Will of the Father as well and the Holy Spirit Who would be sent to us once He ascended back into Heaven. What a gift. Christ desired it . . . He did not do because He was ordered to. He knew the Father’s Will and His Will was the same as it is for all of those who make it to Heaven.
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Yes.
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Yes it gets back to the penal substitution debate. Did Christ have to die in substitution of our sins? Was it a fair trade so to speak? Was there another measure that could have satisfied God’s wrath? Did God have to do it all along? Was it’s God’s plan all along?
Of course various theologians of all different traditions have attempted to answer that it was necessary, as I believe St. Athanasius makes this case, St Anselm says it was sufficient as God was satisfied, and St. Thomas Aquinas asserting that it wasn’t necessary but fitting. Of course theologians up to this day are still debating penal substitution/ransom theory.
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I do think it is important for the reason Rob says in his post: how it comes across to outsiders in evangelism. I am not arguing that we should sweeten the message to make it palatable, but equally we must not present God as a monster.
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It was all prefigured from throughout Jewish history. Christ turned death into life and vicarious sacrifice from shedding of both body and blood into an unbloody sacrifice of bread and wine. I agree with St. Thomas; it was fitting. Yet it also was unmerited by us and thus Christians ought continually to praise and reverence Our Lord who deemed us worthy of dying for the expiation of our sins. And through one man we all merited death, through one man we all gain eternal life.
“O happy fault,
O necessary sin of Adam
which gained for us
so great a Redeemer!” __ from Mass at the beginning of the Easter Vigil
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I’ve always thought that Jesus’s sacrifice was the fulfillment of Abraham’s directed substitution of a ram for Isaac. Only time in history that God (or any god) substituted His First Born for man.
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That was one of the most startling and straight forward prefigurements indeed. But there are more and the history of the theme is fascinating as my old friend Msgr. Hamburger wrote in his little book: The Lamb of God Theme. I covered most of that in some posts I did on it a few years back.
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I remember them, although I should reread them. Yes, but it is amazing how few seem to realize that. One of NEO’s Easter posts (don’t remember which of us wrote it) talked about that, and the comments were startling.
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Hard for me to remember NEO. I can’t even remember what I ate for dinner last night. 🙂
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How well I know that feeling! 🙂
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🙂
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Interestingly, I’ve been reading On Christian Doctrine by St. Augustine in which he asserts that everything in the Canon, which he does list the books that Luther threw out btw, must be read in respect to God’s love. So when it comes to literal vs. figurative he argues that if the literal indicates that God is a monster then you’ve misinterpreted the passage.
It’s interesting to go back, especially in debate with Atheist, and look at stories like Jericho or any part of the conquest, which at this point archaeologists claim didn’t happen; however, by Augustine’s thesis, we might have already needed to render the events null at any rate. Historically speaking, ancient peoples did write propaganda prices to say, “My tribe is better than your tribe,” Egyptians were famous for this, and some historians believe that this is what events in Joshua should be seen as, whether I agree or not I don’t know but Augustine certainly adds to the debate.
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I should also add that Augustine qualifies his position with a long exegesis on loving and using things. Of course, he mentions Christ asserting the most important command “to love God with all your heart.” In this respect, he articulates his thesis that how we act is to be ordered rightly within the for loving God for his sake alone. Naturally we cannot do this with worldly things as we would make them idols. However, he qualifies that we should “use” (not in the modern sense, but use in love or charity) or love others and things as a means to obtain the eternal which is only thing that can fully suffice our restlessness. To love such things as people, material objects, vices: power, lust, sloth, greed etc. for their sake is make them equal to God and does not grant us peace.
It’s a fairly short treatise for Augustine and worth the read.
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