The problem with this video is all at the end with the idea that the principle of the atonement is Christ accepting punishment for us rather than offering satisfaction for us, that the means by which the Gospel is proclaimed is scripture rather than the Church, and that one should read scripture and then find a ‘church’. That said, the frankness of the teaching concerning man’s sinfulness and the indispensable mediation of Christ and necessity of faith in Him is refreshing.
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Laodicea
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February 1, 2011 at 12:50 am
Looked up the website, seeing as how it was all mentioned so unassumingly there at the end, and it’s Ray Comfort’s school of evangelism. Very clear on ‘law’ but ‘gospel’ somewhat lacking, as the atonement is not one or the other, but both.
February 1, 2011 at 9:25 pm
Might you expand on that interesting statement? (About the the law and the gospel and the atonement…)
February 4, 2011 at 12:54 am
Law – the side the video emphasises is sins of commission – fine and good, although not so clear on complete inability to do good
Gospel – two problems. One, as you say, it mentions punishment but not satisfaction. To give a complete account of the atonement it has to involve both propitiation and expiation. To give a complete account of the Saviour’s substitutionary work it has to involve both his working out the perfect righteousness which justice demands and his suffering the penalty demanded by offended justice.
Two – not convinced about the description of how a sinner comes to be put in possession of the salvation Christ provides. “[Eternal life] is God’s gift to everyone who will humble themselves and come to Jesus. He’ll forgive you, wash you clean, and give you a new heart…” (round about 4:16). So which comes first, you humbling yourself, or you being given a new heart? faith, or regeneration?
Read a book by Ray Comfort several years ago – his thesis is perfectly sound – people don’t/won’t/can’t appreciate the “good news” unless they first understand the “bad news”. So start by proving that each one is guilty of breaking the 10 Commandments. Fair enough, but it’s still not the good news unless there is a properly rounded understanding of the atonement *and* of how a sinner can ever come into possession of Christ’s salvation.
February 4, 2011 at 2:10 am
Hmmm…I do not agree that man can do no good without grace. That is, not every act he performs without grace is a sin. On the other hand I agree that without grace no act he performs is acceptable to God. It may be inoffensive in itself but done for an inadequate reason. This is because without grace he cannot love God above all things for His own sake and unless that is the motive of man’s actions they are not acceptable. I’m not sure its all that easy for someone who does not believe to understand that so I’m not sure its a point I would make in initial evangelisation. I know when I was converted I was greatly impressed by the vast number of individual sins I committed each day I’m not sure I would have understood that even my acts good in themselves were not ordered to God and so unacceptable. Or at least that point would have been less comprehensible and might have confused me and distracted me from the more obvious fact of my repeated individual sins.
I don’t think I would say Christ suffers the punishment due to sin. He satisfies for all sin by undergoing part of the punishment due to sin (temporal suffering and death) while innocent and perfect. In doing so He satisfies for our sins long before He would need to endure all the punishment due. In fact, insofar as the due punishment is everlasting punishment I do not see how it can be exhausted vicariously in that way. In fact it is not obvious to me how vicarious punishment as opposed to satisfaction would be just.
I think we disagree on another point in that I think actions of man without living faith can be caused by a grace that does not in itself justify. But that is probably more technical.
February 5, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Well but then there is a fundamental disagreement about the nature of the problem of sin. Fair enough, don’t make things too complicated in evangelism, although whatever simplifications are made still better be consistent with the truth you’re evanglising people *to*. People sin because they are sinners. Post-Fall, sin is what characterises us, is our nature. (Don’t quite follow how acts performed without grace can be both “not a sin” and “not acceptable to God.”) The problem of sin is not merely a long series of commissions and omissions [although granted this is often the most salient fact in people’s experience], but a state of enmity against God. => The salvation we need is rescue from that state, not just help to produce less sins.
An information question: if the punishment due to sin is everlasting punishment, and if everlasting punishment is not endured vicariously, is the punishment for sin ever carried out, in your view?
Everlasting punishment can be exhausted vicariously by an infinite Person.
February 5, 2011 at 5:53 pm
If you accept the distinction between actual sins of omission and commission on the one hand and a state of emnity with God on the other then presumably you accept that a person could perform an act which is not in any of its elements sinful but which on account of that state remains unacceptable to God? Obviously one can’t be a complete nominalist about this, so what is it in the act that manifests the state of emnity between that person and God? It seems to be it is that he does not undertake the act out of a love of God above all things. Now I agree that it is vitally important in evangelisation to communicate the state of emnity that exists between God and all men who have to received His forgiveness but I don’t think it is necessary to stress the (albeit true) technicality that nothing the person does is ever acceptable to God. That follows straightforwardly enough from the premise but is the sort of consequence people tie themselves in knots trying to deny distracting themselves from the main point.
Your use of the term nature seems unhelpful to me because a nature as such is created by God and thus cannot be sinful. Though considered as constituting a body of which Adam is the head it obviously participates in his forfeiture of grace and so is sinful in this sense.
It seems to me that in the face of sin there are two possibilities to make satisfaction or to endure punishment. Satisfaction can be made vicariously punishment cannot. It seems that the way you phrase it would either entail that Christ still suffers or is indistinguishable from satisfaction. As it happens the way in which He made satisfaction was by assuming our condition and the infirmity it now involves and in the course of manifesting His infinite charity as God suffering the revolt of sinful man. Thus, materially He shared in man’s punishment but this was not the principle of the redemption which was accomplished by satisfying charity.
February 9, 2011 at 12:29 am
Yes, re first para – ‘Works done by unregenerate men, although for the matter of them they may be things which God commands, and of good use both to themselves and others, yet, because they proceed not from a heart purified by faith, nor are done in a right manner according to the Word, nor to a right end, the glory of God, they are therefore sinful, and cannot please God, or make a man meet to receive grace from God.’ On whether to stress it or not – a judgment call to some extent, so not going to quibble any further
Also yes re nature – sinful not in itself but since the fall.
By satisfaction I’ve been assuming you mean perfect obedience etc?
Both are needed – fulfilling what the law requires and undergoing the punishment that the broken law requires. Even once the sinner’s substitute fulfils all righteousness for them, there is still the problem of the penalty due to them for breaking the law in the first place. If you don’t admit vicarious punishment then the sinner himself must undergo his own punishment.
Redemption satisfies justice, fundamentally. At the same time of course the propitiation of God’s wrath was the provision of his love. So the scheme of redemption was devised by love, so to speak, but it was justice that was offended and needed satisfaction.
February 11, 2011 at 10:23 pm
On the first point I still think it is necessary to make the distinction between the state of emnity with God and the specific acts which would establish that emnity if it did not exist and those which would not. When the unrepentant sinner pats his dog he does not sin though he does so in a state of emnity with God. This is important for many reasons not least the necessary exercise of consciously rejecting specifically sinful acts in order to repent of them is obstructed by the failure to make this distinction.
Again human nature as such even now remains good and not sinful. It is nature qua received from Adam and therefore as united in a juridical person with him that comes into this world at emnity with God.
On the last point, I think perhaps we are not using the same words to mean the same things. As I understand it sin creates the need for either satisfaction or punishment. Satisfaction consists in the doing of some good thing that outweighs the gravity of the offense. Punishment consists in the enduring of an evil which equals it. Satisfaction can be made vicariously punishment cannot. Christ made Himself capable of making satisfaction for us by assuming our nature. This entailed assuming in part our penal condition. But this was a hypothetical necessity for the accomplishment of the infinite and atoning act of satisfaction (His perfect human life in the face of persecution, suffering and death) upon our behalf not the direct means of atonement itself. The persecution, suffering and death were necessary to render that life supererogatory and so meritorious they would not be valuable in themselves. It was the charity which was valuable. I agree that the atonement was made to the Divine Justice.
February 13, 2011 at 1:17 am
On Point 2, i think we’re agreed – at any rate i don’t object to anything you’ve said, unless you see a difference of opinion i’m not aware of
Point 1 – if a state of enmity did not exist – that’s too hypothetical for me – the situation which we have to deal with is one where the state of enmity is a given. Patting a dog is not itself sinful but that pales into insignificance beside the fact of the sinner’s state of enmity against God. No matter that while in that state of enmity, you can do things which are not themselves sinful, the state itself is something to repent of.
Point 3 – ok, we do mean different things. The starting point is what justice demands, namely perfect obedience to the law, and death for breaking the law. I had assumed you meant satisfaction as ‘rendering perfect obedience to the law’, but obviously that was mistaken. As for punishment – no need to speculate about what the punishment for sin is, because it is specifically stated to be death. The soul that sins shall die. The day thou eatest, dying thou shalt die. The wages of sin is death. If Christ was to act vicariously for the salvation of sinners at all, this had to involve both rendering perfect obedience on their behalf and also suffering the death due to them for breaking the law.
February 18, 2011 at 3:00 am
Point 2 – I agree that the state itself is something to repent of but I still think that it is necessary to specifically repent of acts which would generate emnity with God. I suppose, as you think grace cannot be forfeited you do not think there is any act that a justified person might perform that could forfeit it? It is difficult for me to understand how one can repent of the state other than as a disposition to certain acts. Otherwise what is this state why does it provoke God’s emnity and how can I repent of it (rather than treat it with a bewildered regret or uncomprehending denial)? Genuine repentance of that emnity seems to be rendered impossible if one cannot distinguish the sort of acts which would generate such emnity and those which would not.
Point 3 – But presumably you accept that the principal meaning of the threat of death was spiritual death (the loss of grace) and physical death was secondary otherwise why were not the soul and body of Adam and Eve separated that very day? Why, otherwise, does Jesus deny that some of those who are physically dead are indeed dead?
If mere physical death is the only just punishment for sin why are sinners punished with damnation (unjustly?)? If damnation is just punishment and if it is the vicarious suffering of punishment that atones (and not the offering of a supererogatory and surpassing good act) why did Christ (may He pardon the hypothetical blasphemy) not enter and remain in the hell of the damned?
If obedience in itself satisfies rather than supererogatory obedience why would Christ have needed to suffer?
February 19, 2011 at 1:50 am
It is indeed necessary to repent of specific sins, as well as the enmity itself. But this state of enmity is never *not* part of our experience – after the fall, for every human being descended from Adam by ordinary generation, there is never a time when this state of enmity does not exist. You seem to imply that this enmity doesn’t come about until someone commits some specific sinful act, but it’s the other way round – our specific sinful acts proceed from our state of sinfulness. (We’re not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners.)
As for what this state is – the state into which we fell, ie a state of sin and misery. The sinfulness of our state consists in the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the lack of original righteousness, and the corruption of our whole nature, which is commonly called Original Sin. It should be repented of in the same way as any specific sin – by having (to paraphrase) such a sight and sense of the filthiness and odiousness of our sin, as to grieve for and hate it in such a way that we turn from it to God. Not just, stop me from committing specific acts of sin, but, Create in me a clean heart, renew a right spirit within me.
Commonly as far as I understand there is a distinction between spiritual death (loss of communion with God), physical death (separation of soul and body), and eternal death (separation of soul&body from God’s favourable presence eternally). When Adam and Eve sinned, they experienced spiritual death instantly, physical death later, and the jury is out on eternal death but some people hope they ended up with eternal life and let’s not get distracted by this, but just to say that not all the worst possible effects of their sin were visited on them there and then.
It’s not mere physical death which is the just punishment for sin, but eternal death, which I suppose is what you’re calling damnation. This is only just. What is necessary for atonement is both the perfect obedience demanded by the law, and the suffering of the punishment demanded by the broken law, and Christ fulfilled both. Not that he suffered eternally, or that he went to what you call the hell of the damned, but that on the cross, in his own soul he underwent whatever is meant (everything that is meant) by the death due for sin, and then declared, It is finished. It’s a problem of justice: if a sinner’s substitute provides only a perfect righteousness on their behalf, how are they going to render what is due to justice for their breaking of the law? Does the sinner with a vicariously wrought righteousness still need to bear the penalty of their own past sin, or do the truth and justice of God deny themselves so that the penalty is never met? But the sinner’s substitute bore the chastisement of their peace, and by his stripes they are healed – he both lived the life and died the death that justice demands.
As for the last question – not sure I follow. He suffered as the sin-bearer. The law only demands obedience – there is no question of suffering unless sin is involved. The question is really, why would Christ need to suffer if you deny vicarious punishment?
February 20, 2011 at 2:46 am
I certainly do not mean that human beings born since Adam have to do something to place themselves in this state of enmity with God. They are certainly conceived in it and they will not be redeemed from it without the application to them of the merits of Christ. But its blameworthyness in their case is confirmed by their actual sins and unless and until they commit actual sins they will not suffer positive punishment for this state though they will forfeit heaven. The state is manifested to them by their inability to obey the law written on their hearts and without knowing what acts materially constitute disobedience and which do not they would not perceive this inability.
When you say “As for what this state is – the state into which we fell, ie a state of sin and misery. The sinfulness of our state consists in the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the lack of original righteousness, and the corruption of our whole nature, which is commonly called Original Sin.” you assert the equivalence of various technical expressions without explaining them by reference to some non-technical terminology. I would say Original righteousness was the capacity to avoid sin and that we discover the absence of this capacity because of our actual sins.
You seem to contradict yourself on the atonement because you say that eternal punishment is due to sin, that Christ suffered all the punishment due to sin, but that Christ did not suffer eternal punishment. I would say that punishment is incommunicable but that one can perform an act that satisfies for the offence for which punishment was due and so take the punishment away. But that satisfactory act must be supererogatory. Obedience in man is not supererogatory as such, but suffering is supererogatory if man is innocent. Thus the endurance of suffering (at the hands of other creatures) as a consequence of obedience to God in the innocent is satisfactory. In the case of Christ it is infinitely satisfactory because He is a Divine Person of infinite dignity, He deserves to suffer nothing and yet suffers, and He suffers death which is the destruction of the (in His case only juridical not natural) human person. Thus His sufferings are superabundant and sufficient to save all (not that all will be saved). On the first count alone (His infinite dignity as a Divine Person) a single drop of His blood suffices to save the entire world. Thus Christ’s sufferings were necessary to render His obedience supererogatory but not to exhaust the justice of God. The justice of God cannot be exhausted because it is infinite, but the love of Christ is also infinite and when rendered satisfactory by His assumption of human nature and supererogatory by His endurance of suffering in that nature Christ’s Love satisfies His Justice.
February 23, 2011 at 1:09 am
Ok, am relieved that people are conceived in a state of enmity with God (or rather, that we agree on it). Yet this state itself is blameworthy regardless of what kind of or how many actual sins a person commits. The state of enmity is itself culpable – it’s sin to be at enmity with God – it’s not just an inability to obey the law, but an attitude or position of hatred, rebellion, antagonism, rejection of God. This needs to be repented of as well as specific actual sins.
Original Righteousness includes not only the capacity to avoid sin but positive holiness – made after the image of God in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness.
On atonement – I only meant that Christ did not suffer in an eternal duration, although he suffered all the punishment due to sin, and eternal punishment is due to sin. – Ie, as far as finite creatures are concerned, the punishment due to their sin lasts to all eternity because (in part) this is the only way that finite beings can experience the punishment due to their sin against infinite God. Whatever the punishment consists of, it was borne by Christ in its entirety, in time. In this way, the infinite justice of God was indeed satisfied – it’s not only possible but necessary for the infinite justice of God to be satisfied.
The concept of supererogation is a problem. A perfect righteousness is exactly what the law demands: the law demands exactly what it must, no less and no more. (… the righteousness which God’s righteousness requires him to require.) For an innocent being to suffer is unjust – only the guilty are liable to suffering or punishment. The only way that someone who is personally innocent can justly undergo punishment is if they are standing in the legal place of the guilty, ie in some legal way made liable for someone else’s guilt. In which case, they remain personally innocent but are guilty by imputation. (Sin ‘on’ him but not ‘in’ him.)
February 26, 2011 at 4:09 am
An evil state is an evil state because it disposes one to evil acts. I can understand no other sense in which a state could be said to be evil. Rejection of God is an evil act. A state disposing one to reject God is an evil state. Positive holiness bestows upon its recipient the power to avoid sin. Not only this but still this.
We would consider a very great good done for the offended party on behalf of the offending party by a third party potentially to justify the waiving of the punishment due to the offender. We would not consider the application of the punishment due to the offender to a third party to be just or atoning. We would consider the acceptance of such an exchange on the part of the offended party or a judge to bring into question the justice of that judge. Why do you think this is different with God?
The concept of supererogation is also familiar to us from the voice of conscience and of the Lord “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” The Lord calls upon us to imitate the gratuitous love of His Father. How can we do that unless grace makes supererogation possible to us?
St Paul presents this as the essence of the atonement and by imitation of the Christian life. “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
March 1, 2011 at 1:44 am
Re what we would consider – in both cases, it just depends. You can think of various considerations which would make it completely wrong for a third party to waive the punishment due to an offender. On the other hand, there are circumstances where it could be just for the guilty party’s punishment to be tranferred to a third party – eg if a court fines a guilty party, and someone else steps in to pay the fine on their behalf. That third party would be personally guiltless but by their own consent would bear the penalty due for the crime committed – as long as the fine was paid, justice would be done.
This is more or less what happens in the atonement. God made Christ (who knew no sin) to be made sin for us, so that we (who knew no righteousness) might be made the righteousness of God in him. 1 Corinthians somewhere. The counter-imputations of sin and righteousness are really the essence of the atonement – Isaiah 53, eg. Providing the judge is prepared to accept one acting vicariously for others, which he is, and providing the one acting vicariously is doing so voluntarily, which he is, there is no need to call in question the justice of the judge. Instead both justice is done (the penalty is borne) and truth of God’s threatening is borne out (he will by no means clear the guilty) and love can reach its object (those who are righteous with Christ’s righteousness).
I don’t see how loving your enemies is an instance of supererogation, and my conscience doesn’t ever tell me such a thing! Loving your enemies isn’t *more* than what the law requires, it simply *is* what the law requires. Similarly I don’t see where you’re going with imitating God’s love? Are you meant to be assisted by grace to love someone more than God does, or more than he requires of you? When you have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do. Even our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. In me there dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
March 1, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Your example of a fine is extremely apposite but not for the reason you suggest. A fine is both a proportionate good and a punishment endured. The reason it is transferable is because it is the former. If a third party were merely to endure the punishment (to burn, for example, the relevant sum of money) and not to pay it to the court then vicarious satisfaction would not occur. In the same way Christ both undergoes the punishment due to sin and offers a proportionate good but it is the latter that accomplishes the atonement.
If loving one’s enemies is not supererogatory why does the Lord say ‘you have heard that it was said’ a formula He elsewhere uses exclusively for the requirements of the law?
It is of course not supererogatory in the sense that Christ requires it of us and we are bought and paid for. But it is supererogatory in the sense that He has made us innocent by His blood.
March 1, 2011 at 11:52 pm
? Confused now. I thought you were saying Christ *doesn’t* undergo the punishment due to sin?
Loving your enemies – yes, this is a requirement of the law. How does that make it supererogatory?
March 2, 2011 at 1:30 am
The ‘form of a slave’ ending in death is (part of) the punishment due to sin. In assuming our nature the Lord assumed the form of a slave and so underwent (part of) that punishment. But this was a necessary means to the accomplishment of the atonement it is not what accomplished the atonement because punishment is not transferable and the full punishment due to sin is anyway unending. It is His offering of a proportionate (in fact, infinitely superabundant) good in satisfaction (His infinite merits) which accomplished the atonement. Supererogation is required for merit. Christ’s innocence meant that He in justice deserved to suffer nothing and so all He suffered in fulfillment of the law was supererogatory and because He is a Divine Person of infinite dignity it was infinitely supererogatory and meritorious.
Five times in succession Christ says ‘you have heard that it was said’ and each time the thing that was said was from the law. The fifth time He says “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'” It would seem strange if this was an exception to the other four. Likewise in Luke 10 the lawyer asks Jesus “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” and Jesus refers him to the law and then pronounces his answer adequate “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.” But when he asks Jesus “who is my neighbour”the Lord does not send him back to the law but instructs him anew with the parable of the Good Samaritan. This seems to confirm the implication of the Sermon on the Mount that the instruction to love one’s enemies is not contained in the law.
March 9, 2011 at 1:45 am
So this leaves you with the problem that God’s justice is never satisfied, according to your view. You say that punishment is not transferable, but scripture says guilt and consequent punishment are not only transferable but that this transfer did in fact take place – that Christ bore the sins of his people and suffered the death due to them.
You still have a problem with justice when you say that Christ suffered although he did not deserve to. The only way that Christ’s sufferings can be consistent with justice is that he suffered as the sin-bearer – the concept of supererogation can’t compensate for the injustice of the innocent suffering.
Re loving your enemies – ok, I see where you’re going now, I think. But in Matt 5, he is explaining how he does not contradict or destroy the law, but fulfils it. Nothing he says here is particularly new, except in the sense of recovering and elaborating the intended sense of the law from what the pharisees had added or restricted. Loving your neighbour was a requirement under the Old Testament and the OT contains various examples of saints loving their enemies – David’s treatment of Saul, in Psalm 35 fasting, praying, and mourning for the afflictions that came on the enemy, and the requirement in Prov 24, Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, etc. Similarly the parable of the good Samaritan was hardly a novel concept, but just an exposure of the folly of the lawyer who wanted to ‘justify himself’ by wriggling out of what he should have known the law demanded.
It simply isn’t possible to do more than what God requires of us. Partly because the law requires total devotion, doesn’t leave anything unasked for, and partly because we are in any case still sinners, with sin tainting everything we do. The concept of supererogation just isn’t scriptural, and only muddies the water when it comes to the question of the atonement.
March 9, 2011 at 2:27 pm
God’s justice is either satisfied by punishment or by satisfaction. In this case it was necessary for anyone offering satisfaction to possess the nature of the offending race which entailed assuming their penal condition. If Christ had permitted His human body to possess the qualities it now enjoys He would not have been able to offer satisfaction because nothing could have inconvenienced Him anything He might have done would have been equally easy.
Unless you hold that there is only one possible moral course of action in any situation or that all morally available actions are always equally good and equally easily accomplished then it seems you cannot avoid supererogation. Presumably you do not deny that the Lord need not have become man and having become man need not have suffered and died? Christ elected to endure our penal condition for the sake of performing a supererogatory act of satisfaction in our nature He did not choose that condition for its own sake. As for His suffering it cannot be unjust of God to inflict it not because He deserved to suffer but because one cannot be unjust to oneself.
Who told them of old to hate their enemies?
Do you accept that a single drop of the Lord’s blood sufficed to save the world?
March 10, 2011 at 1:53 am
I just don’t see how you arrive at the alternatives, ‘either by punishment or by satisfaction.’ Surely the scriptural testimony shows that God’s justice requires both punishment and satisfaction. God’s justice demands perfect obedience from his creatures, and God’s justice demands punishment for his sinful creatures.
I don’t hold that all morally available actions are always equally good … etc and I don’t hold to supererogation. Whatever is morally good, however difficult it is to accomplish, is only what is required by the law. If it’s moral, it’s obligatory, and if it’s obligatory, it’s not supererogatory. Then again, if it’s not obligatory, it’s not moral, and therefore of no merit. It’s simply impossible to do more than what the moral law requires of you – what the law requires is always the utmost – God is entitled to all that we are, and have, and can do.
The Lord need not have become man, but the purpose of becoming man was so as to take the law-place of sinners of mankind. If he took the place of sinners only so as to fulfil the law on their behalf, and only incidentally to suffer some part of the punishment due to them, then whatever remainder of punishment he didn’t endure is still owing to the law. In your scheme, this punishment is never endured, meaning that God’s justice is never fully satisfied.
Not sure if your comment about God being unjust to himself is really possible to process in a Trinitarian framework! Whatever it was that was suffered, God the Father inflicted it, not on himself, but on Christ.
Who told them of old – this whole section of Matt 5 is correcting the Pharisees’ misunderstanding of the law, whether by understatement or overstatement. So he starts by correcting the ‘said of old’ that you’re in danger of the judgment for killing your brother – in fact, you’re in danger of the judgment for only so much as being angry with him. It’s not so much ‘refrain from killing and you’ve kept the commandment’ (as had been taught of old) as ‘unless you love, you haven’t kept the commandment’ (as Christ was now re-publishing). Hating your enemies was never a command of the law of God, just as being angry with your brother was never permissible under the law of God, no matter what they might have heard of old.
Single drop sufficient – no. It was not necessary for the Lord to undertake to save sinners at all, but once the undertaking was made, he did and suffered just what was necessary, no more and no less.
March 10, 2011 at 2:08 am
Eh, well, re single drop – that’s on the basis of second-guessing why you might have asked … so more fully – from the point of view of the value and efficacy of his sacrifice, the least drop is sufficient to wash away the sins of the world, but from the point of view of the sinner’s plight, for even one soul to be saved, the whole of Christ’s sacrifice of himself is necessary.
March 10, 2011 at 1:00 pm
In your first paragraph you re-state your conclusion rather than offer an argument for it. ‘Surely the scriptural testimony shows’ not in itself being an argument but an assertion.
Your second paragraph seems illogical. If you hold that ‘Whatever is morally good, however difficult it is to accomplish, is only what is required by the law’ then you must hold that there is only one morally available action in every circumstance and that every other choice is always immoral. Because otherwise as you don’t hold that ‘all morally available actions are always equally good’ whatever was better than the least good morally available action in each particular set of circumstances would necessarily be supererogatory. Alternatively if there are many (and so mutually exclusive) morally available possibilities in every set of circumstances (as logic and common sense and you seem to agree) but if (as you appear to suggest) they are all obligatory then man always sins necessarily merely in virtue of his creaturely finitude. Perhaps this is the position to which your position tends but stated thus baldly, I hope you would concede, it is an absurdity?
The distinction you imply in the third paragraph seems (I am sure unintentionally) incipiently tritheist. You had originally objected that if punishment is nontransferable and Christ endured any of the punishment due to sin then God is unjust. I responded that if one elects to incur some inconvenience that one does not in itself deserve voluntarily for some good purpose one cannot be accused of being unjust to oneself as this is impossible. The Father and the Son as God have one act of will and though Christ has a true human will He is one Person. As it is the divine condescension of the Incarnation itself that is at stake here to object that Christ’s assumption of our penal condition is unjust (if punishment in nontransferable) is to accuse God being unjust to Himself. And insofar as it is Christ’s human nature that suffers it is also His Divine Will (and indeed His human will) which elects to suffer. So to deny that He is himself electing to suffer it (again no doubt unintentionally) incipiently Nestorian.
In the fourth paragraph you seem to be saying that it was the pharisees who told them of old. But the first four quotations are all quite true statements and all the direct speech of God. They are not interpretations of the but the law itself and indeed that portion of it directly revealed by God.
I am not sure I see how it is that you hold that a single drop of Christ’s blood both was and wasn’t sufficient to redeem the world.
March 11, 2011 at 1:24 am
The Scriptures testify that death is the punishment for sin. The wages of sin is death. The soul that sins shall die. Death has passed on all men, for that all have sinned.
The scriptures testify that Christ suffered and died in the place of sinners, not only to work out a perfect righteousness on their behalf but also to suffer the punishment due to their sins. Christ died for the ungodly. He suffered for sins, the just for the unjust. He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the Lord has laid on him the inquity of us all. We are saved from wrath through him. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He is the propitiation for our sins. I assume I don’t need to clutter things up with specific verse references for all of this.
With your emphasis on satisfaction, you are overlooking not only the seriousness of sin in terms of the punishment it deserves, namely the wrath and curse of God, and the need for this punishment to be carried out in order for the demands of justice to be met, but also the abundant and consistent testimony of Scripture to the nature of Christ’s atoning work. It was vicarious and it was penal and it was complete. Both when the intact law demands perfect obedience and when the broken law demands eternal death, if a soul has Christ as their substitute, they have nothing to fear from the law. But no amount of fulfilling the law on my behalf can compensate justice for what justice is owed for my breaking of the law. When the law demands obedience, I can point to the obedience of my substitute, but if my substitute doesn’t also deal with my guilt before the law, then am I supposed to bear this punishment myself? What sort of salvation does the Saviour provide?
The moral law demands perfect and perpetual obedience. No action can be more than what the moral law demands. Whatever is better than the least good morally available action is still no more than the moral law requires. The moral law isn’t some low standard that you can sometimes hit and go beyond – the moral law demands total conformity to the utmost of our mind and heart and soul and strength, nothing less and by definition nothing more.
Re ‘unjust to himself’ – that was just by the by, not meant to be a major distraction. The Father and the Son have one will, but it was the Son in human nature who suffered and the Father who inflicted the suffering. The Father never elected to incur some inconvenience: it was the Son who elected to suffer. Unless we need to talk about patripassianism, but let’s hope not.
Told of old – some are true statements, but the point of the whole passage is to correct the Pharisees’ misinterpretation or misapplication of these true statements.
Single drop – generally it’s not the kind of statement that can be made without qualification. If it is intended as a pious figurative way of extolling the value and efficacy of the atonement, then, the sense is acceptable. But what is necessary for redemption is the whole of Christ’s sacrifice of himself – body and soul, obedience and passion, life and death. So from that point of view the plain statement ‘one drop of blood was sufficient’ is false.
March 11, 2011 at 9:57 am
You know, this is very interesting. It’s a bit like when I read A Rabbi Speaks with Jesus. You worry that the way rabbinic Judaism or Calvinism are presented by Catholic authors might not be really what they are like, might be a misrepresentation. But then it turns out that it is spot on.
I is fascinated. Thanks for taking the time to write so much, Cath! It is not going unread!
March 13, 2011 at 1:56 am
Same! Sometimes think Aelianus should just re-name himself Bellarmine and be done with it 🙂
Will come back to the rest on Mon DV
March 15, 2011 at 2:50 am
Or maybe tue…
March 11, 2011 at 5:19 pm
It seems important to be clear about what is being said and about what is not being said not least because this clarifies what does and does not constitute support for either position in scripture.
I think it is also important given that we are seeking to understand the nature of the atonement that however we explain it it should in some way make sense in terms of justice between created persons. If it makes no sense at all then understanding of any kind would be impossible. One might as well say that for the atonement to occur a Nigerian had to climb Mount Everest and explain it by saying that God’s ways are not our ways. This may be true but it would render the entire conversation pointless.
I am saying that in the event of wrongdoing there are two possibilities: punishment or satisfaction. Satisfaction removes the necessity for punishment in fact that is one of its main purposes. Now it may be that some sort of punishment is still required on the part of the one for whom satisfaction has been offered as an acknowledgement that the mere remedying of the wrong does not remove the fact that the original offence was wrong. This certainly seems to be the way human beings treat satisfaction. This seems to be the case in regard to the Atonement for all men still die. But this punishment is nominal in comparison to eternal damnation. Perhaps one might say the retributive element of punishment is removed by satisfaction but not the remedial.
Furthermore, I contend that while the offering of satisfaction on behalf of another is never considered unjust and is accepted by human judges the endurance of punishment on behalf of another is not only not accepted and incomprehensible to human judges but were it accepted would be considered a mark of serious corruption in the judge. Thus, if this were the principle of the Atonement the Atonement would be strictly incomprehensible to us (like the requirement for the Nigerian to climb Mount Everest).
You are saying that in the event of wrongdoing there is only one possibility that of both satisfaction and punishment. Not only does this seem to make the Atonement irrational and incomprehensible but it would seem to abolish the gratuity of the Incarnation because, if God’s justice requires not just punishment but also satisfaction then, as satisfaction (unlike punishment) simply cannot be made to God by any created person God would be compelled by His own justice to become incarnate to offer satisfaction.
You have alluded to many verses of Scripture which state that Christ endured the punishment due to us and thereby saved us. But I do not deny this. The assumption of our penal condition by one of the Divine Persons was a hypothetical necessity for the offering of satisfaction to the Godhead. First, because it was necessary for Christ to assume human nature in order to represent us and human nature is in a penal condition. Second, because it was necessary for Christ’s actions in that nature to be supererogatory in order to be satisfactory and this would not be possible it they were executed with infinite ease (which they would be if He had assumed human nature in a glorified state). Whatever you might say about supererogation you cannot deny that it is required by human judges when satisfaction is offered. They do not accept as satisfaction an act which would have been performed anyway and presents no difficulty.
It seems from your points on supererogation that you are indeed asserting that in every set of concrete circumstances there is only one morally available option and that all other possibilities are sinful. Is that a fair account of what you are saying? This does seem to make the moral law incomprehensible to us because we are certainly unable to discern in any concrete circumstances how that could be the case. Perhaps this lies at the heart of your objection to the use of specific instances of human sinfulness to convict the unbelieving conscience of sin. If, as you seem to imply, we have no idea why one act would be sinful and another not, evangelisation of this nature (perhaps any evangelisation) would be pointless and misleading. In the end it would come down to saying “if you wish to be saved you must believe that a Nigerian has climbed Mount Everest for you. Don’t ask questions. God’s ways are not our ways. Just accept it and be grateful.” Or perhaps jumped off Mount Everest would be nearer the mark.
The essential pain of hell is eternal separation from God. Jesus is God. Even if, in assuming our penal condition to offer satisfaction in it, He endured the clouding of His enjoyment of the Divine Presence in His sub-intellectual human faculties, He could not be separated from God in the way the damned are separated from God without denying the Incarnation and splitting the Incarnate One into two persons. Nor may intensity replace duration in this case as the punishment in question is essentially incompatible with the doctrine of the Incarnation.
What Christ endured was the punishment due to sin in this life as a hypothetically necessary means to the offering of satisfaction in our Nature to the Father (and so also to Himself in His Divine Nature). This is what the scriptures mean when they say He took away our sins by His suffering. To adopt the doctrine of vicarious punishment would be to make the Atonement incomprehensible, impute injustice to God and finally to abandon the Incarnation itself by dissolving the unity of the One Person of the Word Incarnate.
March 16, 2011 at 2:22 am
The problem is that your posing of the two possibilities (either satisfaction or punishment) doesn’t square with how scripture presents the situation. It’s not as if scripture leaves us to make sense of it on our own – a detailed revelation has been made there for the purpose of humans understanding it, and human understanding should acquiesce in what has been revealed.
Just say I accept that in human courts of law, there is such a thing as satisfaction, which is transferable, and that punishment is non-transferable. The question is whether that is an adequate reflection of how the atonement is presented in scripture.
I say it’s not adequate. The idea of guilt being transferable, and the idea of punishment being transferable, should not be impossible to understand – rather it should be very familiar from its prominent place in scripture.
The entire system of ceremonial sacrifices for instance is predicated on the possibility (and the fact) of the transference of guilt and punishment. The Old Testament worshippers transferred their ceremonial sins to the ceremonial substitute, and the substitute was killed in their place to make atonement for their ceremonial sins. The innocent victim was treated as guilty and bore the consequences of the transferred guilt it was bearing, namely its own death. The life is in the blood. For the sinner to be accepted, blood was required. If not the sinner’s own blood, the blood of the sinner’s sinless sin-bearing substitute.
This was neither irrational nor incomprehensible to the Old Testament judges or the Old Testament believers. It was a clear, divinely appointed depiction of how God deals with sinners: through an innocent sin-bearing substitute. This is what provides the framework for understanding the work of Christ, and this is precisely the framework which the apostles use in preaching and teaching about the atonement. Christ our passover is sacrificed for us, 1 Corinthians. He died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God, 1 Peter. The blood of bulls and goats purified the flesh, but the blood of Christ, who offered himself to God through the eternal Spirit, purges the conscience, Hebrews 11.
I don’t object at all to using specific instances of sin to convict the unbelieving conscience of sin, btw. My only objection is that when that is done, it shouldn’t be done in a way which is inconsistent with the fact of the sinful nature which gives rise to specific sins. Nor did I intend to imply at all that we have no idea why one act would be sinful and another not – in fact one of the main uses of the moral law is to inform us of what obedience God requires and to expose the sin of our nature, heart, and lives.
Re sets of concrete circumstances – I don’t exactly see where this is going. There can be more than one morally available option and one morally available option can be better than another. But that doesn’t add up to supererogation. Whatever you do, you can’t do more than the moral law requires. When we have done all, we are unprofitable servants.
I’m also losing track of the number of gross heresies you’ve accused me of in this discussion. Even if you can’t help thinking that what I’m saying leads irresistibly to such offensive conclusions, on its own terms it’s avowedly not Nestorian, or tritheistic, or or or…. and in fact specifically repudiates them all. If I can keep schtum about where I think your position leads in the hope of a constructive discussion, can you do me the favour of the same?
The scriptures say he put away our sins by his suffering and death. He died in the stead of the guilty. He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. He bore the wrath and curse of God that was due to sinners. He suffered in his human nature, soul and body, and because he was a divine person his human nature was sustained and kept from sinking under this infinite load. None of this denies the incarnation, none of it splits his one person into two, and none of it is essentially incompatible with the doctrine of the incarnation. The doctrine of vicarious punishment is compelled on us by scripture.
March 17, 2011 at 12:29 am
I wasn’t trying to be annoying with the various reductios. I was rather assuming that we both agreed the Christological or Trinitarian aberrations are undesirable and that therefore it was a legitimate form of argument to say ‘if view x on the atonement entails view y on the Trinity then view x must be wrong’.
On the sacrificial economy of the old law it seems to me that the principle purpose of sacrifice is to recognise God’s ownership of all the good things we have and return them to Him by symbolically sending a representative of those good things back whence it came (reducing it to nothing). This establishes or re-establishes the proper relationship between God and man and allows for the fellowship expressed by eating portions of the sacrifice, sharing in the Lord’s table. So far as I know the sacrifice of the Day of Atonement is unique in placing the guilt of the people’s sins upon the victim. All the other sacrifices are offerings of good things back to their Creator whether in praise, thanksgiving, propitiation or petition.
If this analysis of the sacrifices of the old law is correct then the only instance which helps your case is the Scapegoat. (As we are agreed that the juridical and moral precepts do not allow for vicarious punishment nor does any just human law).
But in the Scapegoat we have a very precise example of exactly what I am arguing about the Atonement. There are two goats one abandoned (the sins of the people are imposed upon him and he is driven out of the camp) and the other is offered in satisfaction. But when it comes to the Passion, in which Pilate appears to inadvertently reenact the ritual of the Atonement, Christ is both driven out of the camp and offered as a sacrifice while Barabbas is let off entirely free.
I have been arguing that Christ both offers satisfaction and endures punishment but that the latter is only a means to accomplish the former. It is the offering of satisfaction which secures the at-one-ment of God and man. In the old law satisfaction is offered but punishment is not removed (the second goat is still driven out despite the sacrifice of the first). In the new law Christ takes on Himself the punishment of the guilty man as a means of offering satisfaction and because the satisfaction He offers is adequate (or rather superabundant) the ‘son of the father’ is set free without punishment.
It seems to me that if you are conceding that in any set of concrete circumstances there can be (and usually are) multiple options available to an individual which are of varying degrees of moral excellence from which he may freely choose without sinning then you have accepted the concept of supererogation regardless of whether you want to use the word. If he chooses anything better than the least good option necessary to avoid breaking the law then he has done more than was required to avoid breaking it.
You don’t seem to have answered the point that if God’s justice requires both satisfaction and punishment then God was compelled by His own justice to become incarnate as this was the only means by which satisfaction could be offered. Which would abolish the gratuity of the incarnation. (Among other nasty consequences which I will not go into in deference to your wishes ;))