Substitutionary Atonement
We had an excellent sermon this morning from one of our elders over 1 Corinthians 1:17-25. Its a packed passage that has been on my mind lately. As he discussed the foolishness and power of the cross, it reminded me of some material we went over a long time ago when I was teaching a Bible study class. The sermon this morning briefly discussed some views on the atonement that have been in vogue lately. Some scholars have tried to remove some of the offense of the cross by rejecting the substitutionary aspect of the atonement. One of the scholars at the forefront of the movement is Greg Boyd.
Greg Boyd advocates for what he calls the Christus Victor theory of the atonement. He rejects the fact that Christ suffered the wrath of God on our behalf and instead says that the cross is really a picture of love overcoming evil through self-sacrifice, if I understand the theory correctly. On his website he has a series of questions about penal substitution that are meant to cause us to question (and eventually reject) our view. I went through them in Sunday School and thought I’d post some answers here. You can see Greg Boyd’s questions about substitutionary atonement here. I’ll repost the questions in quotes, then answer them.
Does God really need to appease his wrath with a blood sacrifice in order to forgive us? If so, does this mean that the law of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is the ultimate description of God’s character? And if this is true, what are we to make of Jesus’ teaching that this law is surpassed by the law of love? Not only this, but what are we to make of all the instances in the Bible where God forgives people without demanding a sacrifice (e.g. the prodigal son)?
First of all, why does a Penal Substitution view make the law of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. . . the ultimate description of God’s character”? This is just unnecessary hyperbole. It is part of God’s character that He judges sin. Does Boyd deny that God judges and punishes sin? Does He really believe that it would be consistent with God’s character to let sin, rebellion against God, go completely unpunished? And if so, then why will so many people be punished eternally for their sins? If it is against God’s character to require a penalty for sin, then how do you explain all the passages in the Bible that deal with a penalty for sin?
Secondly, he asks, “What are we to make of Jesus’ teaching that this law is surpassed by the law of love?” By providing a penal substitution, He demonstrated His love for us. He sacrificed Himself so that we could avoid the punishment for sin. In other words, Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice is the basis of the fulfillment of the law and the law of love and grace exists because of the cross.
Finally, he asks, “What are we to make of all the instances in the Bible where God forgives people without demanding a sacrifice (e.g. the prodigal son)?” The truth is that God does not forgive without demanding a sacrifice. He provided the sacrifice. He is able to forgive because the sacrifice was paid once for all by Christ.
If God’s holiness requires that a sacrifice be made before he can fellowship with sinners, how did Jesus manage to hang out with sinners without a sacrifice, since he is as fully divine and as holy as God the Father?
First, while Christ is God, His full glory was veiled when He took on flesh. I don’t fully understand the “kenosis”, but I believe that while Christ was fully God and fully man, His full glory was veiled so He was approachable. Moses’ time in the presence of God’s glory left him with a glowing complexion. We don’t see the same thing happening to the disciples so we assume that His full glory is veiled.
Second, Boyd is begging the question again by assuming there was no sacrifice. There was a sacrifice. Christ’s sacrifice which was timeless in eternity and is the basis for anyone at any time being able to approach God. The Lamb was slain from the foundation of the earth.
If Jesus’ death allows God the Father to accept us, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that Jesus reconciles God to us than it is to say Jesus reconciles us to God? Yet the New Testament claims the latter and never the former (e.g. 2 Cor. 5:18-20). ). In fact, if God loves sinners and yet can’t accept sinners without a sacrifice, wouldn’t it be even more accurate to say that God reconciles God to himself than to say he reconciles us to God? But this is clearly an odd and unbiblical way of speaking.
I think this one has less to do with atonement and more to do with depravity and regeneration. Its as if Boyd pictures us as wanting to come to God, but God can’t accept us unless He gruesomely murders His Son. But that is not the picture the Bible paints. In fact, it is the other way around. We are dead in our sins and can not exercise ourselves toward God. We are rebels at war with God. God desires to reconcile us to Him, so He provides a sacrifice to take our place, and on the basis of the sacrifice of Christ for our sins, He is able to draw us, call us, woo us, and forgive us. It wasn’t us who were beating on Heaven’s door desiring entrance while God sat and thought, “I’d love to take you in, but I just can’t without killing someone.” It’s us running from Him as fast and as far as we can and Him saying, “Rather than place the burden and penalty of your sins on you, I will place them on My Son, and on that basis I will bring you back to Me.”
How are we to understand one member of the Trinity (the Father) being wrathful towards another member (the Son) of the Trinity, when they are, along with the Holy Spirit, one and the same God? Can God be truly angry with God? Can God actually punish God?
Just because we don’t understand something does not make it untrue. I don’t understand the concept of the Trinity itself. This is a non-argument. I don’t need Boyd to be able to wrap his head around something in order for me to believe it.
If God the father needs someone to “pay the price” for sin, does the Father ever really forgive anyone? Think about it. If you owe me a hundred dollars and I hold you to it unless someone pays me the owed sum, did I really forgive your debt? It seems not, especially since the very concept of forgiveness is about releasing a debt — not collecting it from someone else.
The very concept of forgiveness is about releasing a debt, but more importantly, it is about taking the debt oneself. In other words, if you wreck my car and it costs $1000 to fix it, if I forgive you that doesn’t mean the debt goes unpaid. It means I paid it myself. God provided the sacrifice Himself. He paid the debt we could never pay. That is the basis of God’s forgiveness.
Are sin and guilt the sorts of things that can be literally transferred from one party to another? Related to this, how are we to conceive of the Father being angry towards Jesus and justly punishing him when he of course knew Jesus never did anything wrong?
This brings up the side topic of imputation. Romans 5 is fairly clear on this topic: “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.” Adam’s sin left all in Adam guilty, while Christ’s act of righteousness makes all in Christ righteous. My sin was placed on Christ, and Christ’s righteousness was placed on me. How else would I ever be worthy of entering Heaven? Surely not on my own merit. Rather, Christ’s righteousness was imputed to me, making me worthy of the glories of Heaven.
If the just punishment for sin is eternal hell (as most Christians have traditionally believed), how does Jesus’ several hours of suffering and his short time in the grave pay for it?
A sinner is punished forever because he can never satisfactorily pay the penalty for sin, so he pays it continuously. Because Christ was God Incarnate, His sacrifice was sufficient to pay the penalty for sin, and only needed to be offered once.
If the main thing Jesus came to do was to appease the Father’s wrath by being slain by him for our sin, couldn’t this have been accomplished just as easily when (say) Jesus was a one-year-old boy as when he was a thirty-three year old man? Were Jesus’ life, teachings, healing and deliverance ministry merely a prelude to the one really important thing he did – namely, die? It doesn’t seem to me that the Gospels divide up and prioritize the various aspects of Jesus’ life in this way. (I maintain that everything Jesus did was about one thing – overcoming evil with love. Hence, every aspect of Jesus was centered on atonement — that is, reconciling us to God and freeing us from the devil’s oppression.)
In the book of John, Christ repeatedly speaks about how His hour is not yet come as if His ministry was leading up to a certain point when His hour would in fact come or His ministry would reach its climax. At the time of His passion, He declares that His hour is come, so it would seem that, yes, His ministry was leading up to one thing, namely His death and resurrection. In fact, the whole Bible leads up to this pictorially and prophetically, through the sacrifices in Genesis, Abraham and Isaac, the Passover, the sacrificial system in the Mosaic law, etc., etc., etc. All of it points to the sacrifice on the cross. Paul, looking back, declares the good news of the gospel to be that “He died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again according to the Scriptures.” Christ did overcome evil with love, but He did it by “bearing my sins in His own body, on the tree.”
Not to be offensive, but if it’s true that God’s wrath must be appeased by sacrificing his own Son – or, if not that, sacrificing all other humans in eternal hell – then don’t we have to conclude that those pagans who have throughout history sacrificed their children to appease the gods’ wrath had the right intuition, even if they expressed it in the wrong way?
Well, that is a bit offensive, but its not even close. If they had the right intuition, they would be looking to their gods to come down into their midst and, of their own grace, provide a sacrifice that would remove the necessity of sacrifices. The intuition that they had something worthwhile to offer to a god is as far from Scripture as you can possibly get.
What is the intrinsic connection between what Jesus did on the cross and how we actually live? The Penal Substitution view makes it seem like the real issue in need of resolution is a legal matter in the heavenly realms between God’s holy wrath and our sin. Christ’s death changes how God sees us, but this theory says nothing about how Christ’s death changes us. This is particularly concerning to me because every study done on the subject has demonstrated that for the majority of Americans who believe in Jesus, their belief makes little or no impact on their life. I wonder if the dominance of this legal-transaction view of the atonement might be partly responsible for this tragic state of affairs.
First of all, one issue in need of resolution was a legal matter in the heavenly realms between God’s holy wrath and sin. Christ’s death did change how God sees us. That’s the point of the discussion in Romans 3, where Paul declares God to be just and the justifier on the basis of the “propitiation by His blood”. But this is only part of the picture. The wider picture has our sins imputed to Christ, and Christ’s righteousness imputed to us. We are baptized into His death and our sin nature has been put to death by the cross. The fact that Christ took my sins and paid for them allows me to live a life of freedom from sin. A proper understanding of the atonement and imputation should and will motivate us to holiness. If someone’s belief makes little or no impact on their life, as Greg Boyd observes in the majority of Americans, then James and 1 John tell us that they never really believed in the first place. How can the actions of unbelievers be an indictment on a Christian belief?
Tagged as Atonement, Greg Boyd, Penal Substitution + Categorized as Theology
It’s important not to confuse “substitutionary atonement” with “Penal Substitution.”
P-Sub is only ONE form of ’substitutionary atonement’.
Here is a debate against a Calvinist where it is shown that Penal Substitution doesn’t fit the Biblical evidence of the Atonement:
http://catholicdefense.googlepages.com/psdebate
p.s. you should enable the option of ‘email me of follow up comments’, because it’s hard to know when someone responds.
The book on Romans is more than sufficiently clear as to the meaning of the cross. Boyd is correct in that the sin issue was a “legal matter in the heavenly realms between God’s holy wrath and our sin.” Up to the cross, the sacrifices only covered sin. Christ’s atonement settled the sin issue forever. His blood is the propitiation for our sin. God’s wrath is eternally satisfied. Boyd is also correct in that this sacrifice is not enough for the Christian walk. That is were Grace enters. That is why we are to walk in the Spirit. The Christian walk is possible, however, only because the sin issue has been settled.
“It is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.” Rom. 2:13.
It is this law you really need to find and be taught why and how it must be obeyed or perish.
And regarding your close “the sin issue has been settled”. Jesus by a direct statement beforehand has contradicted your conclusion. “When he comes he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin” Jn. 16:8. Sin is the remaining issue outstanding AFTER Jesus’ crucifixion. Your close is an error.
@Nick: I read through portions of your debate and, frankly, Turretinfan and I share the same presuppositions about God and Scripture so I didn’t find your arguments convincing in the least.
@Theodore A. Jones: You have gravely misunderstood Romans 2, especially verse 13. The point of that section of Romans 2 was that the Jews were not special just because they had received the law. In other words, its not good enough just to receive the law. You must completely obey the law. Paul goes on to explain that no one has or can do this. So Christ fulfilled it in our place and imputed his righteousness to us.
And Jesus has by no means contradicted that statement. When He comes He WILL convict the world of guilt because the world is still guilty. However, if we are in Christ we are not of the world, in fact John tells us in 1 John that we have overcome the world. The world will be judged, but if we are in Christ we are righteous in God’s eyes and will not face that judgment.
Whoa! Gospels class flashback!
@ Mark.
The grave misunderstanding you refer to is the fact of you not comprehending that the law referred to in Rom. 2:13 is a law that was added to the law AFTER Jesus was crucified. And it is this law that Jesus is referring to in Jn. 16:8. For it is only by the faith of obeying this law in a particular Way that will prevent you from misunderstanding that your grave is permanent if you enter your grave but have not obeyed God by this particular Way. Your doctrine of salvation hinges on the false assumption that it is possible for a man’s death caused by bloodshed to be a direct benefit to you like the OT animal sacrifices were. But Jesus quashed your assumption by illustrating that new wine can only be contained in a wine skin which is also new.
Therefore a new law confines the benefit of Jesus crucifixion to the factor of obedience of a law or his crucifixion is of no benefit to you. See Heb. 7:12 that explains when the priesthood is changed a change of the law has also taken place. It is a grave misunderstanding to assume that any man’s death caused by bloodshed is a direct benefit. While it is certainly true that scads of people think Jesus has died in their place; it is only a few that ever find what the small narrow gate into the kingdom of God actually is, according to Jesus.
@Theodore – To say that Romans 2 is talking about a new law that the believer must obey completely ignores the context of the first half of Romans. Paul is expounding on the relationship of the Jews and Gentiles to the OT law. You continually use this as some sort of proof-text without listening to arguments against your position. I’ve seen you around on other blogs arguing against PSA with some absurd argumentation.
Your argument regarding Jn 16:8 is also lacking in understanding the context. The sin which Christ is judging the world of is unbelief. He explicitly states that in the next verse. He is not setting up a new law by which He will judge the world. He is judging those who refuse to believe in Him, who trust in their own righteousness.
The Bible is also very clear about the benefit of Christ’s death. Your view seems to make the crucifixion of Christ incidental to His overall ministry. The Bible, however, makes it the culmination of all Scripture. Everything before Calvary leads up to and points to it. Everything afterward is denouement, an explication of the meaning of it. To say that the crucifixion bears no direct benefit to me is ridiculous in light of statements like, “whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith,” “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people,” “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world,” “But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed,” and “who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”
So Heb 7:12 does explain that there is a change in the law, but it is setting up Christ as the fulfillment of the law. He has fulfilled the law, paid the penalty of sin, and purchased the benefits of the New Covenant for the elect. Part of the benefits of the New Covenant is the cleansing described in Ezekiel 36, where God cleanses His people and causes them to walk according to His statutes. He accomplishes the salvation of His elect through the sacrifice offered by Christ in their place.
Frankly, your arguments don’t make a whole lot of sense. You’ve thrown out some proof-texts that seem to fit your argument without interacting with the context of those passages. Show why those passages mean what you say they mean in context and maybe we’ll have a real discussion.