73
So far, we have covered the
birth and life of the King, developed several key doctrines, and showed the unbelieving
responses. All of these insights will help in understanding and appreciating
the climatic death of the King. More than His birth, His life, or even His
resurrection, the death of Christ permeates the NT. In his classic study of the
cross, a study referred to frequently in this chapter, Leon Morris writes:
“The cross dominates the New
Testament. Notice how naturally it is referred to as summing up the content of
Christianity. “We preach Christ crucified” (I Cor. 1:23); “I determined not to
know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified” (I Cor. 2:2); “I
delivered unto you first of all. . .how that Christ died for our sin” (I Cor
15:3); “far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”
(Gal. 6:14). The Gospel is “the word of the cross” (I Cor. 1:18). The enemies
of
Christianity are “the
enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil. 3:18). Baptism is baptism into Christ’s
death (Rom. 6:3), and it is not without interest that, while Christ did not
enjoin His followers to commemorate His birth, or any even in His life, He did
call on them to remember His death.”[1] We now move into study of His death
using the same approach we have used in the previous chapters. We first cover
the event, the unbelieving responses to it, and finally the doctrinal truths
revealed in the event. The great truth revealed through the death of the King
is the substitutionary blood atonement and what that atonement accomplishes.
(Read here Matthew 26-27; Mark 14-15; Luke 22-23; John 18-19.)
THE EVENT OF CHRIST’S DEATH
Why did the Messiah die? Did
He have to, or was it a tragic accident? Or, does the death show that Jesus
really wasn’t the Messiah after all? Was His death meant to be merely inspirational,
or did it actually accomplish something before God concerning our salvation?
These are questions the NT authors go to great lengths to answer. Their
writings explain the event of Christ’s death as the fulfillment of OT
revelation concerning God’s holiness and man’s sin. They presuppose a view of
justice that originates in the holiness of God, a view of justice that today
has almost totally disappeared from human consciousness. Let’s first look
at the OT view of divine justice, and then move on to the NT writers’ reports
and explanations of the cross.
OT JUSTICE.
The first revelation of
God’s justice occurred in Eden after man sinned. In Genesis 3:21, God takes the
first life away when He kills an animal with which to clothe the fallen man and
woman with a leather tunic. Just to emphasize the problem here, let’s consider
that the animal had to be skinned.
Blood had to be spilled. What had the animal to do with the couple’s sin? Their
sin immediately resulted in the slaughter of an innocent animal—the first
physical death in the universe and one directly caused by the animal’s Creator!
What is this cruelty all about? We need to know two things about this cruel,
bloody sacrificial motif: it reveals what real justice looks like and it is
linked to the Coming Messiah.
Justice by Blood Atonement. Animal sacrifice for human
sin continued after Eden and was central to worship not only in Israel but in
other cultures. The second generation of mankind, Cain and Abel, learned very
quickly about the centrality of animal sacrifice (Gen. 4:2-5). All religious
worship that attempts to by-pass bloody atonement for sin is categorically
rejected by the God of the Bible. Such apostasy is derisively referred to as
“the way of Cain” (Jude 1:11). At the founding of present civilization, the
forefathers of every people group on earth knew that bloody animal sacrifice
was central to worship of the one True God (Gen. 8:20).
It was continued over the
centuries, through Abraham’s time, into the period of the law where animal
sacrifice is set into a larger context. The law, as we learned in Part III of
this series, defined “right” and “wrong” in terms of whether it pleased Yahweh
or not. No legislative body existed in Israel to define “justice”; it was
defined solely with reference to God’s revealed codex to the nation. We noted
in Part III that the law of Israel differed radically from the laws of the
pagan nations in that it mixed the normal “casuistic” format (“if one does
this. . .then the punishment is this”) with a format of personal address. Law
was actually a contract with the Personal Creator. It was not a mere set of
social rules or values. Yahweh was righteous and just among other things. To
get along with Him, creatures must meet His righteous and just standard. Yahweh’s
character defines justice, not man’s ethical, subjective, and varying opinions.
It is clear from the law of
Israel that injustice was ultimately against Yahweh, not a neighbor (e.g., Num.
5:5-10; Lev. 5:14-6:7; Ps. 51:4). The neighbor can’t define justice anymore
than any other person. The neighbor, apart from his creation in the image of
God, has no intrinsic value. On the other hand, God is the One Who made the
universe and all creatures therein. Offense against any of them is an offense
against Him (note the logic in Matt. 18 and Jas. 3:9). Modern court proceedings
still reflect this truth that the lawmaker, not the immediate victim, is the
real target of the crime. Thus criminal court cases are presented today as
“John Q. versus the
State of ________” to
indicate that the crime is really against the particular state as the
law-making authority. The Leviticus and Numbers passages indicate that crime in
Israel was against Yahweh as Lawgiver. The response toward injustice
is expressed in the OT as a demand for restitution. Restitution is the
paradigm of all justice in God’s plan. The well-known passages calling for
“an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” present the heart of restitutionary
justice (Exod. 21:24; Lev. 24:20). That this passage expressed a principle
rather than a directive for bodily mutilation is clear from the absence of such
mutilation in OT passages. Restitution says that after evil has occurred, the
original godly order must be restored. To restore godly order, someone must recompense
the damage to the victim of the crime. Examples of the all-permeating nature of
restitution in biblical justice are easy to find. In Exodus 22:1-15 numerous
restitutionary cases are given, primarily cases involving theft. One can
observe in this passage that the victims are restored from their losses by the
criminals.
In the prototype crime of
the fall in the Garden of Eden, man destroyed the life that God had given him
turning it from an obedient one into a rebellious one. The pre-announced result
was death—the termination of such a ruined life (Gen. 2:17). That was the
damage, and the “victim” in this case was God. Man had ruined his life.
Restitutionary justice, therefore, demanded that this ruined life be replaced
as compensation to God. The question now arose, “where can a replacement life
come from?”
In Genesis 3:21 God
establishes the first revelation of the answer to this question. The life
must come from a source other than fallen man. Another life must be given—a
blood atonement. As Adam and Eve watched the first slaying, the first spilled
blood, they must have reacted the way any of us would have reacted to a cruel
death of a pet. Whenever they wore the leather tunics God had made from the
animal’s skin, they were reminded of the first blood-letting. That OT saints
reacted precisely in this fashion to animal slaughter is clear from
Nathan-the-prophet’s story to David (II Sam. 12:1-6). Animals raised for
worship sacrifice could not be treated as pets to minimize the acute sense of
pain and horror over their death.
Later in history, at the
dawn of present civilization with the New World covenant of Noah, mankind was
given permission to eat meat (Gen. 9:3). As we learned in Part II of this
series, our present civilization is built upon a constant dying of animals that
we may live. Thanks to modern technology most of us in the developed countries
no longer slaughter animals directly for food. We buy it neatly packaged. We,
therefore, have become callous to the thousands of animals who have given their
lives for our lives. From the beginning, God directed that we respect this life
lost for us by carefully draining the blood from each carcass before eating it
(Gen. 9:4). This
“ceremony” was to draw us
back to our sin and why such animal cruelty is necessary (note context in Gen.
8:21).
The detailed directions of
blood sacrifices throughout Exodus and Leviticus clearly tie animal death to
human sin. Through these sacrifices fallen men observed the horror and pain of lives taken because of the demands
of restitutionary justice. Animal life is close enough to human life that it
can serve this revelatory function. Life ruined by human sin had to be
compensated to the Creator of life. Yet, this God-directed practice was only a
revelation of a yet greater truth. The animal sacrifices pictured blood
atonement for sin and accomplished ceremonial cleansing for the citizens of
Israel, but they never could accomplish actual restitution before God for human
sin (Heb. 9:9-14). What was the final solution?
Blood Atonement and the
Messiah.
The OT also linked the atonement to the progressively revealed portrait of the
Messiah. First, in the so-called “protoevangelium” of Genesis 3:15, the woman’s
seed, God prophesied, would be struck down. The seed of the woman was closely
related to the Messiah in the minds of first centuryJews.[2] Narration of the
first atonement—recorded in Genesis 3:21—occurs in the immediate context of the
protoevangelium. Another OT feature exhibiting the close relationship between
the coming Messiah and restitutionary atonement is the inaugural requirements
of the biblical covenants. The Noahic, Abrahamic, and Sinaitic Covenants
required a blood sacrifice before they went into legal effect (see,
respectively, Gen. 8:20- 22; Exod. 24:3-8; Heb. 9:16-18). Since in the “last
days” of the Messianic period Yahweh was going to establish a new covenant with
the nation Israel (Jer. 31:31-40), it follows that an appropriate blood
sacrifice would have to be made prior to the legal inauguration of this new
covenant. It ought to have come as no surprise, then, when on the eve of His
death Christ identified the Passover
sacrifice which pointed to
Him (see next paragraph) with the inauguration of this new covenant (Matt.
26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; I Cor. 11:25). As the Messiah, Jesus’ work
included making the founding sacrifice of the new covenant.
A third part of the OT
evidence linking the Messiah to an atoning sacrifice was the very Passover
celebration going on at the time Christ died. Israel’s birth as a national
group with its own redeemed identity in Egypt was made possible only by a blood
atonement (Exod. 12:1-13). The blood “satisfied” in some way God’s judgment so
that the angel of death passed over those homes with blood on their doors.
Israel was commanded to keep alive the memory of this great event of
judgment/salvation by the annual festival of Passover (Exod. 12:14-28). Since
the Messiah’s work was to free and redeem Israel again and permanently, there
should have been no surprise that blood atonement once again became involved.
Why should there have been surprise at the Messiah’s personal involvement in
such an atonement when Christ died on the very day of this annual celebration
(see next section)?
Finally, the fourth piece of
the OT link between the Messiah and sacrifice occurs in Isaiah 53:
“Surely he hath borne our
griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of
God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised
for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his
stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every
one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. . .
.by the knowledge of himself shall my righteous servant justify many; and he
shall bear their iniquities. . . .”(Isa. 53:4-6,11)
Evidence abounds that first
century Jews interpreted this passage messianically.[3] Not until the Middle
Ages did the rabbis shift to what is claimed today as “the” Jewish
interpretation, viz., that Isaiah 53 speaks of the nation Israel alone, not of
an individual within the nation (see my discussion in Chapter One above).
Some Gentile Christian
scholars, however, insist that first-century Jews did not recognize any
vicarious suffering of the Messiah in this passage.[4] (By “vicarious” we mean
suffering in place of others, another way of saying “substitutionary
atonement”.) These scholars are opposed by most Hebrew Christian scholars, who
claim the contrary. Dr. Fruchtenbaum, for example, notes that the Zohar,
written about A.D.110, preserves an old first-century Jewish interpretation of
Isaiah 53:4: “Where it not that [Messiah] had thus lighted [sickness, pain,
chastisement] off Israel and taken them upon himself, there had been no man
able to bear Israel’s chastisement for transgression of the law.”[5] Surely,
there is the element of vicarious or substitutionary Messianic suffering in
this non-Christian, Jewish first-century tradition. Furthermore, Fruchtenbaum
points out, this interpretative tradition of Isaiah 53 continued in Jewish
circles well into the Christian era, occurring in remarkable places such as the
Yom Kippur Musaf Prayer written around the seventh century, A.D.: “Messiah our
Righteousness is departed from us. . . .He hath borne the yoke of our
iniquities, and our transgression. . . .He beareth our sins. . .that he may
find pardon for our iniquities.”[6] The allusion to Isaiah 53 is unmistakable.
The OT, then, provided much
information about God’s justice, blood sacrifice, and the involvement of the
Messiah. The underlying concept of justice as derived from God’s attributes of
holiness as well as the inherent demand for restitution is clear. It is also
clear that to make restitution to God for the sin-caused destruction of life,
some source of restitution outside the fallen human race is required. NT
narratives of the crucifixion of Jesus built upon this OT background and cannot
be interpreted without it. The NT reports, in fact, that some Jews, at
least, had “put it all together” and knew that Messiah would have to die for
the sin (John 1:29; I Pet. 1:11).
NT CRUCIFIXION NARRATIVES.
Of the many aspects to the death of the King in the NT, we will
survey four of them. The Executed King Cursed by God. First, through Paul (Gal.
3:13) we are
made to understand that the
cross, as a tool of public execution in Israel at the time, fell under the
purview of the Mosaic Law (Deut. 21:22-23). Under the laws pertaining to public
execution, the body of the criminal had to be on display long enough so the
public would “get the message” but not so long that it would defile the land.
It had to be buried before sunset on the day of the execution.
The entire rationale for
this procedure is that execution under the civil authority of Israel expressed
the curse of God (note the clause in Deut. 21:23). The public display of the
body was to remind everyone that God is just. From this criminal justice
procedure, Paul directly concludes that Christ became a curse at the Cross,
that He actually became sin (Gal. 3:13). The Father, says Paul, made the Son
“sin for us, who knew no sin” (II Cor. 5:21). The King’s death is explained in
the NT as somehow accomplishing a cursing for sin upon the sinless God-man.
The King Chooses to Die. A second aspect to the NT
presentation of the King’s death is its peculiar manner. “Peculiar manner” does
not mean the nature of crucifixion nor even Jesus’ remarkably early expiration
on the cross.[7] The term refers
instead to Jesus’ unique control over the exact moment of His death. Whereas
all mankind remains powerless to dismiss the spirit at will (Eccles. 8:8), the
NT reports that Jesus by an act of His will chose to die: “I lay down by life.
. . .No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power
to lay it down, and I have power to take it again (John 10:17-18). “He bowed
his head, and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30). “He offered up himself” (Heb.
7:27).
His death, therefore, was in
a peculiar manner, unique in history. Jesus was not merely the lamb being
offered (passive) but was at the same time the priest making the offering
(active). He chose, on the cross, in a way no man had ever done before or would
ever do again, the exact moment of His death. It is not surprising, then, that
the experienced Roman army officer at the cross proclaimed his faith in Christ
(Matt. 27:54).
The Cross Affects the
Universe. A
third facet to the NT interpretation of the cross is its comprehensive
efficacy. Too frequently, modern theological studies limit themselves to a few
generalities about Christ’s death redeeming believers from sin. However, the
NT, in addition to revealing that the cross was a complete judging of human sin
(John 1:29; Heb. 9:28; I Pet. 2:24), also insists that it had wide-ranging
effects beyond this redemption affecting the whole created universe.
1. Changes Final
Condemnation of Unbelievers. Unbelievers are affected whether they believe or not: their
condemnation now includes the specific rejection of the gospel besides all
their other sin. If they die in unbelief, their condemnation is not because God
did not provide; they are condemned because they rejected what God did provide
(John 3:36).
2. Dooms Fallen Angels. In some way the Cross
dooms the fallen angels, particularly Satan. It carries out the promise of
Genesis 3:15 and mortally wounds the “serpent’s seed.” It spoils the evil
spirits that rule this world (Col. 2:15). It neutralizes the authority Satan
gained at the fall over the creation (Heb. 2:14). Morris says:
“[This triumph over evil powers] was prized in the early church, as we see from the exuberance with which it was used and the picturesque, even grotesque, imagerythat was employed to express it. Thus Satan was pictured as caught in a fish-hook, and as snared in a mouse-trap. . . .For the first Christians the victory that Christ had won for them mattered intensely. They were mostly from the depressed classes with little to hope for in this world. And they pictured a host of demons as dominating life anyway. It came as a welcome relief to have assurance that the last word was not with their oppressors, human or supernatural. So the note of victory was sounded with joyous confidence. And we in our day need it no less than they.”[8]
There is a tradition of NT
interpretation that Jesus visited the lower depths of Sheol between His death
and resurrection, a place called Tartarus where certain fallen angels were
confined after the flood, in order to announce His triumph at the Cross (I Pet.
3:19).
The King’s Death Fulfills OT
Passover.
The NT seems to contradict itself in reporting the day of the crucifixion. The
Apostle John, who had close ties with the Judean Temple establishment (John
18:15), notes that Jesus died in the afternoon preceding the eating of the
Passover lambs (John 18:28; 19:14,26). Thus Christ died at the same time the
Passover lambs were being sacrificed. To this timing the Babylonian Talmud
agrees: “On the even of the Passover Yeshu was hanged.”[9] Other NT passages,
however, seem to imply that the slaying of the Passover lamb occurred in the
previous day’s afternoon and that the Last Supper was eaten as a Passover meal
the night prior to Jesus’ trials and death (Matt. 26:17; Mark 14:12; and Luke
22:7-8). As always with alleged “contradictions” in Scripture, the faithful
believer will discover further revelation if he or she digs a little.
Dr. Harold Hoehner undertook
a detailed study of this apparent contradiction in the date of the crucifixion
relative to the Passover. He concluded his study by echoing previous proposals
that in Jesus’ day there were two systems of reckoning the day.
“The Galileans used a
different method of reckoning the Passover than the Judeans. The Galileans and
Pharisees used the sunrise-to-sunrise reckoning whereas the Judeans and the
Sadducees used the sunset-to-sunset reckoning. Thus, according to the Synoptics
[the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called by scholars the “synoptic”
gospels whose viewpoints do not center upon Jerusalem as does the gospel of
John], the last supper was a Passover meal. Since the day was to be reckoned
from sunrise, the Galileans, and with them Jesus and His disciples, had the
Paschal lamb slaughtered in the late afternoon of Thursday, Nisan 14, and later
than evening they ate the Passover with the unleavened bread. On the other
hand, the Judean Jews who reckoned from sunset to sunset would slay the lamb on
Friday afternoon which marked the end of Nisan 14 and would eat the Passover
Lamb with the unleavened bread that night which became Nisan 15. Thus, Jesus
had eaten the Passover meal [Galilean reckoning reported by the Synoptics] when
His enemies, who had not as yet had the Passover, arrested him.”[10]
Thus the NT reports Jesus’
death as the literal fulfillment of the OT passover imagery (see discussion of
the prophetic significance of Israel’s calendar in Appendix B of Part IV of
this series). With the calendar discrepancy between Jerusalem and the northern
areas of Galilee, Jesus could both invest the Passover meal ceremony with its
fulfilled meaning and accomplish the work of the cross necessary to do the
actual fulfillment. His work is explicitly called an “exodus” in Luke 9:13. All
these features in the NT narratives tie the Messiah unmistakably to the final sacrifice
for sin.
The Bible presents the death
of the King in terms of revealed doctrinal truths surrounding the concept of
God’s justice and man’s sin. God, not man, is the source of true justice. Man’s
ideas of justice reflect to varying degrees God’s essence. Man’s conscience
witnesses to his imagehood, his theomorphic character. With a sense of his own
sin man looks for reconciliation but finds no way to make restitution that is
acceptable to God. God, however, initiates toward man from Eden onward pointing
to blood atonement of another for man. The Messiah’s career is prophesied to
intertwine with sacrificial atonement for mankind in some way. With Jesus’
death the Messiah’s role is
suddenly revealed: He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world!
UNBELIEVING RESPONSES TO THE
KING’S DEATH
Few people deny the
factualness of Christ’s death. Even most proponents of the “historical Jesus /
kerygmatic Christ” distinction hold that the historical Jesus was executed upon
a cross, although they deny the NT interpretation that this death was the
atonement for man’s sins. As in previous chapters, I will present the ancient
and modern unbelieving responses to Christ’s death and then follow that with how such rejection is required
by unbelief.
ANCIENT AND MODERN
PERVERSIONS OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST.
Both ancient and modern
unbelievers stumble over the cross for the same reason. At bottom both types of
unbelievers suppress their knowledge of the holiness of God and, in doing so, try
to remove the necessity for any such atoning death.
Ancient Jewish Responses.
NT-era Jews who first heard the Christian explanation of the Messiah’s death on
a cross were repelled. Just as they rejected Jesus’ virgin birth claim and the
authority of His life, so also they rejected the entire idea that the Jewish
Messiah would have to die such an ignominious death. Let’s remember throughout
this discussion, however, that 99% of the people who did accept Jesus in the NT
gospels were Jews!
One reason for their
negative response was their perception of the role of the Messiah. Many Jews
looked forward to a Messiah who would restore the Davidic Kingdom and
triumphantly save Israel (e.g., Luke 1:32-33, 46-55, 67- 79). They balked at
the idea that this Messiah was to suffer cruelly and would die, and
particularly that it was for their sins that He would die! The NT text reports
that many of Jesus’ closest followers could not accept this part of His mission
when they first heard of it (Matt. 16:21-23; Luke 24:19-21; John 2:19-22;
14:1-5).
What was wrong? Was the OT
foreview of the Messiah wrong, or was Jesus a false Messiah? The NT explains
the surprise over this facet of the Messiah as due to Israel’s “blindness.”
Whereas Israel correctly perceived the OT predictions about a gloriously
triumphant Messiah, she failed to see also the predictions about this same
Messiah’s suffering and dying. Israel’s blindness apparently began over seven
hundred years prior to Christ’s death in the days of Isaiah the prophet. Yahweh
told Isaiah:
“Make the heart of this
people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with
their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart,
and turn again, and be
healed. . . .Until cities waste without inhabitant, and houses with man, and
the land become utterly waste.” Isa. 6:10-11
Isaiah, according to God,
was to preach the Word to the nation Israel in such a way that her sinful
predilection to listen selectively to prophecy would progressively blind her (cf.
Isa. 30:9-11). Thus Isaiah preached about the glorious side of the coming
Messiah on many occasions (e.g., Isa. 4:2-6; 9:6-7; 11:1-16; 32:1-5; 33:17-24;
66:1-11). Israel rejoiced in these optimistic pictures of her Messiah, building
up a distorted view of Him while neglecting the pessimistic suffering pictures
which Isaiah also preached (e.g., Isa. 52:13-53:12).
The problem, then, in
Israel’s response to Jesus’ death did not lie in the nature of OT prophecy.
Both the glorious and suffering aspects of the Messiah’s role were featured
(cf. I Pet. 1:10-11). Moreover, the problem did not lie with Jesus or the
apostles. The problem lay with Israel’s own sinful selective perception of the
OT prophecies. According to the NT writers, this blindness to a suffering
Messiah was a leading factor in the rejection of Christ both in Palestine
before His death and in the Diaspora after His death (Matt. 13:10-17; Mark
4:11-12; Luke 8:10; John 12:37-41; Acts 28:24-28; I Cor. 1:23). Paul said it
would continue among the Jewish nation until a time just prior to Christ’s
second advent (Rom. 11:8, 25).
Another reason for the
largely negative response in Israel toward a dying Messiah was the awful nature
of the way He died. According to OT criminal law, display of the body of a
criminal who had suffered capital punishment was to show that he had been
cursed by Yahweh (Deut. 21:22-23). How could the Messiah, they reasoned, be
actually cursed by God so that He suffered capital punishment by one of the
most cruel and public means of execution? Traces of this revulsion over the
means of Christ’s death appear in Philippians 2:8: “And being found in fashion
as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of
the cross.” (Emphasis supplied. See also Galatians 3:13.)
Clearly, then, the ancient
rejection of the dying Messiah was grounded on a perceived contradiction
between the predicted Messianic glory and His actual death by public criminal
execution. Below, however, it will be seen that the underlying cause of this
apparent contradiction was a prior rejection of the biblical doctrine of
judgment and salvation.
Modern Unbelieving Responses. In recent centuries the
unbelieving response to Christ’s death has involved a perversion very much
related to the ancient rejection. Just as the atoning work of the Messiah’s
death was overlooked in ancient times by Jewish critics, so in modern times
Gentile critics also have denied this atoning function. The only major
difference between the two groups of critics is that whereas the Jews claimed
an atoning death was incompatible with a glorious, reigning Messiah, Gentiles
have claimed that an atoning death is incompatible with the love of God. God,
being a God of love, these liberals reason, does not require a bloody atonement
before He forgives. Forgiveness, they insist, can be granted merely on the
basis of repentance without any atonement. Thus the liberal theologian Hasting
Rashdall, for
example, writes: “That sin
ought to be forgiven when there is [only] sincere repentance is a truth which,
like all ultimate ethical truths, must be accepted
simply because it is
self-evident.”[11]
Once it is granted that
atonement is no longer required for forgiveness, the death of Christ becomes
less than necessary. In fact, the only accomplishment of the death of
Christ is its exemplary force to man. The cross exerts “moral influence” upon
man in some way, recent liberals believe. It testifies to Christ’s love for man in pursuing His mission all the way
to the grave. Jesus, according to this liberal model, demonstrates sincerity in
dying for His convictions. Rashdall illustrates this belief in his paraphrase
of Acts 4:12: “There is none other ideal given among men by which we may be
saved except the moral ideal which Christ. . .illustrated by His. . .deathof
love. . . .”[12]
UNBELIEF’S NEED TO REJECT
THE RATIONALE FOR THE DEATH OF CHRIST.
Both ancient and modern
unbelieving responses to the death of Christ are ultimately based upon a perverted
understanding of the justice of God. As I showed above, the Cross of Christ was
given with the understanding that it would be interpreted in light of the OT
revelation of God’s justice and its link to the Messiah. To so interpret the
Cross, however, forces one to confront God’s wrath against our sin—something
our fleshly mind would like to suppress (cf. Rom. 1:32).
Failure to accept this
biblical view of justice leads to failure to understand God’s judgment /
salvation. When God saves, He saves within the bounds of His own justice. The
sinner is given salvation, but the salvation consists of a graciously-provided
restitution, not an avoidance of restitution. For restitution to occur,
however, another life must be substituted which means it must be judged
according to the model shown in Genesis 3. The death-sentence against the
sinner’s life passes to the substitute life, and the life of obedience in the
substitute replaces the sinner’s disobedient life. The original judgment and
God’s justice behind it are never nullified; they are satisfied in a totally
surprising way that man could never have anticipated. Thus salvation and
judgment go together. Earlier historical revelation of this “paired concept”
occurs in both the flood in Noah’s era and the Exodus. The fleshly mind,
however, always wants salvation without the necessarily accompanying
judgment.
No wonder the cross of
Christ is misinterpreted by ancient and modern critics alike! Being blinded to
the restitutionary nature of justice, these critics balk at acknowledging any
atoning effects of Christ’s death. The cross of Christ, according to them, must
be “reinterpreted” for their own time in a manner that is acceptable to the
autonomous principle. Even the conservative Baptist theologian Fisher Humphries,
for example, tries to abandon the substitutionary atonement model of Christ’s
death:
“The idea of reparation
[restitution] has become questionable today since it seems associated with
irrational vengeance. It is true that people today still have a largely
unconscious desire to see certain kinds of criminals pay for their crimes. . .
.But few people will consciously acknowledge that they believe in a general
principle of making reparation.”[13].
Clearly, Humphries
recognizes that the background idea of justice has shifted in our time so his
“solution” is to go along with the general abandonment of biblical justice
rather than correct the basic perversion. Once taken, this path leads
unavoidably to a radical reinterpretation of the death of the King. Figure Five
shows the situation.
Interestingly, once the
biblical idea of justice is lost, not only is man cut off from reconciliation
with God, but he is also left with no effective way to deal with ordinary
social crime. At one extreme, society can try to exact cruel retribution
against the criminal ranging from physical to psychological torture in the
hopes that it will deter further crime. Such an approach, however, feeds on
fear, hatred, and other character vices. It denigrates the nature of man who is
made in God’s image. Eventually it either breeds a spirit of rebellion, or it
eradicates social compassion and hope of personal repentance and change.
At the other extreme,
society can redefine crime as an “illness” to be dealt with using various “therapies.”
The long-term success record of proposed therapies, however, is sadly lacking.
Penal institutions, while called “correctional facilities”, have not corrected
their inmates as the recidivism statistics show. Out of frustration at their
failure, many such facilities are reverting to the retributive approach. The
“illness” approach, like its opposite extreme, also demeans the nature of man
made in God’s image by denying personal responsibility. The criminal is treated
as though he or she is a passive victim of the environment or of their genes.
The Bible deals with
societal crime in several ways, all of which heavily acknowledge personal
responsibility before God as ultimate Lawgiver. As we saw above, crimes of
theft were always handled with literal, economic restitution. The criminal not
only compensated the victim, but he or she had their previously weak work ethic
reinforced through having to labor in the process (note Paul’s use of this idea
in his counseling in Eph. 4:28). Violent crimes were punishable by execution
since under the restitution principle there was no other way to compensate for
the crime done. Even here, the execution was to be done in a way that honored
God and man as Joshua demonstrated with Achan (Josh. 7:16-26).
|
Pagan worldview of justice |
Biblical worldview of justice |
The King’s Death.
Rejected!
Accepted!
Figure 5. The fact of the King’s
death is interpreted in accordance with one’s worldview of justice.
THE DOCTRINAL CONSEQUENCE OF
THE KING’S DEATH: SUBSTITUTIONARY BLOOD ATONEMENT
To aid in the organizing the
NT doctrine associated with the King’s death, the subsequent discussion will
have two parts: First, there I will discuss the basic nature of the death,
tying together the OT data on judgment/salvation with the NT event of Christ’s
death. Secondly, there is another discussion concerning an often
emotionally-charged topic, the extent of the atonement. This latter issue deals
largely with the question of how the atonement relates to the fallen
creation—both that part that is redeemed and that part that is not.
THE BASIC NATURE OF THE
ATONEMENT.
For many centuries Christian
thinkers have sought to interpret the character of Christ’s death in light of
the overall message of the Bible, i.e., in terms of basic biblical doctrine.
Since the death contains a rich variety of themes, more often than not
discussions on the subject have been weakened due to reductionism. (A
reductionist error is made whenever attention is devoted only to one aspect of
a matter while all other aspects are downplayed or ignored.) In the matter of
the cross Bible students have tended to isolate one or two aspects of Christ’s
death and then go on to deny all others. The present discussion seeks to avoid
the reductionist error by determining only which characteristic of the cross is
most basic while allowing all the others to exist. This discussion is arranged
in two parts: first, I present the three major classes of theories about
Christ’s death held by the Church; then, using the OT pictures of
judgment/salvation, I determine the basic—but not exclusive---characteristic of
that death.
The Three Kinds of Theories. One may look at Christ’s
death from various standpoints: its objective effect upon God’s relationship
with man; its subjective effect upon man in an individual sense, or its
subjective effect upon man in a corporate sense. Theories which look at Christ’s
death from the standpoint of its objective effect upon God’s relationship with
man fall into the category of the Satisfaction Theories. Satisfaction theories
of varying sophistication can be found throughout Church history. The Apologist
fathers of the early second century held to them. Origen (ca. A.D. 185-254)
believed in a primitive Satisfaction theory [14]. It took Anselm (A.D.
1033-1109), however, in his classical work Cur Deus Homo? [Why the God-Man?] to
present the first systematic interpretation of Christ’s death, and it was a
Satisfaction viewpoint. Anselm’s position is paraphrased by Seeburg:
“Since the most trifling
sin, as an improper glance, weighs more than the whole world, a satisfaction
must be rendered to God which is more than all things outside of God. . . .As,
on the one hand, man is absolutely incapable of rendering it, for whatever good
he may do he is already under obligation to render to God, and it cannot be
therefore taken into consideration as satisfaction. Satisfaction of the character
demanded only God can render. But a man must render it, one who is of the same race,
in kindredship with humanity. . . .It is necessary that the God-man render
it.”[15]
Anselm’s Satisfaction
viewpoint had several shortcomings which were later remedied by the Reformers
who stressed that the necessary requirement for satisfaction was an actual
payment of penal judgment or restitution because of outraged divine justice.
Luther (1483-1546) wrote: “But if the wrath of God is to be taken from me and I
am to obtain grace and forgiveness, then it must be merited from him by
someone; for God cannot be favorable nor gracious toward sins, nor removed
penalty and
wrath, unless payment be
made and satisfaction rendered for them.”[16] Calvin (1509-1564] taught:
“[Christ] procures for us
the grace of God by making atonement for us through his sacrifice and appeasing
the wrath of the Father. He poured out his sacred blood as the price of
redemption, by which was extinguished the wrath of God burning against us, and
our iniquities also were purged.”[17]
Thus the satisfaction kind
of theories interpret Christ’s death from the standpoint of its primary effect
upon God and express that God rather than man must be satisfied. This kind of
theory carries in the background the idea of restitutionary justice.
Three sub-doctrines describe
this kind of theory—the doctrines of redemption, propitiation, and
reconciliation. Each of these was discussed in Part III of this series when we
studied the Exodus. Redemption, it will be remembered, speaks in economic terms
about indebted slaves being freed due to payment of their debt. By analogy it
speaks of our indebtedness to God and the payment of Christ’s death for our
debt to Him. Propitiation speaks in personal terms about rejection and
acceptance due to an effort to measure up to standards of acceptance. By
analogy it speaks of our rejection by God’s holiness and the effect of Christ’s
death in satisfying God’s holy standards. Reconciliation speaks in social terms
of hostile relationships being transformed into peaceful ones. By analogy it
speaks of our treasonous war against God’s authority and Christ’s death as a
“peace initiative” to end the conflict.
In contrast to the Satisfaction
theories there arose the Human Influence theories. These theories stress the
subjective effect of Christ’s death as somehow influencing men, rather than
satisfying God. The first of these theories appeared just after, and in reaction to, Anselm’s Satisfaction
theory through the efforts of Peter Abelard (1079-1142). Walvoord comments:
“This point of view, which has much support in modern liberal theology, was
introduced first by Abelard in opposition to the. .
.theory of Anselm. It
proceeds on the premise that God does not necessarily require the death of
Christ as an expiation for sin, but rather has chosen this means to manifest
His love and to show His fellowship with them in their sufferings. The death of
Christ therefore demonstrates the love of God in such a way as to win sinners
to Himself. . . .
Liberal and neo-orthodox
theologians today adopt in one form or another the moral influence theory of
Abelard. . . . .”[18]
Later examples of this kind
of theory include that of Rashdall, cited earlier: “There is none other ideal
given among men by which we may be saved except the moral ideal which Christ. .
.illustrated by His. . .death of love. . . .[19] The Human Influence theories,
therefore, stress the subjective revelatory effect upon man as the primary good
of Christ’s death rather than the objective effect upon God’s relationship with
man as in the Satisfaction theories.
The third kind of theory
about the significance of Christ’s death is the Government kind of theory. This
kind is an intermediate one between the Satisfaction and the Human Influence
kinds. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), a Dutch jurist, tried to redesign the
Satisfaction theories of Anselm and the Reformers so that criticism against
their “dogmatic” legal concepts of justice would be blunted. Grotius argued
that God’s nature in itself did not demand Christ’s death for sinners. What did
demand that death was God’s commitment to the moral government of the universe.
If God were going to insist that evil be punished, Grotius reasoned, God had to
offer some recognition of this principle when He exercised grace toward
sinners. In Grotius’ view God’s just nature does not require restitution. The
death of Christ, therefore, was not a substitutionary penal judgment for sins;
it was a demonstration that God’s grace toward sinner had not annihilated His
moral government.
Lewis S. Chafer summarizes
the position: “The Rectoral or Governmental theory contends that in His death
Christ provided a vicarious suffering, but that it was in no way a bearing of
punishment. The advocates of this theory object to the doctrine of imputation
in all its forms, especially that human sin was ever imputed to Christ or that
the righteousness of God is ever imputed to those who believe. They declare
that a true substitution must be absolute and thus, of necessity, it must
automatically remit the penalty of these for whom Christ died. Therefore, it is
asserted that, since Christ died for all men and yet not all men are saved, the
Satisfaction theory fails.”[20].
The Governmental theory
historically influenced Arminian theology, and it made temporary inroads into
Scottish and New England Calvinist thought. This theory separates God’s
personal nature from His governmental processes and views Christ’s death from
the standpoint of its subjective effect upon man corporately, i.e., it
preserves a just picture of God to all men, influencing some to repentance.
Theories of the nature of
Christ’s death, then, divide into three major classes: Satisfaction, Human
Influence, and Government. The next problem is the matter of how to choose the
kind of theory closest to Scripture.
The Correct Theory and the
Basic Characteristic. All three kinds of theories point to true characteristics of Christ’s
death. Each kind of theory is not totally wrong. Regarding the Satisfaction
theories, the NT clearly records Christ’s statement that he came “to give his
life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45 where the Greek preposition anti is
used). The previous discussion has shown that the NT response to Christ’s death
is saturated with this restitutionary character of God’s justice. The
Satisfaction theories properly recognize this trait. Regarding the Human
Influence theories, the NT also says that the cross does impress men as a
revelation of God (John 12:32), and it stands as a model of love forever (I
John 4:9). The Human Influence theories rightly preserve this aspect of God’s
work. Regarding the Government Theory, Paul notes that God set forth Christ “to
show his righteousness. . .that he might himself be just and the justifier of
him that hath faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). NT
data do agree that
vindication of God’s moral government is demanded. The Government Theory cannot
be faulted for pointing out this truth.
What is wrong about some of
these theories is their reductionist tendency to deny validity to every other
characteristic except the one emphasized in that particular theory. To the
extent that a theory denies all the other characteristics given in the biblical
text, to that extent it errs. The question of the correct theory, then, becomes
the question of the basic characteristic. In other words, given a
characteristic of Christ’s death, can it support the other characteristics? Can
the work of restitutionary satisfaction, for example, support the human
influence and governmental aspects? Or can the governmental aspect support
restitutionary atonement and the human
influence?
To control the reasoning
process, two ready biblical events are at hand. Both OT major examples of
judgment/salvation—the flood in Noah’s day and the Exodus—provide good
controlling pictures (see Parts II and III of this series for discussion of
these events). In the Noahic flood there was real judgment from which the Ark
saved its eight passengers. The destruction of the earth during the flood was
not only to preserve God’s moral
government or to impress mankind; it was to destroy indeed the real evil world
of that time. Again, in the Exodus event the sacrificial lamb’s blood saved
Israel’s first born sons from real lethal judgment. The Exodus was not
revelatory only. If there had not been an actual judgment in each of these
incidents, there would have been nothing to bear witness of! The influence on
man is dependent upon the
real salvation from judgment that occurred.
Furthermore, these events
bear testimony to God’s moral government only insofar as they actually
accomplish their purpose. Thus, the most basic characteristic of the OT saving
vehicles—whether Ark or lamb’s blood—was protection from God’s wrathful judgment.
Their influence on men and their revelation of God’s moral judgment follow from
this protection.
Which kind of atonement
theory, then, is most basic? The OT pictures differ in some respect from
Christ’s atonement. Whereas the OT counterparts acted only in a partial manner,
Christ’s death acts in the perfectly complete manner. Whereas the OT vehicles
of the Ark and lamb’s blood saved men from temporal judgment, Christ’s
atonement saves men from eternal judgment. Nevertheless, Christ’s atonement and
its OT counterparts are alike in that their saving effect dominates all other
characteristics. In the doctrine of judgment/salvation, it has been previously
learned (Part III of this series and discussion above), there is only one way
of salvation; and that way is by a substitutionary blood sacrifice.
Substitutionary blood atonement reflects the basic quality of God’s just
nature: the demand for restitution. The conclusion, therefore, is that the
correct kind of theory of Christ’s death is the Satisfaction kind.
The Satisfaction theories
allow for other effects—human influence and witness to God’s moral judgment.
The Human Influence and Governmental theories, however, while pointing to
partial truths, err in excluding restitutionary justice from the picture. These
latter theories are structured on false perceptions of what justice is. They
fail because of their reductionism. All modern attempts to “reinterpret” the
death of Christ in a way “understandable to present [paganized] society” must
be stoutly resisted. His death must be repeatedly explained until men
understand, but it must be explained within the biblical framework. It must be
seen as a voluntary death by the God-man acting simultaneously as priest and
sacrifice in the context of God’s justice.
Substitutionary Atonement as
Resolution of a Theological “Contradiction.” In
our earlier studies we mentioned the problem of apparent contradictions that
appear in biblical revelation, particularly the so-called “problem of evil”
(Part II of this series). There we noted that as Creator God has the
(Q)ualities of omniscience and holiness (righteousness and justice) whereas man
as creature has the (q)ualities of human knowledge and conscience. The human
intellect and moral sense are similar to God’s omniscience and holiness so that
we yearn for a reason and for a justification of the present evil world. There
must be one. The Bible doesn’t present us.90 with an irrational, existential absurdity (in spite of some modern
theologians’
claims).
Nonetheless, the human
intellect and moral sense are not identical to omniscience and holiness so that
“the” reason and justification, though existing in the mind of the Triune
Creator, may never fully be grasped by and exist in the mind of the creature.
There are, after all, two levels of reality in the biblical worldview. As
creatures, therefore, we finally have to trust in the revealed rationality and
holiness of God as Job was finally forced to do once he met God face-to-face
yet still did not get a specific reason for his suffering. Unlike, Job,
however, you and I live on this side of the greatest revelation God has so far
done in history: the Incarnation and the Cross of His Son. The substitutionary
atonement of Christ is the first part of solving the so-called “evil problem.”
The Cross, rightly
interpreted, resolves the apparent conflict in the OT between the holiness of
God and His forgiveness of evil. Frame puts the matter this way:
“Justice, as defined by the
prophets, cannot be merciful, or so it seems. But God does solve the problem,
in a way that none of us would likely have expected, in a way that amazes us
and provokes from us shouts of praise. . . .Here is the lesson for us: If God
could vindicate his justice and mercy in a situation where such vindication seemed
impossible, if he could vindicate them in a way that wen far beyond our
expectations and understanding, can we not trust him to vindicate himself
again?”[21]
Notice I said the Cross rightly
interpreted. The Satisfaction theory of substitution alone resolves the
logical tension between justice and grace. The other kinds of theories begin
from a compromised view of justice and therefore leave justice and grace still
in tension. The Human Influence theories deal only with human subjective
responses to grace without dealing with the resolution of divine justice. The
question of how forgiveness can be given is left unanswered. How, then can we
be sure we really are forgiven by Him? The Governmental theories correctly note
that there is some sort of logical resolution at the Cross, but it is
resolution between “God’s moral reign” and grace rather than between God’s just
nature and grace. The Cross, rightly interpreted as satisfactory substitution,
reveals a logic of omniscience that
defies human comprehension
and predictability.
The Cross thus becomes a
powerful assurance that the “evil problem” would not be a contradiction at all
if we could see it from inside God’s mind. Our logical thought processes are
only finite replicas of His omniscient “hyperlogic.” With that in mind, let’s
turn to the next topic, the extent of the atonement.
THE EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT.
Closely related to the
nature of the atonement is its extent. By extent is meant the application and
result of the Cross throughout the creation toward both the non-elect men who
remain unredeemed at the end of history and the elect who have been redeemed by
the end of history. (To review the doctrine of election, see Part III of this
series where we studied the call of Abraham.) When we discussed the
Governmental theory, we noted that its proponents often try to discredit the
Satisfaction theory
by positing the following
dilemma: if Christ died for all men and all men are not saved, then his
atonement cannot be a satisfactory and substitutionary one.
Either we must accept an
unlimited atonement (applying to all men) and non-satisfactory one or, such
critics reason, if we insist upon a substitutionary atonement, we must accept
its limited extent (applying to only the elect). The extent of the atonement is
thus related to the nature of the atonement.
NT texts seem to affirm both
the limited extent and the unlimited extent. Many verses reveal that Christ
came to save “his people”, the elect, and not the whole world (Matt. 1:21; Rom.
5:6ff; Eph. 2:15-17; 5:25; Tit. 2:14). Other verses insist that He died for all
men (II Cor. 5:15; I Tim. 2:6; 4:10; Tit. 2:11; I John 2:2). The Church,
especially after the Reformation, has vigorously debated the issue of the
extent of the atonement. Appendix C surveys that debate and provides a logical
analysis of the issue. In the following paragraphs, therefore, I will simply
present four theses or claims that address the extent of the atonement. These
four claims, together with the previous claim above concerning the restitutionary
nature of the atonement, constitute an outline of the doctrine of the
substitutionary blood atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Atonement is the Sole
Legal Basis of All Grace. All mankind this side of the fall receives some grace from God. In
certain cases this grace restrains much of the result of the fall cursing; in
other cases this grace restrains very little. Grace does not always save, but
it always blesses fallen man to some degree. Major Bible passages which speak
of the non-salvation aspects of grace (often called “common grace”) are Psalm
145:9; Matthew 5:44-48; John 1:9; and Acts 14:16-17. The last passage in Acts
14 occurs in the context of missionary evangelization where Paul uses such
common grace as a point of contact with the unsaved. Elsewhere in the NT
this grace is shown in a
universal call of the gospel to all men everywhere (Matt. 28:19-20; John
16:8-11; and Acts 17:30).
How can God be gracious to
sinful man? We have already pointed out that He is Holy and Just and Immutable.
Thus His just standards can never be changed, modified, or lessened. Paganism,
Christian cults, and modern liberal theology all fail at this basic starting
point. All of them deny the just nature of God when they whine about the
“unfairness” of the Cross as being the only way to God. Whichever way God is
gracious toward the fallen world, it. must be in such a manner that His holy and just character is never
compromised. He has absolute integrity.
The answer to this crucial question
lies in the death of the King. The very first biblical covenant, the New World
Covenant in Noah’s day, clearly showed the atonement basis of God’s grace to
all men, saved and unsaved alike. In Genesis 8:20 the sacrifice occurs before
the blessings of physical preservation come into force. All the later biblical
covenants except possibly the Davidic were installed with founding sacrifices
(see Parts II-IV of this series). Each of these covenants revealed that an
atonement of some sort was at the root of God’s grace just as the sacrificed
animal in Eden was at the root of God’s grace to Adam and Eve. Always the
biblical emphasis is upon the integrity of divine justice. In the NT, Hebrews
10:29 speaks of certain physical blessings short of salvation which accrue to
man because of Christ’s atonement (they were “sanctified” in some sense by the
blood of the New Covenant). The Protestant Reformation strongly stressed this
truth, as Nicole notes: “The Reformers as well as others admit, yea are eager
to acknowledge, that there are certain blessings short of salvation, which are
the fruits of the work of Christ, which may terminate upon. . .all men.”[22]
Figure Six illustrates how
the atonement is the sole legal basis for all grace poured out to mankind, whether
saving or non-saving. The series of nested spheres show the increasing “extent”
of grace made possible by the Cross. Area I is the greatest in extent of this
grace, consisting of God’s providential preservation of the fallen world as
revealed in the New World Covenant of Genesis 8-9 and the apostolic preaching
of Acts 14 and Romans 1. Area II depicts the extent of gospel penetration into
the world since Pentecost where God is warning men that without Christ’s Cross
they face judgment (cf. John 16, Acts 17). Area III is the area of salvation
and sanctification of the elect as shown in Romans 4-8. Finally, Area IV is the
greatest display of grace in advanced sanctification such as that revealed in
John 17. The Cross stands between God’s unchangeable justice and fallen
creatures in need of His grace.
|
I |
II |
III |
IV Cross |
Figure 6. A series of nested spheres that depict the varying extent of God’s grace that flows from the death of the King. See discussion in the text.
God Calls Mankind to Repentance
with an Atonement Sufficient for All.
Not only is the atonement
the basis of all grace, but it is sufficient to save every man in the entire
human race. As even the strongly Calvinistic Canons of Dort (1619) state: “The
death of the Son of God. . .is. . .abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of
the world.”[23] The universal call of the gospel is backed up by an atonement
sufficient to save completely all men if they were to believe. For this reason
the Bible reveals the “optimistic” attitude of God toward mankind again and
again, whereby He longs that all men be saved. The sphere of redemption (Areas
III and IV in Fig. 6) is not revealed immediately as being significantly less
than the one which encompasses all to whom God speaks at particular historical
moments. In the Garden of Eden God offered both Adam and Eve eternal life.
After the flood, God established His New World Covenant with all of the human
race. In Abraham’s time, God spoke of those whom He would bless in the plural,
whereas He spoke of those whom He would curse in the singular (Gen. 12:3). At
Mt. Sinai God described Himself to Moses as the One showing love to thousands
of generations but showing judgment to only four generations (Exod. 20:5-6).
Throughout Israel’s history God
repeatedly gave optimistic exhortation to Israel to ready herself for His
Kingdom in the immediate, not far-off, future. Israel’s entrance into Canaan,
for example, was originally to have been immediate and by the direct route from
the south, but it was postponed nearly forty years for an indirect route from
the east (Num. 13-14). Israel’s political structure was unheard of in the
ancient world in its wonderful freedom from centralized civil government. Only
reluctantly in response to men’s sin was the centralized monarchy installed
(Deut. 17:14-20; cf. I Sam 8). The exile originally was to have been only
seventy years and to be followed by total restoration into the climatic Kingdom
of God, yet it was extended to 490 years (Deut. 30:1-10; Jer. 25:11; cf. Dan.
9:24-27).
In NT history God offered
the Kingdom to Israel through John and Jesus as an immediately available thing
which was postponed only after Israel rejected her Messiah (Matt. 3:1-12; 4:17;
11:7-19; John 3:16; 12:47). In fact, Jesus pointed out that had Israel accepted him and received his
Kingdom, John would have been the Kingdom precursor, Elijah, as prophesied in
Malachi 4:5. Clearly, then, God foresees “hypothetical” optimistic options to
history in which the extent of His grace is wide and unrestricted. He truly
desires that all men be saved (Matt. 28:19-20; John 16:8-11; Acts 17:30). The
reduced sphere of grace observed in the minority of humankind that eventually
are saved comes only after there has been a wider offer.
This optimistic attitude of
God can also be observed in the Bible when the end conditions of the blessed
elect and cursed non-elect come into view. For example, Matthew 25 states that
the blessed state of the elect has been at the heart of God’s attention from
eternity past (v. 34b), while the cursed state of the non-elect is said to have
been prepared not for them but for the demonic powers (v. 41). Romans 9 says
that the elect have been prepared directly by God in eternity past (v. 23),
whereas the non-elect are said merely to be prepared or to prepare themselves
(v. 22). Although these kinds of passages do not deny that God is sovereign
over all, good and evil alike (Isa. 45:7; Prov. 16:4; Rom. 9:21), they do
reveal something significant about God’s character. At this point someone will
try to argue, that this optimistic attitude can’t be taken seriously. If God
has this optimistic attitude and these options don’t come to pass, then doesn’t
this failure undercut God’s sovereignty and power? Or if He is truly sovereign
and omnipotent, this optimism must be an illusion, a deception to hide His wrath from us.
As I point out in Appendix
C, we must be careful here to remember the Creator-creature distinction between
His sovereignty and our human choice. Whereas human choice is a finite
replica of divine sovereignty, it is not identical to it. We cannot reason
as the pagans do, following Aristotle, assuming that there exists some sort of
abstract category of “free will” that applies to the Creator in the same manner
as it applies to the creature. God’s sovereignty is mysterious and
incomprehensible. Remembering that we are not gods will prevent us from falsely
thinking of his sovereignty as exactly identical to our attribute of choice.
We are back, once again, to
the same ground we covered in Part II of this series when we studied the
problem of evil (how can a God Who is omnipotent be loving when evil exists?).
It is the same ground we looked at in the last chapter when we studied the
impeccability of Christ (is the God man not able to sin or merely able not to
sin?). So it is here: how can God call all men to trust in an atonement
sufficient for all when, in the end, it is not efficient for all? I comment on
this topic in more detail in Appendix C.
The Saving Benefits of the
Atonement are Received Through Faith. While all agree that the saving benefits of the
atonement are received through faith, there is disagreement about this faith
“condition.” Two opposite errors are possible here. On the one hand, extreme
Calvinism sometimes erases the historical significance of faith. American
Puritanism suffered, for example, from this problem because children were not
clearly evangelized; and the Christian culture was, therefore, weakened in the
second and third generations. The elect, some of the Puritans thought, would
somehow automatically be saved without there being an emphasis on the need for
the individual to believe. Faith, in this extreme Calvinism, is sometimes
considered as differing in no way from the other aspects of the fruit of the
Spirit. Yet the Bible does treat faith as unique in some respect. Nowhere do
the Scriptures tell man to “love and be saved” or to “hope and be saved”; they
tell man to “believe and be saved.” Faith holds a unique place because it is
the initial condition in the individual of eternal salvation. Faith is a
significant act of the creature in space-time history. Paul could say that he,
as a responsible creature, “was not disobedient” to God’s call (Acts 26:19).
Surely, he means at least that it was a necessary and significant act which
defined his meaning in history.
On the other hand, the
opposite error is that of Arminian theology which so exalts faith that it often
becomes a work in and of itself, a meritorious thing that one does to gain the
merits of Christ or at least to co-determine with God the course of history.
Under this Arminian influence, contemporary evangelism too often pictures the
cross of Christ as a directionless act of God which requires the addition of
human faith in order to gain any particular direction toward individuals. In
this view God does what He can in an abstract sense divorced from any
particular human beings and awaits their response to determine the final
outcome of history. Divine sovereignty is thus suspended in favor of man, and
the doctrine of election is denied (see the call of Abraham in Part III of this
series). The Bible, however, strongly differs from this view. The cross in its
very nature influences men to varying degrees. In the previous section it was
pointed out that while the moral influence theory is not the most basic, it
does preserve a truth: the cross itself calls to men (John 12:32). Berkouwer
states it well:
“The message of salvation
does not consist in the communication of an occurrence which must then be
accepted by man in faith. For the salvation of God concerns a historic act of
God which itself gives direction, and which has an appealing, inviting,
promising, and commanding force.”[24]
In other words, faith cannot
be so disconnected from the death of Christ as much Arminian theology insists.
Faith requires both the verbal Word of God (Matt. 11:27; John 6:35-44; Rom.
10:17) and the historic work of God (Matt. 11:20-21; 24:22; I Cor. 10:13) (see
discussion in Part III of this series). Since the atonement is both the
Word and the work of God, it can be considered as a means of faith. No one can
believe by himself.
In what direction and how
far does the cross influence mankind? It has been shown above that the
atonement is the basis of all grace shown to mankind and is sufficient to save
all if they would believe. These truths, however, are static; they do not take
into account dynamic, temporally-progressing history. In this on-going process
decreed by God from before creation, God offers salvation to all mankind before
it becomes differentiated in time into the elect and non-elect. In this earlier
undifferentiated stage of invitation, the atonement reveals God’s optimistic
attitude toward all men. In this early stage of the temporal process the love of
God appears toward all men. Calvinist theologian Van Til warns that one must
not downplay this early revelation of God just because one knows “in the end”
only the elect are saved. He writes:
“We should not argue that
the general invitation reveals nothing of the attitude of God, on the ground
that God’s particular will is back of all. . . .We may, like the impatient
disciples, anticipate the course of history and deal with men as though they
were already that which by God’s eternal decree they one day will be. Yet God
bids us bid our time and hold to the common.”[25]
As time progresses, the
undifferentiated mass of men under the eternal plan of God becomes
differentiated into the elect and non-elect as men respond or reject the grace
of God coming to them from the atonement. As a means of faith, then, the
atonement influences some men to believe unto salvation (in the case of the
elect) and leaves the rest of men to reject it and face judgment without its
eternally saving benefit (the non-elect. Faith is the “condition” on the
creature level that marks the reception of the eternal saving benefits of
the atonement. It is not, however, a “condition” that operates at the
Creator level like the sovereignty of God. Always we must keep in mind the
two-level view of existence, acknowledging the Creator-creature distinction.
The Moral Responsibility For
Judgment and Salvation is Asymmetrical. Who bears the responsibility for those saved by
the atonement and those who die without it? Extreme Calvinists sometimes seem
to argue that God is directly responsible for both; but if He should be thus
responsible, then he would also be the author of evil, and man could not longer
be judged. Such determinist thinking clashes with the Bible as I show further
in Appendix C. In the Bible not only is God a “living” God Who responds to man
in history; He is also a God Who is sovereign over all in different ways.
Although He is clearly the ultimate cause of all—good and evil alike (Gen. 1:1;
Prov. 16:4; Isa. 45:7; Rom. 9:21; Eph. 1:11)—He is sovereign over good in a
different way than He is sovereign over evil. Figure Seven shows how God is
sovereign and morally responsible for the good produced in fallen history
whereas He is sovereign and not morally responsible for the evil produced.
Figure 7. God is sovereign over good and evil but not
in the same way. He cannot be held morally responsible for evil.
Looking at the atonement
from the end point of history, one can see that it was designed in line with
this asymmetrical sovereignty of God. God’s asymmetrical sovereignty can be
observed in the Bible from the beginning of history to its account of the end.
Even in Genesis 1 where the physical elements of light/darkness and order/chaos
(features which are used later metaphorically to communicate the moral nature
of good and evil) first originate, there is asymmetry. Light is called into
existence by a direct command of God whereas the darkness originates in
mystery. In the flood narrative of Genesis 6-8 God assumes credit for saving
Noah’s family while mankind bears the responsibility for the sin leading to judgment.
The same asymmetry of responsibility occurs with the Tower of Babel judgment in
Genesis 11 and in the call of Abraham in Genesis 12 (cf. Deut. 4:19-20).
Salvation is always due to God’s gracious and “disruptive” interference into
the sinful state of affairs; judgment is always due to man’s sin reaping its
fruit. Such asymmetry occurs again with the Exodus and in every subsequent act
of judgment/salvation. The terminal conditions of Matthew 25:34, 41 and Romans
9:22-23, discussed previously, continue this asymmetry to the very end of
history.
SUMMARY
This chapter has dealt with
the most emphasized event in the NT: the death of the King. Your view of
justice largely determines your response to this death. If you hold to the restitutionary
nature of justice as derivative from God’s attributes, you will comprehend the
cross. If, on the other hand, you hold to the various pagan notions of justice
as something originated by society or an elite, you cannot understand what the
King’s death is all about.
Only biblical Christianity
offers the resolution of the justice and grace. As the basis of all grace, the
atonement stands underneath every gospel message. Your view of the atonement
seriously determines the shape of the gospel you believe and talk about. Is the
gospel you believe a weak, impotent statement by a begging Jesus whose
atonement can be thwarted by creature moral responsibility unbelief, or is it a commanding call by a
Savior whose death as it touches all men, calls the elect into existence
through faith?
END NOTES FOR CHAPTER 4
1. Leon Morris, The Cross in
the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1965), p. 365.
2. See Charles L. Feinberg,
Is the Virgin Birth in the Old Testament? (Whittier, CA. 90603: Emeth
Publications, 1967), pp. 22-33; and see the early part of the Book of Enoch,
62:5.
3. Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum,
Jesus Was A Jew (Nashville: Boardman Press, 1974), p. 13.
4. For example, see George
E. Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub.
Co., 1974), pp. 156, 319.
5. Fruchtenbaum, p. 27.
6. Ibid., p. 28.
7. See Mark 15:44. Canadian
physiologist Arthur C. Custance has made a good case that Christ probably died
with (not because of) a heart that had ruptured the previous night at
Gethesemane (cf. Luke 22:44; John 19:34). His discussion was privately
published as Doorway Paper, No. 17, “How Did Jesus Die?” years ago and are no
longer available to my knowledge.