VERDICT
1983
Essay 8
The
Scandal of God's Justice
Part 3
Robert
D. Brinsmead
·
The
Downfall of Western Christianity
·
The
Theological Basis of Christendom's Ugly Face
·
The
Triumph of God's Justice
·
A
Critique of the Latin Theory of the Atonement
Introduction
In the previous two issues
of Verdict we defined justice--first, as it
relates to God and, second, as it relates to his people. The principal task of
this issue is to understand how God's justice was disclosed in the gospel event
of Jesus Christ. This will lead to a re-examination of the doctrine of the
atonement and will raise some of the most sensitive issues in the history of
Western theology. In order to emphasize the necessity of this bold venture, we
will precede our re-examination of the doctrine of the atonement with a
discussion on the downfall of Western Christianity.
The Downfall of
Western Christianity.
We are living in an era of change--rapid, cataclysmic change. As one
author declares, "All the certainties of the industrial society in which
we live are disintegrating. We are witnessing an erosion of ideologies,
economic theories,and
traditional culture." Indeed, we are witnessing the decay and
disintegration of Western civilization.
The church as we have known it is more an expression and
institution of Western civilization than we generally realize. It will
not escape this process of disintegration any more than the
If we believe that Christ is the Lord of history, then the downfall of
Christendom must be seen as the triumph of divine justice. A review of some
facts of history may help us to appreciate this. There are historians who
believe that Christianity triumphed over rival religions in the Western world
because it was the most intolerant of all the competing religions. Some may
dispute this verdict, but no one can dispute the evidence that the Western
church has been an oppressive, persecuting institution for most of its history.
There is something profoundly intolerant about historic Christianity.
For example, the Christian West has much to account for in its treatment of the
Jewish people. For long centuries the Jews were subjected to massacres,
burnings, hangings and lootings at the hands of Christians. Superstitious Christians
often blamed the Jews for the Black Death, which decimated Christendom. In 1492
The young Luther appealed to Christians "to deal kindly with the
Jews." But the older Luther became more intolerant and irascible. In his -
Concerning the Jews and their Lies, he advised his followers to eradicate
Jewish homes and synagogues by burning them to the ground and covering
the site with dirt; prayerbooks and Talmuds were to be destroyed, rabbis silenced on pain of
death, travel forbidden, wealth seized, and usury stopped; young Jews were to
be enslaved at hard tasks. As a final step, Luther advocated expulsion:
"Let us drive them out of the country for all time. He concluded, "To
sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice
of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you and we may all be
free of this insufferable devilish burden--the Jews."
The entire Christian West--both Catholic and Protestant--cannot be
absolved from some responsibility for the Holocaust.
Christians have proved just as hostile toward fellow Christians. They have
generally been a feuding, fighting family. Christians have often put one
another to the sword, to the stake and to other kinds of inhumane suffering.
Protestants have sometimes been too inclined to dwell on the oppressive
exploits of the Catholics. Yet Protestant historian, Roland H. Bainton, says, "At the moment of its beginning
Protestantism was more intolerant than contemporary Catholicism." In 1525
the Swiss Reformer, Zwingli, launched a campaign to drown Anabaptists. Luther
did not oppose this dreadful program, although he refused to propose such a
solution for
religious differences.
In 1536 Melanchthon drafted a memorandum demanding
death for Anabaptists. In the same year, Fritz Erbe
died after being incarcerated in the Wartburg solely for his religious
convictions. Luther did not express one word of sympathy,respect or regret.
A few years later the brilliant and somewhat eccentric Servetus
was brought to the stake in Calvin's
Beta, Calvin's successor, dismissed the plea for Christian tolerance, calling
religious liberty "a most diabolical dogma because it means that every one
should be left to go to hell in his own way."
This short sketch of the spirit of Christian intolerance is not a distortion of
evidence biased by Christianity's lunatic fringe. It is an
expression of mainline Christianity through some of its most celebrated
personalities.
As far as historic Christianity is concerned, tolerance and religious
liberty are only a phenomenon of the last 200 years. And the triumph of
tolerance was sometimes gained, not because of Christians, but despite them.
The hated "secular humanists" were often more responsible for
securing religious liberty than were committed Christians. Marty's lament has
often proved to be true: "The civil people are not committed and the
committed people aren't civil."" In the
While the laws of the land
will no longer countenance the use of physical force in religious matters, the
spirit of intolerance is not dead. We are not merely referring to those, like
Gary North and Rousas John Rushdoony,
who are trying to make what they think are God's laws
the laws of the land. But we simply draw attention to the various means which
Christians often use to control the religious commitments of other people. In a
situation in which Christian groups compete for allegiance, numerous people
have become victims of mental, social and psychological coercion designed to
make them submit to religious systems. These processes of intolerance are more
subtle because they are generally conducted with loving, earnest concern for
the eternal well-being of the victims. Christians often bring pressure to bear
on other Christians for the pettiest reasons. A recent report from
Differences in worship
among believers in so called house churches have begun to surface, leading to
tears that authorities may step in more rigidly to control the evidences of
revival in this country, according to reports distributed by the
Others insist that men and
women sit at opposite sides during worship, even if there are very few men
present. Yet others believe they must speak loudly when they pray--a practice
which annoys local residents. One group insists that only one cup be used for
Holy Communion, regardless of the size of the group of participants.
"These and other practices are causing confusion and disharmony among
believers," the CCRC report says. "Some go so far as to insist that
those who don't practice the faith as they do are not true Christians.
"All this arguing gives local authorities an excuse to interfere in
worship services in the name of public order and peace." the report says.
Reinhold Niebuhr declared that "the grossest
forms of evil enter into history as schemes of redemption."" He said
this in the context of comments regarding evils in the Christian church.
In his book, The Cost of Authority, Graham Shaw has made the following
disturbing observations:
Christianity is not simply
a programme for human reform. It is a gospel of
freedom, deliverance and reconciliation. It proclaims Jesus as the Saviour. It offers men the opportunity of new life and
brotherhood. The fundamental challenge of the historical experience is that it
directly contradicts that claim. Repeatedly in the church's history the message
of freedom and deliverance has only served to sanctify a new system of social
control, buttressed by bitterly divisive social attitudes.
In this respect Christian experience has a disconcerting similarity to many
modern secular ideologies. The moral earnestness to abolish slavery established
the
Does all the ringing language of liberty only prepare for a new tyranny? The
basic question of this book is whether the freedom of the Christian is
self-sustaining. or whether it simply prepares for a new
tyranny?
In a recent newspaper article on Gandhi, columnist J. Stephen Conn quoted Howard Thurman,who once asked the Mahatma, "Mr. Gandhi, what
is the greatest enemy of Christ in
The Theological Basis of Christendom's Ugly Face.
These unpleasant features of Western Christianity should not be dismissed as
simply the aberrations of the sinful human nature which exists in all
Christians. Of course, an inherent intolerance in human nature cannot be
denied. But we need to face the evidence that Western Christianity has given
intolerance a theological basis.
In our recent issue of Verdict, "Justification by Faith Re-Examined,"
we devoted a large section to a critique of Christian nomism.
We showed that Latin or Western Christianity made a synthesis between New
Testament grace and Old Testament law. Christian existence was thus governed
and structured by law at every point. Living by rules and regulations of the
religious tradition is a type of Christian judaism in which the law (or religion) operates as a
barrier creating hostility even between Christian and Christian (Eph.
The key to the traditional orthodox position is the understanding of the place
of the law in the theological system. ... This idea of law provides the basic
structure for the whole orthodox system and so determines the understanding of
all other related doctrines the nature of the gospel, revelation, and of
course, the doctrine of the atonement. ...The law provided, therefore, the
structure which governed the understanding of other doctrines."
This Latin or Western theology, grounded in and governed by the principle of
law, has had profound implications for all of Western Christianity:
1. This law-based theology inevitably led to the
development of systematic theology. Good systematic theology is as logical
(law-ordered) as geometry. In fact, Gordon H. Clark insists that geometry ought
to be the norm for expressing theological truth.'"
2. Systematic theology means that Truth becomes equated with a closed system.
This is too much like a "God-in-a-box" religion. A closed system of
truth results in closed minds. The faithful are not supposed to--and in most
cases dare not--think outside the boundaries of the closed theological system.
Systematic theology marks off precise boundaries for the human mind, and the
fear of crossing these mysterious boundaries is akin to the fear medieval
sailors had of dropping off the edge of the world. And if the
inculcation of fear of wandering outside the closed system is not enough, there
are people with big religious clubs and ecclesiastical walls designed to
prevent the faithful from thinking outside prescribed limits.
There is another aspect of systematic theology which increases religious
control and loss of freedom. The great theological systems have become so
complex that their mastery is beyond the capacity of ordinary people. The task
of understanding and interpreting the faith has therefore been handed over to
specialists. This has encouraged the development of a distinct class of religious
professionals in the church called clergy. Since most theological inquiry is
conducted by religious professionals, it tends to become more and more esoteric
and increasingly removed from the laity. All this lends itself to clericalism,
hierarchism and the manipulation and control of Christian people by those
supposed to possess superior knowledge.
William Tyndale
envisaged a revolution which would elevate the plowboy to the level of the
bishop in the essential knowledge of the Scriptures. That vision never
materialized in Protestantism because Protestant scholasticism triumphed over
the gospel. Protestantism developed its own complex theological systems in
which people eventually were controlled and manipulated by the 'priestly
class" just as much as they were in the Roman Catholic system.
3. The Christian life ceases to be a pilgrimage. Instead of a venture of faith,
it becomes static. It offers a security with a certain appeal, but it is too
much like the security of the totalitarian state. The carefully defined
theological system and the over clericalized
religious structures of Western Christianity are not unlike the
carefully-planned economy of the socialist system. In both instances individual
initiative is stifled because the entire system is programmed by the clergy or
the bureaucracy. In the church system, however, the loss of true humanity is
worse, because control of the mind is worse than control over the body.
4. Truth (with a capital "T") too easily becomes equated with a
belief-system. The question, "What do you believe?" is given a
preeminence it should not have in determining how we stand with God and with
others. The impersonal "What?" or the belief system becomes the
all-important and some-times the only criterion by which people are judged as
worthy of acceptance or rejection.
Thus, a law-based theology is largely responsible for incarcerating
Christians in closed systems, making them closed-minded, intolerant toward
those who hold different opinions, and easily manipulated by a priestly elite.
Yet today gaping cracks are appearing all along the walls of the classical
systems of theological thought. To begin with, advances in biblical science
through the application of the historical-critical method have repeatedly shown
that the arguments often used to establish systematic theology are untenable.
More seriously, the liberating gospel calls all these closed systems into
question. They have become as obsolete as
A Copernican Revolution in Theology.
The end of Christendom means the beginning of a new era in Christian thinking.
A new beginning is far more than a new coat of paint on the old theological
structures. It is, in fact, a Copernican-type revolution in the way we do our
theology. Instead of making law the starting point and the principle which
determines the shape of the entire structure of Christian theology, we believe
that we must now begin with grace which was given us in Christ before anything
else began (2 Tim. 1:9). The beginning of all things is not an abstract
principle of law or election or anything else, but the word of God's grace, who
is Jesus Christ(John 1:1; Col.1:15-17).
The idea that we begin with grace rather than with law and make that the
reference point in determining the meaning of everything else may appear too
simple to accomplish a profound revolution in Christian thinking. Yet even
science (to say nothing of Christian history) can show us that the most
far-reaching results are often affected by the simplest means.
We do not deny that grace has always been an important part of every great
system of theology. Classical Calvinists have often referred to their system as
"the doctrines of grace." But without exception, all these classical
systems have their starting point in law and then make grace active in the
service of law. We now say that this entire way of thinking must be reversed as
radically as was the pre-Copernican universe. Grace is the starting point and
under girds everything. Law merely exists in the service of grace (see Gal.
1. It will mean the end of all systematic theologies. The grace of God is so sovereignly free, overwhelming and surprising that it
cannot be encompassed, mastered, domesticated and confined to a tidy system
--any more than God can be put in a box. Surely salvation- history should teach
us something about that. No wonder classical systematic theology tends to be a
historical! God's grace in Christ defies all attempts to make it conform to the
canons of human logic.
2. The end of closed systems means the end of closed Christian minds and all
the stultifying arrogance which goes with them. No more religious walls and
ecclesiastical policemen to decree, "Thus far you may think and no
further.
3. The end of closed systems and closed minds means that the Christian life
will become what it was always intended to be--a pilgrimage of faith. Instead
of the dull security of the carefully-defined religious system, there will be
the venture of living in the tents of faith. Abraham must have found his
pilgrim existence frightening at times, but certainly much more exhilarating
than being confined within a walled city.
4. No longer will the priority be given to the impersonal "What," of
the
belief-system. Ultimate significance will not be given to what we believe but
to in Whom we believe (2 Tim.
At times we may not be too sure what we believe. When like Abraham we do not
know where we are on our pilgrimage, it is enough to know that God knows where
we are. After all, even the smart man of the world realizes that it is not what
he knows but who he knows that gets him places. Those who are secure in whom they believe will not be so inclined to
quarrel with other Christians about what they believe.
The Triumph of God's Justice.
In Romans 1:16, 17 Paul declares that he is not ashamed of the gospel because
in it God's justice is revealed. In Part 1 of this series we gave various
reasons for preferring the word justice to righteousness. Paul proceeds to show
us that the justice of God revealed in the gospel is not a justice based on the
law. The apostle could hardly be more emphatic: "But now the justice of
God apart from the law (which is not based on the law] has been made
known" (Rom.
The justice revealed in the gospel event is a justice based on grace, and it
consists in God's faithfulness to his covenant promise. It is that liberating,
saving justice which manifested itself again and again in Old Testament
history. This becomes clear when we look at the background of Romans 3:21. The
apostle depicts the entire world arraigned at the bar of divine justice. The
Gentiles are proved to be such sinners that they are worthy of death (Rom.
1).But then the Jew is also silenced, because he is really no better (Rom. 2).
All are guilty. Then God rises to execute justice. The un-expected happens. A
"but" intervenes--"But now the justice of God which is not based
on the law is made known. Instead of bringing doom and death, it brings
liberation and life.
The contrast between the justice based on law and the justice based on grace
has already been examined in Part 1 of our series, but we will here summarize
this difference:
Latin or Western Biblical
or Gospel justice Definition: Conformity to a norm i.e..
based on the law - distributive justice : Giving what
is deserved - In tension with mercy - Primarily punitive (re-retributive)
Biblical or Gospel Justice - Definition: faithfulness to a
relationship--i.e. based on grace: Nondistributive
justice: Carrying out what God has graciously promised. Mercy for all who are
oppressed Primarily liberating, saving action.
A Critique of the Latin Theory of the
Atonement.
In the eleventh century A.D., Anselm developed a theory of atonement to explain
why Christ had to die. He articulated a theory on the "satisfaction"
of divine justice based on the Latin philosophy of law. In historical theology
this is known as the Latin or forensic theory of the atonement. The Reformers
stood in Anselm's tradition. They further developed the Latin theory by making
the law the object of "satisfaction" or "payment of debt"
in the death of Christ. Thus, the theory of the "vicarious satisfaction of
divine justice" or"penal substitution"
entered the stream of Protestant orthodoxy.
In reaction to Anselm, Abelard developed an alternate view of the atonement
which became known as the "moral-influence" theory. Abelard said that
God exhibited his love at the cross in such a way that contemplation of the
cross would move us to repentance and faith. No objective transaction took
place at
Before critically reviewing the Latin theory of atonement,we should say something about its value. In contrast
to all subjective theories of the atonement, the penal-satisfaction theory enabled
the church to maintain the essential element of biblical teaching--namely, the
objective basis of human salvation. The church was able to confess that our
salvation is effectively grounded in an objective (outside-of-me) event. The
Reformation doctrine of justification likewise maintained this objective basis.
On the other hand,the Abelardian theory of atonement and the Tridentine
doctrine
of justification lead people to look at either their own response to the
cross or to their inward transformation as the ground of their acceptance with
God. The Latin theory of the atonement also enabled the church to proclaim the
radical seriousness of sin and God's profound hostility to it.
If, therefore, we are given the choice between the classical Latin theory of
atonement and the moral-influence theory, we would have no hesitation in
choosing the former. If we compromise the objective basis of salvation in the
finished work of Christ, the vital element of the Christian gospel is lost. So
let there be no suggestion that in criticizing the Latin theory we are in any
sense predisposed to a subjective theory of the atonement.
Nevertheless, we have the following serious reservations about the validity of
the classical Latin theory of atonement:
1.The legal explanations it offers as to why Christ had to die and how his
death actually accomplished redemption go beyond what is actually said in the
New Testament. The best twentieth-century biblical scholarship seems to be
reaching the consensus that all theories of the atonement, including the Latin
theory, go beyond the New Testament revelation.
Christ reconciles man to God and gives him peace with God. It is one task of
theologians to attempt to explain how Christ in his self-giving on the cross
has achieved this end. No precise explanation, however,is offered in the NT, nor has the church officially
sponsored anyone of the theories of the Atonement which have been propounded.
When we come to systematize the teaching concerning the Atonement we find, as
in all doctrine,that
definite
system is not offered us in the NT...
All serious theories partly express the truth and all together are
inadequate fully to declare how the Daystar from on high doth guide our feet
into the way of peace (Lk 1:79).
"The NT does not and could not (as St Anselm and some Reformation
theologians did) set forth the death of Christ as an offering or satisfaction
rendered by Christ as man on behalf of man to make restitution for the outraged
honour or majesty of the infinite God. 'Satisfaction'
is a concept which has figured prominently in discussions of the Atonement in
Western theology, but the word does not occur in the NT. Most of the
distortions and dissensions which have vexed the Church, where these have
touched theological understanding, have arisen through the insistence of sects
or sections of the Christian community upon using words which are not
found in the NT: and this is nowhere more true than in
the matter of
atonement-theories. The NT does not say that God demands satisfaction (in terms
either of honour or of debt) or that man (even the
God-man) renders it to him.
Anselm's theory of satisfaction, consequently, has absolutely nothing in common
with Paul.
2. The Latin theory of
"vicarious satisfaction" or "penal substitution" is
based on the Latin theory of law. The Western law court, in which the
fundamental task is to uphold the demands of the law, becomes the metaphor
which explains the atonement. But this directly contradicts Paul's statement
that the justice of God revealed in the gospel is "apart from law"
(Rom.
The central idea in the Latin or legal theory of atonement is that justice and
mercy are in tension and are reconciled only by the act of the cross. We have
already demonstrated (Part 1), however, that there is no tension between
biblical justice and mercy.
When Paul preaches the good news of a justice which by passes the law
altogether (Rom.3:21)or a justice which is grounded in
a promise which preceded the law (Gal.
In his preaching about the good news of the kingdom, Jesus spoke about a divine
justice which refuses to conform to the canons of legal justice. His parables
teach us that love and grace do the surprising, "foolish" and daring
thing--such as the employer who rewards late-comers with a full day's pay and
the father who welcomes the prodigal as if he were a hero.
3. The Latin or legal theory of atonement embraces grace as an important
element, but ultimately it is grace in the service of law. This means that
Christ himself is really the servant of the law. His work meets its demands,
pays its debt and establishes its claims as if it were the paramount principle
of the universe. But the New Testament nowhere teaches us that Christ's
obedience was directed to the law or that his death was a payment or
satisfaction to its demand. These theories have been imposed upon the New
Testament. Christ is not the servant of the law. The law is always his servant
and exists in the service of grace. The Latin theory is like the medieval
world-view, which placed the earth rather than the sun at the center of the
planetary system.
4. The Latin theory depicts God as demanding an eye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth (Exod.21:24). Exact repayment for the damaged one appears to be dearest
to God. Yet Jesus preaches another kind of justice in the
In 1 Corinthians 13:5 Paul declares that love "keeps no record of
wrongs." but the legal theory of atonement tells us something very
different. In this theory God carefully keeps the score and requires exact
compensation. The theory of atonement based on law and explained by law too
closely resembles a commercial transaction in which the scales of debt and
repayment must exactly balance. It tends to transform God's love into a
coldly-calculating love. For example, the classical Calvinist must deny that
Christ died for the entire world on the basis of mathematical, law-based logic.
How could people suffer in hell,the
Calvinist asks, if Christ actually paid for their sins on the cross? Does God
require repayment twice--once at the hand of Christ and once at the hand of
sinners in hell? So the classical Calvinist is confident in the unassailable
logic of his systematic theology. The fallacy, however, consists in thinking
that divine love and grace must submit to such logic--even good Calvinist
logic.
Such closed systems of theology are no more able to contain divine justice than
the sealed tomb could have contained the crucified Jesus.
5. The penal-satisfaction theory of atonement too closely portrays God as a
celestial Shylock who must have his pound of flesh before he can forgive. We
agree with Alan Richardson when he declares that the New Testament does not say
that God demands satisfaction to either his own honor or to the law.
6. This law-based theory of divine justice has given credence to a
religion which dwells upon two elements in a way that sometimes borders on
Christian sadism. These elements, of course, are blood and fire. God appears to
love blood and fire. Only the sight of blood can appease his anger. Otherwise
it can never be appeased, even by the endless torments of the damned. Such
views of final punishment are unquestionably sadistic." No one in his
right mind would want to meet a God whose insatiable vengeance dwarfs the
cruelest monsters of history into insignificance. If we worship a God who so
loves blood and fire, why should we be surprised that for most of their history
Christians have been intolerant, persecuting, cruel and savage whenever they
had the opportunity. Even today, what segment of the
An Approach Based on Grace.
The justice of God revealed to us in the gospel is not a justice based on the
law (Rom.3:21). It is based on grace--the grace which God gave in Christ before
the beginning of time (2Tim. 1:9). The starting point of all our theological
thinking, therefore, must not be some static law but God's commitment to lavish
upon the human race every blessing in Christ.
By its very nature love is unconditional. It cannot be qualified by an
"if"
or an "until." God committed, promised and covenanted to love the
world of people irrespective of what they might do or deserve. He pledged
himself to go to any length, at any cost to himself, to make them sharers in
his inheritance in Christ. Where there would be human misery, need and
oppression, there God's love would bring healing and restoration. God would do
this because he would be God. He cannot deny himself (2 Tim.
We have seen (Part 1) that God's justice is God's keeping his promise. The Old
Testament is full of evidence that divine justice is biased in favor of the
oppressed. God is one who executes justice for all who are oppressed (Ps.
103:6). The Exodus was proof of that. This act of liberation on behalf of the
Hebrew slaves is celebrated in the Old Testament as an act of divine justice.
Clearly, it was not a justice based on law and what those slaves deserved. It was
based on grace--it was God's faithfully carrying out his promise to Abraham.
This is the kind of justice revealed in the gospel. In an excellent
article Sam K.Williams concludes that the
righteousness of God
in Romans is God's faithfulness in keeping his promise to
Abraham....Ultimately, in fulfilling his promises to Abraham, in making all
peoples his children through Christ, He is doing nothing more or less than
being true to himself--that is, to his own nature as creator and savior.
The gospel shows us that divine justice is a justice that is for us, with
us, and even instead of us. God is not only on the side of all who are
oppressed (Ps. 103:6), but in the person of his Son he has become one with us
in oppression. He is Emmanuel "God with us" (Mart. 1:23: cf. Isa. 7:14).
On earth Jesus especially went out of his way to be friends with those
considered outside the pale of the law and those who lived on the periphery of
society. He preached the good news "to the poor... the prisoners ... the
blind ... the oppressed"(Luke
Love is always for us. It identifies with its object. It bears the other's
burden (Gal. 6:2).
In order to understand the meaning of the resurrection, we must appreciate that
it was the resurrection of the crucified Jesus (Acts
Crucifixion was a gruesome spectacle. No one of noble birth was crucified, nor
was any Roman citizen put to death this way. It was the most degrading kind of
punishment, reserved for the trash of society. Jesus was crucified in weakness.
He was an oppressed, rejected, cursed, condemned, spat-on and forsaken man. In
this criminal's cross, all smeared with sweat and blood, we behold God's
becoming one with all who are oppressed. He takes the cause of all condemned,
wretched, forsaken sinners upon himself and becomes absolutely one with them in
all their deprivation and oppression. When God raised Jesus from the dead, he
showed that he was the God who executes justice for all who are oppressed. When
God executes justice, he liberates and restores rights to those who have been
deprived of rights. The verbal form of the word Justice is justify.
When God raised this oppressed Man to his own right hand, he thereby justified
him--he did him justice and kept his promise that he would deliver the
oppressed. The resurrection, therefore, was the triumph of divine justice over
all human oppression summed up in this Oppressed One who was the one for, with,
and instead of the many. He was one with us in all our oppression in order that
we might become one with him in his resurrection and justification." He
... was raised to life for our justification" (Rom.
Instead of trying to develop a theory of the atonement in the framework of some
philosophy of law, we have placed it in the historical- -redemptive framework
of the Bible. In this way we are able to preserve its essential objectivity. It
is as objective and as unalterable as the Battle of Waterloo. Just as an event
took place at Waterloo which changed the course of history for every
Englishman, so an event took place in the death and resurrection of Christ
which reconciled the world to God and inaugurated the new history of man in
Jesus Christ.
We are mindful that this leaves many questions unanswered. The Bible proclaims
what God has done to save us but does not answer our questions about why he did
what he did except that his love called him that way. Yet why should we expect
God's most glorious deed to be subjected to all kinds of rationalistic
explanations? We do not wonder and stand in awe before miracles which can
easily be explained. To live by faith means to live with unanswered questions.
The propensity to insist on answering too many questions has burdened
Christians with complex systems of theology and given them too many issues over
which to fight and feud.
It may be considered certain, therefore, that in Rom.3:25. Paul indeed regards
the death of Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement and sees in it precisely God's
saving righteousness at work. But it is a free,"foolish"
activity of God (1 Cor. 1:21), and it is completely foreign
to Paul to describe the activity of God as in any way a necessary activity, the
necessity of which was explainable and to which God had to submit. Anselm's
theory of satisfaction, consequently, has absolutely nothing in common with
Paul, and Rom. 3:25. conforms in every respect to the
Pauline proclamation. Paul does not intend to explain God's activity or to
deprive it of its foolish character by making it intelligible in this text
either.
Rather, he wants only to proclaim and to testify what God has done and what
impelled God to do it."
Notes and References
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations
are from the New
International Version.
1. Michel Poniatowski. Minister of
the Interior under former French
President Valery Giscard
d'Estaing, in an interview for news magazine Pourquoi
Pas? of
2. Douglas John Hall, Has the Church a Future? (Philadelphia:
Westminister Press, 1980), p 36.
3. Ibid.
4. See Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Part VI, The
Reformation - A History of European Civilization from Wyclif
to Calvin: 1300-1564
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1957). p. 218: Roland H. Bainton,
The Travail of Religious Liberty: Nine Biographical Studies (
5. Martin Luther, quoted in Richard E. Gade, A Historical Survey of
Anti-Semitism (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981), p 51.
6. Ibid.
7. Bainton, Travial of
Religious Liberty, p 55.
8. See Ibid., P 61.
9. See Ibid., P 64.
10. Michael Servetus, quoted in ibid.,
p 94.
11. Theodore Beza, quoted in Roland H. Bainton, The
Reformation of the Sixteenth Century (Boston: Beacon Press, 1952), p 211.
12. Martin E Marty, quoted in Robert Jewett, Christian Tolerence:
Paul's Message to the
13. The Presbyterian Journal,
14. Reinhold Niebuhr, Faith and History: A Comparison
of Christian and Modern Views of History (New York: Charles Scibner's
Sons, 1949), p. 214.
15. Graham Shaw, The Cost of Authority: Manipulation and Freedom in the New
Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), pp.5, 51, 48.
16. J. Stephen Conn, "Gandhi Still Has Impact on
People," Augusta
Chronicle,
17. Gerhard O. Forde, The
Law-Gospel Debate: An Interpretation of Its Historical Development
(Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1969), pp. 3-5.
18. See Peter W Macky, 'The Role of Metaphor in christian Thought and Experience as Understood by Gordon
Clark and C. S. Lewis," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 24,
no. 3 (Sept. 1981): 239-50
19. See Robert D. Brinsmead, "The Scandal of God's Justice--Part 1,
"The Christian Verdict, Essay 6, 1983.
20. C.L. Mitton, art. "Atonement," The
interpreter's Dictionary of the
Bible" An illustrated Encyclopedia, ed. George Arthur Buttrick
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962), 1:313.
21. William Owen Carver, art. "Atonement," The international Standard
Bible Encyclopaedia, ed
James Orr (1929; reprint ed.,
22. Alan Richardson, An Introduction to the Theology
of the New Testament (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1958), p 217.
23. Werner G. Kummel, "A Contribution ot the
Understanding of the Pauline Doctrine of Justification," in Robert W.
Funk, ed., Distinctive Protestant and Catholic Themes Reconsidered (New York:
Harper & Row, Publishers, 1967) p. 13.
24. See
25. See Edward William Fudge, The fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical
Study of Final Punishment (Fallbrook, Calif.: Verdict Publications, 1982)
26. Sam K Williams, 'The Righteousness of God' in Romans," Journal of
Biblical Literature 99, no.2 (June 1980): 265, 290.
27. Kummel, "Pauline Doctrine of Justification," pp.12-13. Kummel's
use of the work "necessary" might be somewhat misleading if taken in
isolation from the entire statement. It seems to us proper to confess the
necessity of Christ's death but improper to explain why it was necessary.
Copyright © 1983-2008
Robert D. Brinsmead