Featured Martin Luther and the Atonement (theories of atonement)

Luther saw that the law of God demanded perfection, and that he was wholly unable to provide that, so God wrath needing to be propiasted in full, needed to have someone pay for his own personal sins before a Holy God, and that Jesus paid in full for his own sins, by being His substitute who bore the wrath of God, and experienced all that means...
THAT is the focal point on which the very reformation rests upon!

 

I quoted several passages where Luther pretty much did see the death of Jesus as paying for our sin debt by taking on our due punishment and wrath though!

 

I came across this in the current Banner of Truth magazine. It is a letter from Luther to George Spenlein dated 1516:

'Oh, my dear brother, learn to know Christ, and him crucified. Learn to sing unto him a new song, to despair of yourself, and to say to him, "You, Lord Jesus Christ, are my righteousness, and I am your sin. You have taken what was mine, and have given me what was yours, What you were not, you became, in order that I might become what I was not".........You will not find peace save in him, by despairing of yourself and of your works, and in learning with what love he opens his arms to you, taking all your sins upon himself, and giving you all his righteousness.'

 

Indeed!! Substitution. Christ the sinless One takes my sin, makes it His own and pays the penalty of it, that I may become the righteousness of God in Him.

 

I just came across this.
To be clear: I have no doubt that Yeshua 1 is absolutely right in what He says and that any reasonable understanding of Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Galatians 3 etc. will support him. My only point was that it is not necessary to prove that Christ was punished with the same punishment that sinners experience in hell to prove Penal Substitution and that therefore I was not arguing it.

 

God has wrath against individual sins and sinners, as being Holy, there can be none unrighteous in His sight though, and Wright uses some of the same terminology, but He actually has Jesus death more in the atonement view of being the Victor, and he also denies that God placed His divine wrath upon Jesus in a PST way, as he sees Jesus bearing the penalty Rome afflicted upon Him as what israel the nation should have had to face.
www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/whats-wrong-wright-examining-new-perspective-paul/

 

This Scripture is abundant in the after actions on the cross!

1) it shows the death was for all, not the elect only.
2) it shows that there are specific elect, the “us” brought to God.
3) the flesh died, but the Spirit travelled to further complete the work.
4) the pre-law people are also without excuse because Christ manifested Himself to them, too.

No person stands with excuse before God.

 

Perhaps, as one compares and contrasts statements and views of what others taught (Calvin, Luther, ...) it is most difficult to fully and accurately be contextual.

The education, the culture, the inner self struggles, the outward oppressions, each will push statements that without the consideration may fit any imaginations design.

For example, was the Wrath of God completely resolved on the Cross?

To one who is schooled as a lawyer the answer carries with it an understanding that the mechanic listening to the angry growl of an engine might not have.

The physician looking at Isaiah 53 might see every single conceivable wound to the human body was expressed, healing accomplished and payment made in full. Yet, the poet may view the passage as ultimate love in one exchanging places for another.

Perspective does not make what is viewed as wrong, merely changed from a different perspective.

 

Luther and Calvin might have worded it somewhat differently, but they both would agree to PST as being the means by which the death of Jesus saved us!

 

You can back away from Jesus experiencing "Hell" upon the Cross if that aspect bothers you, but what is the rest of it that offends your understanding?

 

Luther and calvin explained the Cross in different terms, but both saw it in a substitution aspect for the atonement!

 

Can you give a Scripture that supports this?

Or are you using "Hell" in the manor of human suffering?

 

Certainly, but cannot the differences in expressing be better aligned with that which each was being oppressed rather than taking the statements as if the influences that impacted them were benign?