Christus Victor

[JonC]

I have no desire to injure your health, but when you wrongly claim that the ECFs knew nothing of Penal Substitution, I do not make 'claims.' I show the actual writings of these people that prove that they did.

Now @Reformed is absolutely right; the Church Fathers were a mixture of truth and error. The truth of a doctrine is not to be measured by its antiquity but by its faithfulness to Scripture. I only bring these extracts from the ECFs forward in the interest of truth because you continue to argue against their very words. I would much sooner discuss Scripture.

Martin,

I do not want to get into the issue of Penal Substitution Theory here (I know I mentioned the Theory but my intent was not to change the subject).

I am glad we can now see and affirm this common ground. This is all I have been trying to communicate (and why I am so adamantly opposed to some claims).

I do not hold to Penal Substitution Theory. I also don't hold to Recapitulation. I offered a definition at the request of a member who has earned my respect. If you don't mind, I will take my leave (I have a lot to do today).

Please enjoy the conversation, and continue exploring Christis Victor and Recapitulation here. But please do so without me. I've spent years studying these theologies when working on my degrees. My intent was not to rehash those times, but simply to offer a definition to a friend. I'm just not interested in discussing this with you.

I just wanted to let @Reformed know that I appreciated his integrity in discussing the topic.

I wish you the best, brother. And thank you for your insights concerning Christus Victor.

John

 

[Martin Marprelate]

I do not want to get into the issue of Penal Substitution Theory here (I know I mentioned the Theory but my intent was not to change the subject)

You are under no obligation to reply to me at any time, but I will reply to you
When I believe that your posts are at variance with the truth.[edited]

In short, I have been saying exactly what you are affirming now. I argue against the idea we should interpret early beliefs to be Penal Substitution Theory simply because their words convey what all Christian theories have in common. The "extra biblical" elements (the philosophy, the theological developments, the opposing positions, etc.) contribute to how people articulate and interpret Scripture.

I do not 'affirm' this and I cannot imagine how you can possibly believe that I do. The plain and simple words of many (not all) ECFs show that they understood and agreed with the principle of the Doctrine of Penal Substitution even if they did not call it such or write long books about it. If I have the time and energy I will write as many as I can find out in full on a new thread so that there will be no confusion.

I will end by quoting from Pierced for our Transgressions by Jeffrey, Ovey and Sach from where I have taken many of the quotations (others found on line or in various books including The Early Church Fathers by Henry Bettenson):

We....have demonstrated that the doctrine of penal substitution has been affirmed from the earliest days of the Christian Church, and has continued to find a place in the mainstream of Christian theology throughout the last 2,000 years. Moreover, our study of Athanasius has shown that penal substitution was not an unimportant doctrine among the Church fathers, relegated to the sidelines and overshadowed by other, more significant themes. On the contrary, for this major figure at least, penal substitution was considered central to the Christian faith and a foundational element in God's plan.
We saw in Chapter 2 that penal substitution is biblical. As we emphasized at the start of this chapter, that counts for much more than the fact that lots of people throughout church history have believed it. However, it is reassuring to find that our understanding of the biblical texts has a long and distinguished pedigree.

 

[utilyan]

Psalm 7:11. 'God is a just judge. And God is angry with sinners every day.'

Isaiah 12:1-3. 'And in that day you will say:
"O LORD, I will praise You; though You were angry with Me,
Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me.
Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid;
For YAH, the LORD, is my strength and my song;
He has also become my salvation."

Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.'

When is 'that day'? If you look at Isaiah 11, it is clear that it is the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is He who has turned away God's righteous anger from His people, by the atoning of Himself as Isaiah goes on to show in Chapter 53 etc.

Amen. None of which means God being reconciled to us.

Just because when you get angry at someone it doesn't mean you hate them and they are not your friend.

God doesn't need to change his mind about you. He doesn't need to repent. You need to repent.

 

[JonC]

I do not 'affirm' this and I cannot imagine how you can possibly believe that I do.

Please, brother, there is no need to become insulting. Not only are we Christian, but we are family.

I assumed you were in agreement with what @Reformed had posted and thought it common ground. I must have misread your comments concerning his words.

It is fairly easy to make mistakes when dealing with other people's ideas on these types of forums. This does not justify people being unkind to other people. I grant I may have mistaken you to be in agreement with @Reformed 's statement. But it was a mistake, not mendacity.

Please, back to the topic of the OP.

In Christ,

John

 

[Martin Marprelate]

God doesn't need to change his mind about you. He doesn't need to repent. You need to repent.

God doesn't change His mind and nor does He repent. In eternity past He set His love upon a vast crowd of ungodly sinners and gave them to Christ to redeem at measureless cost. If you are one of them, He is showing His longsuffering by putting up with all your nonsense on this board. However, that does not mean that He is not angry at sin, and that He will not punish sinners. But for those whom He has given to Christ, the punishment has already taken place on the cross, that God might be 'just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus.'

 

[utilyan]

God doesn't change His mind and nor does He repent. In eternity past He set His love upon a vast crowd of ungodly sinners and gave them to Christ to redeem at measureless cost. If you are one of them, He is showing His longsuffering by putting up with all your nonsense on this board. However, that does not mean that He is not angry at sin, and that He will not punish sinners. But for those whom He has given to Christ, the punishment has already taken place on the cross, that God might be 'just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus.'

". In eternity past He set His love upon a vast crowd of ungodly sinners and gave them to Christ to redeem at measureless cost. "

All your saying is he doesn't forgive at all. And you have no scripture to support this unless you butcher Ephesians out of context.

Epheisains 1

4just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love

Frequently butchered verse, Because it neglects you have to be IN CHRIST. And you have not been in Christ before.

Ephesians 2

12remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

BUT NOW IN CHRIST, Meaning you were not before.

When where you ever excluded having no hope and no God?



Romans 3 : 26

26for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus

HE WOULD BE. You butcher and chop that line. Because it doesn't say have always been from "eternity past" justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

 

[37818]

"As the term Christus Victor indicates, the idea of “ransom” should not be seen in terms (as Anselm did) of a business transaction, but more of a rescue or liberation of humanity from the slavery of sin. Unlike the Satisfaction or Penal-substitution views of the atonement rooted in the idea of Christ paying the penalty of sin to satisfy the demands of justice, the Christus Victor view is rooted in the incarnation and how Christ entered into human misery and wickedness and thus redeemed it. Irenaeuscalled this "Recapitulation" (re-creation). "

As C.S. Lewis (who held a Christus Victor view) wrote "Aslan is not a tame lion" - God does not submit to human expectations.

Either God is both just and merciful or He can be neither. (Romans 3:23-26; 1 John 2:2.)

[C. S. Lewis did not understand the finished work of Christ, in that he did believe in purgatory. Check this out.]

 

[JonC]

Either God is both just and merciful or He can be neither. (Romans 3:23-26; 1John 2:2.)

I agree. And keeping to the subject Irenaeus taught the same (although he believed this was...literally...a reversal of Adam's failure rather than a payment in terms of the Penal Substitution Theory).

In fact, it seems that all theories believed God to be both just and the Justifier of sinners. They just hold a different view of how this is accomplished.

 

[utilyan]

His justice is mercy.

Folks need to Tell us the meaning of this word Tzedakah.


You cannot split God's Mercy from his Justice.


I can always count on certain folk here to see God's justice as a thumbs down to another. Devoid of kindness, mercy and love.

A lifeless justice devoid of any compassion who's supreme sadistic needs are paramount, with a law made for its service rather than help the people.


In short what some people here claim is Justice is anything but justice in the biblical sense of the word. But of a pagan's sadistic retributive 'justice'.

 

[37818]

Yes. All are based in truth. But the thing is each contradicts the other. One cannot hold to Penal Substitution Theory as a whole and Christus Victor at the same time...without being extraordinarily inconsistent - but one can see elements of Scripture in all of the theories (because what differs is the reasoning, not the Scriptures).

Identify that point of truth one or the other denies.

 

[37818]

His justice is mercy.

Folks need to Tell us the meaning of this word Tzedakah.


You cannot split God's Mercy from his Justice.


I can always count on certain folk here to see God's justice as a thumbs down to another. Devoid of kindness, mercy and love.

A lifeless justice devoid of any compassion who's supreme sadistic needs are paramount, with a law made for its service rather than help the people.


In short what some people here claim is Justice is anything but justice in the biblical sense of the word. But of a pagan's sadistic retributive 'justice'.

So if no one was to be saved, that would be justice, but would that be mercy?

 

[Reformed]

@JonC , have you read J.I. Packer's lecture on penal substitution? I ask because it is one of the most scholarly treatments I have read on the view apart from a textbook.

 

[JonC]

Identify that point of truth one or the other denies.

If our redemption is based on Christ’s incarnation (life, ministry, death, and resurrection) in order to recapitulate the evil brought by the fall in order to “re-create” and re-stablish man in the image of God through the “second Adam” (as Irenaeus argued: “for Adam had necessarily to be restored in Christ, that morality be absorbed in immortality”) then it is by definition a view in competition with some others.

Is the Atonement a re-creation of humanity? Yes. Is it Christ shedding His own blood as a purchase for mankind? Yes. The answer is yes to both.

But is the Atonement at once a recapitulation of humanity as stated in Irenaeus’ work and a punishment for our “sin debt” as articulated during the Reformation? No, the two are in opposition of each other.

 

[JonC]

@JonC , have you read J.I. Packer's lecture on penal substitution? I ask because it is one of the most scholarly treatments I have read on the view apart from a textbook.

If it is the lecture I'm thinking of then yes, I have. And you are right about his treatments of penal substitution. It is well done.

While I do not affirm the theory as I once did, I respect those who attempt to honestly examine the various ideas of the atonement throughout Christian history. I do believe we have to be more careful about reading into the text ( I am just as apt to read into the text as anyone else). And I believe that if it is ever shown that divine justice is retributive justice (something that another of my "heroes", John Piper, in his defense of the theory assumes) then Penal Substitution Theory is the obvious contender to explain the Atonement.

 

[37818]

I agree. And keeping to the subject Irenaeus taught the same (although he believed this was...literally...a reversal of Adam's failure rather than a payment in terms of the Penal Substitution Theory).

In fact, it seems that all theories believed God to be both just and the Justifier of sinners. They just hold a different view of how this is accomplished.

How God's holy justice satisfied?

 

[JonC]

How God's holy justice satisfied?

By undoing what was done in Adam and conquering the powers of sin and death on behalf of mankind thereby gaining victory.

The theory views man as being forgiven not by the expenditure of punishment but by being made a new creation in Christ (dying to sin and being made alive in Christ).

 

[Martin Marprelate]

". In eternity past He set His love upon a vast crowd of ungodly sinners and gave them to Christ to redeem at measureless cost. "

All your [sic] saying is he doesn't forgive at all.

On the contrary, God forgiveness is free, but not cheap. There are certain things that God cannot do. One of those is that He cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13). He cannot justify the wicked.(Exodus 23:7 etc.). But on the cross, 'God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him' (2 Corinthians 5:21). On the cross, all, the sins of God's people were laid upon Christ's sinless shoulders and His perfect righteousness credited to them (Isaiah 53:6).

And you have no scripture to support this unless you butcher Ephesians out of context.

I don't need to go anywhere near Ephesians. That the Father gave to the Son a people to redeem, of whom He will not lose one, is clear from John 6:40; 10:27-29; 17:2, 6.

Epheisains [sic] 1

4just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love

Frequently butchered verse, Because it neglects you have to be IN CHRIST. And you have not been in Christ before.

In the providence of God, His people were given to Christ from eternity past. Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. You need to understand that while God may do a new thing, He never makes a new plan, for if He did, the new one would be either better or worse than the old one, and God would either improve or decline, both of which are impossible (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8). All God's plans, therefore, are made in eternity, but come to fruition in time (c.f. 1 Peter 1:20; Titus 1:2).

Ephesians 2

12remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

BUT NOW IN CHRIST, Meaning you were not before.

God's plan of salvation was indeed made in eternity, but it came to fruition in time. Now, in Christ Jesus, I who was once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Christ's blood availed for me because God gave me to Christ Jesus to redeem.

When where you ever excluded having no hope and no God?

Before I was saved.

Romans 3 : 26

26for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus
HE WOULD BE. You butcher and chop that line.

One of us does, but it isn't me.

Because it doesn't say have always been from "eternity past" justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Christians are not justified from eternity past-- we are justified when we repent and trust in Jesus. But we were given to Christ to redeem before time began (Jeremiah 31:3; Ephesians 1:4-5).

 

[kyredneck]

<post reported_goodbye>

 

[37818]

If our redemption is based on Christ’s incarnation (life, ministry, death, and resurrection) in order to recapitulate the evil brought by the fall in order to “re-create” and re-stablish man in the image of God through the “second Adam” (as Irenaeus argued: “for Adam had necessarily to be restored in Christ, that morality be absorbed in immortality”) then it is by definition a view in competition with some others.

Is the Atonement a re-creation of humanity? Yes. Is it Christ shedding His own blood as a purchase for mankind? Yes. The answer is yes to both.

But is the Atonement at once a recapitulation of humanity as stated in Irenaeus’ work and a punishment for our “sin debt” as articulated during the Reformation? No, the two are in opposition of each other.

Ah, the fall did not negate man being made in God's image. Else killing another person would not be murder (Genesis 9:6).

 

[JonC]

Ah, the fall did not negate man being made in God's image. Else killing another person would not be murder (Genesis 9:6).

Per the theory in question, men are "reborn" or made "new creations" in Christ. Redemption is accomplished through Christ's victory over sin and death, divine justice satisfied through this victory (this "re-birth" in Christ).

Insofar as the Imago Dei, I don't know that Christus Victor holds a specific understanding.