Featured The Classic View (just a summary)

I am posting this as some have asked the difference between traditional Christian faith and the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement.

This is just a summary (not detailed).


God, through Christ, created the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them. God created man in His own image and gave them dominion over the earth. God formed man of the dust form the ground and breathed into him life. God planted a garden towards the east, in Eden, and there He placed the man whom He had formed. God commanded Adam not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, telling Adam that in the day that he eats from it he would surely die. God made woman from a rib, from Adam. Adam was tempted by Eve, who had been deceived by Satan, into eating of the fruit. This was a transgression of God’s command. This was disobedience.

God told the Serpent, which is Satan, that he would put enmity between the Serpent and the woman, and between his seed and her seed; He shall crush the Seed of the woman on the heel, and the Seed of the woman shall crush the Serpent on the head.

Because Adam had listened to his wife and disobeyed God’s command not to eat of the fruit, God pronounced a curse upon the ground, proclaiming that Adam would toil the ground to provide food for himself. Adam would also die, as this is the wages of sin. He would labor until he returned to the ground because from it he was taken; for he is dust, and to dust he shall return.

This is how God defines the death that Adam would suffer: “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return”.

Eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil also effected a change to Adam and Eve. “The eyes of both of them were opened”. God said “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”. Therefore God sent Adam out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken.

In Genesis we see the fall of man. Adam sinned, and through his transgression sin entered the world. And through sin, death entered the world and spread to all men for all have sinned. Man is dust, and to dust man shall return. And God subjected all of creation to futility in hope because the creation itself also will be delivered form the bondage of corruption.

 

God chose a man, Abraham, from which He would grow a people. The Seed of Abraham is Christ. God raised up a nation, Israel, as His chosen nation. God loved Israel not because of her strength, as she was weak. Israel was in bondage to Egypt. God delivered Israel from Egypt. God instructed Israel to take for themselves an unblemished lamb, keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, and have the whole assembly kill it at twilight. They were to eat the flesh of the lamb that same night. They were to put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts and death would pass over the household.

God entered into a covenant with Israel that if Israel would obey God then Israel would receive the blessings of the covenant, but if Israel disobeyed Israel would receive the curses of the covenant.

God established a sacrifice system and the Levitical priesthood. Unlike pagan sacrifices the Levitical sacrifices would parallel the Exodus. Rather than slaughtering the sacrifice on an altar (as was the pagan practice) the animal was sacrificed on the altar. Instead blood would be sprinkled on the altar. On the Day of Atonement the High Priest was not to enter the holy place inside the veil, for God would appear over the mercy seat. The High Priest would enter the holy place and an offering. On the mercy seat blood would be sprinkled. The High Priest would go out and make atonement for the altar, putting blood on the horns of the altar on all sides. With his finger he sprinkled some of the blood on it seven times and cleansed it.

The distinction between pagan sacrifices, where animals were slaughtered to appease a god or gods, and the Hebrew religion the focus within the Hebrew religion on the blood being shed and sprinkled to cleansed. In the Hebrew religion the blood of the sacrifice was to make atonement, not the sacrifice of the animal. It is through this blood that the sins of Israel were covered, carrying over the theme of Exodus.

This foreshadows Christ and His sacrifice. It is a picture of what was to come.

 

God became flesh and dwelt among us. The Son emptied Himself and became man, becoming obedient even to death on a cross. He came to a people who were His own, but they did not receive Him. They esteemed Him as stricken by God, but He was suffering for their sins (not His own). He was surrounded by evildoers, taken away by oppression and judgment. He was sharing our infirmity, being made a curse for us, sin for us.

Christ suffered under the wages of sin, which is death. These were our wages, wages He did not earn. And suffering under the bondage of sin, the power of evil, of Satan, Christ died the death that we will die. The Serpent indeed crushed Him, crushed His heel.

But God vindicated Jesus and He rose on the third day having won for us victor over the powers of sin and death, the powers of darkness. He crushed Satan, crushed his head.

Jesus fulfilled, on the behalf of man, the obedience that Adam lacked...the obedience we lack. He fulfilled the Law.

He became the "Second Adam", and in Him men are made new creations.

 

I think you misunderstood the OP.

People have been asking me to again define the Classic View of redemption (the understanding that Christians held in general until Anselm).

If you want to discuss the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement then you need to start a thread on the topic.

If you want to discuss the Classic view (either for or against it) then you are on the right thread, albeit a false start.

 

Thank you. I made the comment to specify what was being discussed.

Too often members have no interest in knowing interpretations other than their own, so they have no way of evaluating their view. It helps not only to know ones own position but also other Christian positions.

With this topic I have encountered several (even on this board) who were unaware that their view was a minority view within Christianity. They seem shocked when exposed to other positions (aside from Calvinism vs non-Calvinism).

 

You do realize that those who affirm the Classic view and reject the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement have no problems with the early writings you posted....right?

Your error is believing that those ARE Penal Substitution.

Did Christ die so that we would not? Yes. Christ died a physical death so that we would escape the wrath to come (the "second death").

BUT you misquote Tertillian by lifting his words concerning the contemporary situation and persecutions out of context.

Here is his words (found in Chapter 1) in context.

You should know better



Your mistake is quoting writings not only out of context but truths we all agree upon and claiming that the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement.


Was 'He was pierced for our transgressions; crushed for our iniquities; and was upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds are we healed."

YES!!! But that is not Penal Substitution.

The Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement states that God punished Christ instead of us (or as @Martin Marprelate insists, our sins laid on Jesus instead of us). That is NOT in the Bible or in works prior to John Calvin (Penal Substitution Theory IS Calvinism in a nutshell).

IF you want to argue that the Early Church believed Penal Substitution Theory then you need to provide evidence that they believed Christ was punished by God INSTEAD of God punishing us.

This far you have not even provided evidence that it was believed God punished Jesus.


The issue still remains.....you are objecting to what Ransom Theories and Christus Victor is CALLED (the Classic view).

We know it is the Classic View. And that Satisfaction, Substitution, and Penal Substitution are the "Latin View" .


What you are missing is the view itself. If you disagree with the Classic View then your appeal should be to Scripture. But for some reason it isn't.

 

Another note - as evidenced ON THIS THREAD - nobody is weaponizing the Classic View. But @Revmitchell may be weaponizing the Latin View (Penal Substitution Theory in particular) with the suggestion.

There have been numerous threads devoted to the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement. There have been numerous requests for me to present the Classic View. But nobody thus far has even offered a challenge to that view.

All we get is an insistence that Calvin was correct, beyond approach on this issue.

 

This is what Tertillian actually said about the Atonement (not a discussion about persecution contemporary to his day in which he points to our death as not an end):


‘God…spared not His own Son for you, that He might be made a curse for us, because cursed is he that
hangeth on a tree, Him who was led as a sheep to be a sacrifice, and just as a lamb before its shearer, so
opened He not His mouth; but gave His back to the scourges, nay, His cheeks to the hands of the smiter,
and turned not away His face from spitting, and, being numbered with the transgressors, was delivered up
to death, nay, the death of the cross. All this took place that He might redeem us from our sins. The sun
ceded to us the day of our redemption; hell re-transferred the right it had in us, and our covenant is in
heaven; the everlasting gates were lifted up, that the King of Glory, the Lord of might, might enter in, after
having redeemed man from earth, nay, from hell, that he might attain to heaven. What, now, are we to think
of the man who strives against that glorious One, nay, slights and defiles His goods, obtained at so great a
ransom – no less, in truth, than His most precious blood? It appears, then, that it is better to flee than to fall
in value, if a man will not lay out for himself as much as he cost Christ. And the Lord indeed ransomed him
from the angelic powers which rule the world – from the spirits of wickedness, from the darkness of this
life, from eternal judgment, from everlasting death".

This is similar to Penal Substitution Theory, with the exception of exactly who was doing the punishment and for what reason.

BUT Classic Christianity is similar to the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement, except who is doing the punishing and for what reason.

 

It just s true. You did post that Paul taught Penal Substitution Theory, BUT you did not offer anything in Paul's writing that addresses the distinctions between Penal Substitution Theory and the Classic View.


The point of this thread is to summarize the Classic view of the Atonement.

A few have asked for an explanation.

A few have asked how Christ's physical death is necessary under the Classic View.

Rather than pointing out where the Classic View departs from Scripture, or discussing a different interpretation, members cloud the discussion with claims the Penal Substitution Theory is better, or wight, while the Classic View wrong. We never get to God's Word.

Do you see what I am getting at?

I have asked questions of Penal Substitution theorists and they were not able to answer, only to insist that is what the Bible teaches (without texts from which that theory could be derived).

I have asked for verses actually stating that God punished Jesus instead of us, or that Jesus experienced God's wrath, or that Jesus died instead of us dying....etc...and they were just met with a bunch of verses we all agree on but don't really state what the theory holds.



What I am looking for is people to challenge the Classic View. Not the Classic View vs Penal Substitution Theory, but the Classic View against Scripture.


I think we are used to arguments like Calvinism vs Arminianism (I am neither) but shy away from "this view" verses Scripture. It takes "us" out of the equation.

 

What I mean is read posts 1 to 3 and argue against it. There are several points that contradict the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement, so that would be a good start.

 

I am just using terms from seminary (the Classic View and the Latin View). Use Christus Victor motif or Medical Substitution if you prefer (I'm not attached to labels). As to scholars who use the term, I have already listed many (some Baptist, some Southern Baptist, some Mennonite, some Anglican). I'm not going to relist them because that is off topic (it plays into fallacy).

The other views of the time are considered to be within "the Classic View". They were different in details, primary the reasons God chose to give His Son to suffer and die under the powers of darkness. But they were similar in how they viewed the actual atonement.

Yes. Jesus won victory for us. There is a unity (we have victory in Jesus). He freed us from Satan's grip.

We still sin because we are not yet perfected (we choose to sin). The difference is sin is no longer our master.

It is Christus Victor as a theme or motif (Christ defeating the powers of darkness, removing the sting of death, and freeing us from the bondage we were under.

If you just focus on Christ's Victory over evil, then it would fall under the Classic View.

The Classic View is often referred to as Christus Victor and Ransom Theory. But it is more general. It includes theories that focus on Christus Victor, the several ransom theories, the Medical Substitution Theory (Tertillian).

It is an overarching view (like the Latin View includes Satisfaction Theory, Substitution Theory, and Penal Substitution Theory).


The biggest difference between the Classic View and the Latin View is their approaches to Scripture and redemption.