Atonement Theories

Ok, I've been working on all week on a very long and (hopefully) thorough reply, but I need to ask one more question just to make sure I'm not assuming something I shouldn't.

What is the wrath of God as far as you can tell? What constitutes it? Is it an emotion? Is it anger? Is it more than that or something else entirely?

 

God's wrath is His righteous anger against sin in all its forms (c.f. Psalm 7:11). God is not like us; He does not fly into a temper and then calm down. His wrath, like His love, is steady and immutable (Malachi 3:6), which is why the Lord Jesus had to die on the cross as the propitiation for our sins.

 

Ok. Thanks for confirming. I expect to have the answer I am working on finished either tomorrow or Monday. (Shooting for tomorrow!)

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Part 1 of 4
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Well, let's not jump to conclusions quite yet. We can agree at the point that they will share in the cup of Christ's sufferings.

I'm quite pleased I don't have to explain this idea to you. (You'd be surprised how many people don't understand this basic idea.) It will be important. Note for now the word "fellowship" in your answer: koinonia. We'll use it later.

But first we have to uproot and utterly destroy -- root and branch -- this utterly blasphemous idea that Jesus became a sinner in the hands of an angry God so that whatever He was going to do to us, well I guess He's just all out of juice now.

Good, good. (Would you say that James and John "fully underwent" the "certain experience" that Jesus did, in your scheme?)

Agreed.

This is an unsupported assertion thus far. It also happens to be the question at hand (i.e. "Which cup is that?"), so unless you're just restating for review, you're begging the question.

However, for the sake of the discussion, I can pass over this unsubstantiated leap. For now. And (again) conditional on the rest of my viewpoint, of course.

But here's where it begins to unravel. This is the crux of the matter.

No one is arguing that the cup Jesus was given to drink didn't involve suffering and death. The question is whether the cup was more than that, and whether God's anger against sin had to be satisfied or propitiated by fulfillment in action against someone ("someone has to pay!") or whether these terms, insofar as they might be found in Scripture, can be understood in some sense that doesn't end in disaster theologically, and, if I may say, spiritually and practically. (See and consider the spiritual state of those regions which embrace such things (by their fruits you shall know them).

Now here you bring in 2 Thessalonians 1:9 (I assume you meant 2nd, and not 1st, since bringing in 1 Thess. 1:9 makes no sense whatsoever that I can see) as support for this idea that the punishment of the End includes separation from God (the Father) as the condition of punishment. However, this verse does not support that concept directly. Rather, it only says that the destruction will come from the presence of the Lord, and from His glory. (Like destruction of skin [i.e. sunburn] comes from the face of the sun, and its glory.)

You are reading it as, "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction by being cast away from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." But the words I've placed in italics there is are not in the text, and when read without them it gives the sense I said above. This is resonant with verses like Job 21:20, 30; Isaiah 2:10, 19, 21 cf. Rev. 6:12-17; Joel 1:15; Ps. 34:15 cf. 1 Pet. 3:12; Ps. 97:5; 114:7, 8; Jer. 4:19-26; all of Zephaniah [note particularly 1:7], in the same sense as Acts 3:19 (cf. 2 Pet. 310-13 for the full context of "refreshing"). Furthermore, there is no "being cast away from the presence of the Lord", since (as we Orthodox pray) He is everywhere present and filling all things, and at that time His eternal glory and power will be manifest in full to the entire universe. (This is why it's called "the revelation" -- or, "the unveiling" -- of Jesus Christ. Peter, James, and John got a glimpse of this at the Transfiguration, but only insofar as they could bear it.)

David, for this reason, observes:

So the punishment coming from the face of the Lord cannot be separation from the Father, for "every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him", and "if you have seen me, you have seen the Father", and "then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and authority and power ... And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all."

So there will be no separation from the Father!

Therefore the cup that God will pour out on sinners at the End cannot have that in it. Therefore even if we grant that it's the same cup that Jesus drinks -- even if the bit is true about Jesus being the whipping boy for God's anger that has to have a target and all that -- separation from the Father is not part of it.


In fact, the opposite will be the case: the Father will be all in all in a perichoretic way, full of love. (Don't take this to mean that all will experience this as pleasant, btw. Love, to those who reject it, is a burning coal. For "if thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the LORD shall reward thee." And again, "love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.")

Let's stick to what's written, shall we? We are fairly certain and mutually agreed that the drinking of the cup (contents currently under examination per above) is what caused the sweating as a response to impending trauma, but it is a completely unsupported (thus far) leap from that to "because he didn't want to be separated from the Father". That leap assumes the answer to the question at hand (the contents of the cup), and also goes way beyond what is in the text.

In fact, yet again the Scriptures say something else.

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[snip here because character count]

 

Part 2 of 4
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Hebrews 5:7 tells us that His fear and concern were for His impending experience of death, not separation from the Father. Also, He was not heard "in that He suffered all the outraged justice of the Trinity", but rather "in that He feared". That is, He Himself had (in His humanity) the fear of death.

The Scripture is replete with such prophecies. What is it that he fears? Not some kind of experience of the wrath of God as "outraged justice" and "separation from the Father" that He has to endure. Rather, He fears -- quite naturally, in His humanity -- death at the hands of His enemies. He also fears that this death, being unjust, will represent a victory of the unjust enemies of God over His Word of Truth and just judgments. They have turned His Decree (of death) into a weapon of injustice.

Et cetera.

But the Lord's fearful humanity received strength from His perfect faith:

So (to recap, since that was a lot of quoting): the fear in the Garden was not the fear of experiencing the wrath of God upon all the sinners He was about to redeem by doing so. At least not in any sense beyond the experience of suffering and death itself, and especially not some fabled "separation from the Father." The fear was the fear of suffering, of dying, of death, and of the great and evil suffering that His enemies were about to inflict upon Him -- in other words, normal fears of His human nature.

Contrary to this fear, His comfort and strength was His faith that His Father would not forsake Him, that He would show Him the joy of His salvation, for which He endured the cross and despised the shame. His flesh trembled, but hoped in the Word with which it was united hypostatically, the Spirit giving Him great peace because He loved His Law, and nothing, therefore, caused Him to stumble. (Unlike unfaithful Israel, who stumbled at that Word.)

But what about His cry of dereliction!?!?! Doesn't that mean the Father had forsaken Him? No. That is merely what it looks like based on the situation. And He knows this. But He knows it (in His humanity) by faith, and not by sight (this was always the case, not just on the Cross). For what does He say in that same Psalm?

So the Father did not hide His face from Him, nor did He forsake Him at all.

I think this is incredibly important, this distinction between actual abandonment and turning away by God on the one hand, versus a mere suspicion/foreboding of such based on limitation of human knowledge.

The trial/temptation here is for the human to then take this lowliness and "run with it" into self-will and blasphemy against God.

And in case you're wondering, that's exactly the same cup that the martyrs drink. He is the Author and Finisher of our Faith, the Faithful and True Witness [Gr. martyr].

And this is the race that is set before us as well, which we are to run with the patience. Here is the patience of the saints, the keeping of the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
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[snip for length]

 

Part 3 of 4
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More begging the question.

In fact, the reason we will not (if we are saved) have to drink the wine of the wrath of God is because we will have been made holy, and pure, and righteous, and sinless: no longer sinners, the wrath of God will not abide on us, because it abides on sinners. And if a man turn from his wicked ways, and do righteousness, he will live. But the soul that sinneth; it shall die.

And what is the sin that causes death? Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, yes? That is, unrepentance. Unbelief that God is faithful.

So much for "it pleased the LORD to bruise Him" referring to Him getting pleasure from His death per se. Nor did it please Him because He crushed the sins to death. If it were so, He could not say, "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth for his transgressions;" but He does say that, and therefore the pleasure of the LORD in crushing Him is not based on that. The LORD Himself says so.

It's based on something else: that in crushing, His blood comes out. Like when a grape is crushed, and the blood of the grape comes out. And His soul comes out, and He enters the realm of the Dead. Hades, seeing a man, devours Him, and swallows God. Thinking Him worthy of death, Death seizes upon Life, and is completely undone thereby!

If He was not innocent, then He could not have been the Sacrifice. For, "Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the LORD thy God any bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, or any evilfavouredness: for that is an abomination unto the LORD thy God." (Deut. 17:1) But His sacrifice is acceptable to God, being "without spot."

When St. Dismas told the other thief, "We deserve to be here, but this man is innocent," He did not respond to Him, "No, he's right, I'm here bearing the guilt of the sin of the world, so I totally deserve it. from a legal perspective." Rather, He said, "Today you will be with me in Paradise."

But who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord? Not the one who is guilty! (Even if only by imputation.) (Ps. 24)

And if He became sin in the sense that you are giving (i.e. legally guilty, even if not personally so), then He would not be an high priest "who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's." If He were legally guilty, He would have to offer sacrifice first for His own sins; He Himself could not be the sacrifice for the sins of the people.

You've completely missed the mark (pun intended) on what it means for Him to have been "made sin". He is "made sin" without knowing sin. This is not imputation of guilt.

St. Maximus the Confessor explains (keeping in mind that "sin" means "falling away" or "missing the mark"):

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[snip for length]

 

Part 4 of 4
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So the Lord's "becoming sin" has nothing to do with Him assuming any legal guilt on our behalf. It has everything to do with Him assuming the natural consequences of the sin of Adam, in order that He might give the consequences themselves over to death by His own assumption of that condemnation -- i.e. that He might trample down death by death, and make the powerless the devil who until then had held mankind in bondage by the power of death.

This is what it means by "He bore our sins," and "He became a curse for us."

See, it does not say that He was stricken [by God], smitten of God, and afflicted [by God]. It says that we esteemed Him such. We thought that, but we were wrong. We thought He deserved it, but He was doing it to free us from bondage to the enemy. He was going into the wilderness not in exile because of our sin (now His, legally), but to retrieve the sheep that was lost -- humanity.

"But", it says,
"He was wounded for our transgressions"
-- that is, He took upon Him the consequence of our transgressions: wounds unto death.
"He was bruised for our iniquities"
-- that is, He accepted the blows to rectify that which our iniquities had wrought: mortality.
"The chastisement of our peace was upon Him"
-- that is, to bring us to peace, He allowed Himself to experience our own chastisement: suffering and corruptibility.
"and with His stripes we are healed"
-- that is, to heal us, He assumed our natural condition, and endured the stripes we laid on Him without turning away to His own way like we all have.

The burden of undoing this iniquity of ours, this turning away every one to our own way, is laid on Him. And He carried this burden all the way!

Openeth not His mouth, that is, in blasphemy against God ("Your ways are not right!"), nor to speak the words of His own will, for "when ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things."

Above, we saw the the Lord requires only that the wicked turn and live. He does not require sin to punished; only that the sinner turn from his ways and live.

I know what you will say, "Is that not clearing the guilty?" No, it's not. He does not clear the guilty. Rather, according to His own words, when they turn from acting upon their iniquity, they cease to be guilty.

The LORD does not need to pour out His wrath. It's not something separate from Him, to which He is bound. Rather, His wrath is fully under His own control. Even against sinners, if there is a chance for them to repent, He will not stir it up:

And if you still doubt that repentance is all that is needed -- that He desires mercy, and not sacrifice -- listen yet again to the Psalmist:

Sure, He does say that "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed." But this is because "Righteousness shall go before Him; and He shall set us in the way of His steps." So His mercy and His truth have met together.

He will turn us away from evil (truth), and thereby cause His anger against us to cease (mercy), because we turned from our iniquity and did righteousness, walking in His steps (truth), and He forgave our iniquities (mercy).

Not because He's going to short-circuit His otherwise-out-of-control (out)raged justice to get us off the hook.

No, rather, He says:

And again He says,

He does not say, "Because I will take it out on an innocent one." (Far be it from Him to become an abomination unto Himself, for He cannot deny Himself.)

But rather, righteousness and peace have kissed.

But that we must repent, and walk in the light in truth, and share in the cup of His sufferings, and that such is salvific (it is the means by which we are saved, and become partakers of the divine nature), see the entirety of St. Peter's two letters to the churches.

 

Uh oh. Looks like part of part 3 got lost in the process. I'll fix it in a bit. It was really good stuff!

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Does God have aholy hatred towards sins? Does He have really Wrath being stored up against all of the ungodly not found in Christ? Doesn't the person that sins gace a Holy God and wrath judgement, so unless pay propiates that wrath, will ot the sinner thmselves be forced to endure it>

It just seems that you are speaking as someone liek a NT Wright does in regards to the Atonement, that you see it being "barbaric" that God actually has Holy Wrath that must be satsified by Jesus? And remember, Jesus fully agreed to be the Sin bearer, as not tha Father doing child cruelrty to Him!

 

Thank you for these posts. I appreciate that you have taken so much time over them. Immediately, I can see large areas of disagreement, but rather that shoot from the hip, I will take some time to study what you have written and, as you have done, come back for points of clarification.
Please note that I have some sermons to write, and while it is possible to do short posts, it will be some time before you get a long one. This is the weakness of these discussion forums-- they lend themselves more to short posts than long ones-- but we shall just have to overcome the problem.

 

If you say so yourself. Perhaps others will be the judge of that.

 

@Martin Marprelate: Take your time! I find the quality and depth of discussion to be better when sufficient time for thought is available.

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Just one quick question: do you differentiate the omni-presence of God (e.g. Psalms 139:7-8; Jeremiah 23:23-24) and His manifest or felt presence (e.g. Exodus 33:7, 15-16; Psalms 90:13; Revelation 21:2-3)?

 

Are you objecting mainly to the concept of jesus being the sin bearer in our place would be bearing the Wrath of Gid in out stead, as that concept to you is "barbaric".

 

Nvm, looks like Part 3 came through just fine on the desktop. It's just displaying weird and missing a couple of parts on Tapatalk. Whew, close call.

There differences among manifestation, awareness/feeling, presence, and glory. For example, when He came into the world, He necessarily veiled His glory, but at the Transfiguration (before His Passion, mind you) He revealed it to His disciples as far as they could bear it (so as not to destroy them). When He comes again "in the glory of His Father", there will be no hiding -- He will be fully unveiled to the entire universe. (Thus the name "Revelation" -- apocalypsis; unveiling -- "of Jesus Christ" for the final book of the Bible.) There is also a difference between Him hiding Himself and our being insensitive. And there is a difference also between all these things and relationship/disposition.

So if you're going to say that He was afraid of a felt absence of the Father, in terms of comfort, obviousness in working, etc. ... I could maybe see that, because that is common to all -- death itself has that character, as does suffering. Job also is set forth as an example of patience under such seeing absence, and refuses to speak evil against God.

However, I don't see this condition as the punishment per se. The wages of sin is precisely death, not the absence (felt or otherwise) of God. The curse is specifically toil and travail as a condition of survival in corrupt nature, not the absence (felt or otherwise) of God.

If, on the other hand, you're going to say that God the Father actually abandoned Him, actually turned His back on Him, which is what R. C. Sproul and many others say and which indicates a much different thing, then we will find exactly zero agreement, because this is blasphemy either against the Trinity proper (if located in His divinity, making it tri- or bi-theism, and also introducing change into the changless), or against the Incarnation (if located in His humanity, making it Nestorianism/two-subject Christology).

We're also going to have zero agreement if you think that whatever the Father willed was an internal mechanism to Himself, to enable Himself to forgive sins, without which He could not otherwise do so. The Scripture is quite clear (over and over again) that God does whatever He wants. The Cross is properly the revelation of the righteousness and mercy of God -- not the mechanism by which God makes Himself righteous or enables Himself to be merciful.

 

I'm fairly familiar with N.T. Wright's approach, and while he's not far off, honestly, it's not a matter for me of whether my sensibilities are offended by one approach or another. Rather, it's a matter of not saying things that God simply and flat out doesn't say, while taking quite seriously and fully the things that He actually does say. It's a matter of ascribing the correct glory to God, and not the false glory of some false god of our imaginations.

I know. I'm not arguing on those lines. But, in sympathy with those who do, I should point out that a Father being cruel to His Son is still a Father being cruel to His Son, even if the Son is cool with it. But like I said -- my arguments don't lie on those lines.

 

Its NOT though being cruel, as it shows to us both the holiness and grace of God at the Cross!

 

Cruel would be the Father just torturing jesus for no purpose/reason, against jesus objections, but Jesus fully agreed to take the punishment due to us sinners, ir oder to see us saved by that death in our stead!

 

Does not the 'orthodox' Church believe in the doctrine of hell?

 

Yes, we do.