Featured Did Jesus die as payment we owe?

I am asking, once again, where do you get these ideas?

The Bible! Ultimately. Also, 12 years of research and around 100 books read on the topic. Did you see my post with quotations from Augustine, Chrysostom, John of Damascus, Caesarius of Arles, Anselm, Martin Luther, and John Stott?

My view is closest to the Orthodox understanding of the atonement.

You dance around issues ...

I really don't mean to. Please, be as direct with your questions as possible and I will answer them straight up. I am really trying hard to be as clear as possible, so I am sorry if I am failing to do so.

For instance, Jesus was killed unjustly and it indeed was the greatest crime in all of human history. But was it not part of a plan also by which the Father and Son would save people?

It was definitely the plan of Father, Son, and Spirit to save people. God is sovereign and has predestined all human history.

God can ordain events in which injustices and sins take place, without himself being unjust or evil. Genesis 50:20, "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive." Joseph's unjust betrayal and casting into the pit for pieces of silver, prior to being raised up as lord over Jew and Gentile, is a perfect analogy to Jesus' unjust betrayal and casting into the pit of death for pieces of silver, prior to being raised up as lord over Jew and Gentile. God is sovereign over both of their unjust treatments.

I don't understand why if I say "God is sovereign and Abel's death was unjust," no one bats an eye. But if I say "God is sovereign and Jesus' death was unjust," all of a sudden everyone loses their mind.

And I don't understand why the need to carefully avoid this aspect.

What do you think I am avoiding? It should be pretty clear on my view precisely why Jesus needed to die to save us from our sin. My suspicion is that deep down, like many penal substitution advocates, you have an assumption that there is such a thing as a "debt of punishment" that needs to be paid, and my argument of course does not contain that, but that is because a central argument of mine is that no such thing exists.

In the Bible, punishment is always paid from God to humanity, and never from humanity to God. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." "the wages of sin is death" "suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong."

What is done?

We killed God. On the cross, that is what was done.

But penal substitution is also centrally concerned with God "displaying" something. God has to display himself as just in punishing sin, hence why Jesus needs to die. So not sure what the objection to "display is." Although I agree the atonement mechanism needs to go beyond that.

"I have made your sin against me into the means of saving you from your sin", unless I'm completely misunderstanding you is a ghastly statement."

Watch the scene with the candlesticks from Les Miserables. No, not at all falling into the Romans 6 problem. You'll get it:



But that is the paradox of redemption. The redemption and restitution as a response to the evil actually means that the person, if they had the choice to undergo the evil again or avoid it, would actually choose to suffer the evil.

Imagine I am hit by a drunk driver and my car is damaged to the tune of 1,000 dollars. But I am paid 20,000 in restitution. Was it evil that I was hit by the drunk driver? Yes. Was it unjust? Yes. Is drunk driving evil? Yes. But in hindsight, I would choose to undergo that again, because the restitution put me in a better spot than I was prior to suffering the evil.

 

Umm, that is going to get some major pushback, as in, there doesn't appear to be agreement at all due to the "that" in "that said."

Where does gave equate to sent?

 

Those references deal with neither remorse or the change of mind to believe the gospel.

 

"this shows its his death that was the ransom, not his life of obedience,"

It is all part of the same act of making payment. To continue the economic metaphor, let's say I owe you $10,000 to fix your damaged car. Think of the life of Christ as me saving up the 10 grand, and then the death of Christ as me paying you the 10 grand, and the resurrection as you using the 10 grand to actually fix your car.

"I feel like if you guys won't answer deal with each verse"

Which verse do you want me to respond to? I am prepared to deal with every one. I have already dealt with so many if you read my past posts on these threads. Isaiah 53, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Romans 3, etc.

"Where also is this self-destructive idea of sin from?"

The Bible. Sin is a violation of God's created order, and therefore necessarily self-destructive.

"Why also are you all saying that these elements can't coexist with penal and substitionary elements?"

Read this:

5 Biblical Corrections to Penal Substitution

 

OK. Thanks for that.

The reason is that in saying that you give the impression that you are saying that his death was not supposed to happen when in reality, as you said above, it was part of God's plan. People interpret that as looking like God is making the best of a bad mistake. You then turn around and make the assumption that anyone who objects to this is by definition, taking the position that Jesus was justly killed or that it was a good event in itself. That is offensive to anyone who believes penal substitution. You are arguing against a position no one takes.

You also need to look at this as Jesus voluntarily going to the cross and overcoming great obstacles and temptations in order to do so. Leaving it as "we killed God" is a horrible thing to say. And no, it is not centrally concerned with a display - it actually satisfied or dare I say paid a sin debt. An actual "something" was accomplished on our behalf that I think penal substitution alone tries to explain.

I haven't seen that version of Les Mis but in the most recent British version that is my favorite scene. But think about what really happened. Valjean had already spent 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. Now he had robbed and struck a priest. He knew this time it was over for him for sure. The analogy isn't perfect because if the facts were known the priest could not save Valjean from the authorities but by deceiving the authorities the priest chose to take the wrong (the sin) upon himself, illustrated by the black eye and the loss of the property which he absorbed, thus leaving Valjean with no accuser except for the priest, who had taken the sin upon himself.
It's like Romans 8:32-34. The police could no longer see a wrong had been done even though it had. They had no right to go after Valjean because the only one who could legitimately make a valid accusation had taken the sin upon himself. Suddenly, no crime existed, even though we had just seen one occur. That is what I mean by something actually being done in the atonement. Valjean later showed that it indeed changed him, first when he changed his mind and tried to return the coin he had taken from the little boy and then by the constant stream of self sacrificial deeds he did later. So the ideas of example and demonstration are valid but they do not stand without actual penal substitution as the core.

 

Interpretation. And gave no specific citation.

 

"Arthur views Jesus as having paid a fine, but in his obedience, not in his death."

Incorrect. Jesus' death was the ultimate act of his obedience. And I wouldn't say "paid a fine." A fine is just a form of harsh treatment that doesn't actually fix anything broken. When I get a 70 dollar parking ticket, I didn't actually do 70 dollars worth of damage by parking in the wrong spot. It is a somewhat arbitrary harsh treatment. That is not the kind of crisis we need to be saved from. Jesus does not die on the cross to pay our divine parking ticket. We are dead in sin. We are corrupt. We are broken. We are destroying ourselves and the earth (Rev 11:18). Restitution, which is a central biblical principle, is payment to actually restore real damage done - to actually reverse destruction and death.

The problem is we are dead in sin.

The solution is we are raised with Christ.

See Ephesians 2:1-10.

I would argue that restitution, biblically, is actually the primary priority of justice over retribution. This is a biblical argument. Not a philosophical one. If a theory of atonement does not include restitution, then it is not really interested in the satisfaction of biblical justice—period. Biblical justice requires restitution.

 

The disagreement is with "sending." John 3:16 says that God loved the world by giving His Son.

 

You then turn around and make the assumption that anyone who objects to this is by definition, taking the position that Jesus was justly killed or that it was a good event in itself.

Penal substitution is emphatic that Jesus was justly killed. That is the whole point of Jesus' death on penal substitution.

it actually satisfied or dare I say paid a sin debt.

Yep! Agree. Disagreement is over the currency that pays the debt. I say it is obedience, Jesus' obedience unto death. His obedience pays for our debt of disobedience. Penal substitution says it is a debt of punishment, which is an imagined metaphysical concept that has no bearing in reality. The danger of metaphysics is that it allows a realm in which people can just make stuff up.

the priest chose to take the wrong (the sin) upon himself

No, just as Valjean unjustly struck, drew blood, and stole the silver from the priest, so also we struck, drew blood, and stole the life from Jesus.

At no point does the priest say "I stole the silver and I will go to prison in his place." That is what you would need for penal substitution.

Then just as the priest says "this isn't you taking my silver from me, this is my giving of the silver to restore you back to God" so also Jesus says "this isn't you taking my life from me, this is me voluntarily laying my life down, so that by my resurrection you can be raised from death."

 

And thus (or so) the disagreement dissipates.