Aspects of the Atonement

[Yeshua1]

This is what I mean. Here you purpose two ideas of death (physical and spiritual). You cannot say that Jesus died on the Cross, shed His blood, instead of us. In your theology it is an ends to another more significant means (whatever you think the spiritual consequences to be).

Christ did not, in your view, shed his blood, suffer and die instead of us (physically). What occurred (in your view and by logical conclusion) was somehow implied (not stated) in Scripture (whatever punishment was inflicted on Christ in addition to Christ's physical death instead of us).

You can provide no biblical text stating your view because there is none. It rests solely on presupposed ideas through which you have interpreted Scripture. You cannot even provide a passage stating that Adam died spiritually.
Adam died when he sinned against God, physical death was much later, but his spiritual death happened immediately!
The issue is not of whose position is correct. The issue is why I, not you, reject your position. The answer is it does not meet the text of Scripture necessary (IMHO) for such a foundational doctrine.

All you can do is provide Scripture and appeal to commentary. I think it would be much better if you could simply appeal to Scripture. I know what you believe because I once held that position myself. But after much study and prayer I have discovered Scripture in itself is sufficient (it makes sense) without those additions.

 

[JonC]

I have never read nor interacted that would deny that the death of Jesus, by the shedding of his blood, was required to atone for sins!

I never said you did. I am talking about logical conclusions and what you may not see in the doctrine you hold.

Do you believe Jesus was punished instead of us?

 

[Yeshua1]

Correct. I was trying to point that out when I said that God killed animal(s) to provide clothing made of skins for Adam and Eve. There was an atoning aspect to that merciful and gracious act of God. God had promised death upon Adam's disobedience but that death was not just physical (as you pointed out), it was also spiritual. Looking forward, both Adam and Eve's sins were ultimately atoned for through Christ's death on the Cross.



This is why scripture has to be central to every single thing we say about doctrine and theology. We do not want to cite scripture like a robot. Anyone can do that. Scripture should always be unpacked and expounded. And before that the person doing the unpacking and expounded needs to know what they are talking about. Both misrepresenting God's word purposefully or out of ignorance is a grievous thing.

As far as individuals understanding or not understanding biblical doctrine, all we can do is point out the truth. We are not the ones who give understanding. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. If calling attention to the truth puts us in the minority or causes us to be misunderstood, that is OK. In those situations, we should still point to the truth.

*Edited to correct grammar.

jonC seems to be denying that Adam spiritually died, so that would skew his view of the Atonement, and brings into Question if Jesus was born like us, or needed the Virgin Birth to bypass sin nature!

 

[Yeshua1]

No. Scripture states the reason I said Christ had to die. It did not state Reformed's reason although I think he believes it somewhere in the provided commentary.

Jesus had to die in order to provide propiatation for the wrath and judgment of God towards sinners...

 

[Yeshua1]

I never said you did. I am talking about logical conclusions and what you may not see in the doctrine you hold.

Do you believe Jesus was punished instead of us?

yes, for our sake, as he became the Sin bearer while upon that Cross! That was the Cup of wrath he asked the Father to withdraw from Him while in the Garden!

 

[JonC]

yes, for our sake, as he became the Sin bearer while upon that Cross! That was the Cup of wrath he asked the Father to withdraw from Him while in the Garden!

So we do not experience what He experienced for us, correct?

 

[Martin Marprelate]

@Reformed,
thank you for your helpful posts. Perhaps I may add a couple of additional comments:
In answer to @agedman's point, God's wrath is intimately bound up with His justice (Psalms 7:11). I think that a most important point concerning the Atonement is God's justice. How can God be 'just, and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus'? How can he be faithful and just to forgive us our sins'? How can He pardon the wicked?
Exodus 34:6-7. “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding with goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty.” Immediately the question arises, how can God be merciful and gracious, how can He forgive iniquity, transgression and sin without clearing the guilty? How can He clear the guilty if He abounds with truth—if He is a ‘just Judge’ (Psalm 7:11)? How can it be said that, ‘Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed’ unless God can simultaneously punish sin and forgive sinners? The answer is that ‘God……devises means, so that His banished ones are not expelled from Him’ (2 Samuel 14:14). Those means are Penal Substitution. “Learn ye, my friends, to look upon God as being as severe in His justice as if He were not loving, and yet as loving as if He were not severe. His love does not diminish His justice nor does His justice, in the least degree, make warfare upon His love. The two are sweetly linked together in the atonement of Christ” (C.H. Spurgeon).
Unless our Lord Himself, in the Person of Christ, has taken my sins upon Himself and paid the full penalty for them, God cannot acquit me. 'By no means clearing the guilty.'

The other point concerns our Union with Christ. What He has done, I have done; what He has suffered, I have suffered; where He has gone, I have gone in Him.
'I have been crucified with Christ' (Galatians 2:20).
'But God......even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ......and raised us up together, and made us sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus' (Ephesians 2:4-6).
'For our citizenship is in heaven' (Philippians 3:20).
'If then you were raised with Christ........... For you died and your life is hid with Christ in God' (Colossians 3:1-3).

So in the light of such texts it is not surprising that the Lord Jesus announces, '.....Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?' (John 11:26). So in the mind of God, which is all that matters, we have already suffered the penalty for sin and the curse of Deuteronomy 21:23; we have been raised from the dead, we are ascended into heaven and our lives are hidden with Christ in God and therefore we shall never die because we already have done so.

.

 

[Yeshua1]

So we do not experience what He experienced for us, correct?

We do not face the judgment for our sins, and do not experience enteral seperation from the Father...

 

[Yeshua1]

@Reformed,
thank you for your helpful posts. Perhaps I may add a couple of additional comments:
In answer to @agedman's point, God's wrath is intimately bound up with His justice (Psalms 7:11). I think that a most important point concerning the Atonement is God's justice. How can God be 'just, and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus'? How can he be faithful and just to forgive us our sins'? How can He pardon the wicked?
Exodus 34:6-7. “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding with goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty.” Immediately the question arises, how can God be merciful and gracious, how can He forgive iniquity, transgression and sin without clearing the guilty? How can He clear the guilty if He abounds with truth—if He is a ‘just Judge’ (Psalm 7:11)? How can it be said that, ‘Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed’ unless God can simultaneously punish sin and forgive sinners? The answer is that ‘God……devises means, so that His banished ones are not expelled from Him’ (2 Samuel 14:14). Those means are Penal Substitution. “Learn ye, my friends, to look upon God as being as severe in His justice as if He were not loving, and yet as loving as if He were not severe. His love does not diminish His justice nor does His justice, in the least degree, make warfare upon His love. The two are sweetly linked together in the atonement of Christ” (C.H. Spurgeon).
Unless our Lord Himself, in the Person of Christ, has taken my sins upon Himself and paid the full penalty for them, God cannot acquit me. 'By no means clearing the guilty.'

The other point concerns our Union with Christ. What He has done, I have done; what He has suffered, I have suffered; where He has gone, I have gone in Him.
'I have been crucified with Christ' (Galatians 2:20).
'But God......even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ......and raised us up together, and made us sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus' (Ephesians 2:4-6).
'For our citizenship is in heaven' (Philippians 3:20).
'If then you were raised with Christ........... For you died and your life is hid with Christ in God' (Colossians 3:1-3).

So in the light of such texts it is not surprising that the Lord Jesus announces, '.....Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?' (John 11:26). So in the mind of God, which is all that matters, we have already suffered the penalty for sin and the curse of Deuteronomy 21:23; we have been raised from the dead, we are ascended into heaven and our lives are hidden with Christ in God and therefore we shall never die because we already have done so.

.

Without the penal Substitution atonement view, still have a hard time seeing just how my sins have been paid and atoned for, and why wrath of God towards me was somehow averted?

 

[JonC]

What needs to be said as well is I do not reject Calvinism except in a way it presupposes divine justice to be in accordance with Humanistic judicial philosophy (Renaissance, not secular humanism). I think that philosophy is morally wrong (I think Javert was adhering to a false idea of justice).

So I deny the philosophy and its fruits - not Scripture.

I'd Calvinism is not based on that philosophy then that is fine and I obviously would be a Calvinist. If it is then I reject it as faulty at the start.

What I reject is this philosophy, not Scripture and perhaps not even Calvinism.

I even affirm Penal Substitution Theory except Insofar as the judicial philosophy is concerned.

 

[JonC]

We do not face the judgment for our sins, and do not experience enteral seperation from the Father...

What about death (physical death) and the shedding of our blood?

Are you now saying Jesus did NOT die instead of us, His blood was NOTshed instead of ours but the punishment was in fact spiritual - a spiritual separation from God?

 

[Yeshua1]

What needs to be said as well is I do not reject Calvinism except in a way it presupposes divine justice to be in accordance with Humanistic judicial philosophy (Renaissance, not secular humanism). I think that philosophy is morally wrong (I think Javert was adhering to a false idea of justice).

So I deny the philosophy and its fruits - not Scripture.

I'd Calvinism is not based on that philosophy then that is fine and I obviously would be a Calvinist. If it is then I reject it as faulty at the start.

What I reject is this philosophy, not Scripture and perhaps not even Calvinism.

I even affirm Penal Substitution Theory except Insofar as the judicial philosophy is concerned.

Calvinism argues from the very scriptures themselves though for its theology, and how can one even hold to penal Substitution apart from a Judicial law aspect?

 

[Yeshua1]

What about death (physical death) and the shedding of our blood?

Are you now saying Jesus did NOT die instead of us, His blood was NOTshed instead of ours but the punishment was in fact spiritual - a spiritual separation from God?

No, Jesus die not die a spiritual death, for that would be WoF heresy, but his physical death was the propiation towards providing the means by which the Wrath of God was satisfied!

 

[JonC]

No, Jesus die not die a spiritual death, for that would be WoF heresy, but his physical death was the propiation towards providing the means by which the Wrath of God was satisfied!

Then this was not God's wrath against our sin but something to satisfy God. Men are born spiritually separated from God.

If Jesus did not have to suffer God's punishment against sin instead of us then why did Jesus have to die? God could have had Jesus simply suffer in life and take Him back to heaven. There is no need for Christ to die in your theology.

 

[Yeshua1]

Then this was not God's wrath against our sin but something to satisfy God. Men are born spiritually separated from God.

If Jesus did not have to suffer God's punishment against sin instead of us then why did Jesus have to die? God could have had Jesus simply suffer in life and take Him back to heaven. There is no need for Christ to die in your theology.

yes there is, as he had to be the sacrificial lamb of Isaiah 53, and he had to take upon and in His own body while hanging on that cross my sins and the wrath of god for those sins!

 

[JonC]

yes there is, as he had to be the sacrificial lamb of Isaiah 53, and he had to take upon and in His own body while hanging on that cross my sins and the wrath of god for those sins!

That is pointing to Christ and the cross. You offer no reason why Jesus had to die.

 

[Yeshua1]

That is pointing to Christ and the cross. You offer no reason why Jesus had to die.

All who sin must spiritual and physically die!

 

[JonC]

All who sin must spiritual and physically die!

But you said Jesus did not die (spiritually or physically) as a substitute instead of us, correct?

Do you believe we are born (before we are saved) separated from God spiritually and needing to be born again?

 

[Yeshua1]

But you said Jesus did not die (spiritually or physically) as a substitute instead of us, correct?

Do you believe we are born (before we are saved) separated from God spiritually and needing to be born again?

Jesus died a physical, but not a spiritual death on His Cross, and yes, we are all born as sinners, under the judgment of God already!

 

[JonC]

Jesus died a physical, but not a spiritual death on His Cross, and yes, we are all born as sinners, under the judgment of God already!

So why did Jesus have to die if it was not to take our punishment instead of us??