Featured Can a Baptist agree with this?

Wow, I would really like to give you a thumbs up for something, and maybe at some point I could have, but not here. I could not disagree more vehemently. You punishing your son has a remedial intention, "for his own good" or what not. There was none of that in the crucifixion. When someone is executed its not "for their own good". OK, Ill back track: in a mysterious way there was that, as it says in Hebrews that Christ "learned obedience from the things which he suffered" which I cannot claim to fully understand what that means. But you cannot deny that there is pent up wrath directed at elect humanity and a strong judicial attribute when Christ suffers as representative of the elect human race.

When Christ says "My God, why hast thou forsaken me". Its not God giving him a spanking saying, "This hurts me a lot more than it hurts you. Someday you'll understand I'm doing this for your own good."

Just as I think of it here, I personally believe that there is an "initiation" attribute as well to the crucifixion. Won't attempt to justify that here. Its almost as if in our inner most thoughts we all have deeply divergent interpretations of these matters. Its kind of disturbing actually.

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I don't know - depends on what you're implying - this discussion is so abstract, sometimes you can miss what someone is saying. I'm out of this for a while.

 

Amen! :applause: There is no arguing with Isaiah 53:6; Romans 3:24-26, and 2 Cor 5:21. I would just add (loosely quoting John Stott) that if anyone supposes that Substitutionary Atonement means that the Father inflicted upon the Son a punishment that the Son was unwilling to bear, or that the Son extracted from the Father a salvation that the Father was unwilling to bestow, then he has a very faulty understanding of the doctrine.

It is true the the Father gave the Son (John 3:16); it is equally true that the Son gave Himself (John 10:18).

Steve

 

It was to be understood an analogy representing that one can have love for the individual while still hating their action. Jesus continued to be loved by the Father even though he was under wrath. And truth is that God's wrath for ungodliness is 'for our own good.'

Further, when God 'gives someone over' (Rm 1) and 'binds them over to disobedience' (Rm 11), it is merciful. How? It is like when a parent stops helping a rebellious adult child and kicks them out of their house. Or like when Paul tells the church to expel the rebellious brother so as to save his soul. How is this merciful? Because then they will come to the end of themselves (if they survive). When the father gives his son his inheritance it allows him to come to the pig-sty of his life. We all need to get there in order to experience brokenness and mercy.

"For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." - Paul

 

Thanks for clarifying all that - now I know for sure our understanding fundamentally diverges. (We are talking about the crucifixion of Christ right?)

When Christ said, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me", maybe you interpret it as Christ just full of emotion in his agony (understandably) when in fact the Father had not forsaken him. I would contend rather his statement was a fully accurate characterization of the situation.

As far as the rest of your discourse above, yes there is a merciful aspect in certain punishment, as with the prodigal son, but Hell isn't merciful. Christ was experiencing judicial wrath and retribution so that we would not have to. But he was experiencing it representing mankind. God was directing his wrath at Christ as if representing humanity.

The mere fact of God having to witness unrighteousness, uncleanness, have that in his presence, has to be atoned for. Humanity has to be fundamentally cleansed, judicially, to stand in the presence of God for eternity.

 

Just to continue in that same vein, I have at times wondered why Christ did not actually have to go to Hell for eternity, if that is the penalty for sin, so that we would not have to. I think that scripture may be cognizant of that question, and alludes to in such prophetic utterances in the Psalms referencing Christ as in, "thou has not abandoned me to Sheol", "death has no victory over me", "He tasted death for everyone", etc. Christ didn't taste physical death so that we would not have to, I don't think. All of us have to die physically. (Or do we - are those at the Rapture, and also Enoch and Elijah, representative of those who do not have to taste physical death since Christ did.) But if Christ actually tasted spiritual death, I think it may mean he was actually in spiritual hell after death, and so his resurrection out of that would be an even more singular event than resurrection from physical death. So when he preached to the spirits in prison it was during that tenure after His physical death. Speculation though on all that - not sure.

 

Gods wrath vs Gods love?

No problem at all

Its ~both~ :thumbs:

 

Really? Because you do know that is a quote from Psalm 22, right? David FELT alone and abandoned, but was he really? Or is that just what it felt like from the human perspective?

Later in that same chapter David goes on to say, "24 For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help."

How does God turn his back on himself? How is it that a little while after quoting this passage from David does Christ also go on to say, "Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit?" If indeed God had forsaken him? And why does Paul teach us that God was IN Christ reconciling the world to himself if indeed God "left" the Christ to endure it alone?

But, even if I were to concede that God forsook Himself for a time and it wasn't merely a reflection of what Christ felt in the midst of his greatest suffering as being 'fully man.' (as David felt) Even still, it doesn't negate that his wrath and hatred for ungodliness is a reflection of his love for his children. We have to remember that God is taking the wrath upon HIMSELF, who is incarnate. God is not killing Jesus, Jesus is laying down His own life. God is giving himself here, so it doesn't need to be view as God versus Jesus. As if its God the vengeful one versus Christ the loving one.

God was directing his wrath at Christ for the love of humanity. Christ is willingly taking the wrath of God for the love of humanity which in turn is a display of God's Glory. Romans 5:8

 

And that is what is perverse about penal substitution.

 

Just for the record I wanted to distinguish what I was conveying above from penal substitution, which to me contains the idea of "one person paying the penalty for other persons". But my intuition here is subtly different: As I see it, Christ's humanity is integral to his work at the cross, in that the fact that one human got it right, by extension all of humanity, and really all of creation, was sanctified in the bargain. But with penal substitution I think, the persons benefiting are standing over on the sidelines saying, "glad it wasn't me", and there is a fundamental "apartness" between the sanctifier (Christ) and the sanctifiees (Us). But I see us as intended to identify with Christ as he is on the cross, as if he is "one of us", our champion as it were, the point man. But we identify with his suffering on the cross as if he is one of us, and the fact that he is one of us is what enables us also, through faith, to ultimately share in the deity that he possesses on his own. We also in eternity (and even now) are called "son's of God", just like the Son of God. But at Calvary, it is Christ's humanity which enables us, the rest of humanity, to benefit from what he accomplished there.

I had an epiphany of sorts many years ago, not based directly on any received doctrine, and not even something that at the time I attempted to formulate into words. It was more a feeling that started to develop within me as I reflected on Jesus at Calvary. So anyway, the above is an attempt to verbalize that.

 

Very good -- thanks!

 

except the Biblical view closest to the thought of Jesus and Apostles would be fit by that substitionary model, as it also fits into the concept of the OT sacrificial system!

 

The Dispensationalist view of the end times also fits into the concept of the OT sacrificial system, but somehow I thought we weren't going by that anymore.

 

Isaiah 53:4Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities