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MikeH
Member



Joined: 2006/9/21
Posts: 116


 Re: Atonement Views

Lazaru wrote s

Quote:
Probably the most popular view of the atonement through all of Church history has been the "punishment" view.

I think the Ransom view held sway for much of the first millenium.

You have only mentioned two views and having rejected one, assume the other must be correct. This list is some of the views that I could find: Christus Victor, Ransom, Scapegoating, Physical Theory, Moral Influence, Divine satisfaction, Penalty or Punishment satisfaction, Vicarious Repentance, Governmental, Substitutionary atonement.

Perhaps, when think about the atonemnet, we need to think about what Christ was doing on the cross? What was the problem that He was trying to deal with? And my own thinking is still developing in this area, so I am putting out ideas for comment rather than providing all the answers. At least one aspect was that we need a new heart/spirit (the classic verses in Ezekiel and Jeremiah tell us we do), if so then how what needs to be done to make that happen? Remember a spirit continues to exist, having consciousness and be alert forever once it is created (that will be the terror of the lake of fire, aware and conscious, but always separated). Yet our spirit, God tells us, is dead, and what is death? In God's terms separation from Him. So what do you need to do to, bring back to life a spirit that it dead, and yet alert and concious. Well, I'm not sure I know (except of course it is the cross of Christ, but how?) but what I do know is that we are dealing with something that is outside the realm of the natural man. I can't think of anything in nature, where one brings back to life something that is dead, and yet while dead continues to feel and to know etc. God has already turned on its head our understanding of what death is. So we are dealing in a realm that I can only really understand by revelation. Somehow the cross of Christ enabled me to be put to death and raised in newness of life, with a new spirit, and able to receive His Holy Spirit, without destroying me and leaving my personality (if that's the right word) to continue. You can see why the thread on Original Sin and Christ's forsakenness in the Trinity Questions thread going on elsewhere on this website are so important. If there is original sin and we are separated from God at a spiritual level, though still able to hear Him speak, then somehow Christ being forsaken will provide an answer for our forsakenness, spiritually. For the record, and I am no expert on these matters, I think this view is straying into the Christus Victor view of the atonement.

I also think this plays into some of the reasons for this present creation. Clearly we are different from angelic race, and what special feature was God looking for when he created mankind that was so different. Some of the angels still fell, but for them there was no redemption, and yet for us there is. What makes this creation and God's dealing with it so different?

Regards
Mike

 2007/1/3 7:39Profile









 Re:

Dorcas, the scripture which proves sinners will burn eternally is found in Revelations. "The smoke of their torment shall rise up forever".

The exact punishment of sinners is eternal burning, not a one time death.

The view of the atonement I hold to is that of the substitutionary atonement.

Christ was a substitute for sinners. It wasn't the sinner that died, but Christ who died.

And the sufferings of Christ was a substituted sufferings. The sufferings sinners deserved were eternal agony, the suffering of Christ was not the exact payment of that suffering, but was a substitutionary suffering.

And Christ did not actually become a homosexual, a theif, a liar, a fornicator, on the cross, as Martin Luther proposed and others still believe. But that Christ was treated "as if" he was a sinner. Christ did not die a sinner. But Christ "died the just for the unjust". The moral condition Christ died in with "just".

Notice how in the parable of the unforgiving servant (who lost his salvation) pardon was given though no one served his deserved sentence, and nobody paid his exact debt. Granted there is no substitutionary atonement in this parable, but neither is there a serving of the sentence nor a paying of the exact debt.

It is upon the grounds of the cross that pardon can be given. Not because our sentence was carried out by another. Or because our debt was exactly paid by another. But because Christ's death was a substitute for our death and his sufferings was a substitute for our sufferings.

 2007/1/3 8:23
philologos
Member



Joined: 2003/7/18
Posts: 6566
Reading, UK

 Re:

Quote:
The view of the atonement I hold to is that of the substitutionary atonement.

And the sufferings of Christ was a substituted sufferings. The sufferings sinners deserved were eternal agony, the suffering of Christ was not the exact payment of that suffering, but was a substitutionary suffering.


You are either playing with words or you don't understand the theology of substitutional atonement. In theology, substitutional atonement refers to a sacrifice in which God is propitiated because Christ took the place of the sinner and received on his own head the punishment that was due to the sinner. You are advocating not propitiation but expiation.


_________________
Ron Bailey

 2007/1/3 10:50Profile









 Re:

Albert Barnes explains substitutionary atonement as:

Christ taking the substitionary place of the sinner

The sufferings of Christ being a substitute to the suffering deserved by the sinner.

That is, the suffering Christ suffered was not the punishment or the suffering deserved by the sinner, but was an alternative. His death and his suffering were substitutionary. It was not the exact death the sinner deserved, nor the exact suffering the sinner deserved.

 2007/1/3 11:44
philologos
Member



Joined: 2003/7/18
Posts: 6566
Reading, UK

 Re:

Quote:
Albert Barnes explains substitutionary atonement as:

Christ taking the substitionary place of the sinner


This is true.

Quote:
The sufferings of Christ being a substitute to the suffering deserved by the sinner.


This is not what Barnes is saying. It is not that Christ is a 'substitute for the suffering deserved' but that he died in the stead of the sinner. He took the sinner's place and because He was in the sinner's place He received the suffering that the sinner deserved.

The 'in the stead' of is the biblical truth captured in the laying on of hands which identified the sinner with the sin-offering, so that what happened to the substitute was reckoned as having happened to the sinner.


_________________
Ron Bailey

 2007/1/4 19:28Profile
lovegrace
Member



Joined: 2006/8/12
Posts: 313


 Re:

Quote:

philologos wrote:
Quote:
The sufferings of Christ being a substitute to the suffering deserved by the sinner.


This is not what Barnes is saying. It is not that Christ is a 'substitute for the suffering deserved' but that he died in the stead of the sinner. He took the sinner's place and because He was in the sinner's place He received the suffering that the sinner deserved.



To me that doesn't sound any different than what Jesse said. Please clarify yourself Philologos.

 2007/1/4 21:57Profile
philologos
Member



Joined: 2003/7/18
Posts: 6566
Reading, UK

 Re:

Quote:
To me that doesn't sound any different than what Jesse said. Please clarify yourself Philologos.


Jesse and Finney? are saying that that Christ did not take the sinner's place but only the sinner's punishment. This is part of Finney's Moral Government theory of atonement, as distinct from the true Substitutionary Atonement. (I very muc doubt that Barnes held Finney's view of the atonement - or anything else for that matter) If this were true Paul would not have said of Christ who 'loved me and gave himself for me', he would have said who loved me and suffered a substitute punishment.

Isaiah's prophecy declares that God gathered together 'all sin' upon Christ. [color=0000ff]“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Is 53:6 KJVS)[/color] It was because 'all the sin of the sinners' was laid upon him, not first their punishment but the sins, that Christ received God's judgment in himself. It is not sin that is punished but the sinner. Sin is expiated but the sinner is executed.


_________________
Ron Bailey

 2007/1/5 3:52Profile
RobertW
Member



Joined: 2004/2/12
Posts: 4636
St. Joseph, Missouri

 Re:

Quote:
It was because 'all the sin of the sinners' was laid upon him, not first their punishment but the sins, that Christ received God's judgment in himself. It is not sin that is punished but the sinner. Sin is expiated but the sinner is executed.



This is a great quote. The bottom line for us in our day to day walk with God is that either God is satisfied with Christ's offering as a propitiation for our sins or He is not. If Christ's offering makes me worthy to come boldly to the throne room of grace then the emphasis on my own personal perfection is irrelevant. We do not come to God [i]on the basis[/i] of how righteous or holy we are but on the basis of Christ's finished work.

This is not to say that we are not expected to live holy and righteous and to infer that from what I am saying is a copout. Finney tried to achieve his own way what God also wants to achieve. The difference is that God's plan was to do it through the power of the Holy Ghost in a real and genuine way that is well past mere lip service or misunterstanding of what they themselves say or affirm. Finney's route was through what I call [u][i]Conditional Eternal Insecurity[/i][/u]. A person feet is held to the fire perpetually as the primary motivating factor in keeping them living a righteous and holy life. To add to this a whole system of legalisms were then added to make making heaven an impossibility for most people. I can say that with a clear conscience. If those here had read Finney's view of a seared conscience most would tremble and write him off. Perhaps most did not know he considered going out in the cold without a proper coat on as evidence of a seared conscience? It is sad that I have to say these things because folk can't hold fast to what is good and reject the falsehood. But we can take up the matter if we must and I am quite ready.


_________________
Robert Wurtz II

 2007/1/5 8:40Profile









 Re: Simplicity

Thank you Robert for bringing this conversation right back to the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus.

 2007/1/5 10:18
RobertW
Member



Joined: 2004/2/12
Posts: 4636
St. Joseph, Missouri

 Re:

Quote:
Thank you Robert for bringing this conversation right back to the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus.



My concern is that in promoting certain of the works of Finney I have somehow led folk to think I endorse all of his materials. I have tried to walk a fine line, but invariably that has not always worked. I think he has some good works and some bad works. The finality of the doctrine is that of much legalism. Paul asked Galatia, "Having begun in the Spirit are you now made perfect by the flesh? Are you so foolish?" this is the danger we face. True Spirituality being counterfeited by dead religion that seeks to come of as more spiritual because it is more [i]strict[/i]. Strict does not equal spiritual. Consider this quote Seared Conscience Part 1 section 5, though off topic, but indicitive of what I am referring to:



46. When you can waste God's money in administering to your lusts, when you can buy tobacco, tea, coffee, and such like fashionable but pernicious articles without deep compunction and remorse, your conscience is seared with a hot iron.

47. When you can say you have no conscience on these subjects, when you can give countenance to these practices, and to the use of these articles at home or abroad, when you can use them yourselves, or furnish them for your friends, and thus countenance practices by which the Church is expending a hundred or a thousand times as much in poisons, and in the gratification of depraved artificial appetites, as it is for building up the cause of Christ and saving deathless souls from hell, when you can hear the wail of hundreds of millions of immortal beings coming upon every wind of heaven and crying out for the bread of life, and still have no conscience on the subject of the use of these pernicious articles, by which the Church is poisoned, and the heathen robbed of the everlasting gospel of the blessed God--if you have no conscience on such subjects as these, it is because your conscience is seared with a hot iron.

****

Tea and coffee are poisoning the church? I drink neither tea or coffee and have a hard time with this. The error is assuming that more money = more saved souls. We know this not to be true in our times. It is not money standing in the way of evangelism- but folk full of the Spirit and walking in His way- doing what He called them to do. I assume if Jesus drank wine then that was excessive? Why not just drink water? Etc. Etc. It leads to severe bondage and joylessness. The idea that strict = spiritual is almost as deadly as justification by sanctification.


_________________
Robert Wurtz II

 2007/1/5 13:10Profile





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