The Upper Register Blog

For my daily Greek reading I was in 1 Corinthians 15 this morning. The opening paragraph is very helpful in orienting us to the primacy of the gospel:

“[1] Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, [2] by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. [3] For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, [4] and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, [5] and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. [6] After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; [7] then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; [8] and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. [9] For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. [10] But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. [11] Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. [12] Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? [13] But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; [14] and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. [15] Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. [16] For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; [17] and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. [18] Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. [19] If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” (NASB)

Several things stand out:

First, Paul makes it clear that the gospel is “of first importance,” literally, “among the first (i.e., most important) things” (ἐν πρώτοις, cp. BDAG). This implies that there are many other important issues in the Christian faith and life — perhaps some of the topics Paul has addressed in the foregoing parts of his first letter to the Corinthians, e.g., church unity, church discipline, the dangers of immorality, lawsuits, marriage and divorce, food sacrificed to idols, and spiritual gifts — but none of these stands on the same level as the gospel itself.

Second, this begs the question, “What is the gospel?” Paul answers the question by pointing to the central reality of substitutionary atonement (”that Christ died for our sins”), as well as his burial and resurrection on the third day, confirming that his sacrifice of atonement had been accepted. The prepositional phrase in the death-formula, ”for our sins” (ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν), is critical, because it identifies the death of Christ as a penal substitution. That is, he died the death that we deserved for our sins. [See Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, pp. 383-89, on the substitutionary meaning of the preposition ὑπέρ in Koine Greek.]

Third, the death of Christ for our sins and his resurrection on the third day is also the content of a message that is proclaimed. Paul uses several different verbs to refer to the proclamation of the gospel message concerning the death and resurrection of Christ:  twice, the verb εὐαγγελίζομαι (”to preach the gospel,” vv 1-2); twice, the language of “handing on” and “receiving” a tradition (vv 1, 3); twice, the verb κηρύσσω (”to herald, proclaim,” vv 11, 12); once, its cognate noun τὸ κήρυγμα (v 14); and once, the verb μαρτυρέω (”to bear witness,” v 15). The gospel, then, is the apostolic preaching of the saving message of the cross of Christ. Now that the apostles have died, we merely preach what the apostles preached, but we do so in their name and authority.

Fourth, the message is not only proclaimed, it is also believed, and when it is believed, received, and held fast, it leads to salvation. This is stated at the beginning of the passage:  “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain” (vv 1-2). What it means to be “saved” is fleshed out a bit later: “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” The point of believing that Jesus died for our sins and rose again is that we will not perish or die in our sins, but will have the hope of attaining to the resurrection from the dead, of which Christ’s resurrection is the pledge.

Note the tie between the message and faith:  “So we preached and so you believed” (v 11). Thus the message is preached, then it is received in faith, and the result is that when we die, we do not perish, but are destined to attain resurrection life with Jesus at his coming. This is why Paul mentions the fact that some of the witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus have fallen asleep (v 6) — they did not merely hope in Christ in this life only (v 19). Their hope is that, through the death of Christ for their sins, they will be raised up with Christ in the age to come.

So what’s the point?

This, I believe, is a most helpful passage in orienting us to what is primary for Paul, and by implication, what ought to be primary for us as well. When people read our books and blogs, or listen to our sermons, or attend our worship services, what do they perceive is “of primary importance” to us? I hope it is not that we are “Reformed,” or that we subscribe to “the Reformed Confessions,” or that we are “Presbyterian” in our church government. I hope it is that we love, preach, and live out of the apostolic gospel of Christ’s death for our sins.

This is also relevant for us in helping us to decide what our relationship ought to be with broader evangelicalism, and indeed with all professing Christians. They may be confused about many matters. They may have a low view of the church and the sacraments. They may be too quick to reject the traditions and creeds of the church. They may hold to something less than a purely monergistic soteriology. They may think baptism must be preceded by a profession of faith. But if they have received, stand firm in, and preach this gospel, then they are to be received as brothers in Christ and to be encouraged to continue in the gospel, even as we also discuss other matters with them (just as Paul does in his letters to the Corinthians). This is why I am much more concerned about those so-called evangelicals who are denying penal substitution, than I am about evangelicals who disagree with me on infant baptism, for example.

Of course, I realize that there are other essentials not addressed by Paul in this immediate paragraph, such as Christology and justification by faith alone, that must also be taken into account. These should also be understood as presupposed and can be fleshed out by other NT passages. My point is that the saving work of Christ on the cross was central to Paul’s preaching and that this ought to inform our priorities today as well.

Seyoon Kim, one of my New Testament professors at Fuller, has written a helpful defense of penal substitution.

The spirit of the Enlightenment has led many liberal theologians to reject the penal substitutionary understanding of Christ’s atonement. Recently some feminists and “postcolonial” writers have heightened their criticism of it, and some fainthearted evangelicals have joined them. These objectors argue that the conceptions of God’s wrath and its propitiation are unworthy of our biblical God and even immoral.

Readers should be aware that one of Kim’s unspoken interlocutors is Joel Green (formerly of Asbury, now at Fuller) who downplays penal substitution by appealing to the “multiple” theories of atonement allegedly found in the New Testament (see Green’s “kaleidescopic view” in The Nature of the Atonement). Kim brings some helpful conceptual clarity to this issue by distinguishing between atonement theories per se and the fruits of the atonement:

Those who dislike the penal substitutionary atonement theory typically point to the multiple atonement theories in the NT … Some Anglophone writers use the concept of “atonement” loosely so as to include justification, reconciliation, redemption, etc. as well as expiation/propitiation, and claim these as representing the multiple theories … However, justification, reconciliation, and redemption represent not separate atonement theories, but the fruits of the atonement: on the basis of Christ’s expiatory/propitiatory sacrifice sinners are justified (acquitted of sins and restored to the right relationship to God), reconciled to God, and redeemed from the evil forces (sin, the flesh, the devil, and death), when they appropriate atonement by faith. Therefore these divine actions are not unrelated to the atonement understood in terms of penal substitution.

Kim also goes on to argue that the Christus Victor theory of the atonement, made famous by Gustaf Aulen and more recently making a come-back among pacifist theologians, must not be played off against penal substitution but is rather coordinated with it. Since sin is submission to the devil’s rule, Christ’s taking our place in receiving the judgment due to us for sin constitutes our deliverance from the power of the devil:

But the NT allows us to play off neither the “Christus victor” theory nor the “revelation” theory of the atonement against the penal substitutionary theory. For these three theories not only coexist but are often coordin-ated with one another … If sin is transgression of God’s rule, it is submission to the devil’s rule. Therefore, Christ’s atonement for sin through which we are restored to the rightful reign of God is an event of his overcoming Satan and rescuing us from Satan’s grip … Those who ignore this NT teaching and try to uphold the Christus victor theory of the atonement at the exclusion of the penal substitutionary theory run the risk of falling into a mere shamanistic soteriology (“spiritual warfare”) or a mere political soteriology (liberation from an imperial and despotic Caesar).

The reference to “shamanistic soteriology (’spiritual warfare’)” is probably an allusion to Gregory Boyd, and ”political soteriology (liberation from an imperial and despostic Caesar)” is probably an allusion to N. T. Wright’s Paul and Empire hobby horse (to which Seyoon Kim is devoting a book, Christ and Caesar, forthcoming from Eerdmans).

An additional note: the section of Kim’s article, “Is There Any Basis in the Historical Jesus?” is really important. In it, Kim appeals to the work of German scholars like Heinz Schürmann (a little-known Roman Catholic NT scholar, 1913-1999), Martin Hengel, and Peter Stuhlmacher to argue that the penal substitionary teaching of Paul goes back to Jesus himself - especially the passion announcements, the Last Supper traditions, and the Mark 10:45 lutron saying. The authenticity of all of these Jesus traditions is highly debated among critical scholars, but Kim does a good job (relying primarily on Schürmann’s work) making the case for authenticity and then using this as a spring-board to connect up with Paul’s theology of penal substitution. This is very important stuff and it needs to become more widely publicized. I was blessed to be able to take a Ph.D. seminar with Kim in the Winter of 2006 titled “Jesus and Paul” in which we delved into these issues in depth.

This whole area of showing the continuity between Jesus and Paul may be Kim’s greatest contribution to New Testament theology. He plans to publish a book on the subject, and when it finally appears it is sure to become his magnum opus. If you want to get a foretaste, see his article, “Jesus, Sayings of,” in the The Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (IVP, 1993), republished as chapter 8, “The Jesus Tradition in Paul,” in Paul and the New Perspective (Eerdmans, 2001).

I admire Seyoon Kim’s courage in defending the traditional Reformation and evangelical understanding of the atonement in the face of the current onslaught that is coming against it, not only from the liberals but increasingly even from so-called evangelicals.

HT: In Light of the Gospel

Matt Morgan has a good post exploring N. T. Wright’s murky position on the atonement. On the one hand, NTW has made statements that sound like penal substitutionary atonement. On the other hand, he defends Steven Chalke’s ”cosmic child abuse” comment, and is critical of Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution. In his “The Cross and the Caricatures”, published this past Easter, NTW wrote that there are many models of penal substitution:

On the cross, as an expression of God’s love, Jesus took into and upon himself the full force of all the evil around him, in the knowledge that if he bore it we would not have to; but this, which amounts to a form of penal substitution, is quite different from other forms of penal substitution, such as the mediaeval model of a vengeful father being placated by an act of gratuitous violence against his innocent son. In other words, there are many models of penal substitution, and the vengeful-father-and-innocent-son story is at best a caricature of the true one.

Notice that for NTW, Jesus took upon himself the full force of “the evil around him.” But this is a very different thing than bearing the full force of the righteous judgment of God that we deserved for our sins. By focusing on abstract evil floating “around him” rather than the execution of divine punishment, NTW empties the word ”penal” of all significance. And, like Steven Chalke, NTW can’t help but engage in caricature, in an essay devoted to attacking caricatures. He says of the traditional ”model” of penal substitution that it pictures ”a vengeful father being placated by an act of gratuitous violence against his innocent son.” 

It really does make you wonder what NTW means when he claims to believe in penal substitution. I think a case can be made that NTW’s “model” of penal substitution is actually closer to the atonement theory of René Girard, which is the current theory du jour espoused by those who object to the penal model on the ground that it endorses violence.

NTW sounds to me like a Mormon claiming that he’s a Christian since, after all, he really does believe that Jesus is the son of God and the savior of humankind (with hidden asterisks next to the terms “son,” “God,” and “savior” all redefined in terms of Mormon theology).

Matt concludes:

When you put it all together, I don’t have a whole lot of confidence that N.T. Wright understands penal substitution correctly, for the simple reason that all these loose ends in Wright-speak simply do not cohere. I’m inclined to think the Oakhill men (Steve Jeffery, Mike Ovey and Andrew Sach) are surely right to identify their disagreement with Wright as a “methodological one” at its core. In other words, this cannot be written off simply as a matter of emphasizing one thing more than the other; Wright seems to be tolerating a fundamentally different way we should think about the atonement.

Matt 1:21: “She will bear a son; and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Ἰησοῦν, αὐτὸς γὰρ σώσει τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν). In the LXX, “Joshua” (God saves) is spelled Ἰησοῦς. Given that Matthew was addressed to Christians from a Jewish background (as most scholars believe), the allusion would not have been lost on Matthew’s readers. They would have understood that just as Joshua led Israel in battle against the Canaanites and caused the people to inherit the promised land, so Jesus will bring deliverance and cause his people to inherit.

But unlike Joshua, Jesus delivers his people from a different kind of enemy, their sins (cf. Matt 26:28). Furthermore, the people of Jesus are not limited to ethnic Israel (8:11; 21:43; 28:19) and their inheritance is not an earthly kingdom (25:34). The most important difference between Jesus and Joshua is that Jesus brings salvation not by taking the lives of those who deserved to die for their abominations and idolatry (the Canaanites), but by giving his life as a ransom for many, taking upon himself the death his people deserved for their abominations and idolatry (20:28; 27:42).

Thus, in the very passage where Matthew is at pains to emphasize the virgin birth and incarnation of God (Immanuel, God with us), he also teaches us concerning the purpose of the incarnation. It was not an end in itself. We are not saved by the incarnation itself, as if God saves us by taking humanity into himself. It is the other way around. By virtue of being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, the eternal Son of God took into personal union with himself a true human nature so that, in that very nature, he might “save his people from their sins.” Thus, the incarnation exists for the sake of the cross. Matthew’s passion narrative at the end thus looms as a shadow over the account of Jesus’ miraculous birth. Jesus was born in order that, by taking the sins of his people upon himself, he might bear the righteous wrath of God in our place and, being raised from the dead, might deliver us from the penalty and power of sin and so grant us the eternal inheritance.

Joshua’s victory over his enemies and the granting of the inheritance to the 12 tribes of Israel was but a type and shadow of the work of one greater than Joshua. The entire book of Joshua is thus summed up by Matthew in a single verse and proclaimed to be fulfilled in these last days by Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! 

Here are my memories of my third and final day at SBL (Monday). Although the conference actually ended on Tuesday, I had to leave early for work.

On Monday morning, I went to hear Ross Wagner and Francis Watson give erudite papers on Paul’s use of Isaiah. Wagner’s talk was less interesting to me than Watson’s. Watson argued that Paul interpreted the Suffering Servant of deutero-Isaiah as referring to Jesus as Messiah. This is a debated point in NT scholarship, and I think he did a good job of making the case. He then showed that Paul (or perhaps the primitive community before him) interpreted the death of Christ as in some sense “for our sins” by utilizing the categories and even vocabulary contained in the LXX of Isa 53. It wasn’t entirely clear whether Watson was arguing for penal substitutionary atonement, but he came close and, when presssed by a respondent, did not wish to deny it. 

I think Watson’s paper was on the whole persuasive, but I would have wanted him to be more clear on penal substitution. Also, I agree with Seyoon Kim that Paul’s theology has three sources:  (1) the Damascus Christophany, (2) the traditions about the words and deeds of Jesus handed down by the primitive Palestinian church, and (3) both interpreted in light of the Scriptures of Israel. Watson tends to attribute the origin of Paul’s theology to Scripture alone and downplays the role of the Damascus Christophany and the Jesus tradition.

Watson claims that the early church took the negative event of Jesus’ death as a criminal and turned it into a positive thing (”for our sins”) by interpreting the cross in light of Scripture, especially Isa 53. I don’t doubt that the Scriptures played a huge role in providing the categories for interpreting the death of Christ as having saving significance. But I disagree with Watson to the extent that he seemed to be arguing that the death of Jesus was viewed as entirely negative until a later point (years later?) when it was transformed into something positive by the church as it reflected on the cross in light of Scripture. This is problematic for me because it either downplays or entirely neglects the role of Jesus’ own teaching concerning his death as a saving event:  (1) the famous “ransom” saying of Mark 10:45 || Matt 20:28, (2) the several passion predictions, and (3) the cup-saying at the last supper in which he spoke of “the blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.” The authenticity of these sayings of Jesus is, of course, disputed. But I would have liked to hear Watson explain why he neglected them. Is it because he thinks they’re not authentic? Or it is because he thinks they’re authentic but does not interpret them as expressing atonement theology?

In any case, it seems to me that a theology of Jesus’ death as having saving significance can be traced back to Jesus himself and did not only arise years afterward as the early church tried to grapple with the death of their Messiah. The disciples, to be sure, did not grasp the significance of Jesus’ teaching concerning his death, but once he rose from the dead and appeared to them alive, it seems that they pretty quickly put two and two together. Of course, I recognize that further development occurred as the church then developed a more advanced theology by means of further reflection on Scriptures such as Isa 53, but I would prefer to view this as a theological development rooted in Jesus’ own words, not a new insight unrelated to Jesus’ teaching.

I’ll write another post on the second session I attended that Monday afternoon. It was titled “Paul and Empire” with N. T. Wright and John M. G. Barclay presenting and debating. It was the scholarly equivalent of mixed martial arts.  

That’s J. I. Packer’s interpretation of ἱλαστήριον (”propitiation”) in Rom 3:25. I love it. It’s from a good essay on penal, substitutionary atonement published earlier this year on the Reformation21 site. Here’s a bit of the context:

Both Testaments, then, confirm that judicial retribution from God awaits those whose sins are not covered by a substitutionary sacrifice: in the Old Testament, the sacrifice of an animal; in the New Testament, the sacrifice of Christ. He, the holy Son of God in sinless human flesh, has endured what Calvin called ‘the pains of a condemned and lost person’ so that we, trusting him as our Saviour and Lord, might receive pardon for the past and a new life in him and with him for the present and future. Tellingly, Paul, having announced ‘the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation (i.e. wrath-quencher) by his blood, to be received by faith’, goes on to say: ‘This was…to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus’ (Romans 3:2-26, my emphasis). Just justification- justified justification - through the doing of justice in penal substitution, is integral to the message of the gospel.

Packer also rightly points out the crucial importance of setting the doctrine in its Trinitarian and Chalcedonian context. In other words, one cannot understand the atonement without understanding the person of Christ who underwent those penal sufferings on our behalf. He is the eternal Son of God who took a true human nature into personal union with himself. This is the key to making clear that the atonement involves no split between the Father and the Son. Packer writes:

It is impossible to focus the atonement properly until the biblical mode of Trinitarian and incarnational thought about Jesus Christ is embraced. The Trinitarian principle is that the three distinct persons within the divine unity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, always work inseparably together, as in creation, so in providence and in every aspect of the work of redemption. The incarnational principle is that when the Son took to himself all the powers and capacities for experience that belong to human nature, and began to live through his human body, mind and identity, his sense of being the Father’s Son was unaffected, and he knew and did his Father’s will, aided by the Spirit, at all times. It was with his own will and his own love mirroring the Father’s, therefore, that he took the place of human sinners exposed to divine judgment and laid down his life as a sacrifice for them, entering fully into the state and experience of death that was due to them. Then he rose from death to reign by the Father’s appointment in the kingdom of God. From his throne he sent the Spirit to induce faith in himself and in the saving work he had done, to communicate forgiveness and pardon, justification and adoption, to the penitent, and to unite all believers to himself to share his risen life in foretaste of the full life of heaven that is to come. Since all this was planned by the holy Three in their eternal solidarity of mutual love, and since the Father’s central purpose in it all was and is to glorify and exalt the Son as Saviour and Head of a new humanity, smartypants notions like ‘divine child abuse’, as a comment on the cross, are supremely silly, and as irrelevant and wrong as they could possibly be.

Packer was alluding to Steven Chalke’s infamous attempt to discredit the traditional doctrine of penal substitution by describing it as cosmic child abuse.

Scot McKnight admits (see comment 7) that Brian McLaren’s theory of the atonement is Girardian:

McLaren’s view of the cross in this section of his book, and I saw it in an even briefer form in his Secret Message, is a Girardian theory of atonement. That is, the cross exposes the unjustified violence wrapped up in turning victims into scapegoats, demonstrating that God is on the side of the victim and not on the side of the powerful. McLaren never quotes Girard that I know of; he could be absorbing this idea from Walter Wink.

Here’s the Wikipedia entry on René Girard. (The reference to Walter Wink is his 1992 book, Engaging the Powers.) 

Girard’s theory of the atonement is one of the main theories (along with Christus Victor) adopted by those who reject penal substitution. The Girardian theory is particularly favored by those who are concerned that penal substitution sanctions violence. For a critique of Girard’s theory, see the helpful work of Kevin Vanhoozer:

“The Atonement in Postmodernity: Guilt, Goats and Gifts.” Pages 367-404 in The Glory of the Atonement: Biblical, Historical & Practical Perspectives: Essays in Honor of Roger R. Nicole. Ed. Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2004.

The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology. Westminster John Knox, 2005.

Have you seen Brian McLaren’s latest book Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007)? Yikes, it’s a doozy. Scot McKnight has been summarizing/reviewing it on his blog. Basically McLaren asks “What are the biggest global problems we face right now?” (war, racism, genocide, poverty, global warming, and capitalism are high on his list) and then tries to restate the “gospel” in a way that it provides the answers. Using N. T. Wright’s work on Jesus as a guide, McLaren interprets Jesus’ message of the kingdom as a here-and-now solution to these global problems. In one appalling section of the book he compares the “conventional view” of the gospel with the “emerging view” (p. 78):

The Human Situation: What is the story we find ourselves in?

Conventional View: God created the world as perfect, but because our primal ancestors, Adam and Eve, did not maintain the absolute perfection demanded by God, God has irrevocably determined that the entire universe and all it contains will be destroyed, and the souls of all human beings — except for those specifically exempted — will be forever punished for their imperfection in hell.

Emerging View: God created the world as good, but human beings — as individuals, and as groups — have rebelled against God and filled the world with evil and injustice. God wants to save humanity and heal it from its sickness, but humanity is hopelessly lost and confused, like sheep without a shepherd, wandering further and further into lostness and danger. Left to themselves, human beings will spiral downward in sickness and evil.

Note that the conventional view is caricatured, as if it claims that “the entire universe and all it contains will be destroyed,” leaving only a whole bunch of immortal souls, some in hell and some in heaven. While there is some variation in the conventional view over the degree of continuity between the present creation and the new heavens and earth, all orthodox theologians follow Scripture and envision a future for creation and emphasize the glorification of the body.

As far as the emerging view goes, I find it interesting that McLaren regards the problem primarily in terms of sickness, confusion, wandering, and danger. There is a reference to “rebellion” at the beginning, but the focus is on structural sin and injustice in society, downplaying personal guilt before a holy God.

McLaren goes on to describe the solution (p. 79):

Jesus’ Message: How did Jesus respond to the crisis?

Conventional View: Jesus says, in essence, “If you want to be among those specifically qualified to escape being forever punished for your sins in hell, you must repent of your individual sins and believe that my Father punished me on the cross so he won’t have to punish you in hell. Only if you believe this will you go to heaven when the earth is destroyed and everyone else is banished to hell.” This is the good news.

Emerging View: Jesus says, in essence, “I have been sent by God with this good news — that God loves humanity, even in its lostness and sin. God graciously invites everyone and anyone to turn from his or her current path and follow a new way. Trust me and become my disciple, and you will be transformed, and you will participate in the transformation of the world, which is possible, beginning right now.” This is the good news.

Again, distortion. McLaren’s crass characterization of the atonement hints that he agrees with some of the criticisms currently being leveled against penal substitutionary atonement — it sanctions violence, it pits the Father against the Son, it is cosmic child abuse, and/or it does not reflect God’s love. McLaren ignores the Trinitarian and Chalcedonian context of the atonement which orthodoxy has always maintained. The Father loves the Son, even when the Son is undergoing divine wrath for us, for the Father is most exalted and most pleased by his Son’s obedience unto death. Furthermore, the giving up of his Son to bear divine wrath in order to satisfy divine justice is an expression of the Father’s own love for sinners.

With regard to his own view, notice the inherent moralism of his gospel. One simply changes his or her current path and becomes a disciple of Jesus with the goal of trying to transform the world. In other words, repentance means switching from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, switching from being a gas-guzzling, capitalist consumer to a Prius-driving, recycling, African-orphan-adopting, war protestor.

Further clarification is provided in the next section (pp. 79-80):

Purpose of Jesus: Why is Jesus important?

Conventional View: Jesus came to solve the problem of “original sin,” meaning that he helps qualified individuals not to be sent to hell for their sin or imperfection. In a sense, Jesus saves these people from God, or more specifically, from the righteous wrath of God, which sinful human beings deserve because they have not perfectly fulfilled God’s just expectations, expressed in God’s moral laws. This escape from punishment is not something they earn or achieve, but rather a free gift they receive as an expression of God’s grace and love. Those who receive it enjoy a personal relationship with God and seek to serve and obey God, which produces a happier life on Earth and more rewards in heaven.

Emerging View: Jesus came to become the Savior of the world, meaning he came to save the earth and all it contains from its ongoing destruction because of human evil. Through his life and teaching, through his suffering, death, and resurrection, he inserted into human history a seed of grace, truth, and hope that can never be defeated. This seed will, against all opposition and odds, prevail over the evil and injustice of humanity and lead to the world’s ongoing transformation into the world God dreams of. All who find in Jesus God’s hope and truth discover the privilege of participating in his ongoing work of personal and global transformation and liberation from evil and injustice. As part of his transforming community, they experience liberation from the fear of death and condemnation. This is not something they earn or achieve, but rather a free gift they receive as an expression of God’s grace and love.

McLaren gets the conventional view right when he says that Jesus saves people from the righteous wrath of God, a view that he obviously rejects. I’m not sure about the comment at the end that obeying God produces a happier life on earth; that may be true of the prosperity gospel, but biblical Christianity teaches that suffering, cross-bearing, self-denial, and dealing with adversity are an integral part of what it means to live in union with Christ.

Regarding his own view, I love the slogan that Jesus came to save the earth. Apparently, this is meant literally. Why not say, Jesus came to save the whales. Or, Jesus came to solve global warming. Or, Jesus came to prevent genocide. If that is why he came, his coming doesn’t seem to have been terribly effective. Of course, the orthodox view does affirm that all evil will be expunged from this physical creation and that a renewed, glorified creation will emerge out of the fires of judgment at the end of time. But that is something that we must patiently wait for at the parousia of Christ. We cannot work for it.

In addition, McLaren never answers his own question, “Why is Jesus important?” If God’s goal was to plant a seed of grace that will prevail to overcome all the evil and injustice in this world, why was the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God necessary? If the conventional view is correct, that Jesus came to accomplish the salvation of the elect through the atonement, then the incarnation, death, and resurrection make sense. But if the emerging view is correct, there is no reason for it. On McLaren’s view, Jesus would seem to be relevant merely in the sense that he taught some good things about loving our neighbors, turning the other cheek, and being non-violent. But there would seem to be no evident need for the pre-existent Son of God to be born of a virgin, to take a true human nature into personal union with himself, to become obedient to the point of death thus undergoing the wrath of God in our place, to be raised on the third day, and to be vindicated and exalted at the right hand of God. That’s a pretty elaborate metaphysical Rube-Goldberg machine on McLaren’s view. All God really needed to do, in Bob Newhart fashion, was to send a new prophet to tell the planet-destroying, violent, racist, capitalist world to “Stop it!”

I also detect a hint of Open Theism here. God is working with the world and with us in order that we might together create the world that God dreams of. God isn’t a coercive God. So he invites us participate with him in this creative, transformative enterprise. We don’t know if it will work, but we can know that God aches over the pain, evil, suffering, and injustice in the world as much as we do. But we have hope because Jesus planted a seed that will grow — if we nurture it.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather stick with the “old, old story” of personal guilt, God’s holy wrath, Christ’s atonement (obedience unto death), and the hope of the resurrection. Yes, Christians ought to be deeply involved in doing good deeds that are helpful to our neighbors — all kinds of good works, from adopting unwanted babies, to seeking racial reconciliation in our communities, and even to recycling if need be. But we do so in order to bring glory to Christ and to adorn the gospel, not to save the earth. We leave that job to Christ at the end of the age.

Guy Davies at Exiled Preacher has an excellent post, Ten things on limited atonement. I remember reading John Owen’s The Death of Death - I think it was sometime in 1988 or 1989, when I was still in The Assembly. It is one of the books God used to convince me of the scripturalness of the Calvinistic understanding of the Gospel. By the fall of 1989, I left the church in which I had been raised. It was a frightening time for me. I felt terribly alone, cast out to sea in a strange world. During this time of fear and loneliness, the third point of Calvinism was a great comfort to me. I remember meditating on the words of this great hymn by Toplady:

From whence this fear and unbelief?
Hath not the Father put to grief
His spotless Son for me?
And will the righteous Judge of men,
Condemn me for that debt of sin,
Which, Lord, was charged on Thee?

Complete atonement Thou hast made,
And to the utmost farthing paid
Whate’er Thy people owed:
Nor can His wrath on me take place,
If sheltered in Thy righteousness,
And sprinkled with Thy blood.

If Thou hast my discharge procured,
And freely in my room endured
The whole of wrath divine:
Payment God cannot twice demand,
First at my wounded Surety’s hand,
And then again at mine.

Turn then, My soul, unto thy rest;
The merits of thy great High Priest
Have bought thy liberty:
Trust in His effective blood,
Nor fear thy banishment from God,
Since Jesus died for thee.

HT: Bill Carlisle

To some, the doctrine of limited atonement is scary because it seems to limit God’s love. To me it is a source of great assurance because I know that the atonement is effective. The death and resurrection of Christ does not make my salvation possible. It effects it. The atonement actually takes away my sin and grants me a right and title to eternal life. So precious is this truth to me that at one point I had memorized WCF VIII:8:

To all those for whom Christ hath purchased redemption, he doth certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same; making intercession for them, and revealing unto them, in and by the Word, the mysteries of salvation; effectually persuading them by his Spirit to believe and obey, and governing their hearts by his Word and Spirit; overcoming all their enemies by his almighty power and wisdom, in such manner, and ways, as are most consonant to his wonderful and unsearchable dispensation.