The Problem of Atonement by demandside

The Problems of Atonement: Justification and Substitution

Atonement theology is quite controversial. Each tradition has its own way of explaining the historic and salvific event of the death and resurrection of Jesus. However, even within the realm of atonement theology there are a couple of issues that reign supreme as the center of most atonement controversies. These two subjects being: justification and substitution. What does it mean that sinners are justified by the blood of Christ? How is Christ a substitute for sinners? These two aspects of the atonement have received considerable scrutiny over the last century. These doctrines have been called unjust, incoherent, and many other slanderous terms. The question is though, are they right? In this essay I intend to give a defense for both the coherence and morality of both of these issues.

Justification

The doctrine of justification has come under great scrutiny over the last four decades. This, I feel, has been for the best. The idea of justification has drifted away from its biblical roots and has become a doctrine in the abstract. That is to say, the language of justification no longer draws its meaning from scripture, but from theologizing disconnected from the Bible. However, the theologians of late have returned to the 1 drawing board, or should I say the Bible, and have come back with a wider and deeper understanding of this doctrine. I will outline the four major components of justification as they have been re-imagined in recent scholarship. These four components are: 2 historicity, the righteousness of God, the faith of Christ, and verdict.3 First, justification can only be understood if it is placed within history and understood primarily as an event in time. As I showed in the previous essay, the atonement happened in a particular place at a particular time. The atonement is historical and thus objective. Justification, being the result of the atonement, means it is also historical and thus also an objective event. Too often Christians have turned justification into a subjective moment in their own life instead of allowing it to be an

Most notably N.T. Wright. 1 The following section is a summary and synthesis of the work of N.T. Wright and Peter Leithart. 2 These components are where the most confusion arises with regard to justiﬁcation. I hope to clarify 3 these confusions in my overview.

objective moment in history. Justiﬁcation is not the moment when a person begins to believe in God, but is the historical event of Jesus’s death and resurrection

Whatever justification may be, it must be understood as an event in history, an event in the life of God. Why? Because justification is the result of the atonement and thus must be intimately connected to it. The event of justification is the atonement. The first adjustment the church must make in thinking about justification is to move the event of justification from ourselves, to God.

Second, justification is the result of God’s righteousness. Another misconstrued 4 aspect of justification is that to be justified means to receive God’s righteousness. The idea goes as follows: humanity are all sinners and because of humanity’s sin we cannot be in the presence of a righteous God. God in his mercy, however, gives humanity his righteousness, through Jesus Christ, so that we can now be in his presence. In this line of thought, the righteousness of God is a status that can be distributed to others. This means that in order for man to be in God’s presence he does not actually need to be good, he just needs a good status.

This, in my opinion, does not line up with the character of God. God does not simply call things good when they are truly bad; no, God will call good things good. This is why I think the righteousness of God is not a status to be handed out. What, then, does the righteousness of God refer to?

Another way the righteousness of God can be understood is as an aYribute of God. The righteousness of God can refer to the fact that God is completely righteous. In fact, the aYribute of God’s righteousness establishes an alternate understanding of justiﬁcation very well. The aYribute of divine righteousness establishes an alternate understanding of justiﬁcation in three steps:

(1) God rules righteously and thus seeks to create a righteous kingdom for his people to live in. Since God is righteous he establishes good laws and punishes the wicked. This ﬁrst aspect of God’s righteousness highlights the way God institutionalizes a system to create a space for humanity to live in peace, fairness, and honesty. Yahweh5 gave Moses and the Israelites his righteous Law that was meant to guide the people in

Romans 1.16-17, this is one place where Paul makes reference to the phrase, “the righteousness of 4 God” (in Greek dikaiosune dei).

I have chosen to use the actual name of the Lord, Yahweh. I do not agree with those who say that it is

5 too holy to say out loud. It was directly after Yahweh revealed his name to Moses that he was instructed to tell the Jews who had sent him.

how to live righteously. Yahweh then enforces those righteous laws by punishing the 6 wicked who break them. Enforcing his Law is just as much an expression of his righteousness as the law is itself. Yahweh would not be a righteous ruler if he allowed the wicked to oppress those around them. It is precisely because God punishes the 7 wicked that he is righteous.

(2) God is righteous in that he defends his people from their enemies. The next facet of God’s righteousness is that he will save his people from their oppressors. This goes hand-in-hand with God’s righteous punishments. God will not allow oppressors to go unpunished and for the oppressed to continue in suﬀering. God is righteous because he will save the people of God. This applies just as much to spiritual oppression as physical. Yahweh is ready to save his people from their oppression, whether that be the Babylonians or sin itself.

(3) God is righteous in that he is faithful to his promises and covenants. God’s righteous nature means that he does not only hold others to a righteous standard, but that he himself cannot act contrary to his righteousness. What God promises to do, he will do. Or to put it another way: we can trust Yahweh to be faithful to his promises.8 This is yet another way that Yahweh is righteous, he is faithful to his covenants.

In summary, the righteousness of God means that he guides humanity in living righteously and enforces righteous living by punishing the wicked and saving the faithful. And we can trust that Yahweh will in fact do these things because of his righteousness. God will do what he says. Understanding the righteousness of God as an aYribute of God grounds the way we understand a historical justiﬁcation. God will act in history to justify his people and he will do this in a way that: (1) punishes the wicked, (2) saves his people and (3) will conform to the promises and covenants he has made. The question now is, how will he punish evil and at the same time rescue his people, when his people are, in fact, the evil people needing punishment?

This question leads me to the third theme of justiﬁcation: the faith of Christ. This 9 phrase, “the faith of Christ” is closely related to the idea of justiﬁcation. However, the exact relationship between these two ideas has been heavily debated. A good portion of

6 the psalmist praises God for his “righteous laws.”

This Law can be found in the books: Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In Psalm 119.7

See, Psalm 9.4-5.

See, Isaiah 45.19 and Daniel 9.7.

8 In Greek the phrase is “pistis Christou.”

the church has incorrectly interpreted “the faith of Christ” to mean Jesus is the object we must put our faith in to be justified. Or to put it another way, “Believe in Jesus.” The 10 faith of Christ is not speaking about how one appropriates justification, i.e. how one gains salvation, but is a statement about how justification is accomplished. Humanity is justified by the faith of Jesus, that is, the faithful life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God.

Paul, in Romans 3, makes this reading of “the faith of Christ” clear. He explains that the faithfulness of God is expressed through his sending of his Son who fulfills the law and prophets through his faithful life. God, in his righteousness, maintains his 11 covenant promises to save Israel through Jesus Christ. Jesus lives a perfect life of obedience, fulfilling the righteous demands of the law, and then dies as a sacrifice for sin. In that sacrifice, he dies, condemned as a sinner, and rises again as the new Adam who establishes the new creation. Jesus’ faithfulness to God’s plan establishes the new aeon in which man can now live, free from the demands of the Law. The historical life, 12 death, and resurrection of Jesus are what accomplish justification. This means justification is the act of salvation that the righteous God brings about in order to save an evil world from her own corruption and sin.

Thus, the faith of Christ refers to Christ’s own faithful life. Jesus justiﬁes humanity in bringing about the necessary means of salvation: the cross. Thus, his life and death are justiﬁcation for those who believe.

The fourth component of justiﬁcation is the way it takes the form of a verdict. There is an element in which God now declares those who are found in Jesus to be just. This verdict however, is not simply a legal ﬁction. As I noted earlier, God can only call good what is actually good. Thus, the verdict is made as the result of God’s saving act. God calls those who have been saved from their sin, just. He embodies his verdict by

10 phrase “the faith of Christ” has been compressed into the idea of faith in Jesus. I am not denying the importance of having a faith in Jesus. I am explaining that this particular phrase refers to something else. There is biblical precedent to having faith in Jesus, it just does not come from this particular passage.

I am not saying you do not need to have faith in Christ to be saved. What I am saying is that often the

See, Romans 3.21-23.

I will explain in detail how the freedom is accomplished in a later chapter.

withholding the punishment that is due to us. This means that his verdict is not always expressed in literal words, but also in redeeming actions.13

In summary, justification is not the result of an inner personal moment in which you express faith in Jesus, but the public and historical event of the death and resurrection of Christ. Justification is the result of the work of God in history. What it means for humanity to be justified is not to receive foreign righteousness, but to be the people whom God is faithful to. To be justified means to be marked off as the people who have been, are, and will be, saved by Yahweh. Thus, to say one is justified is not to say that justification has happened, but is to say, I have been saved from my sin and thus have been justified in the eyes of God.14

Substitution

Substitution, unlike justification, will not receive a re-worked definition, but instead will receive a defense. The idea of substitution has come under aYack over the course of the last hundred years. The aYack has not been on the biblical warrant for the doctrine— that is far too clear to be disputed—but on the philosophical and ethical tenability of the teaching. The idea of substitution has been accused of being unjust and downright cruel. Most notably, the doctrine has been critiqued on three accounts: (1) it is not just for an innocent man to die for a guilty one, (2) if God needs innocent blood shed to assuage his wrath, then does not this make him a bloodthirsty monster, and (3) the Father sending the Son to die for the sin of the world, instead of going himself, is cowardly and cruel. These critiques are good critiques to which the church must respond. And if we take the time to actually answer these questions instead of brushing them off, we will discover a much deeper and profound understanding of this glorious doctrine. Therefore, I will finish this essay by responding to these very helpful, but ultimately, misleading questions.

First, I will respond to the critique that it is unjust for an innocent man to die for a guilty one. Before I respond, I want to point out that this critique is completely true! And if this were the case, then God would indeed be unjust. Since, as Christians we

Think of the story of Jesus and the paralytic: he asks the pharisees what is easier, to say your sins are

13 forgiven or get up and walk. See, Mark 2.-12. Jesus equates the actual verdict of forgiveness and the action of healing.

I will go into detail about how God’s saving act actually saves in the following chapters. In the ﬁnal

14 chapter, I will also explain how the work of Christ is appropriated and thus does not lead to universalism.

claim that God is righteous, that is, just, then we need to give an explanation as to how this is not the case. How, then, is Jesus’ substitutionary death, the death of an innocent man for the guilty world, just?

Before I can directly answer the question I must first explain two things: (1) how sacrifice functioned in ancient Judaism and (2) what justice means in a legal context. First, the sacrifices in the Old Testament functioned substitutionally. Guilt and uncleanness, or corruption, could actually be transferred between agents. This was the philosophical grounding to the entire sacrificial system; my sin, my guilt, can be transferred to another object and thus be properly punished outside of my own body.15 This is most explicitly shown on Yom Kippur, when the high priest lays his hands on 16 the scapegoat and then banishes the goat away. In the action of laying hands, the priest transfers the sin of Israel to the goat.

Second, the people who claim that this transaction between Jesus and the world is unjust are judging the issue according to a modern legal system. The accusers say an innocent man dying for a guilty one is unjust because that is what our own legal systems have judged to be unjust. However, one can only judge an action as legally just or unjust according to the legal system that was in power when the action was made.

Thus, the idea of transferring guilt or corruption may seem unjust according to a modern day legal system. The point that must be made, however, is that Jesus was not living under a modern day legal system, but according to the ancient Jewish one. The substitution of Jesus was just according to the legal system that he died under. That is to say, according to the logic of the sacriﬁcial system, which is itself a system of substitution, Jesus’ substitution for sinful man is completely in line with what is considered to be just. When Jesus’ substitutionary death is understood within its own context and philosophical framework the accusation becomes void because it forces an alien context onto the event of the atonement.17

Next, I will respond to the second critique, that a God who needs innocent blood to assuage his wrath is nothing more than a bloodthirsty monster. This is a radical claim, but an important one. Is this the God Christians serve? A monster who needs

See, Leviticus 4. 15

The Day of Atonement, see, Leviticus 16.

However, I would like to emphasize that the question is an important one to ask. Many Christians

17 will simply say that God can do whatever he likes; yet, God fully submits to his own Law. God is not unjust in his substitutionary atonement, but is completely just according to the logic of his Law.

death, innocent death, to placate his wrath? If this is the case, then God is a monster. This, however, is not the case; Yahweh is not a monster. But how is this so, when scripture states that the death of Christ satisﬁes the wrath of God? The answer lies in 18 the nature of God’s wrath.

God’s wrath is diﬀerent than human wrath. It is not a compulsive passion, the way humans experience it. God experiences emotions, but is never overcome by them. What this means is that although it is true that God experiences wrath towards sin, he is never overcome by his wrath, that is, he never will make a rash decision out of his wrath. This is important to note because many who imagine God’s wrath will project human experiences of wrath upon God, making God to appear to be “acting out” in a ﬁt of angry rage when he unleashes his wrath.

A beYer way to define God’s wrath is to call it a perfect hatred of evil. God is not overcome by his hatred of sin, but hates it and will thus seek to put an end to it. Therefore, destroying evil would satisfy God’s wrath, or in other words, put an end to it. When evil is destroyed, God’s wrath towards that evil is dissipated, not because he “got his aggression out,” but because the evil that was the object of God’s wrath is no more. Now I will return to the substitutionary death of Jesus in light of a proper definition of divine wrath. God’s wrath is satisfied in the death of the Son, not because God got his aggression out on his Son, but because evil was destroyed in the person of Jesus. This may need an explanation. Paul writes, “Jesus who knew no sin became sin, that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Sin cannot be destroyed in 19 man without also destroying man. Therefore, the sin of the world was transferred to Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, so that man could be spared and sin dealt with. Thus, when God’s wrath is satisfied by the crucifixion of Jesus, God is not satisfied because an innocent man has been murdered and somehow this quenches some sick need for blood. But what really happens is that God’s wrath is satisfied because sin is being destroyed. God’s perfect hatred of sin is satisfied when sin, death, and the Satan are defeated and humanity is spared.

What this means is that God is not a bloodthirsty monster. Yahweh is the loving creator of the universe whose perfect wrath is quenched when true justice, that is, the destruction of evil, is accomplished. Was God saddened by the means of this great

See, Romans 3:25, Paul uses the term propitiation, which means to satisfy or assuage wrath.

18 2 Corinthians 5:21. 19 7

victory? Yes! Yahweh mourns the loss of his Son. God destroys sin and is thus 20 satisﬁed, but is equally saddened by the death of his beloved Son.

This leads me to the third and final critique: the Father sending his Son to die for the world rather than himself, is cowardly and cruel. This final critique transitions very smoothly from the second critique because it is reasonable to ask, “Well, if God was so unhappy with the death of his Son, why didn’t he go himself?” This, too, is a legitimate question. Why did the Father send the Son? Why did the Son become incarnate and not the Father? How can God be so loving when he would not himself suffer and die for us? These questions are often well-intentioned, but theologically confused.

Many are oﬀended by the idea of the Father sending his Son because many people have a poor understanding of the Trinity. Most people are functional tritheists and thus think that for the Father to send the Son means that God sends somebody else. To properly understand what it means for the Father to send the Son, I must ﬁrst explain the doctrine of perichoresis

The doctrine of perichoresis teaches that God is wholly himself as three identities. God is not dividable, as if the Father were one-third of God, and the Son 21 another third, and the Spirit the last third. God is wholly himself in each of his identities, however, each identity is still distinct from the other. The way that God is wholly himself as the Father, Son and Spirit, while simultaneously maintaining distinctions between each identity, is possible because each identity indwells the other two. This is called mutual indwelling.

What mutual indwelling means is that the Father communicates, or you could even say, gives, to the Son, the fullness of his divinity. The Father gives to the Son all of his power, goodness, wisdom, etc. And he does the same with the Spirit. Thus, everything that is in the Father is also in the Son and Spirit. This also works in the reverse: the Son and Spirit share with the Father all that is theirs. This means the 22

20 the Lord giving a sign to express his disapproval of his Son’s death.

God’s lament is shown in Luke 23:44 when the sun darkens during the time of Jesus’ death. This was

21 the term “person” has acquired, which have convinced me that that term is no longer viable.

I have chosen to use the term “identity” instead of “person” because of the many connotations that

This may still sound like polytheism because of the language of sharing/giving. However, when I say

22 share/give, I do not mean sharing in the sense of a literal handing over of something, but sharing in the sense of both possessing together. For the Father to posses something is the same as the Son possessing it. This is so because the Father, Son and Spirit are the same being and thus are necessarily connected. For a more detailed explanation of the triune relationship, read my essay, The Triune God: A Biblical Deﬁnition of Deity.

Father and Son are ultimately one. They are distinct from one another, but are in fact one being; this is the one true God. Yahweh’s oneness means that when the Father sends the Son to die for the sin of the world, he is not sending a diﬀerent being to die, but is, in a paradoxical way that can only be true of God, sending himself to die. Since the Father is in the Son he will, through the Son, experience the cruciﬁxion. Thus, God is not a coward or cruel because he himself is the one who dies on the cross, not someone else. Jesus is God and therefore it is God, not another, who dies on the cross.

Conclusion

Essays 1-4 of this series have been focused on laying the groundwork for a theology of atonement. Up to this point I have explained the reasons for the atonement, defined the person of Christ and how that relates to his atoning work, and I have outlined the narrative in which the atonement finds its meaning and place. In this latest essay I have defined and defended two major themes in the doctrine of atonement: justification and substitution. In this essay I have argued for a reworked definition of justification in light of recent exegetical and theological developments and have defended the traditional definition of substitution.

In these first five essays I have defined my terms and established the theological presuppositions that I will be working with. With these essays in place, I am now ready to give a theology of the atonement. I will break my atonement theology down into three sections which I will refer to as facets. These are: the prophetic, the priestly, and the kingly facets of the atonement. The following essays will be an elaboration on what these three terms mean.

The Problem of Atonement

The Problems of Atonement: Justification and Substitution

Justification

Substitution

Further Reading