* Notes from a class on Systematic Theology I'm teaching at my church.
Systematic Theology: Atonement
· Salvation involves the substitutionary nature of the cross of Jesus Christ
o He suffers in our place
· Four key images of what the atonement achieves[1]
Concept
| Drawn from… | Problem addressed | Passages |
Propitiation
| Temple precincts | Wrath of God | Romans 3.25; 1 John 2.2; 4.10; Hebrews 2.17 |
Redemption
| Marketplace | Captivity to sin | Mark 10.45; Galatians 4.4-5; Ephesians 1.7, 14; Colossians 1.14; 1 Peter 1.18-19; Titus 2.14; Hebrews 9.15 |
Justification | Courtroom | Moral guilt
| Romans 3.24, 28; 5.1, 9; Galatians 2.16; Philippians 3.9 |
Reconciliation | Home | Enmity/hostility
| Romans 5.9-11; Ephesians 2.11-22; Colossians 1.15-20; 2 Corinthians 5.18-21 |
· Propitiation
o Removal of the wrath of God against us by the removal of our sins by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ
o “Propitiation presupposes the wrath and displeasure of God, and the purpose of propitiation is the removal of this displeasure. Very simply stated the doctrine of propitiation means that Christ propitiated the wrath of God and rendered God propitious to his people.” --John Murray[2]
o Objection: “Cosmic child abuse”
§ Horrible metaphor Jesus is not a helpless child who is a victim!
· Jesus lays down his life willingly: John 10.11, 17-18
· Foundation of propitiation is God’s love (1 John 4.8-10)
o “[P]ropitiation is not a turning of the wrath of God into love… It is one thing to say that the wrathful God is made loving. This would be entirely false. It is another thing to say the wrathful God is loving. That is profoundly true.”[3]
o “We must therefore never say that Christ by his sacrifice had to change a hating God into a loving God. Paul tells us here that God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement for us. In other words, God himself provided the propitiatory sacrifice. Behind the work of Christ is the love of God. Think of 1 John 4:10, ‘This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.’ Eternity will be too short for us adequately to praise both the Father and the Son for the amazing love by which we have been redeemed!” --Anthony Hoekema[4]
· Unity of the Trinity: Unity of the Father and the Son in the work of the cross
· Romans 3.21-26 Major passage! Watch the details here!
o Images of salvation: justification, redemption, propitiation
o Watch the flow of the lines!
§ Two lines from Christ Jesus
· To the Father (Propitiation)
· To the Believer (Redemption)
§ One line from Father to Believer (Justification)
§ No lines from the Believer salvation is a “gift” we receive by faith
· Redemption
o “For at its most basic to ‘redeem’ is to buy or buy back, whether as a purchase or a ransom. Inevitably, then, the emphasis of the redemption image is on our sorry state—indeed our captivity—in sin which made an act of divine rescue necessary. ‘Propitiation’ focuses on the wrath of God which was placated by the cross; ‘redemption’ on the plight of sinners from which they were ransomed by the cross.” --John Stott[5]
· Justification—(NEXT WEEK)
· Reconciliation: removes our alienation from God and restores a peaceful relationship
o Colossians 1.19-22
§ Verse 20: “cosmic reconciliation”
· “Reconciliation would then be understood in Col. 1:20 as referring primarily to the condition of peace in heaven and earth. The universal scope of the reconciliation is thus an eschatological promise yet to be fulfilled from the standpoint of the author. It is the time of final redemption when even the enemies of God will proclaim, ‘Your God reigns!’”[6]
· “Consequently, a number of interpreters have appropriately described the reconciliation of the ‘powers’ in terms of ‘pacification’ or ‘subjection.’”[7]
· Views of the Atonement (models)
o Penal Substitution
§ “I define penal substitution as follows: The Father, because of his love for human beings, sent his Son (who offered himself willingly and gladly) to satisfy God’s justice, so that Christ took the place of sinners. The punishment and penalty we deserved was laid on Jesus Christ instead of us, so that in the cross both God’s holiness and love are manifested.”[8]
o Moral Example: 1 Peter 2.21-24
o Christus Victor: John 12.27-33 (esp. v. 31); Colossians 2.15; Hebrews 2.14-15; 1 John 3.8
o Not in competition with one another
§ Priority to Penal Substitution
§ Penal substitution “denies nothing asserted by the other two views save their assumption that they are complete. It agrees that there is biblical support for all they say, but it goes further. It grounds man’s plight as a victim of sin and Satan in the fact that, for all God’s daily goodness to him as a sinner he stands under divine judgment, and his bondage to evil is the start of his sentence, and unless God’s rejection of him is turned into acceptance he is lost forever. On this view, Christ’s death had its effect first on God, who was hereby propitiated (or, better, who hereby propitiated himself), and only because it had this effect did it become an overthrowing of the powers of darkness and a revealing of God’s seeking and saving love.”[9]
§ “A comprehensively biblical exposition of the work of Christ recognizes that the atonement, which terminates on God (in propitiation) and on man (in forgiveness), also terminates on Satan (in the destruction of his sway over believers). And it does this last precisely because it does the first two.”[10]
[1] Drawn from the discussion in chapter seven (“The Salvation of Sinners”) in John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1986), 167-203.
[6] Clinton E. Arnold, The Colossian Syncretism: The Interface Between Christianity and Folk Belief at Colossae (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1996), 267.
[7] Clinton E. Arnold, The Colossian Syncretism: The Interface Between Christianity and Folk Belief at Colossae (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1996), 269.
[8] Thomas R. Schreiner, “Penal Substitution View,” in The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views, eds. James Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 2006), 69.
