The Doctrine of the Atonement and Missionality
I have come to the conclusion that the classic Protestant view of the atonement--the Substitutionary view of the atonement--is far from adequate and, more importantly, prevents the kind of ministry commanded by Jesus in the Gospels.
I have stopped teaching it at Faith and not teaching it is working.
On the day our movement was formed, John Winebrenner made the point we are not Protestant. He declared the Reformation a failure. It is outright idiocy that the Protestant view would be our understanding of the meaning of the cross. And, it is ridiculous not to intentionally and transparently repent of that corrupt view of the atonement when we are investing a huge percentage of our financial resources in an attempt to create a critical mass for missionality. You can not behave missionally without believing things about Jesus consistent with missionality.
Truth really matters.
posted by bill Sloat at 7:39 AM
107 Comments:
Considering the purpose of this blog:
It seems to me that, to the postmodern mind, the Substitutionary view of the atonement comes across as empty and inadequate. If we are going to engage the 21st century mind, we are going to have to stop settling for 16th century thinking.
Bill,
As our family has moved through our own adoption experience one of the interesting items I've encountered is how overlooked the theological/biblical concept of adoption is in relation to our understanding of salvation.
We talk about regeneration, justification, and sanctification, but we rarely or never talk about how adoption fits within the framework of the work Jesus has done for us.
Paul only discusses adoption about five times in his writings, but it is central when we consider how we move from being a new creation to entering into God's family. If we overlook our adoption, then we are simply new creatures with no new family.
This moment of postmodernity is a transitional time where old practices and ideas are dying (or we're finally announcing their death), overlooked practices or ideas are being recovered, and new practices and ideas are being created.
This is a great time to recover a proper understanding of Christ's work in the full context of Scripture.
bill,
to be transparent: i think you're badly mistaken in the comments of your original post, and i don't know how your first comment in any way justifies it.
however, i have no idea where you're coming from on this, and so i might be mistaken, either in interpreting you or in my understanding of the atonement.
so please, enlighten us: why do you reject substitutionary atonement? and how does our culture influence what happened on the cross?
bill the provocateur. We always need to work a little bit to get the whole story out. :-)
He wants to see who will bite. As usual, I will.
I agree that we need not feel a burden to fall in line with the Reformation. What's most important (by far) is what the Scripture teaches.
That one view of the atonement - substitutionary - has in many circles became a test. It's often seen as the only view of the atonement that really matters.
The Scripture speaks about what Jesus' death and resurrection accomplishes in different ways. All are important. Substituion is important, of course.
That Jesus died for our sins is basic to Christian faith. I hope that bill is not denying that Jesus died for our sins, but something more specific. I doubt it.
Are you referring more specifically to doctrines like double imputation?
We often believe things that go beyond what the Scripture specifically says. Maybe this is what bill's referring to.
But if bill or anyone else were to deny that Jesus died for our sins, they are not saved and have believed in vain. And that's the TRUTH. (1 Corinth 15:1-4).
(Part 1)
walt and Dan,
I have found the Substitutionary view inadequate for four reasons:
1. I am of the same spirit as were John Winebrenner and the men and women who joined him in forming the Church of God. If that were not so, the temptation for me to leave this body would be so great I'm not sure I could resist it.
An important part of the intellectual foundation of the Church of God was its view of Protestantism. We came into existence being convinced that the Reformation had failed, that another great Reformation was necessary and that we came together to be a part of a new work that God was doing in the world. I believe all the things the Church of God believed at the beginning. And, more than that, I believe that God is still doing that new work.
The intellectual core of Protestantism is the Substitutionary view of the atonement. The intellectual core of the new work that God is doing is not that view of the atonement. The intellectual core of the new work is not connected to a view of the atonement at all.
To use the participle employed so creatively by Robert Bork, the Church of God stopped being what it was in its growth and Kingdom days by 'slouching' toward Protestantism and its view of the atonement. We have fallen away to become what we are, in my opinion.
So, first of all--as far as the CGGC conversation is concerned--I reject it because I am a Church of God person. Frankly, I don't know anyone who embraces what we were and what we say we still are in the Mission Statement to the degree I do. From what I can tell, all of the rest of you think of yourselves as Protestants. From what I can tell, most of you are proud of that. From what I can tell, I'm the only one of us who doesn't think of himself in that way.
Please prove to me that I am wrong. Like Elijah, I need to know that I'm not the only one who has not bowed his knee...
(Part 2)
2. I reject the Substitutionary view of the atonement because I am a student of history.
The Substitutionary view of the atonement has made us precisely what we are and no longer want to be. We are church, not kingdom-oriented and we internally, not externally focused. There is nothing in the Protestant view of the atonement that provokes repentance toward kingdom thinking and externally focused ministry.
According to the Protestants, being a disciple is essentially a matter of what a person believes about Jesus. Remember that Luther guy? Sola, sola, sola. It is believing Creed type stuff. That's why the Protestants started pumping out Creeds almost before the ink on the 95 Theses was dry.
Protestants were, from the beginning, all about orthodoxy--right belief. Protestants share the conviction that, if you embrace the proper creed type thoughts about Jesus, Jesus becomes your substitute. God's wrath on you is transferred to Jesus and you are saved because of what you think.
The fruit of that kind of thinking can't be denied. There is now nearly 500 years of data. Protestant are and have always been about church--they are 'worship service' centered. They are internally focused. They are about getting people to come. They are not about going. And, the CGGC has abandoned its dynamic, spirit- empowered past to become those things.
We, too, have become all about Sunday morning or, if we do Sunday morning really well, the weekend show--getting people to put their butts in seats or pews to be entertained, inspired and encouraged to think well enough of Jesus to accept Him as their savior so that He can take their sin away by becoming the substitute for the wrath of God (which we really don't like to mention) so they can have eternal life.
Then they can continue to attend the weekend show and invite others to attend it as well.
That's the logical end of the Substitutionary view of the atonement.
Just read Protestant church history. It is the historical fruit of Protestantism.
One common denominator in every movement that we call an awakening or a revival is that it has not been content with the idea that the core of Christian discipleship is embracing the Substitutionary atonement.
And, so, I reject it because of the fruit is has produced.
The Substitutionary view of the atonement feeds a view of ministry that is not missional.
Bill, you got a good catch of red herrings there, are you frying up some hush puppies to go with them?
I am not here to argue for the validity of the substitutionary view of atonement. It is not a question of being "protestant." It is a question of being biblical. When God sees me, his wrath is propitiated when he sees the life that was without blemish that was given for me. If that were not the case, I would burn forever in hell. That is born out in the law, it is the case in the prophets, it is also in the Gospels, likewise in the epistles and Revelation. I'm not going to argue it because its existence is so self evident that if you don't see it, my advice to you is to grab a Bible and learn what it says.
I come back here because off and on for the past couple of years I have watched you spout off nonsense and no one has taken you to taskj for it. Here is the point that I want to make today: Your buddy John doesn't agree with the things you say. I refer all to John Winebrenner's "Popular Treatise on Regeneration." If you got one, it says on page 26, "The meritorious cause of regeneration is... nothing less than the blood of Christ; in other words it is the atonement or propitiatory sacrifice made by the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world." He goes on afterward to say that "the groundwork of this plan (of God's salvation) is the atonement of Jesus Christ." John Winebrenner knew what the prophets knew, what Moses knew, what Christ knew, and what every other responsible churchman knew down throughout history knew that without the shedding of blood there is no foregiveness of sin. Isaiah knew it when he said that "by His stripes we are healed." The only people today who dispute the clear testimony of Scripture in this regard are those who see the teaching of substitutionary atonement as a hindrance in church, preventing them from getting on with their entertainment, or missional shenanigans, or the therapeutic sentimentalized theology that runs rampant today. The CGGC is not dying today because they holds to "16th century thinking." It is dying because there is no one to lead it. Everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes.
All of you out there, before you go taking Bill's word as to what the CGGC is or has been, you need to go look at the documents put out by the conference office such as what I quoted from above, and others. You will find that Bill's world does not match the reality of history.
Ken Zitsch
Ken,
As you can tell, I'm only half way through my catch.
Welcome back to the last few weeks of the existence of the blog. It's a blessing to interact with someone whose passion for truth guides his/her life in the way it guides yours. There has not been conversation about truth among us this spirited since you left the blog. I applaud your return.
Re:
The only people today who dispute the clear testimony of Scripture in this regard are those who see the teaching of substitutionary atonement as a hindrance in church, preventing them from getting on with their entertainment, or missional shenanigans...
I don't think that it prevents missionality as much as it provides infertile soil for the way of life commanded by Jesus to bear fruit. Until we at Faith began to take the teachings of Jesus seriously and to obey them literally--as the early church did--we could not function missionally. It became necessary that we lay a theological foundation for missional living. We had to come to grips with the fact that in the atonement, there is implication for the way one lives as well as for what one thinks about Jesus. I'll attempt to explain that when I describe the third reason I reject the Substitutionary atonement.
I do appreciate that you take my point that it is not possible to engage in what you call the 'shenanigans' of missionality and, at the same time, hold on to the classic Protestant view of the atonement. It has occurred to me that there are some things you and I agree about that everyone else I know in the CGGC disagrees with. Apparently, this is one of them.
The CGGC is not dying today because they holds to "16th century thinking." It is dying because there is no one to lead it.
Strong words!
I will look forward to your comments on my future posts on this thread.
Bill said:
"I don't think that it prevents missionality as much as it provides infertile soil for the way of life commanded by Jesus to bear fruit."
Assuming that you are talking about the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, that would be the case only if we are persuaded by the culture today that making people come face to face with the sinful person that they look in the mirror at every day is somehow the antithesis of God engaging them in the faith that He has provided for them and encouraging them to find His gifts in their life and act upon them.
I think we are tempted here to go beyond what the Bible teaches about mankind. Again I quote from the aforementioned tract: "Though Adam by transgression fell, and lost both the favor and image of his Maker, yet we are nowhere told that he EVER DESIRED AND SOUGHT FOR RESTORATION TO GOD; and if he did, it was not until after the Lord sought him. This is precisely the case with all Adam's posterity.
None ever have of their own accord, and none will ever of themselves, uninfluenced by other and higher causes, desire and seek, much less effect, a change of their own hearts."
We also have no reason to believe (biblically) that people will on their own accord continue in the way of change even after it has been effected in their lives. The Bible never speaks of people who one day became saints and stayed sinless. As far as I know, there were saints who were living with their father's wife, closing people out of communion, gorging at the idols altars and so forth. Yet Paul still calls them "Saints." How is that? I guess it's the old cliche, "No one's perfect." Maybe we just need to deal with it. Luther said we are "Simul Iustus et Peccator" (simultaneously saint and sinner). I hold to that. It is reasonable in light of what I see going on around me.
Paul explains pretty clearly in Romans that it is the law that shows us our sin, and it is the hopelessness of our sinful self that makes us turn to God. Since we are in the hopeless condition that we are, God imputes the perfect sinless life of Christ for us in our stead. God predestined us to sonship (and daughtership if you will) from the beginning.
Using the metaphor of farming: most crops as far as I know are raised by spreading some pretty stinky stuff on the ground. The same is it for us and as the Bible teaches it is only when we come face to face with the mindlessness of our own existence will we be moved to turn and keep ourselves close to the person of God. THEN will we become evangelical (not missional-God is not seeking us to be partners with Him, He does pretty well on His own). Nowhere in Scripture are we led to believe that people will on their own volition, turn to God and continue to pursue Him. So this premise that God's plan of atonement provides infertile soil is correct perhaps only if we allow 21st century post-modern thinking to permeate our practices and forget what the preacher said that there is "nothing new under the sun."
Bottomline is that the substitutionary view of the atonement does not prohibit fertile soil in our life. The one premise does not follow from the other. The idea that we need to madly assume that the world is going to pieces and we need to develop a new way of thinking, because a desired outcome is not proceeding from our traditional way of thinking is hegelian and it is evil.
Ken Zitsch
The Reformation fell short in primarily reducing christianity to correct religious belief. I agree with that.
I disagree that the substitutionary view of the atonement is the problem and I'm failing to see how it inhibits missionality.
The problem is not with our view of the atonement. We simply must say that Jesus was innocent and willingly suffered for our sins. You must mean something else when you refer to the substitutionary view of the atonement.
To be frank, to deny that Jesus died for our sins is a deal breaker and a fellowship breaker. For someone to deny that Jesus died for our sins would require me to reject that person as a Christian brother or sister, as painful as that might be.
The problem is not the atonement, it's the beginning and the end of the message. When we speak of the gospel, we shady that in the beginning man had fellowship with God and only through the cross can we have a renewed relation ship with God. All of that is true, but it's not the whole story.
God desires for a people to be in right relationship with himself, with others and with the world.
God desires for us to fully live out life the way Jesus commands in the Gospels. To give, to forgive, to be just and merciful. When His kingdom is fully co consummated, things will be as He wills in all ways.
The atonement opens the door to actually living Jesus' way. It is not about us feeling good or going to heaven.
It is about new creation. Our sins an our rebellion being forgiven. The Holy Spirit living in us and having His way.
There is no work of God since Jesus that dies not confess the apostolic belief that Jesus died for our sins.
We might go astray in specifics as to how that works (atonement theory) but we simply must confess that Jesus died for our sins.
I'm going to jump in one more time to emphasize the adoption portion of the "new creation" that Dan mentioned. If we're broadly discussing elements of soteriology, we should not overlook the theological significance of adoption. I posted more yesterday but it got lost in the cross-fire of Bill's initial comments.
Brent- adoption is a wonderful metaphor for our acceptance by God. I see scripture speaking in various ways about all that happens in and through Jesus. And I think that we need all these understandings and not only one.
I dont see how any of that provides a full alternative to the tension around the discussion though.
Do you see a theory of adoption being a fully adequate independant view of the atonement that doesn't require the cross?
I see our adoption by God being what follows repentance and faith. (I think. :-)
I'm done here.
Someone I love and respect told me to stay off this blog a few years back as he told me it isn't worth the irritation. I disobeyed him this once because this isn't an area that I will walk away from. As it has been noted, substitutionary atonement is a dealbreaker. If you cannot confess that "Jesus died for my sins," than you are not a Christian. And I will not let anyone get away with saying that it is not the view of Christians down through the ages. For a fully orbed discussion of this matter, see "Pierced for Our Transgressions." You will find it on Amazon.com. It answers all the contemporary objections to substitutionary atonement.
Dan: respectfully, we would agree with your essential premise. but we disagree in some of the other points that you make. You are putting more of a burden on the atonement than God does.
Atonement is that we are cleansed of our sins. As it says in Ephesians, "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, EVEN WHEN WE WERE DEAD IN TRESSPASSES, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, (Eph 2:4-8 KJV). Atonement is God's work, not ours, God propitiated the sin of the elect even before they knew what was going on. But that is beyond the scope of this thread. My point in posting was to alert those reading this blog that John Winebrenner doesn't necessarily carry Bill's bags for him. So don't bother arguing the point. I'm not CGGC anymore so we will never agree. I'm content to leave it at this: As long as you will say "Christ died for my sins," I consider you a Christian brother. Rest assured that even with the stress you put on the atonement, you are a good Winebrennarian. John would be proud of you. I believe that he adds that same stress (read further in his tract on regeneration). Again though, John Winebrenner would have been opposed to anyone who was an opponent of substitutionary atonement.
Brent: I appreciate that you and your wife have reacted to God's grace in such a way so as to take needy children into your home and provide a life for them. That is commendable and certainly a great witness for Christ. I am not sure however that adoption is an adequate metaphor for what happens to us at the atonment. In the first place, the greek word "huiothesia" in Eph. 1:5 designated adoption in some translations might be better translated "sonship." There is a sense of restoration in that word. Although someone who was formally not God's child is now God's child, it cannot be forgotten that we were His to begin with. We were lost, but now we are found. We were estranged, but now we are saved. that is just a bit different than the modern notion of "adopting" someone.You are taking someone who was never yours and bringing them into your home.
But again, I will not argue the point. If it pleases you to say that what your heart has you doing today is what you see God has done for you, than so be it. The only thing that I will say with Dan is that it might not be a fully adequate view of the atonement.
Thanks all, I'm outta here.
Ken Zitsch
Gang,
I was all set to jump in here to say that I am encouraged to see that there is a smoldering ember of passion for truth remaining in the CGGC. And, I am. But, I was disappointed to see Ken decide that he can not engage in conversation over truth.
I am truly saddened by that, Ken.
It is a hard thing for a person gifted as a prophet to play well with others. Look at the stories of the biblical prophets. However, if a prophet is to live out his/her calling, s/he has to engage others. I hope, Ken, that you will repent of your decision to take your ball and go home. Certainly, there is anger and frustration for us in these conversations, but we are commanded by our Lord to love mercy, and to, while we love it, practice it. In my opinion, you are, at this moment, burying your talent.
Dan & Ken,
I appreciate your feedback and further questions and I'll reply in more detail later today. But, for now, I think it's worth pointing out that in the almost 13 years since I graduated from Winebrenner Seminary this is the first sustained conversation I've ever had about the role biblical adoption plays in our salvation. I'm sure I'm not alone in this experience. Actually, that includes my experiences at Winebrenner. This is an overlooked topic and one that has been greatly neglected.
So, thank you for engaging the topic.
Prophet Sloat says:
"I hope, Ken, that you will repent of your decision to take your ball and go home."
Ken (chuckling with eyes rolling.)
Bill, I am not a prophet. I am not the son of a prophet. I am not even sure its appropriate to refer to yourself as a prophet (the new CGGC guidelines on APEST notwithstanding). Quite honestly, if I want to talk to a prophet, I can open the black book here at hand named "Holy Bible" and have some dialogue with Elijah the Tishbit, or Isaiah the son of Amoz. I'm not quite sure how it is that anyone can say that these fellows aren't sufficient for the questions we moderns ask (or even post-moderns as full of questions as they are), particularly in light of passages such as "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: (2 Tim 3:16). Why do I need to think that myself or anybody today can add a single jot or tittle to anything that they (God having inspired them) have already said?
Oh I forgot, silly me. The Canon was closed by a group of men associated with that nasty Christendom. Yeah, God wasn't in control during that time. Nothing to see there. Boy that Dan Brown, he really exposed all that, didn't he?
But then again, hmmm, maybe God was in control. Maybe He is still in control. Maybe the supposed crisis that the church faces in this so-called post-modern world is more bluster than anything. Perhaps we are just seeing the emergence of ancient heresies in the church that God would want us to merely guard against diligently. You know Bill, particularly that really ancient heresy that had its roots in the garden, "Did God really say..."
Bill, I am not CGGC any longer. I hold to those silly solas that just bust your behind. I appreciate the experience that I gained through ten years of Pastoring, I appreciate the friends that I gained, I will never forget the experiences that I had with heavenly ramifications, it broke my heart to leave, darn near killed my wife and I inside, but for me it came down to one question: Who runs the church?
That seems like such an innocuous question, but it is not settled in the CGGC, nor can it be settled as long as the CGGC holds a position in its statement of faith standing on free-moral agency. That is a fatal flaw as far as I am concerned and as long as that error stands you will always have people who think that the rest of us have to be carried away by their "good ideas."
Don't get me wrong, I could have perhaps lived with arminianism. But, the arminian thought today is not the same as what Arminius' was way back when. Arminius came out of the reformed tradition. There were limits for him as to how far one could actually go with human reason and logic. Arminius would never have said that people can come to God on their own, nor would he have given much credence to the positions that we take in light of human reason today. What we have going on (not just in the CGGC, but in much of the Church) is semi-pelagianism bordering on full orbed pelagianism. Anywhere that you find the notion that we cooporate with God in our salvation, well, the best advice I can give is run. It is going downhill, and it will soon be at breakneck speed.
So you see Bill, it is not a matter of "engaging with conversation over truth." First you have to define what truth is. For me Scripture is truth and there is no other. You cannot add to it, nor can you take away from it. I'm afraid that until that matter is settled within the CGGC, them and I have nothing to talk about anymore.
Ken Zitsch
(Part 1)
3. I reject the Substitutionary theory of the atonement because it does not explain either the message proclaimed by the early church or the way early Christians lived in the world.
Two side points:
a. As a matter of history, let me admit that I am oversimplifying in saying that the Substitutionary view of the atonement is the classic Protestant view. It is the classic Reformed view and it is the view demanded by the Fundamentalists in the late 1800s as one of the five fundamentals. It is central to our conversation because of the way the Fundamentalists shaped the conversation among Bible believers more than 100 years ago. (Don't forget that Fundamentalism was an important theological movement that began at Princeton.)
2. I'm thankful that Ken entered the conversation and made the points he made. He will help me to clarify.
Please don't make the mistake that the only way to account for the fact that a person is saved through faith in Jesus is to see His death as being a mere substitution. John 3:16 is in my Bible too. So is Romans 10:9-13. And, so is Ephesians 2:8-9. I BELIEVE in Jesus. But, gang, isn't it a little Protestocentric to suggest that prior to 1517 no one had ever seen those verses in their New Testaments?
It is possible to understand that "...it is by grace (we) have been save through faith..." without thinking that substitution is the only way to understand the meaning of the cross?
(Part 2)
The most telling indictment against the Substitutionary Theory of the atonement is that early believers didn't preach a message that is consistent it. Jesus as our substitution would have led them exactly where it has led us, to the idea that accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and savior is the key act in the Christian life. It's because of the Substitutionary Theory of the atonement that that biblically unsound idea persists today.
Have you never wondered why, on Pentecost, when Peter proclaimed, "God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." And people in the crowd asked, "Men and brothers, what shall we do?" that Peter didn't say, "Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and you will receive eternal life." He didn't say that because he didn't believe in the Substitutionary Theory of the atonement. What He believed about the atonement is consistent with what he did say, which is, "Repent..."
The most compelling reason I reject the Substitutionary Theory of the atonement is that that theory's logical response to the atonement, i.e., believing in Jesus or ACCEPTING His sacrifice so that He becomes the substitute for God's wrath on a person's life, isn't in the New Testament even one time!
The act of initiation into the communion with Jesus is not belief. It is repentance.
The message of John the Baptist, which prepared the way for the Gospel was a call to repentance. Matthew and Mark say that, from the beginning, Jesus preached to people, "Repent for the Kingdom is near." Luke Gospel has Jesus' final words being "...repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached to all nations." John's Gospel doesn't talk about repentance but offers being born again as a rich metaphor for repentance. Acts 2:38 and 3:19 has the call to repentance as the key focus of Peter's message and in Acts 20:21 Paul says, "I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance..." And, He speaks of the call to repentance as being the central focus of his preaching again in Acts 26:20.
Based on what early disciples did and the message they preached, the atonement means something more than that Jesus is the substitute for my sin if I believe in Him. Based on the early Christian message, Jesus died, not only so that He can be believed in, but also to launch a way of life.
So, I reject the Substitutionary Theory of the atonement. It clearly is inadequate and it calls for a response to Jesus that is incomplete. No one who takes the message and ministry modeled on the pages of the New Testament can deny that.
The church today does not engage in the powerful and incarnational style of ministry that was common among early followers of the Way. I am convinced that the reason we don't is the flawed understanding of the cross that is the Substitutionary Theory of the atonement.
Let me respond with some varied thoughts.
1. Most people don't want to engage in verse by verse debate about substitutionary atonement. It is certainly a good exercise but it is very demanding, and you can't just "ease in" to a conversation like this because you will get eaten alive.
2. I agree with Ken that it isn't difficult to see the substitutionary atonement in Isaiah and Romans.
3. Romans 8 is very clear that Jesus cleared our way from the condemnation of sin through his death on the cross, and then brilliantly moves into adoption.
4. I don't in any way see the mission of God (which comes through as clearly to me as substitutionary atonement) as any hindrance at all to missionality. I'm afraid I've missed Bill's point completely.
By the way, Brent, I'm preaching Romans 8 adoption this Sunday as the key way to know the love of God.
bill - there is something that I think often about you - and I feel this conviction very strongly - you are guilty of 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater.'
What I love about you is that you find huge holes in our beliefs and practice. Repentance is your theme, and it has been neglected big time.
However, repentance as a replacement for belief instead of needing is unnecessary. Both are certainly part of the N.T. apostolic preaching.
You said: "Based on the early Christian message, Jesus died, not only so that He can be believed in, but also to launch a way of life."
I agree wholeheartedly and yet fail to see how this undermines a substitutionary understanding of the cross. I'll say it again, the problem is in a different place then you see it.
As you've mentioned recently, cheap grace is the problem.
I take it you don't see Isaiah 53 as being Messianic.
What do you see as the 'cup' that Jesus is overwhelmed at having to drink? You don't think there is a connection there to the cup of God's wrath in the O.T. prophets? Why did Jesus die anyway?
In 1 Corinth 15, Paul makes it clear that a core part of the message that he received (assumably from the other apostles or Jesus himself) and passed on and is non-negotiable is that Jesus died for our sins.
I don't see the Bible specifically saying that Jesus died for the specific individual sins of individual people and here is where we theologize a bit.
I'm not fully convinced that the protestant doctrine of double imputation is in fact biblical, but again, we must say that Jesus died for our sins.
---
Bill: lighting round.
1. Paul said that part of the core message is that Jesus died for our sins.
Explain ----
2. Jesus said that he came to give his life as a ransom for many.
Ransom from what?
jumping back in...
bill,
i think you're dead wrong in the idea of substitution not leading people to evangelism and mission. the pietists would disagree. the puritans would disagree. brainerd, carey, judson, and a host of missionaries would disagree. i think you're committing fallacy both historically and in lumping all protestants together.
"The fruit of that kind of thinking can't be denied. There is now nearly 500 years of data. Protestant are and have always been about church--they are 'worship service' centered. They are internally focused. They are about getting people to come. They are not about going."
this is a) not universally true, and b) fails to incorporate any of the many vast missionary movements of the last 500 years.
"One common denominator in every movement that we call an awakening or a revival is that it has not been content with the idea that the core of Christian discipleship is embracing the Substitutionary atonement."
as dan has been saying, you seem to be swapping a focus on intellectual assent with the content of the atonement. this is comparing apples to oranges. if you focus solely on repeating an incantation-like "sinner's prayer" and agreeing with certain ideas, then yes, you've got discipleship seriously skewed. but if you don't have Christ as Savior, if you don't have a way back to God and a right standing before Him, you skew everything as well, just in a different direction. you must have both the belief, and the life that shows it.
"Remember that Luther guy? Sola, sola, sola. It is believing Creed type stuff."
i'm constantly surprised that someone who cares so much about truth as you do seems so antagonistic to those who cared so much about believing truth.
dan,
i think you are right-on in what you're saying, both in the necessity of the atonement and the real cause of our lack of movement.
you have also mentioned several times about double imputation. my question to you is, what does 2 Cor 5:21 mean when it says, "God made Him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him"?
walt- What I'm trying to do is get bill to say what he means when he says 'subsitutionary atonement' hoping that he's not really denying that the apostles believed and taught Jesus died for our sins.
I'm not saying that I deny the theological concept of double imputation in some sense. Of course, this is the basis for the whole Piper/Wright debate.
I think the verse can be interpreted both ways.
I'm not sure that Scripture teaches consistently that when God looks at us, He only sees Jesus. I think he sees us as we actually are - former rebels who are now a new creation in Christ, cleansed from our sins, given the gift of the Holy Spirit and struggling to fight sin and live the life and mission that God fully intends for us.
Does God really only see Jesus when he looks at you and me - someone who never ever sinned and lived a perfect obedient life? Or someone who sinned desperately and is yet wonderfully and life-changingly forgiven because the only truly innocent one bore the penalty due us?
Are you aware of other Scripture that seems to teach this other than the one you quoted?
I'm open to be wrong on this, just sharing some thoughts.
Maybe this whole thing is bill's attempt to save the blog. :-)
It's been the most discussion and participation in awhile.
Peter did not believe or teach substitutionary atonement?
“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” 25 For “you were like sheep going astray,”[a] but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
-1Peter 2:24-25
[A clear statement of the reality that Jesus bore our sins on the cross, and the aim of it - our return to the true shepherd from our going astray. Beautiful.]
"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit." 1 Peter 3:18
dan,
i think the question "what does God see when He looks at us?" is really complicated, because it gets into God knowing everything, and how Christ's sacrifice could count for us in the first place, and a plethora of other really big ideas (and truths).
what i think is more directly relevant is how does God treat us, and over and over the Bible speaks of us as new, spotless, innocent, "without wrinkle or blemish or any such thing", righteous, holy, clothed in white. He treats us as without sin, not even remembering it - not that He forgets, but He chooses not to remember it, not to bring it up, not to hold it against us, to act like it never happened. i'm actually preaching on this tomorrow, because i think we've used the language of forgiveness so often without digging into it that we barely even know what it means anymore.
All -
I can't speak for Bill, but I think part of his point may be that for many on this blog Substitutionary Atonement is sort of an unchallenged assumption within CGGC circles. Throughout Church history there have been various theories or interpretations of atonement (Christus Victor, Moral Influence, etc.). Some are much more consistent with our approach to interpreting Scripture, but there are many Christians both today and over the past 2000 years who hold or held a different view of atonement. Bill is not alone in his critique of modernistic Enlightenment thinking that sought to systematize things that were never intended to be organized in such a manner.
This leads to my second point about the connection with adoption. Does our current approach to systematic theology embrace adoption with atonement? Perhaps not. But, what about Paul's writings where he explores these issues within the context of the same conversation (Romans 8, for example). I'm not at all suggesting that adoption is the best or only way to talk about atonement. My main, and only, point is that adoption should be part of the conversation when atonement is discussed.
Brian's point about people not being interested in debating specific Bible verses may demonstrate that the typical Christian intuitively understands that the Bible isn't an absolute system. If God's desire was for us to understand His Word in orderly fashion he could have inspired Paul and others to write it in that format.
The inability to understand Bill's initial post demonstrates that a specific framework is brought to one's interpretation of the Bible. Anything inconsistent with that interpretation won't make sense unless someone translates it for us. It wouldn't surprise me if some who are reading this conversation first encountered an explanation of atonement in terms of the theory of substitutionary atonement and, therefore, view every conversation or Bible verse in those terms.
Reading the Bible from a particular perspective is not a problem; in fact, it's impossible to do otherwise. The problem occurs when we assume that our understanding is the only understanding and move from conversation to condemnation of those who think otherwise.
Returning to adoption, the fact that it was so easily dismissed as outside the conversation demonstrates that it's not been part of the traditional framework of atonement.
But, while I agree this is a great conversation I think what we're seeing is an increased awareness that time is running short and not an indication that there would be similar conversation on other topics.
Brian,
I would be interested in the audio of your Romans 8 sermon if you have it.
Brent,
It will be online next week at www.thecrossover.org. It is at times like these that I would have preferred a great conversation with you prior to the preaching of this sermon. However, it was one of those times that the topic exposed itself too late in the planning process. I hope I do adoption some justice. Thanks for leading me in that direction.
Brian,
I am sensing that we'll have more opportunities for conversations in the future. Doors are opening for us to share how our adoption story intersects with God's work in the life of Christians.
Thank you and you're welcome. I'll look for the sermon next week.
The other aspects of the atonement are no less important. Everything that the bible says about it is important.
I for one am not claiming the substitutionary atonement is 'the' way to view it, as the resurrection is surely as vital as the cross and i would be equally concerned if one was to deny the centrality of the resurrection (the basis of the christus victor motif.).
You simply can't get away with ignoring any of the things that are I'd first importance, without which our belief will have been in vain.
We don't have to understand or have fully detailed explanations about everything, but we must all have belief that includes Jesus dying for our sins, being buried and rising again.
Yikes!
A guy steps away from his computer for 36 hours, returns and finds that the he's so far behind in a conversation that keeping up may be impossible.
Ken,
"First you have to define what truth is. For me Scripture is truth and there is no other."
You are the only person I know personally who practices what my friend walt calls 'a tenatious biblicism' who, before he begins to exegete Bible truth, erases Ephesians 4:13 from the text. I know that you use the KJV. Don't fiddle with,
"Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." That is the expiration date on Ephesians 4:11:
"And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers."
I observed your years in ministry and I know, without question, that you did not bear the fruit of having a shepherds call. You were consumed by passion for truth and you continually called your congregation(s) to turn to the ways of truth. What you produced fruit of being is a prophet.
What I have been wondering for years is if you are a false prophet, or if you are, like most prophets repeatedly whacked by the Shepherd Mafia, a prophet debased in his calling and convinced that, to be a good priest, you have to deny who the Spirit says you are in him. (Woe to them!) I never got to know you and the fruit you produced well enough to make that judgment.
But, know this: I believe myself to be a prophet. All of the people I know personally whom I believe to be a prophet, only one person possesses that calling with greater purity than you and that is Grrrrrrrl Prophet. You are a prophet. I urge you to accept that reality and to come to grips with what the truth is of your calling, i.e., whether or not you are a true prophet.
Whether or not you are a true prophet, there are many things I admire in you. You are a man of principle. Almost no one left in the CGGC is. Nearly all who remain are people who prize relationship over truth. I assume that it is because you are a person of truth that you are no longer in the CGGC. You understand the import of the Mission Statement. You understand the implication it has for how we engage Scripture. You confront boldly the theological error of Free Moral Agency, which we have discussed here. You judge us for claiming to be Arminian but rejecting the core components of Arminian theology. You call it a 'fatal flaw' and, while I can't give up on the CGGC yet, I can see that you may be correct.
Re: So you see Bill, it is not a matter of "engaging with conversation over truth.
On That point, Ken, I am certain you are wrong. What I think you are doing is suffering for the greatest temptation that a prophet faces, i.e., in your passion for truth, you do not love.
Paul was speaking to you when he said, "If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have a faith that can move mountains but have not love I am nothing."
If you are a prophet of the Lord, you have no permission in Him, to leave this conversation. Apostles can shake the dust off their feet. In fact, they must do that when it is right if they are to be obedient. But, it is the lot of the prophet to remain steadfast until the people s/he is called to either repent or put his/her head on a platter. To leave for you is a sin.
Someday, you will stand before the Lord and two issues will be at stake for you personally, based on what our Lord has taught us. One is this: Did you bury your prophetic talent? The other is what did you do when you saw Jesus hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or being sick or being in prison in the face of the least of His brothers and sisters?
Prepare yourself for that moment.
Brian,
I agree with Ken that it isn't difficult to see the substitutionary atonement in Isaiah and Romans.
Interestingly, when I read all of your comments I took away from them that Ken and you are on the same page. As Artie Johnson used to say on Laugh In, "Veeeerrrry interstink!"
I see the atonement in both Isaiah and Romans as well. But, I think that Ken and you are both suggesting that, to acknowledge the atonement and the substitutionary atonement, are one and the same thing.
In Isaiah 53 there is a clear description of Jesus as the one who will bear our suffering but if you think that that is Isaiah's only description of the Messiah, please open your sword again. The Messiah of Isaiah 9 is not One who comes merely to absorb punishment. He is One who comes into the world to create a Kingdom in which peace will be established and in which justice will reign. The Jesus of missionality is the Jesus of all of Isaiah. The Jesus of Christendom is the Jesus confined in Isaiah only to chapter 53.
And, while no one can deny that Romans is about justification made possible through Christ's death, I absolutely do not see mere substitution in the words of Paul. The significance of Paul's understanding of the atonement is made perfectly clear in Romans 12:1. The 'therefore' brings us to his bottom one on Paul's understanding of the incarnation of Jesus. The 'therefore' of the Substituionary Atonement is, essentially, to believe in one's head--to accept Christ's death on the cross intellectually and to be saved by that intellectual exercise. But, as much as Paul talks about the fact that one is justified by faith in the early chapters of Romans, when he defines the proper response to "God's mercies," Paul doesn't mention faith at all. He talks about a radical lifestyle which is one's 'logical' (the Greek word 'logikos' is there) 'worship' is a life of sacrifice.
"Therefore, I urge you bothers, in view of God's mercies, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, this is your logical worship." (Sloat translation. Go ahead and do better.)
If Paul saw the atonement as substitution, he would come to the end of his discussion of the substitutionary atonement urging belief in Jesus as atoning sacrifice but Paul comes ends up at a completely different place.
For Paul a person is justified by faith in Jesus but faith is defined by Abraham's example of faith. Abraham was the man who left his home and family to go on a journey whose end would come only when Yahweh said, "This is the place,' and who, later, was a nanosecond from offering his only son as a sacrifice. This is what it the Word means when it say that 'Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.' Abraham's faith can not be satisfied with an intellectual accepting to a Lord. Abraham's faith is a restless and radically active faith that could never be satisfied with the death of a person on a cross.
And, the incarnation of Jesus is something for someone like Abraham to believe in. Jesus did not merely come into the world to be believed in. He came into the world to be THE way, THE Truth and THE life. Our early brothers and sisters who called on His Name were not called 'believers in' or 'accepters of' the sacrifice. They were called 'followers of the Way.' Unless we reject the people of the Book of Acts as our fathers and mothers, we can't settle for an understanding of the atonement that stops with mere substitution.
Please don't let the Fundamentalists of the 1890s do your thinking for you. The substitutionary atonement is not the only way of thinking about the whole story of the incarnation of our Lord. It, as I've been saying, inadequate.
I've been away from the blog conversations for awhile, but think this is worth a comment...
First, many people are asking hard questions about how to understand the atonement these days. It seems obvious to me that what Jesus did on the Cross is multifaceted, so it is a mistake to look for only one thing which flows from the Cross. What IS clear in the NT is that in some way he bore our sins on the Cross. I assume, Bill, you are not arguing with that basic idea.
Second, the Cross must be placed in the context of the Kingdom message. Romans 6-- buried with him in baptism into death, SO THAT just as he was raised we too may live a new life. Evangelicalism has definitely been guilty of preaching the Cross merely as the ticket to heaven, and not as the viaduct into a new life. Part of the message of the Cross for the new life is that it is a picture of how to live the new life (husbands, die for your wives...).
Third, we have certainly grossly neglected the eschatological reality the cross brings us into, which runs like a rushing river through the epistles, whereby we are said to have died to the age that is passing away and, being "in Christ", become attached to the new creation that is coming and has in fact come (I have been crucified with Christ, you have put off the old man, I have been crucified to the world and the world to me, the old has gone, the new has come, etc.). This eschatological reality, rooted in the Cross, is in fact, the basis on which Paul makes his strongest pleas for believers to change, calling them to become what they in fact already are.
I cannot tell, despite the lengthy comments, what the rest of this argument is about. Can someone give a CONCISE clarification of this discussion?
Fran,
I haven't been engaging in the entire debate so I'll leave it to someone else to provide the full summary.
My point has been that the biblical/theological doctrine of adoption should be part of the larger conversation about atonement. As you wrote, "the Cross must be placed in the context of the Kingdom message" - you offered Romans 6 as an example. There's a good reason why he moves into adoption and related issues by chapter 8.
Okay Bill, just like Santorum said in his speech in Iowa this past week, "Game On."
(By the way, I don't like any of the Presidential candidates nor the current President, none of them are qualified)
But back to the subject at hand, you are the victim of flawed reasoning Bill. I used to think that you just like to spout, but I have come to see in observing you that there is a theological system from which you operate. You like to go around moaning about getting whacked by the so-called shepherd mafia, and you lament "Christendom," but you have the same theological presumptions that you operate on that are just as stuck in the mud as anything that you criticize, and maybe even more so.
There are a couple of cancers that underlie much of what you say Bill, the underlying tumor is "pietism." You interpret Scripture through a pietistic lense. Pietism is a religious evil that the church suffers from and it is a miserable evil. It is vanity as the preacher in Ecclesiastes says and a striving after the wind. Not all pietism is bad: There is a biblical pietism that fears God and operates out of that reverence and respect, but there is the pietism that you trumpet that makes yourself the master of your existence. YOU MUST DFEMONSTRATE YOUR FAITHFULNESS TO GOD. Baloney, nowhere in Scripture (including your flawed interpretation of Ro. 12:1) is there any suggestion of the sort of pietism that you espouse. People don't have to measure up to your standards. Your pietism is rooted in your infatuation with Kierkegaard, existentialism, and your drift somewhere along the way into restorationism.
What humors me is that you try and make John Winebrenner into your own image, and he don't carry your bags.
I like you Bill, I like you more now believe it or not than I did a couple of years ago. Then I thought you were a fraud, now I am sure that you are sincerely misguided. Not only theologically, but also on the basis of the thetoric that you employ. There are enough logical fallicies in the last two posts to drive a truck through. To point them out would have little effect. The fact is that you don't want to learn, you have yourself believing that you are the teacher par excellence. I am going to leave you there Bill, and as you say we will both stand before the Lord someday. I am sure that as I hide my face from God, there is not going to be any question that the proper verdict for me based upon my deeds is gonna be guilty. Thankfully (and unfortunately for you) my eternity will be secured by the truth that Jesus stood in my stead before Almighty God and bore the brunt of my sin. My knowledge and faith in that tells me that I ain't gonna have to worry about a thing.
Ken Zitsch
In response to Fran's question, here's the conversation from my perspective:
Bill began with his post and subsequent comments which I read as
1. The doctrine of substitutionary atonement is a doctrine of the Protestant Reformation, and is not biblical.
2. The doctrine of substitutionary atonement is a major hindrance to mission.
In response, I (and others) have tried to get bill to articulate what he does believe about 'Jesus died for our sins.' and what specifically dimensions of the doctine that he finds mistaken.
I (and perhaps some are in agreement) find that bill although there are certainly several dimensions to the cross (Brent and Fran have brought up some), the idea that Jesus bore our sins MUST be one of them.
Secondly, I'm claiming that our view of the atonement is not the primary hindrance to mission, but the fact that we've isolated the cross from the big picture and made it the only thing that matters.
I'm trying not to speak for others. To my knowledge, nobody else here has said that they agree with bill's theses.
M,
Lot's of real life going on here. We are about to leave for the 'lupus doctor.' Tomorrow Faith goes into the city to feed the homeless, always a serious project for many.
You have good questions and valid observations.
What I love about you is that you find huge holes in our beliefs and practice. Repentance is your theme, and it has been neglected big time.
However, repentance as a replacement for belief instead of needing is unnecessary. Both are certainly part of the N.T. apostolic preaching.
Don't lose sight of the fact that repentance was so key to Matthew's presentation of the life of Jesus that he quotes the central message of Jesus as being, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near." No mention of belief, at all as there is in Mark.
I'll say what I've said here before. In all my born days, I have never once heard a CGGC sermons on repentance. That's seriously wrong!
You ask several times how I see a connection between the substitutionary view of the atonement and missionality. I'll do my best to explain that in point 4.
I take it you don't see Isaiah 53 as being Messianic.
What do you see as the 'cup' that Jesus is overwhelmed at having to drink? You don't think there is a connection there to the cup of God's wrath in the O.T. prophets? Why did Jesus die anyway?
I do see a connection. I don't see a connection to a merely substitutionary understanding of what Jesus did.
In 1 Corinth 15, Paul makes it clear that a core part of the message that he received (assumably from the other apostles or Jesus himself) and passed on and is non-negotiable is that Jesus died for our sins.
Right. "...that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." But, the words "a substitutionary death" are not there. The fundies put them there in the 1890s and 1900s. To deny the substitutionary atonement is not to deny the centrality of the death of Jesus on the cross--unless you are a full-fledged Fundamentalist.
2. Jesus said that he came to give his life as a ransom for many.
Ransom from what?
Wow!
The ransom theory is an entirely different way of understanding the atonement than substitution. Substitution is that Jesus became the perfect and complete sacrificial lamb. Ransom is that Jesus paid the price necessary to earn freedom for the one who was enslaved by sin.
You guys do seem to think that I'm rejecting the idea that Jesus died for us on the cross. I'm not. I believe in that with all my heart. What I don't believe is that one can be radically missional if his/her understanding of the incarnation is that Jesus merely came to take the penalty of our sin by the shedding of His blood and that His life, death and resurrection are all about His death as our substitute.
bill - absolutely right that repentance is one of the main things lacking. You are dead right and it's time we all repend of not 'preaching' repentance.
My thought is that the whole concept of different 'theories' of the atonement is a reformation idea and unbiblical. Why are we asked to choose between them? (This is not a question for you but a general question)
I don't really like that you are using the term 'mere' although I think I might understand what you mean. That idea of Jesus dying for our sins as an end unto itself rather than a invitation to the kingdom life He demands of us. I just don't feel like I'd be honoring Jesus to say that anything about his sacrificial death on our behalf is mere. Does that make sense?
At the end of the day, sometimes we are substantially closer than it seems along the way.
So, for even further clarification, is it the idea of Jesus bearing our sins (what I think of with substitution), or primarily the preaching of that as THE message and as an end unto itself?
fran, dan's summary is solid.
bill, before i deal in any more specifics, let's get straight to the matter. to rephrase dan's question: is your problem with the idea of substitution, or what we've done in isolating it and ignoring the rest of the gospel message and call?
Thanks for the summary of the discussion, Dan. Semantics taken into consideration, I'm not sure there's as much of a divide as might appear here. Consider this:
Dan said… "Secondly, I'm claiming that our view of the atonement is not the primary hindrance to mission, but the fact that we've isolated the cross from the big picture and made it the only thing that matters."
Bill said… "What I don't believe is that one can be radically missional if his/her understanding of the incarnation is that Jesus merely came to take the penalty of our sin by the shedding of His blood and that His life, death and resurrection are all about His death as our substitute."
There is a great deal of commonality in these expressions. I think Bill is right that there is a connection between the single-faceted substitution view and the lack of motivation for mission. So let's not do that, Bill... let's embrace the Cross in all the glorious things it both speak and brings to us, which will lead us straight into continuing the mission Jesus began. I don't hear anyone arguing with that.
However, having been away from the blog for awhile, you, my brother, do sound very argumentative, and your arguments strike me as kind of scattered in the way they come across.
I think Fran is right that there is commonality. It just takes a little while to get to it :-)
Salvation is as simple as 1,2,3...
1.repentance, 2.forgiveness, 3.new life
repentance from our sins before a Holy God...
forgiveness of our sins through faith in Jesus...
new life both now and forever through the power of the Holy Spirit...
It is God who initiated this salvation by making repentance available. Forgiveness comes after we repent(turn). Turn from our sin and turn to Jesus who died in our place for our sins(substitutionary atonement). Then by the power of of the resurrected Jesus in us, the Holy Spirit, we begin new changed lives that continue on into eternity.
Granted this is a simplification and such images as adoption add fuller color, but this is the good news.
(Part 1)
4. I reject the Substitutionary Theory of the atonement because, while it accounts for how Jesus can be my savior, it doesn't motivate me to live with Jesus as my Lord.
As I take this step in my walk with Jesus, two convictions guide me.
a. Faith in God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is defined by the way Abraham believed. As I've mentioned earlier in this thread, Abraham's the guy who left everything to go on a journey Yahweh called him to. Abraham undertook that journey with no promise from Yahweh except that Yahweh was leading him to the 'land I will show you.' And, Abraham is the guy who placed on an altar and put a knife to the throat of the son Yahweh promised him and he would have shed that son's blood at the word of his God. That's believing! And it is, make no mistake about it, the New Testament standard. Read Romans and Galatians.
b. When John the Baptist, Jesus and Peter (on Pentecost) defined the act of repentance as the first act in entering the Kingdom of God, they used the present imperative form of the verb. In any language, the imperative is a command. In Greek, the present tense signifies continuing action. Therefore, the repentance commanded as the act that initiates the Christian life is not a one moment decision, like one that would takes place at a church altar rail. The repentance commanded by John and Jesus and the apostles is a way of life in which changing the way one thinks and acts is an ongoing lifestyle. Because of that, I search each day--sometimes several times in a day--to understand how the lifestyle of repentance must manifest itself next in my life.
The last significant act of repentance that I engaged in, as one who aspires to Abraham's faith, took place approximately a year ago. At that time, I had the missional stuff in my head and I was participating in the Missional Leadership Initiative but I knew that something important was lacking in translating what I acknowledged intellectually to be truth and the way I was living.
And, so I decided to try to make Jesus my Lord in a literal way and to obey His teachings in the flesh. As you know, there are some doosies in the Sermon of the Mount, particularly in Matthew chapter 5. I became uneasy in really believing and applying to my life, Matthew 7:21-13 and 24-26. Taking literally, the stuff in Matthew 10:37f about loving Him more than mother and father and taking up my cross or not being worthy of Him unsettled me. Contemplating, "take my yoke upon you and learn from me" came to have new meaning. The forgiveness teachings following the Lord's Prayer and in Matthew 18 kill me. The 'whoever wants to be greatest among you' teaching, taken literally as a condition for life in the Kingdom? Tell me about it! The seven woes to the Pharisees who I resembled more than I wanted to? Scary, scary stuff. And, the ultimate killer for me personally was His definition of how to prepare for the Day when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne. It begins in Matthew 24:42 and culminates in the 'sheep and goats' description of what will happen on that Day. Lord, have mercy!
(Part 2)
As I have walked this journey of in-the-flesh-obedience to Jesus, my head swims. I've found, perhaps, my greatest spiritual joy on this journey. But, I have experienced many moments of disorientation as well.
Two thoughts swim most prominently through my mind.
One of them is a question we've been discussing here: The 'what is a disciple' question. I am concluding something that should be a no-brainer, i.e., that Jesus has the right to define the characteristics of those who are His disciples. If that's true, it is a radical thought compared to what is taught in today's pulpits and what is lived by most people who call themselves Christians.
The second prominent thought that came to me early on in this Repentance Chapter in my life is this:
What I have believed about Christ's atonement doesn't motivate me to the life He defines as the lifestyle of a person who is His disciple.
I'd always believed, uneasily to be sure, the standard Roman Road Gospel. I'd always bought that, like everyone, I am a sinner and that the wages of sin is death and that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus our Lord. I've always believed that while we were still sinners Christ died for the ungodly. And, until I began to apply the teachings of Jesus to my life as a requirement for discipleship, I really did believe that all I had to do to be saved what to confess Jesus as the Son of God and accept, for myself, His death on the cross.
That message was preached to me from the time I was a little boy. I preached it. I've heard many CGGCers preach it. I believe I've heard some of you preach it. When I was in seminary, I learned that it's a fair representation of the Substitutionary Theory of the Atonement.
But, when I'd think about Jesus' Parable of Wise Man who Built His House on the Rock and I'd hear, "Everyone who hears these (Sermon on the Mount) words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand..."
When I'd think about accepting the death of Jesus on the cross saving me but then hear, "Depart from me...for I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat..."
There was dissonance. Serious dissonance.
I discovered that I could not adopt the lifestyle Jesus taught and still accept the Substitutionary Theory of the atonement. I could not have peace in my heart until I began a search for a new understanding of the meaning of the entirety of His incarnation!
I have since, come a long way in living missionally. I do devote a lot of time preparing for the moment when I will stand before Him and I do it based on what He says. I do feed the least among the hungry people I encounter and I do cloth people who need it but who are the very least of the brothers and sisters of Jesus.
I--being who I am--could not and would not sacrifice to live this way if I still believed in the Substitutionary Theory of the atonement.
The congregation I participate in is radically missional now. I would not be surprised if it were true that we do more things missionally than any other CGGC congregation--even those flirting with 1,000 average attendance. Living missionally is the absolutely core to what we do. Gathering on Sunday matters only as a way for us to spur one another on to love and good deeds. If the sheep and goats description is true of us, we are putting the oil in our lamps and we are using our talents for our Lord.
And, we accomplished that repentance by throwing the Substitutionary Theory of the atonement in the trash can.
We define our walk with the Lord not from Romans 10, "...if you confess with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord'..." but from Romans 12, "...offer your bodies as living sacrifices...this is true and proper worship."
Substitution just doesn't do it any longer.
bill, thanks very much for sharing in some length your journey.
One struggle we have (and it has been a historical struggle) is bringing the Gospels and Paul together in a way that does justice to both of them. I think your journey reflects a move to really take Jesus at his word, when we've focused some much on Paul. Admirable.
You said: "I--being who I am--could not and would not sacrifice to live this way if I still believed in the Substitutionary Theory of the atonement."
I still don't understand why. This must be subjective to you because I and many, many others will exactly the opposite.
Think of the song: "Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe..."
Or "My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth and followed thee."
The substituionary atonement, properly understood, leads to a life of devotion. We literally owe Jesus our lives. And that's why Romsns 12 is part of the 'Romans Road' that I've always heard.
The atonement stirs my soul. It leads us to as Tozer said, even though having found Him I seek Him all the more.'
At the end of it all, as much as I genuinely appreciate what you've brought to the table bill, I just don't 'get' your rejection of the substitutionary atonement.
I'll make a bold claim: anyone who thinks the death of Jesus for our sins necessarily makes the church passive, doesn't understand it at all - at the deep (gut) life-shaking level.
Gang,
I'm waaaaaay behind in keeping up with the conversation and, since I started this, I hope to follow through.
walt- What I'm trying to do is get bill to say what he means when he says 'subsitutionary atonement' hoping that he's not really denying that the apostles believed and taught Jesus died for our sins. -- Dan M.
I've tried to be clear that what I mean by it is what the CGGC, and most of evangelicalism and fundamentalism practices. What we practice is an understanding Jesus that has, and always will, result in church-oriented, internally focused Christianity and that ain't New Testament Christianity.
We teach and preach that one is saved by accepting Jesus Christ as savior because He died on the cross for the sins of humanity. That's what I mean.
Of course Jesus died for our sins. However, when I read the New Testament I don't see followers of the Way running around inviting people to accept Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.
Brent:
I can't speak for Bill, but I think part of his point may be that for many on this blog Substitutionary Atonement is sort of an unchallenged assumption within CGGC circles. Throughout Church history there have been various theories or interpretations of atonement (Christus Victor, Moral Influence, etc.). Some are much more consistent with our approach to interpreting Scripture, but there are many Christians both today and over the past 2000 years who hold or held a different view of atonement. Bill is not alone in his critique of modernistic Enlightenment thinking that sought to systematize things that were never intended to be organized in such a manner.
I am a student of history. You are significantly correct, Brent.
That we got this far into this discussion without this point being made is a little scary to me. Truth doesn't matter much in the CGGC. Just ask Ken!
The historical reality is that, from the very beginning Jesus followers have struggled to grasp the full significance of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. The Substitutionary Theory is but one of several attempts to understand all that Jesus said and did.
We are living in a church culture in which two things are happening.
1. In the circles in which the CGGC operates, the Substitutionary Theory of the atonement reigns.
2. In the circles in which the CGGC operates, the church is in spiritual and numerical decline.
I believe that those two realities are connected and that unless we repent of our--as Brent points out--extremely modern beliefs, we are toast.
Too often, many of you come across as thinking that what you believe came from Paul himself and has been the faith of the church always. It just ain't.
The truth is that mainstream middle of the road CGGC thinking is hyper-modern and only traces its roots back a few decades. It's time to wise up, open our eyes and take the issue of truth seriously.
Of no one in history could Jesus' accusation be more true that it is of us: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions.
The simple phrase I've often heard has profound truth.
"Jesus Christ is my Savior and Lord"
As Savior, Jesus is my substitutionary atonement, to use the phrase we are discussing.
As Lord, Jesus has authority over my life that calls for a daily repentance, a daily dieing to my self, a daily surrendering to His will in my life.
Yes, often people ask Jesus to be their Savior and are not interested in Him being their Lord.
They want to escape punishment for sins but aren't interested in "Living for Jesus" (A classic church hymn by the way).
Yet Bill, your words indicate that you want Jesus to be 'Lord' but not 'Savior'. That is a works based salvation and wrong.
I understand your reaction to how people have abused the gospel. Just don't swing the pendulum to the other side.
It's not Savior OR Lord.
Jesus is Savior AND Lord.
Fran,
What IS clear in the NT is that in some way he bore our sins on the Cross. I assume, Bill, you are not arguing with that basic idea.
You are correct, Fran. That Jesus bore our sins on the cross is a core component of the Gospel.
Evangelicalism has definitely been guilty of preaching the Cross merely as the ticket to heaven, and not as the viaduct into a new life. Part of the message of the Cross for the new life is that it is a picture of how to live the new life (husbands, die for your wives...).
Amen!
Preach it bro!
The whole of the incarnation of Jesus can not have it's only meaning at the moment earthly life left the body of Jesus but that's what too many have believed recently.
...we are said to have died to the age that is passing away and, being "in Christ", become attached to the new creation that is coming and has in fact come (I have been crucified with Christ, you have put off the old man, I have been crucified to the world and the world to me, the old has gone, the new has come, etc.).
I love it when someone says better than I can or did what I think! And, this is part of it.
I believe that we are not missional because of what we don't emphasize from the biblical Gospel and that we will only become missional when we repent of our falsified Gospel.
From Ken:
There are a couple of cancers that underlie much of what you say Bill, the underlying tumor is "pietism." You interpret Scripture through a pietistic lense. Pietism is a religious evil that the church suffers from and it is a miserable evil.
Ken,
A problem I have in conversing with you is that you use huge words--in the case of this thread, missional and pietism--without giving us a sense of what, out of all the things you might mean, you really do mean. So, please:
1. Define missional as you think of it.
2. Define pietism as you are using the term.
You are correct about me. I do think of myself as a part of the broad, historic tradition of pietism. I identify with the Baptists and the Methodists with Winebrenner and with that part of the Restorationists and the Holiness and Pentecostal people and, especially, the Organic Church people.
Pietist and Kierkegaardian. That's me. Just as you say. What I don't know is what you think is bad about that.
...there is the pietism that you trumpet that makes yourself the master of your existence.
Break that down for me, brother. You think I think that the universe is centered on me?
Bill said,
"You are correct, Fran. That Jesus bore our sins on the cross(read: substitutionary atonement)is a core component of the Gospel."
Bill also said,
"...the Substitutionary view of the atonement--is far from adequate...(we must)
repent of that corrupt view of the atonement..."
Is it core or corrupt?
Brian,
Could I post your sermon on our adoption blog (as well as the notes)? I want to provide an example of one way to approach talking about adoption from a biblical perspective.
I was tinkering around on the blog and was having difficulty posting an audio file. So, if your answer is yes, I may seek some technical assistance as well.
Thanks.
walt,
...is your problem with the idea of substitution, or what we've done in isolating it and ignoring the rest of the gospel message and call?
Both?
As Brent has pointed out, there are other ways that Jesus-followers have understood Christ's incarnation and even His dying and death. There can be no question that the message of the cross is central to the Gospel. The meaning of the cross has not been settled among believers and it still is not settled--except in our insulated evangelical-ish, hyper-modern micro-universe. I think we have oversimplified the significance of the cross.
And, having done that, we have isolated the fact of the dying of Jesus on the cross from the rest of the Gospel and we've done it in a way that produces...and I've brought this up in the past...a Cheap Grace Gospel in which intellectual ascent to Jesus as the Son of God and pew-sitting equals righteousness and that's not the biblical truth.
We won't be a missional people because we don't have a reason to be because we have embraced and we preach a false Gospel.
I think Bill is right that there is a connection between the single-faceted substitution view and the lack of motivation for mission. So let's not do that, Bill... let's embrace the Cross in all the glorious things it both speaks and brings to us, which will lead us straight into continuing the mission Jesus began. I don't hear anyone arguing with that.
You may not hear that in so many words here. But, you also don't hear a four part chorus of voices singing, "Yes! We have to repent."
In our ministry at Faith, we are doing what we can to "embrace the Cross in all the glorious things it both speaks and brings to us." But, I think that all of us at Faith would say that we not doing it well enough. Most of us would say that we are lacking in a community to participate in in which we, as a part of a Jesus-obeying body, share our strengths with others and benefit from the strengths other congregations have. Most of us would say that we feel very alone in attempting to live out the Gospel and that it seems to us that we fail because you guys are letting the Lord and us down.
However, having been away from the blog for awhile, you, my brother, do sound very argumentative, and your arguments strike me as kind of scattered in the way they come across.
You are correct. I am being argumentative. If anything, I'm afraid that I'm not coming across as confrontationally as I'm trying to be. I'm trying to be John the Baptist sticking his finger in the noses of the Pharisees and Sadducees shouting, "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance."
And, I am not ashamed to be trying to do that. My only regret is that I'm not doing it fervently and scandalously enough.
I think Fran is right that there is commonality. It just takes a little while to get to it :-) -- Dan M
He is.
He always does. It is a part of his apostolic gift.
And, that's why it is crucial, if we are to achieve obedience that everyone with an APEST calling live within that calling. I have never claimed to have any answers only a prophetic contribution.
The reality of APEST is why one of the things we need to repent of is clergyism which is pastorism, priestism and Shepherd Mafiaism. And, we don't have a lot of time to make that decision, in my opinion.
Andrew:
Salvation is as simple as 1,2,3...
1.repentance, 2.forgiveness, 3.new life
repentance from our sins before a Holy God...
I'll say what I've said before about this. I've been in the CGGC for 40 years and I've been in the ministry in the CGGC for 35 years.
I have never, ever--even once--in all that time heard a sermon on repentance. Apparently, Andrew, your "1, 2, 3" isn't simple because we've failed on point 1, at least in my experience.
forgiveness of our sins through faith in Jesus...
I think that we fail on this point as well because, again from the 40 years of my immersion in the CGGC, we don't define faith in the Abrahamic terms that the New Testament defines it in. Our definition has become a perverted, dime store definition of a faith that can be articulated by a person repeating after someone who is reciting the sinner's prayer.
Clearly, this was not the Church of God definition of faith in our founding generation.
new life both now and forever through the power of the Holy Spirit...
Right for those who produce fruit. (John 15)
It is God who initiated this salvation by making repentance available. Forgiveness comes after we repent(turn). Turn from our sin and turn to Jesus who died in our place for our sins(substitutionary atonement).
Actually, according to New Testament Greek, no.
The word for repentance (metanoia) means to change your mind. And, certainly, that is a crucial first step.
But, turning is not repentance, though I'm guessing that nearly everyone who went to seminary since 1960--maybe forever (because seminary is one of the hyper-modern things that we assume date back to Paul)--thinks that repentance and turning are the same thing.
But, they are not as Acts 3:19 makes vividly clear. Turning, what the KJV referred to as being converted, comes to us in English from the Greek noun epistophe and the verb epistrephpo. You are absolutely correct, Andrew, that both repentance and conversion/turning are necessary. You have been misled in thinking that they are the same thing. Repentance comes first because it is an intellectual exercise--something that takes place in the mind. As far as I can tell, turning is the ethical way of living that is the first fruits of repentance.
Then by the power of of the resurrected Jesus in us, the Holy Spirit, we begin new changed lives that continue on into eternity.
...by producing fruit of repentance.
M:
The substituionary atonement, properly understood, leads to a life of devotion. We literally owe Jesus our lives. And that's why Romsns 12 is part of the 'Romans Road' that I've always heard. (emphasis mine)
That may be the case.
I've said all along that my critique is of how we PRACTICE the Substitutionary view of the atonement. We practice it by assuming that, for instance, a child attending church camp who accepts Jesus as Lord and Savior in an isolated, retreat setting away from mommy and daddy by repeating the Sinner's Prayer has done what is necessary to have made Jesus the substitute for God's wrath.
This is not my area of expertise in church history, but I am not familiar with a setting in which substitution has been understood properly according to what the CGGC believes about personal salvation. In the beginning (the 16th century), it was assumed that the person atoned for would be baptized as an infant and catechized into true intellectual belief so that substitution could become a mature reality in that person's life.
Even if you are correct that it works when done properly I know of no such example.
At the end of it all, as much as I genuinely appreciate what you've brought to the table bill, I just don't 'get' your rejection of the substitutionary atonement.
What I think is that what we do comes from what we believe. That's what Paul says in Romans 12:2. "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Beliefs and attitudes bear fruit in action. The testimony of history that I see is that the Substitutionary Theory of the atonmement doesn't produce the sort of fruit that New Testament followers of the Way produced.
It has produced in the CGGC a internally-focused body that defines personal righteousness by, in the Eastern Region what we call Composite Membership, i.e. when an individual regularly attends a Sunday morning show, allows their names to be placed on a Sunday School roll, attends a Sunday School class regularly and becomes a member of a church then that person's righteousness 'exceeds that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law."
From a big picture perspective, I know of no way that we will stop being church-focused that doesn't involve thinking and teaching differently about the cross than we have been for a long, long time.
And, I'll add that at Faith we are no longer church-focused in any way and that we have, to use Andrew's term, turned, because we have begun to look at the cross differently than the Substitution-based Composite Membership theory of righteousness.
It is true that what I saying here is essentially anecdotal. But, we are achieving at Faith to a degree, what we say we want the congregations of the CGGC to achieve in terms of paradigm shift.
I reject this view of the atonement because history shows me that the fruit it produces is rotten.
I'll make a bold claim: anyone who thinks the death of Jesus for our sins necessarily makes the church passive, doesn't understand it at all - at the deep (gut) life-shaking level.
That may be. All I know is what I see. And, I have hundreds of years of data.
Yet Bill, your words indicate that you want Jesus to be 'Lord' but not 'Savior'. That is a works based salvation and wrong.
Then you are reading me wrongly. I'm writing this because I believe that the greatest of all the commands in the Law is, "Love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength" and I see lots of church ladies and gentlemen whose live do not produce fruit of that love. Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commands." I know a lot of people who have been led to believe that Jesus is their savior who, based on the fruit they are producing, are precisely the people Jesus describes in Matthew 7:21.
And, that breaks my heart for them and for God.
Andrew,
In our ministry, Ephesians 2:8-10 are understood to be one organic truth. It is by grace we have been saved through faith to do the works God prepared in advance for us to do. We believe that if we are not doing those works that we are not producing fruit in keeping with repentance.
We are careful not to preach salvation by works. We teach that one is saved through faith in Jesus and that a believer in Jesus loves Jesus and keeps His commands.
Andrew:
Bill said,
"You are correct, Fran. That Jesus bore our sins on the cross(read: substitutionary atonement)is a core component of the Gospel."
Yikes, and let me be honest. If you passed your theology classes in seminary, someone needs to take your prof into a back alley and dispense a little divine retribution. To suggest that the only way to understand Jesus bearing our sins on the cross is to accept that view of the atonement is pure error. It is ignorance of church history.
Bill also said,
"...the Substitutionary view of the atonement--is far from adequate...(we must) repent of that corrupt view of the atonement..."
Is it core or corrupt?
It is, first of all and most importantly, inadequate. It fails to describe the entire significance of the cross.
Please understand that it is not core. It is corrupt because it produces corrupt fruit. Read some church history.
Brent,
You can post my sermon and notes on your blog.
Brian
I am much akin to Ken as I have read this discussion. I have no dog in this fight. I have been practically disenfranchised from the CGGC. My friends though they be few have told me not to get involved. As a commedian recently said: I have the right and reason to remain silent but not the ability. I am certainly not on a level with the scholars and intellectuals leading this debate. Those of you who know me realize I am just a dumb country boy.
However, I believe in an immutable God with an immutable word. Jesus said "for this hour I came." Repentance is not sufficent for salvation or we would know all AA members who followed the 12 step plan would be in heaven. Good catholics repent weekly but that does not resole the sin problem. Repentance is an impedence and result of conversion to the means to it. Jesus said he who has the son has life and he that hath not the son....... He also said by their fruits you shall know them. Missionality, repentance and a host of other verbs are the result and evidendce that acceptance of Christ's substitutionary atonement is a reality in one's life. They are not the means to salvation. I fear, bill you have fallen into the trap of invalid arguementation. We must always be carefull about which we affirm in the arguement the conditional or the annacedant. I.E. We might might say If it is a duck it has two legs. Then conclude either it is not a duck ergo it doesn't have two feet or it has two feet it must be a duck. Both are incorrect conclusions because the form is invalid. If one has been the receipiant of the substitutionary atonement certain things will then follow. If they do not it is evident the conditional has not been met. The fact they evidence repentance or missionality does not affirm they have. I have a chicken with two legs but that does not make it a duck.
I recognize I am intellectually out of my league with the likes of Bill, Ken and others and will be quite from now on out. But i fear we are on a slippery slope that may end with the falling away predicted by Paul. I, like Ken am neither a prophet or the son of one. I have, however, always concidered myself as passingly familiar with the Book. I still believe it teaches the vicarious blood antonement of Christ as the required remedy for man's sin. I am not ashamed to confess it was, is and always will be for mine. Thanks for letting me have a say.
I want to say that I really appriciate the breadth and depth of this conversation.
More than anything else, I appreciate the amount of participation from different people.
Ultimately, the only way that we are going to prove bill wrong is to see real fruit come from people and bodies that embrace substitutionary atonement.
And it has and already does to some extent. The church is not as bereft of fruit as we are sometimes led to believe.
My prediction for the future is that the parts of the church that reject the substitutionary atonement are going to be the liberals within a generation or two.
Stan,
"Missionality, repentance and a host of other verbs are the result and evidendce that acceptance of Christ's substitutionary atonement is a reality in one's life. They are not the means to salvation. I fear, bill you have fallen into the trap of invalid arguementation."
"Missionality" and "repentance" are nouns, not verbs! ;-)
Except for the verb part, I agree with what you've said except for the word "substitutionary." That view of the atonement is, like all others, a human invention. But, if you took that adjective out of your sentence I, for one, agree.
I have to wonder, Stan, if you feel so strongly about these Reformed views, how you could have taken ordination vows and continued to long in the CGGC.
BTW, I personally, do not believe that repentance is a 'means' to salvation. But, I believe that salvation is not a reality in the life of anyone who has not repented. If you're going to make this an argument between Calvin and Arminius, you'd be better off starting another thread. I'm not sure that I'll participate in that one, though. It's not my thing.
I still believe it teaches the vicarious blood antonement of Christ as the required remedy for man's sin. I am not ashamed to confess it was, is and always will be for mine. Thanks for letting me have a say.
I also believe in the blood atonement. I just don't believe in the Substitutionary Theory of the atonement.
(Part 1)
Bill said:
"I have to wonder, Stan, if you feel so strongly about these Reformed views, how you could have taken ordination vows and continued to long in the CGGC."
I presume that he said this because ps1229 said this:
"Repentance is not sufficent for salvation or we would know all AA members who followed the 12 step plan would be in heaven. Good catholics repent weekly but that does not resole the sin problem. Repentance is an impedence and result of conversion to the means to it."
And now I say:
It never ceases to amaze me Bill (for a man who once taught church history and polity at our seminary), the theologically unsound and historically mistaken statements that you make. My jaw drops, but then I remember verses like Ge. 6:5-6 and Ro. 3:10-31, and I say, "Oh yeah, I guess I got my own problems."
Maybe you have forgotten Bill, or maybe you never found out that Arminians have never believed as you said in one of your previous posts,
"When John the Baptist, Jesus and Peter (on Pentecost) defined the act of repentance as the first act in entering the Kingdom of God, they used the present imperative form of the verb."
No they did not! That is heresy Bill. No one in church history: not the apostles or prophets, not John the Baptist, none of the church fathers, arminians, not even John Winebrenner would ever say that repentance is the first step to salvation. That's just absolute nonsense. Everybody has known that it is the Holy Spirit who brings us to salvation. It is God Himself who calls us. He is "The voice of one crying in the wilderness." He is the one who brings us to repentance, otherwise we wouldn't know our way out of a wet paper bag.
You can't just get out of bed one day and repent! It doesn't matter if you are calvinist or arminian. You can't just decide to make a decision for Jesus one day and say, "He shows me how I am going to live my life!"
Bill, you are existential. That effects the way you perceive the scriptures and the church. I fear you may even border on semi-pelagian. Existential means (according to wikipedia) that philosophical and theological discussion begins with you. You are in the same leaky boat that Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, and Buber were in. You believe that human existence is a crisis and you need to make a leap of faith. You are wrong! Human existence is a crisis, and the only way the matter is going to be settled is if God shows you how to resolve it.
(Part 2)
It is at the cross, that the matter is settled. We cannot do it on our own, neither you nor Kierkegaard will know redemption unless you see that:
a) You cannot do it on your own, and
b) It is Christ to whom our sin has been imputed. He has taken us and our sin down to the grave, and now we are risen with him. He hjas taken our sin on Himself. God poured out His wrath on it while He was on the cross. Substitutionary atonement is prefigured in Leviticus through the various offerings. In the law we are made to see our sin and shown we can't do anything about it at all. We are lost in our sins and transgressions, and only because the one who knew no sin took on our sin will we be saved. "It is by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourself, it is the gift of God."
Yes Bill, we "have been created in Christ Jesus unto good works," but the fact is that walking in those good works is not in these verses made a requirement of being "saved by grace." "For we are His workmanship, created in Jesus unto good works" is merely an observation that Paul makes coinciding with his general argument that it is God who has quickened us; it is He has raised us up, and now it is He showing the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." After He saves us, He will provide good works for us to walk in. We are NOT saved by walking in the good works that He has provided.
To be honest with you Bill, I don't give a hoot whether you like the word substitutionary or not. Your prejudices toward what you call "the reformed way of looking at the atonement," have not had the slightest effect on the prosperous ministry I have done in the past, nor will they in the future. Some of us will continue to stay in step with the Word and be right, others of you will listen to philosophers and remain confused.
Whatever the case may be, go ahead and stew in your crisis, I am looking forward to my reward.
Ken Zitsch
bill,
you said, "That view [substitution] of the atonement is, like all others, a human invention."
does God have no view or understanding of the cross? is all we know about Him and His work "human invention"?
Bill, I am aware that spelling and rhetoric are not my strength. I may just be a dumb country boy but i do understand the difference between a noun and a verb. Sometimes my mind goes faster then my fingers type. I am aware also that many if not most nouns have a verb at the root.The root of the Greek word for repentance is the verb to repent. one the verb yeilds the other the noun.
2 Corinthians 5:21 God says: He hath made him to be sin for us..... If that is not Substitution what else is it. You were asked as was I Do you belive..... as part of your ordination vows. Can you still say I do to those vows? If not why are you still pastoring a COG church. I have not pastored for two years. Have not been asked to speak in one of the churches but one occassion where i am a member. It has been made clear to me I am an outcast. Like I said, I have no dog in this fight. I am just not obviously as intellectual as the rest of you but am foolish enough to believe what God says because he says it. No need to stand on a narrsistic box and demean us. Seems to me you all rely upon you evidence as a drunk relies on a lightpole. not for illumination but mere desperate but inadaquate support. It is time to put on some glasses of verasity and look at the truth. I believe Jesus identified that for us. I for one will bow out as it is apparent that is the desire of the CGGC and those on the blog. I will take the counsel of Gamaliel and let it in the Lord's hands.
By the Way PS 1229
If you are who I think you are (Your "dumb country boy" remark sort of gives you away), I need you to know that I think your still full of mud.
I say that with a huge smile on my face. You have forgotten more theology since you made your last post that I'll know in my lifetime.
If this blog has not been good for anything more than to give a shout out to an old friend than it has served its purpose. As Mr. Spock said, "I have been and will always be your friend." You have had some of the greatest effect on me than anyone else in the CGGC.
You need to know that you are loved and appreciated.
If I can get down that way I will stop and visit you.
Ken Zitsch
Honestly, I lost most interest in this conversation about 20 posts ago. Here's what we agree on:
1) The Bible is the starting point for our understanding of our faith
2) There are multiple ways to interpret the Bible
3) Regardless of how we interpret the Bible, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is central to our Christian faith
I don't think any of us are going to argue these points.
To reiterate Brian's post, this blog is going to close down at the end of the month. The fact that there has been more debate about an issue that has been debated about for close to 2000 years (with no final resolution) and little conversation about the future of this blog (or some format to carry on related conversations) is very troubling to me.
So, on February 1 the issue of atonement will still be unresolved and any forum to have constructive conversations will vanish.
No one will probably read this anyway because there will 10 more posts about a Greek verb tense that buries my post.
We're going to get this resolved before the end. :-)
Better to burn out than to fade away :-)
(part 1)
M:
My prediction for the future is that the parts of the church that reject the substitutionary atonement are going to be the liberals within a generation or two.
Interesting.
I've been thinking about making a point on this issue but I haven't because it's rooted in my understanding of church history and I hesitate to burden y'alls with my theories. But, since you brought it up...
...The publication of the Graf Wellhausen Documentary Hypothesis brought about a historic crisis in Christianity and, in particular, it changed the face of the American Protestant church. Up to the time it came to our shores, we were in the period of revival that John Winebrenner was a minor voice in. The Documentary Hypothesis dramatically changed the conversation. Within a generation, the American church was dividing into two camps--the Liberals/Modernists and the Fundamentalists.
The theology of the revivalists was not profound. It was dominated by the conviction that a person became a follower of Jesus through a stark and dramatic decision. Read Winebrenner. For him, to be born again meant to be radically converted. It meant that to be converted was to change one's life in the most extreme way.
Andrew, has brought up the connection between repentance and turning. For Winebrenner and his contemporaries, to be born again involved am immediate, complete, 180 degree turn that bore fruit in two ways: In what a person believed and in how a person lived.
And so, in his 27 points on the Faith and Practice of the Church of God, Winebrenner described, as essential to participation in his movement, belief that "She believes that the church ought to relieve and take care of her own poor saints, superannuated ministers, widows and orphrans" and that "the manufacture, traffic, and use of ardent spirits, as a beverage or common drink, is injurious and immoral, and ought to be abandoned" and that "the system or institution of involuntary slavery to be impolite or unchristian" and that "all civil wars are unholy and sinful, and in which the saints of the Most High ought never to participate."
Typical of nearly all of his revivalist contemporaries, for Winebrenner, Christ's vicarious sacrifice was not only relevant in the manner He died, but also in how He lived. And so, in his 27 points, Winebrenner mentions worship and Sunday School attendance in the same way he mentions the church's position on the welfare of the need, drug and alcohol abuse, slavery and war.
(Part 2)
For Winebrenner the atonement had to do with both the death and life of Jesus.
And, as I said, Winebrenner was typical of his day.
Back to Graf Wellhausen: When the Documentary Hypothesis changed the conversation in American religion, there were many theological implications. One of them had to do with how the children of the revivalists understood the atonement. There was a divorce and those who chose liberalism took custody of the aspect of the atonement that has to do with how Jesus lived. And, the fundamentalists claimed custody of the part that has to do with how Jesus died. By the 1890s the theological movement known as capital f Fundamentalism came out of Princeton (Calvinist-Presbyterian) which asserted that the Substitutionary Theory is THE proper Protestant understanding of the atonement. And, the rest is history.
Here's what that means to me:
One of the things that the missional crowd may accomplish theologically is the repairing of the doctrine of the atonement so that when people think of what Jesus accomplished they no longer think of Him either as a model of a righteous life OR as a dying sacrifice. Missionalism may heal us theologically.
M, you are thinking as a fundie would have thought 100 years ago. But, you don't have to see this issue in that way.
I have no interest in tearing down appreciation for the fact that something meaningful happened when Jesus died. What I am interested in is a greater appreciation among us that something extremely important happened when "the Word became flesh and lived among us." (I just quoted the Bible.)
This is not about slouching toward liberalism. It's about recapturing what we once had but lost.
I am not pushing for a fundamentalist views.
You should know better than that.
What's interesting about the Documentary Hypothesis is that, although it helped to create the liberal / fundamentalist divide (along with other issues of course), today there are many Old Testament scholars who neither hold the strict fundamentalist view nor hold to JDEP strictly.
(not for those who may be interested but unfamilier, the documentary hypothesis is the view that the Pentateuch is composed of 4 separate source materials edited together). I use JDEP as shorthand for the documentary hypothesis.
There are other options for the way that we see the Pentateuch in it's canonical form besides the fundamentalist view that Moses penned the whole thing himself and JDEP.
There are other choices besides embracing the substitutionary atonement as THE only way to view the atonement work of Jesus and rejecting it completely.
The answer is to describe what is meant by it in biblical terms and fit it into the big picture in a biblically appropriate way.
This is not fundamentalist nor liberal. I believe it is faithful.
I am not unwilling to change, and therefore not a fundamentalist.
I am not willing to give up something I see in Scripture. We must redeem it to its proper place.
Ken: Maybe you have forgotten Bill, or maybe you never found out that Arminians have never believed as you said in one of your previous posts.
One of my previous posts?
Now, that's is clear as mud, Ken. I think you will have to look a long time to find me claiming to be an Arminian.
I have said, clearly, that the CGGC is in error to claim that it is Arminian but I've never claimed to be one myself.
What I have said often is that it is a tragedy that the Reformation degenerated into an argument over the doctrine of salvation.
You seem to want to revisit that tragedy.
My heart is to fulfill what some these days call 'the Great Commission.' I know that on the Day the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne that many who think they are a lock for eternity will be surprised to hear Jesus say to them, "away from me you evildoers." So, you go on ahead and major in theological minors. I'm going to commit myself to loving the Lord and, in that love, bearing the fruit that He calls us to bear and asking Him to forgive my debts as I forgive others as freely as He forgives me.
Everybody has known that it is the Holy Spirit who brings us to salvation. It is God Himself who calls us.
You seem to claim to know a lot of people, Ken.
When have I ever denied that it is the Holy Spirit who brings us to salvation?
You are not discussing what the rest of us are talking about.
You can't just get out of bed one day and repent!
When have I EVER suggested that one can?
C'mon, bubba. Talk about what the rest of us are talking about, or start a new topic.
Bill, you are existential. That effects the way you perceive the scriptures and the church. I fear you may even border on semi-pelagian. Existential means (according to wikipedia) that philosophical and theological discussion begins with you.
By that definition, I am not an existentialist.
Kierkegaard observed that, to say it his way, "truth is subjectivity." That doesn't in any way mean that truth is subjective. It means that, (as fallen people) we bring ourselves to reality. We are not capable of achieving objectivity, that our passions frame our understanding of all things. That we act on reality as a the subject of a sentence acts on the verb. I do believe that.
And, it is because of that, that Jesus said, "No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him."
And, I also know that the first fruit of that drawing is repentance. Read your Gospels. Read Paul in Acts 20 and 26.
You believe that human existence is a crisis and you need to make a leap of faith.
I love it when people tell me what I believe. You'd think that I'd already know what I believe, wouldn't you.
In fact, you are correct that I am the one between the two of us who believes in faith. I do embrace John 3:16 with all my being. I do know in my heart that "God so loved the world that He gave his only son that who ever BELIEVES..." I encourage you to become a man of faith as well.
Ken:
Yes Bill, we "have been created in Christ Jesus unto good works," but the fact is that walking in those good works is not in these verses made a requirement of being "saved by grace."
Duh!
I defy you to show me that I think it is.
Don't bother looking because I don't believe anything like that. The best commentary on what I believe about this is John 15:1f. Both Jesus and Paul are saying the same thing: If you are in relationship with Him, you will "obey His commands" (Jesus in settling up the Parable of the Vine and the Branches, John 14:15) and "do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Paul)
Two observations about this:
1. Winebrenner got that there is an organic connection between what a person believes and how that person lives. You don't.
2. Kierkegaard would say that it is because of your subjectivity that you are misunderstanding me.
You haven't correctly characterized a single thing that I've written. You are being the typical human person who brings his passions and experience to reality and is entirely incapable of thinking objectively.
Clearly, Ken, you don't lack the intellect to understand what I am writing. What you lack is a calm and open spirit. I embrace my subjectivity. I acknowledge that it is my reality but no one on this blog, me included, illustrates that subjectivity is truth more clearly than do you.
walt,
bill,
you said, "That view [substitution] of the atonement is, like all others, a human invention."
does God have no view or understanding of the cross? is all we know about Him and His work "human invention"?
What I'm saying is that the entire discipline of Systematic Theology is a human creation.
I've done reading on the doctrine of the atonement and nearly everyone acknowledges what I said at the beginning, i.e., every humanly devised theory of the atonement is inadequate.
Certainly, substitution is a valuable idea as are most of the other theories, in my opinion. But, few people are of the opinion that any single person has been able to put into human thought the entire truth of the meaning of the cross, let alone the totality of Christ's incarnation.
But, in the CGGC we have make that claim in practice. And, on top of that, we have taken the idea of substitution to places that people like Calvin never dreamed of.
I believe that it is our inadequate and corrupt thinking about the cross that makes us church-oriented and internally-focused. We will never be missional until we repent of the thinking that bears fruit in a way of being Christian that can not be missional.
Stan,
2 Corinthians 5:21 God says: He hath made him to be sin for us..... If that is not Substitution what else is it.
Satisfaction, for instance?
You have to know, Stan, that great Christian minds saw other meaning in words such as these than did Calvin and the Fundamentalists at Princeton--and you and Ken.
You were asked as was I Do you belive..... as part of your ordination vows. Can you still say I do to those vows? If not why are you still pastoring a COG church.
Ah!
Answering a question with a question!
Jesus Himself often did that. How Christlike of you.
Tell you what: I'll show you mine if you show me yours first, metaphorically speaking. :-)
It has been made clear to me I am an outcast.
Those who conveyed that message to you have no exousia in Him to say that. And, I believe, you are in error to be cowed by them. Woe to them!
No need to stand on a narrsistic box and demean us.
I have no desire to do that and I apologize for making you feel as if that's what I intend.
Seems to me you all rely upon you evidence as a drunk relies on a lightpole. not for illumination but mere desperate but inadaquate support.
If you truly think that and if you are a man of the Word and if, for you, Matthew 18 is in the Word, it is sin for you to stop here.
Why is it so hard for us to simply grasp that the Cross is a multifaceted event and reality? This discussion increasing feels like unfocused and pointless debate. And I hate to say it, Bill, but I think the primary (not the only) cause of that is your insistence on using inflammatory all-or-nothing rhetoric (i.e. the fact that the conventional doctrine of substitutionary atonement is limited and skewed does not mean that Christ was in no way our substitute). I think I am ready to leave whatever remains of this dialogue to y'all...
(Part 1)
Ken (scratching and shaking his head)
Bill, you have not even begun to deal adequately or even honestly about the objections that others have made on this thread about the objection that you have to the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. I say honestly because you will make a point in one post, and then come back in another post and say something entirely different. you make accusations against people who clearly point out your error, and go on long tirades about things that amount to nothing more than red herrings. I am willing to put the best construction on all of this and just say that you are really out of your league in this conversation and you really haven't researched any of what you espouse.
Just a brief example so as to make my point. These are two of a whole filing cabinet full:
Bill said in a post just above: "Now, that's is clear as mud, Ken. I think you will have to look a long time to find me claiming to be an Arminian." (unquote)
You have to get out a pickax and a shovel dude to even begin to find out where in my previous post I had accused you of being arminian.
YOU had previously accused ps1226 of being unfaithful to his ordination vows. You said this:
"I have to wonder, Stan, if you feel so strongly about these Reformed views, how you could have taken ordination vows and continued to long in the CGGC"
The implication was that that the points he had been making in his previous post along he lines of:
(quote) Repentance is not sufficent for salvation or we would know all AA members who followed the 12 step plan would be in heaven. (unquote)
made him reformed. That was misleading Bill. Stan is thoroughly arminian (if he is who I believe he is) You show yourself to be ignorant of what is reformed and what is arminian. THAT WAS MY POINT. I don't give a hoot about whether YOU are arminian or not. THIS ISN'T ABOUT YOU.
(Part 2)
Another example of Bill and his great ability to throw out ad hominems:
(quote) You have to know, Stan, that great Christian minds saw other meaning in words such as these than did Calvin and the Fundamentalists at Princeton--and you and Ken. (unquote)
Bill, your prejudices against the fundamentalists notwithstanding (most evangelicals today were once in that camp), calling us fundamentalists does not make you arguments against substitutionary atonement valid. The fundamentalists just reaffirmed what had been generally understood before them. They did not come up with the theory, the fact that they included it in their fundamentals has nothing to do with the price of tea in china. It has nothing to do with advancing your arguments one iota.
Those are just two of a few. Not to mention the fact that you have scaled back some in your initial rejection of substitutionary atonement, seeing that you are truly rowing against the current here, and seeming to concede some of the points of the theory, without embracing the theory itself. Truly, truly a miracle in gymnastics.
This is it Bill. This conversation truly has gone on longer than it should have. Leave theology to the theologians Bill. If you want to reject what the Bible says, that's your perogative. But for those of us who just want to be faithful, preaching and teaching what the Bible says, your arguments have little merit.
By the way, I am LCMS, not calvinist nor fundemental. Lutheran my friend. None of your ad hominems stick to me.
Pax
Ken Zitsch
Brent,
This week's sermon may be an even better sermon on adoption as God's avenue of salvation.
Brian,
Wonderful - I've only had a chance to listen to the first half of last week's so far but I like where you are heading. I what to scatter some of the biblical/church related resources in my blog posts so that we may be able to catch a casual reader. I'll probably be adding your sermon over the next day or so. I'll let you know once it's posted.
Thanks for letting me know.
I have actually appreciated the comments that Bill (and some others) have made on this particular posting. I have found it somewhat refreshing and enlightening - other than the personal barbs directed back and forth.
I also wondered if anyone has read Scot McKnight's book 'The King Jesus Gospel'? While not related directly to this discussion, it seems to be connected somewhat. It is not about atonement theories per se, but our understanding of the gospel can certainly lead to differences there. Or maybe I am missing the point entirely.
At any rate, as Scot says on p. 29, "In this book I will be contending firmly that we evangelicals (as a whole) are not really 'evangelical' in the sense of the apostolic gospel, but instead we are soterians. Here's why I say we are more soterian than evangelical: we evangelicals (mistakenly) equate the word 'gospel' with the word 'salvation.' Hence, we are really 'salvationists.' When we evangelicals see the word 'gospel', our instinct is to think (personal) salvation. We are wired this way. But these two words don't mean the same thing, and this book will do its best to show the differences."
I know that doesn't explain a lot, but as I'm reading it it reminds me of a lot of the discussion here so I just thought I'd throw this out there while there was still a chance.
dan h.,
i'm going to start that book shortly, and have heard good things about it.
i think the biggest part of what bill's getting at, and what most of us have agreed to, is what mcknight is saying there. you might even say that his definition of salvation is narrow, if it only involves the so-called "ticket to heaven". after all, when we speak of being saved (in general language), we speak not only of being saved from something, but also for or to something else.
but that's mostly semantics. the concept, that we narrow the gospel down to what bill has been railing against, is sadly accurate and we need to continue moving away from it.
though, at least here, perhaps it would be helpful to focus more on what we ought be moving toward? we, and especially i, tend to get caught up in what we're against or getting away from, not what we're for or moving toward.
If indeed the discussion is about what the results, fruits or effects of salvation should be, that is how true salvation evidences itself in the life of the believer that is a valid discussion. It goes back to McArthur's "Lordship" theology question. "Can we have Jesus as savior without having him as Lord?" I for one think there are many such ones in the pews. However, If we are focusing on the starting point, salvation itself, that is a differant matter all together. With Fran, we must see the multiplicity of the cross. Adoption, ransom, substitutionary atonement are all integrel parts of the whole. It is not either / or but both / and. However, it is also a house of cards. To remove one is to undermine the whole. I believe I am a grafted branch,an adopted son. I believe I have been ransomed, sanctified and called to be conformed to his image. I believe He has gifted me and commissioned me to take the good news to others who have not heard it However none of those in any way diminishes or in any way nullifies the fact that Jesus died for me. He took the penalty of my sin and that is substitutionary atonement, plane and simple. And that my friends is just the way it is.
PS1226 wrote To remove one is to undermine the whole. I believe I am a grafted branch,an adopted son.
Thank you for including adoption within your framework. But, if adoption is so vital to a proper understanding of atonement, how is it that of the 86 comments (so far) in this thread, only a few have addressed the theological/biblical concept of adoption? If the topic is a "house of cards" then all the topics need to be discussed in their proper relationship. In other words, it seems as though an appropriate understanding of atonement, according to PS1226, needs to have a little more nuance than it may be receiving here.
Not that anyone asked, but I would not disagree with ps1226.
I might say it just a little different way however (I don't know that he would agree with me, but that's alright-listen to him, he's the expert.
I would say that substitutionary atonement is central to the atonement. I agree with Jeffrey, Ovey, and Sach when they say that "the doctrine of substitution is necessary to safeguard the justice and holiness of God" (Pierced for our Transgressions, pg. 211). "To deny it is to suggest that God is content to overlook evil when He forgives someone" (ibid). Leon Morris says that "Something happened on the cross at Calvary quite objective to man... In the last resort it depends on what God has done. Thus redemption points us to a price paid, and the contention that it means no more than deliverence will not stand examination" (The Apostolic Teaching of the Cross, pg. 299). Morris says this after spending much of his book beforehand studying the apostolic themes of propititiate, reconcile, justify, redeem and covenant against the background of relevant Old and New Testament passages.
No one that I know of would deny the other motifs that flow out of Christ paying the price for us at the cross. For example, I would say that adoption (if you are wont to use that motif) is possible because Christ died for our sins on the cross. Otherwise it would be impossible for us to be taken into God's house. The Ransom theory of atonement I believe was the predecessor of the Substitutionary theory (I believe that is what I read-I might be mistaken), but even the Ransom theory implies substitution. When you pay a price for something, you are substituting one thing for another. Correct me if I'm wrong ps1226. The ransom theory gave way to the Satisfaction Theory, which in turn gave way to the Substitution theory.
The Governmental theory was premised upon the notion that God had to demonstrate the punishment that we all deserve. This theory is only useful in giving sinners a warning and does little to bring justification. Many people who are aware of God's warning will disregard it and be lost.
Federal Headship is exemplified in Rom. 5:12-14. Again though these verses make Christ representative over the descendents of Adam. This He certainly is, but we don't receive those benefits unless Christ "died for our sins."
Also: Christ's victory over the evil powers was the restoration of the relationship between God and sinners (Christus Victor).
I offer these things not to be argumentative. It is possible to have collegial conversation here. This is my contribution to your conversation. You are free to reject it if you are wont.
My point on this blog is just that substitutionary atonement cannot be dismissed when talking about God "reconciling the world to Himself."
Pax
Ken Zitsch
Dan H - I have read and commend 'The King Jesus Gospel' Even those who don't love it tend to agree that it raises the right questions.
Interestingly, McKnight also has a book called, 'A Community Called Atonement" where he explores the importance of all of the various biblical understandings of the atonement
Brent, I would simply say that we aren't talking about adoption (or other concepts of atonement, salvation etc,) because of the original post that bill made upon which the conversation started.
Bill began by saying he rejects the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement. Many of us are saying that's a mistake. We aren't necessarily having a general conversation about all that the atonement means, but whether Jesus as our substitute has a part in the biblical understanding (amongst the other metaphors that Bill is not saying he rejects - including adoption),
___
As the discussion has played out, I don't think bill is really rejecting the substitutionary atonement as most of the rest of us understand it as a part of the whole picture (Jesus bearing the sin we deserve)
He's rejecting it as practiced (historically and currently) and lifted up as the only way to see the atonement.
And many of us, including myself, agree with that.
Fran,
And I hate to say it, Bill, but I think the primary (not the only) cause of that is your insistence on using inflammatory all-or-nothing rhetoric (i.e. the fact that the conventional doctrine of substitutionary atonement is limited and skewed does not mean that Christ was in no way our substitute).
I have never said that Jesus is in no way our substitute. My critique isn't of Calvin or Anselm. It is of today's church's corrupt practice that is rooted in a distortion of that view. What we do gives many people false hope in Christ and it prevents missionalism.
I know, Fran, that you genuinely do hate to say this. You and I have had this conversation off the blog. You are of the apostolic culture and I am of the John the Baptist and the JESUS-as-prophet culture.
When you can convinced me that Jesus was not being inflammatory in saying, "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions," when you can convince me that seven woes Jesus pronounced in Matthew 23 were not intended to inflame, I'll take what you are saying to heart.
Since I started this thread, I've set aside time in the morning to respond to what you all are saying and I wake up sick in my stomach. I am not enjoying this. And, I'm convinced that when Jesus confronted the Pharisees over and over again He wasn't happy about doing it. When He told them, "You have let go of the commands of God..." and " You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God..." When He faced them down with those seven harsh judgments in Matthew 23 do you think His gut wasn't churning?
When I pray for the CGGC, the Lord tells me that most of its people are going to hell. He tells me that most of them are going to be surprised on the Day that the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne. He tells me that most of our pastors are stamping the tickets of most of the people they shepherd on the train to eternal punishment. He tells me that the time for gently shepherding is over.
I can't see anything but the all-or-nothing message in Jesus' call to the people of the world to believe. There is no middle state being being born again and not being born again.
I hate to say this to you, my dear friend, but I think you want to castrate me spiritually. I think that you would have passed the same judgment on Elijah and John as you do on me because, as far as I can tell, in your mind inflammatory language and the proclamation of repentance as an all-or-nothing thing is itself sin.
Having said all of that, there is a part of me that genuinely hopes that you are right and I am wrong. I don't want to be correct in the way I am assessing today's church. I would gladly be the one who roasts in hell and have how the church behaves be what pleases the Lord and if, on that day, He says, "Fran was right," I'll take that.
I just don't think you are.
I love you, brother. I love you all.
I have to deal with the thoughts my words convey every minute of every day. You only have to read them occasionally. It's not fun being me and receiving from my prayers what I think I am receiving and I would not be saying what I say and I wouldn't say it the way I say it if I didn't think it was from Him.
Ken,
Bill, your prejudices against the fundamentalists notwithstanding (most evangelicals today were once in that camp), calling us fundamentalists does not make you arguments against substitutionary atonement valid.
Yikes!
I have never used the term fundamentalist as an insult here. My guess is that you are reading me as if I am a theological liberal. I am not. I have pointed out regularly on this blog that Fundamentalism is a theological movement that has its roots at Princeton in the late 1800s. I respect Fundamentalism and I never, ever insult anyone by calling them a fundamentalist.
However...
...the CGGC has both a Mission Statement and a history.
Fundamentalism intended to recapature pure Protestant doctrine and EVANGELICASLISM did that even more self-consciously. The name 'Evangelical' was a synonym for the Protestants in the 16th century.
My intent is to argue strongly but not to insult. The Substitutionary Theory of the atonement was the view of Calvin and it was defined as one of the five fundamentals in the 1800s.
But, in the CGGC we are not Protestants. We are Restorationists. Read the CGGC Home Page. The Church of God began as a straightforward and intentional rejection of the Protestant Reformation with the unabashed conviction that 'another Great Reformation' is required if our understanding of what it means to be the church becomes reality.
If you are a Lutheran, Ken, shouldn't you be embracing the 'Satisfaction Theory' of the atonement? Shouldn't you love Spener and Francke? And, Kierkegaard?
Dan H,
...we evangelicals (as a whole) are not really 'evangelical' in the sense of the apostolic gospel, but instead we are soterians.
I am reading the book now, a gift from Dan M..
McKnight's critique is on target. My stuff on this thread is about the fruit that our understanding of the atonement produces. It's not the fruit the early Apostles' understanding of the atonement produced. By their and our fruit, we will be known--and JUDGED. His term, 'soterians' is apt for the CGGC--and, probably, evangelicalism in general.
To say it McKnight's way, we will be, um, soterial, not missional, until we repent of what we believe about the cross.
...haps it would be helpful to focus more on what we ought be moving toward? we, and especially i, tend to get caught up in what we're against or getting away from, not what we're for or moving toward. -walt
I'm not sure you are correct.
Isn't the foundational act of faith and obedience the act of repentance? I think the Lord's way has always been to call us to look honestly at the evil ways and come to hate them? I have repeatedly said here that we need to repent of the things that we have come to believe about the cross and the practices our beliefs produce. I don't think that we will go to the trouble--and it is troublesome--to internalize new ways until we are motivated by abhorence of our old ways.
This is God's plan: Out with the old first then in with the new.
What the CGGC has been doing for generations is to move forward by jumping on the latest bandwagon without ever confronting our failed ways.
I am increasingly convinced that this attempted shift to missionality will fail because it has not be preceded by that act of repentance of our disobedience when the Lord, again and again, makes repentance the foundational act of obedience.
So, first, let's face up to this error and its evil. Then, when our repentance has run its full course, let's look ahead.
Stan,
With Fran, we must see the multiplicity of the cross. Adoption, ransom, substitutionary atonement are all integrel parts of the whole. It is not either / or but both / and.
I agree with much of what you said in the post I am quoting but, even then, you attempt to be inclusive, your understanding of the cross is limited and fails to account for much of what the early followers of Jesus understood to be essential to comprehending the meaning of the cross.
Like others of the Protestant traditions, you understand the cross in terms of what a man and woman can consume.
But, for Paul, the natural human reponse to 'God's mercies' described in Romans 1-11 has to do ultimately, not with what a person believes, but with how a person lives. It is, following Jesus, to "offer your bodies as living sacrifices" which is your, literally, "logical worship."
For Paul it is, "Your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus who...being found in appearance as a man...humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross." How is that demand for Christlike humility and sacrificial obedience connected to your understanding of the cross?
Jesus explodes mere substitution to pieces when He talks about the cross, not as something that substitutes for us but as a model for the minimum level of discipleship. Didn't He say, "...anyone who does not take up his cross and follow me can not be my disciple!"
Certainly, there are elements of adoption and ransom and substitution in the cross, but, brother! There is much more there than you are seeing.
I will never let the violence of John the B's description of the Christ event pass from my mind:
"His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
Brent,
But, if adoption is so vital to a proper understanding of atonement, how is it that of the 86 comments (so far) in this thread, only a few have addressed the theological/biblical concept of adoption?
Good point.
How do you see folding the notion of adoption advancing a theology that empowers mission?
Ken,
"My point on this blog is just that substitutionary atonement cannot be dismissed when talking about God "reconciling the world to Himself."
Yikes!
Even I am not saying that!
What I am saying is that our practice of the atonement is so focused on that one element that it is far beyond the acceptable bounds of orthopraxy.
M.,
Bill began by saying he rejects the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement.
Whoa.
Let's refocus.
What bill said is,
I have come to the conclusion that the classic Protestant view of the atonement--the Substitutionary view of the atonement--is far from adequate and, more importantly, prevents the kind of ministry commanded by Jesus in the Gospels.
He does not reject it.
He does reject the mainstream practice of the our belief about the cross.
I don't think bill is really rejecting the substitutionary atonement as most of the rest of us understand it as a part of the whole picture (Jesus bearing the sin we deserve).
bill never said he did.
bill,
isn't repentance a two-part act? you must change your mind and turn from something, certainly. but to change your mind, you must change it to something else as well, and i don't think you can so easily separate the two. i'm not sure there is really a middle ground where you can say, "ok, i'm going away from that way of thinking and acting..." without also saying in the same breath "...and i'm turning toward this."
even your boy john the baptist told people what the fruit of repentance could be, at least giving them some examples to work from.
this is in response to bill, but a question for all:
is mission the primary end to what we're doing? is being missional the goal, an end per se? should everything we do and think be judged on the basis of whether or not it motivates or creates missionality?
walt,
isn't repentance a two-part act? you must change your mind and turn from something, certainly. but to change your mind, you must change it to something else as well, and i don't think you can so easily separate the two.
Wow!
How true to our reality! And, an awesome question!
Isn't it the most powerful commentary on the state of our spirituality that we are reduced to discussing between the two of us--and for now just the two of us--what repentance even is.
To me, what we are discussing is the essential truth of our reality: We have to talk ourselves through the meaning of repentance. That is how far we have fallen. Bless you, my brother, even for entertaining the question.
And, I don't know what to say in response to your question. I suppose you may be correct...
...however, considering our evil ways of the past, in context, I'm not certain that repentance can be that simple for us.
We have set aside the first part of the two step process you describe so thoroughly that I don't think we can do repentance as a one two-step event these days. For the longest time, we have acted as if it is enough to move forward without declaring, as utterly evil, our past ways. From the word, it clearly is not enough to do what we have been doing.
Jeremiah's call from Yahweh was organic, i.e., it was one calling. But, it placed emphasis on seeing the old ways as evil--as ways that had to be brought to a vicious and violent end.
Yahweh said to him,
Behold! Today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.
Speaking in a purely anecdotally way, as I have attempted to live in Jeremiah's calling, I haven't been able to understand what is to be built and planted until I have been well into the violent process of repentance Yahweh describes using the verbs, uproot, tear down, destoy and overthrow.
So, in our context, walt, I am afraid that the holistic process of repentance you describe may be a little too light on the destruction of what we turn away from than that biblical repentance is.
Frankly, I fear that you are still too comfortable with Reformation ways than proper repentance describes. Before you can move forward, you has to set that way of thinking on the table and be willing to do the uproot and tear down, destroy and overthrow any and everything the Lord tells you is not His way. (You and I have spoken together about 16th doctrine and you know where I stand on it. But, I have also placed that way of thinking on the table and have--AM still--willing to tear into it until nothing is left, if the Lord says so.)
So, for us, based on past our perversion of what repentance means, I think we have to take care to be certain that we are utterly destroying old ways before we can be certain that the fruit we are producing is the proper fruit.
To me, this is a shepherd-domination issue because the process of uprooting and tearing down and destroying and overthrowing is repulsive to shepherds. They can't easily deal with the intense emotional pain people experience in those processes. That is not their fault. It is our bad for allowing them to dominate.
From walt,
this is in response to bill, but a question for all:
is mission the primary end to what we're doing? is being missional the goal, an end per se? should everything we do and think be judged on the basis of whether or not it motivates or creates missionality?
Awesome, awesome question.
No.
However, I created a thread on the connection between our understanding of and our practice of the meaning of the cross and the latest CGGC fad, i.e., to minister missionally.
My point is that this fad will fail to produce fruit because what we think about the cross can't produce missional behavior.
Since Dan Horwedel brought up McKnight's latest book:
What we think about the cross leads to what McKnight might, but didn't (as far as I've gotten), call 'soterial' ministry. Until we think differently about the cross, we will only be soterial. We will only ever define the Christian life as accepting Christ's sacrificial death for us on the cross. Until we repent of that inaequate and corrupt soterial theology, we will behave as 'soterialists.'
But, in the Missional Leadership Initiative, we don't discuss the shortcomings of our understanding of the cross.
That's the point of this thread.
In answer to your question, in my opinion, mission is very important. All of the Gospels and the Book of Acts tell us that Jesus gave us a task before He left. The Book of Acts is a description of the pursuit of that task by early followers of the Way.
But, is missionality the totality of the goal?
Of course not. It is merely the latest CGGC fad.
At the risk of again being identified as an uneducated antique, I would address the last question as to our mission and task by identifing with those other apparently wrongminded antiues of the 1600's when they compiled the Wesminster Catachism.
Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
My proof text would be 1 Corinth. 10:31.
By that standard how do we measure our efforts, doctrine and outreach.
Stan,
You raise an interesting issue. I don't think that John Winebrenner ever even considered so lofty a concern, not that doing so is wrong.
Despite his belief in the 'free moral agency of man,' he also believed, "...in the fall and depravity of man; that is to say, that man by nature is destitute of the favor and image of God."
In our Kingdom building days, he (and we) were always so deeply consumed with the conversion of the sinner that we never got around to seeking saved man's chief end, at least as the Scottish Church understood it.
I don't know anyone who would call you an antique and, considering the Church of God's historic restorationism which has been reclaimed in our Mission Statement, your loyalty to the 16th century would make you a modernist, a progressive and a liberal by a margin of 1,500 years!
;-)
Stan,
Are you okay?
When I called you a modernist, progressive and liberal I was joking!
Do you need medical assistance? Are you in shock?
Gang,
Two (to me) interesting observations about McKnight's King Jesus Gospel book:
1. He loves the early Creeds, very much unlike Winebrenner.
2. He pretty seriously criticizes the Reformation, very much like Winebrenner.
bill,
I thought that was interesting too.
I've never heard his take on the creeds before. but I have to admit that it does make some sense to me.
Just because the process that brought about the creeds might have been problematic, does that essentially make the content misguided?
I see his connection between 1 Corinth 15 and those Creeds he mentioned being pretty convincing, using the other source material to draw the connection.
I also thought his contrast between the Apostles Creed and the reformation doctrines was very interesting.
M,
Just because the process that brought about the creeds might have been problematic, does that essentially make the content misguided?
The one part of the book(so far--still about 50 pages)that bothered me is his handling of the idea that "the Bible only" is a valid way of apprehending truth. Like so many, he scoffed at the notion and implied that it is the way new believers and the unwarshed think. And, I absolutely and vehemently reject that notion as being dangerous, corrupt and a sure-fire way to diminish the ultimate value of orthopraxy.
It is based on the assumption that what it means to follow Jesus can be grasped by thinking the right thoughts apart from connecting the fruit that our thoughts produce in the way we live. Just look at all the failed energy we've invested in We Believe without doing anything in defining righteousness. We are the poster children for the contention that right thinking is omnipotent.
John Winebrenner must be spinning is his grave.
The very notion of a Creed is dangerous for that reason. The New Testament could not be more clear about this. On that Day, it will be what a person has done that will matter. That's not to say that believing true doctrine is unimportant. Believing the truth is essential. But, believing correctly in itself will not matter on that day.
Jesus is clear about this in Matthew 7:21 and 24-26 and all through Matthew 25.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:10 that "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive what is due him for the thing DONE--not believed--while in the body..."
So, it is the very idea of the compilation of beliefs, without connecting those beliefs to proper behavior that is dangerous. To do so it to divide what, on that Day, will be declared indivisible.
There is good reason to reject the very notion of a Creed.
I see his connection between 1 Corinth 15 and those Creeds he mentioned being pretty convincing...
Except that 1 Corinthians 15 has a context. Paul is not describing the content of his gospel for the sake of describing his gospel. He is recounting his message to point out that it had content that answered the Corinthians problems with the resurrection. Paul was not teaching a Creed.
The issue for me is big picture. It's a matter of paradigm.
We are Restorationists. We are not ashamed--in theory, anyway--to say that "all scripture is god-breathed and is useful." We are not ashamed--as we talk our talk--to say that we don't need Constantine's help.
And, to me, the ultimate import of that core contention is that we are comfortable asserting that orthdoxy and orthopraxy are one inseparable whole.
Creedists reject that contention.
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