Thursday, 18 June 2009
-
The Atonement--A Legal Arrangement?
The first place I want to start in our discussion of the atonement is with the idea that most of us have been taught--that the atonement is a legal arrangement made between God and Christ and us. The teaching goes like this (please correct me if I get it wrong.):
We are all sinners and stand condemned in God's sight.
This lays a debt on us that is too great for us to pay.
God cannot forgive us without payment of this debt.
Christ offers to pay the debt for us, and does so on the cross.
Christ's death is accepted as payment on our behalf.
God can now forgive us.The church fathers didn't see it that way at all, and neither did the great reformer Luther. Luther saw the law as an insurmountable obstactle to our relationship with God. It can never lead us to salvation (as I'm sure you know Paul teaches as well.) So if law can never lead us to salvation, how can a legal arrangement between Christ, the Father and us lead us to salvation? Aren't we still caught and enthralled to the law? I think so!
The Christus Victor idea of atonement tells a different story. It tells us that God looked down on us with love and pity, seeing our enslavement to Satan, sin and death, and knew that the law was just a snare to us--unable to lead us out of bondage. Unwilling to leave us in that condition, He broke into the word. The Divine entered the creation and took on the form of broken humanity to do battle with our captor, Satan. He was taken by him even into death, from whence He broke open the tomb and broke the chains that Satan ensnared us with and with which he even tried to put around the Holy One. He defeated Satan and the grave once and for all. He didn't follow the law, he transcended it, as only God can. He showed us what the law was for: to teach us what Perfect Love looks like.
Now we are free from the need to earn our salvation. We can follow His law of love, since now we know what it looks like and that it is powerful even over death. If we were saved by a legal arrangement, as most of us have believed, no wonder we are so easily entrapped by abusive religious authorities. If we are saved by law, they can hold the law over our heads. They can threaten us with judgment as 'representatives' of God. Then can set laws for us and mediate between us and God. And we let them.
But, if we recognize that we are saved by a heroic act of God, a God who does not condemn us but sacrifices Himself for our rescue, then who can put us in bondage again? Who can threaten us? God took sword in hand and slew our enemy--if we know that, then nobody can enslave us ever again. Nobody can tells us "But you are imperfect and sinful, you may not really be saved," because our sinfulness did not put God off before--it caused Him to pity us and rescue us.
Nothing can separate us from the love of such a God.
Thank God and enjoy His freedom.
-
recommend
- recs 0
-
share
-
email
- sent 0
Post a Comment
- Back to MrsDarcy_MrsDarcy_MrsDarcy's Xanga Site!
- Note: your comment will appear in MrsDarcy_MrsDarcy_MrsDarcy's local time zone: GMT -05:00 (Eastern Standard - US, Canada)
Comments (6)
i LOVE the way you explain this.
i've HEARD this before, and your definition is what i believe. but, the first definition is what i was taught growing up, and sometimes in my explaining of what i believe, the two get tangled up in each other... and becomes confusing. i need to weed out the first thought, and let the second take deep root.
@ehrinn_l - Me, too! When I first learned about this view of the atonement I was so excited, but I got really, really tangled constantly. So many scripture verses are interpreted with the penal substitution view that I didn't know how to read them any differently. That's why I am studying the Christus Victor so hard, and why I'm sharing it--cause I need help untangling!
Your pointing out that Jesus fulfilled the law and therefore, atonement is not a legal arrangement is right on target. How could atonement, which fulfilled the law, be still under it?
@Christenstein - I'm not quite clear about what you're saying. I'd like to hear more.
My view of the fulfillment of the law is that, at least in one aspect, Christ kept the law perfectly, as Adam was supposed to do, but failed. He fulfilled it. So as Adam, our head failed and we failed in Adam, Christ is our new head, and we overcome in Him. He's the new Adam, who succeeds. So 'as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.'
This is a bit different from the view that fulfilling the law meant that Christ satisfied the requirements of the law that we should be punished. I'm still exploring this.
@MrsDarcy_MrsDarcy_MrsDarcy - By keeping the law perfectly, Christ fulfilled the law's requirements and freed us from the law by way our sincerely repentance and acceptance of Him as our Savior. Because the law has already been fulfilled, atonement cannot be a legal contract. A legal contract is under the law. We cannot use what is under the law to free us from the law. We can only use what transcends the law to free us from the law. Christ who transcended the law freed us from the law. That's grace, that's mercy, that is what triumphed over judgment (law).
"This is a bit different from the view that fulfilling the law meant that Christ satisfied the requirements of the law that we should be punished. I'm still exploring this."
I don't understand what you meant with the quoted passage above.
@Christenstein - "We cannot use what is under the law to free us from the law. We can only use what transcends the law to free us from the law."--Very well said! Paul tells us over and over that the law is a curse for us and we can't be saved by means of it. God had to transcend the law if we were to be saved since we could never be saved through the law. He just broke through it and rescued us.
What I meant above is that the penal subsitution view of the atonement says that we are under legal penalty of death and since God needs to have payment made to Him and can't just forgive it, Christ paid it for us.