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Monday, April 30, 2018

A Rebuttal to Benjamin Corey’s Attack Against the Atonement - BY BRANDON HINES

Found here. Our comments in bold.
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Hot in the heels of our recent post regarding the atonement is this post. One particular question was of interest to us, which is published here.

We should say that We're not interested in Benjamin Corey or what he asserted, or what his political or moral stances are. We shall deal only with the claims of Mr. Hines.

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Benjamin Corey, a Pro-Gay, Anti-Gun pacifist, has recently put out a series of articles with attacks (In the form of questions) against Penal Substitutionary Atonement. If you don’t know what that word is, Penal Substitutionary Atonement basically means that Jesus died in our place. Jesus suffered the wrath of God so that we do not have to. (Here is our first quibble. Jesus did not suffer the wrath of God. He was not punished for our sin. There is no NT scripture that says such a thing. Jesus bore OUR wrath and carried OUR condemnation to the cross, where it was nailed [Col 2:14-15]. Our sins were disarmed. But God was not mad at Jesus. God did not penalize Jesus.)

Here, I am going to defend this essential Christian Doctrine (in the form of answers).

These articles can be found here.

Why Would God Demand A Blood Sacrifice?
This is a simple question with a simple answer. God demanded a blood sacrifice because He is angry at sin. Because God is infinitely Holy, God has an infinite wrath against sin. 1 John 2:2 uses the word “Propitiation” to refer to Jesus. According to Merriam Webster, Propitiate means, “to make (someone) pleased or less angry by giving or saying something desired”. (We are not interested in the dictionary definition of the word "propitiation." We rather would seek the biblical meaning. The Greek word ἱλασμός is typically translated "propitiation, although some translations [like the NIV] translates it "atonement." 

We believe that this is incorrect. Propitiation COMPLETELY satisfies God's wrath, whereas the Hebrew "atonement" [כָּפַר] means "to cover over." 

The OT atonement did not wipe Israel clean of sin, it simply "covered over" it. He. 10:4 reads: ...because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. That's why we need Jesus' death and resurrection. We need something more than "atonement," and Christ's death on the cross [propitiation] is the greater and sufficient work of completely erasing sin.)

So Jesus and His imputed righteousness is the thing we give to make God pleased. We see this in Isaiah 53:10 (ESV), “Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.”


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