The Atonement, installment one - Wayne Grudem: Bible Doctrine, Essential Teachings of the Christian Faith

Installment two.

Installment three.

Our comments in bold.

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This is an analysis of a chapter from a book by Wayne Grudem:

The author makes some astonishing undocumented doctrinal claims, going into great depth explaining these things without naming the Bible verses that teach them. These premises, assumed to be true, are upon what the author builds his case. 

However, we think that these premises must be documented and not assumed. For if the premises are wrong, what is built on them will be wrong. 

A good deal of what is explained here is in the context of doctrines known as Reformed, derived from Calvinism. We have written many articles about the flaws of Reformed doctrine.

The author will attempt to explain the atonement, but we need to understand that the NT never uses the word "atonement." Although some translations render hilastērion and related words (hilasmos, hileós, and hilaskomai) as "atonement" (Ro. 3:25, He. 2:17, He. 8:12 ["forgive"], 1Jn. 2:2, and 1Jn. 4:10) we think this is misguided and misleading. "Atonement" is an OT concept, where the blood of sacrificed animals atoned for sin. The Hebrew word is kaphar, which means to cover over or appease. Thus "atonement" merely covers over sin and doesn't actually remove it.

But the work of Christ is a greater work. He didn't just cover over sins, His blood completely removed them. That's why we prefer the old-fashioned translation, "propitiation," so as to differentiate from the OT concept.

As we read we will come to the conclusion that the author is simply wrong. And because he is acclaimed as a magnificent Bible teacher, we must deem this Bad Bible Teaching.

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pg. 248

The Atonement

+ Was it necessary for Christ to die?

+ What really happened in the atonement?

+ Did Christ descend into hell?

I. EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS

We may define the atonement as follows: The atonement is the work Christ did in his life and death to earn our salvation. This definition indicates that we are using the word atonement in a broader sense than it is sometimes used. Sometimes it is used to refer only to Jesus' dying and paying for our sins on the cross. But, as will be seen below, since saving benefits also come to us from Christ's life, we have included that in our definition as well.

A. The Cause of the Atonement

What was the ultimate cause that led to Christ's coming to earth and dying for our sins? To find this we must trace the question back to something in the character of God himself. And here Scripture points to two things: the love and justice of God.

The love of God as a cause of the atonement is seen in the most familiar passage in the Bible: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). But the justice of God also required that God find a way that the penalty due to us for our sins would be paid (for he could not accept us into fellowship with himself unless the penalty was paid). Paul explains that this was why God sent Christ to be a “propitiation” (Rom. 3:25 NASB) that is, a sacrifice that bears God's wrath so that God becomes "propitious" or favorably disposed toward us: it was "to show God’s righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins” (Rom. 3:25). Here Paul says that God had been forgiving sins in the Old Testament but no penalty had been paid - a fact that would make people wonder whether God was indeed just and ask how he could forgive sins without a penalty. No God who was truly just could do that, could he? Yet when God sent Christ to die and pay the penalty for our sins, "it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus" (Rom. 3:26). (The author articulates his first undocumented premise, that the penalty for sin must be paid. However, there is no Bible verse that tells us Jesus paid the penalty for our sin. Rather, Jesus gave His life as a perfect sacrifice to purchase us: 

 

1Co. 6:20 you were bought at a price.  

 

1Pe. 1:18-19 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

Salvation was a sacrificial transaction, not a financial transaction. Death is the penalty for sin.)

Therefore, both the love and the justice of God were the ultimate cause of the atonement. It is not helpful for us to ask which is more important, however, because without the love of God , he never would have taken any steps to redeem us, yet

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pg. 249

without the justice of God, the specific requirement that Christ should earn our salvation by dying for our sins would not have been met. Both the love and justice of God were equally important.

B. The Necessity of the Atonement

Was there any other way for God to save human beings than by sending his Son to die in our place?

Before answering this question, it is important to realize that it was not necessary for God to save any people at all. We appreciate that “God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of nether gloom to be kept until the judgment" (2 Peter 2:4), then we realize that God also could have chosen with perfect justice to have left us in our sins awaiting judgment. He could have chosen to save no one, just as he did with the sinful angels. So in this sense the atonement was not absolutely necessary.

But once God, in his love, decided to save some human beings, then several passages in Scripture indicate that there was no other way for God to do this than through the death of his Son. Therefore, the atonement was not absolutely necessary, but as a “consequence" of God's decision to save some human beings, the atonement was absolutely necessary. This is sometimes called the "consequent absolute necessity” view of the atonement.

In of Gethsemane Jesus prays, "If it be possible let this cup pass me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will" (Matt. 26:39). We may be confident that Jesus always prayed according to the will of the Father, and that he always prayed with fullness of faith. Thus it seems that this prayer, which Matthew takes pains to record for us, shows at It was not possible for Jesus to avoid the death on the cross that was soon to come to him (the " cup" of suffering he had said would be his). If he was going to accomplish the work ~at the Father sent him to do, and if people were going to be redeemed for God, It was necessary for him to die on the cross.

Jesus said something similar after his resurrection, when he was talking with two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They were sad that Jesus had died, but his response was, "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken~ Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:25-26). Jesus understood that God's plan of redemption (which he explained for the disciples from many Old Testament Scriptures, (Luke 24:27) made it necessary for the Messiah to die for the sins of his people.

As we saw above, Paul in Romans 3 also shows that if God were to be righteous, and still save people, he had to send Christ to pay the penalty for sins: "It was to prove at the present lime that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus “ (Rom. 3:26). (The author repeats his claim but again does not document it.)

The epistle to the Hebrews emphasizes that Christ had to suffer for our sins: “He had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make expiation [lit. 'propitiation'] for the sins of the people" (Heb. 2 :17) The author of Hebrews also argues that since “it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins” (Heb. 10:4), a better sacrifice is required (Heb. 9:23). Only the blood of Christ, that is, his death, would be able really to take away sins (Heb. 9:25-26). There was no other way for God to save us than for Christ to die in our place. (Here we have the second undocumented premise, that Jesus died in our place. But there is no Bible verse that tells us this. Nor would there be, because we must also die: 

Ro. 6:3-4 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

This is what Jesus meant when He told Nicodemus that he must be born again. This involves the death of our fleshly nature and rebirth as new creations.

Col. 3:3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

Jesus could not die in our place if we must die as well.) 

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pg. 250

C. The Nature of the Atonement

In this section, we consider two aspects of Christ’s work: (1) Christ's obedience for us, in which he obeyed the requirements of the law in our place and was perfectly obedient to the will of God the Father as our representative, (The third undocumented premise, that Jesus needed to perfectly obey the law. We simply don't find this in Scripture. Rather, we see that Jesus' sacrificial death accomplished our righteousness:

Ro. 8:3-4 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

The law was a problem for us, not for Jesus. We could not fulfill the requirements of the law so we needed a savior. 

He never had to prove His worth. This is an odd and offensive statement. The Father has always been well-pleased with Jesus.)

 and (2) Christ’s sufferings for us, in which he took the penalty due for our sins (Previously the author claimed that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins. Now he says that Jesus took our penalty. Which is it, and where does the Bible say this? 

Indeed, Jesus did not take our penalty. Jesus was never punished for our sin. Jesus bore our sin as a burden to the cross like someone would take out the garbage:

He. 9:28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

"Bear" is anapheró, which means (a) I carry up, lead up, (b) I offer up (on a high altar) as a sacrifice, offer up to God on high. Jesus bore our sin as a burden to carry it to the cross as a holy act. He didn't take our penalty, He carried it away.

Further, His sufferings were not the agent of forgiveness, His spilled blood was.)

and as a result died for our sins. (This is accurate. He died for our sins, He did not die to pay for our sins.)

It is important to notice that in both of these categories the primary emphasis and the primary influence of Christ's work of redemption is not on us, but on God the Father. Jesus obeyed the Father in our place and perfectly met the demands of the law. (Where in the Bible does it tell us this? It may well be there, but the author is making yet another claim that needs to be documented.)

And he suffered m our place, receiving in himself the penalty that God the Father would have visited upon us. (He repeats his false claims.)

In both cases, the atonement is viewed as objective, that is, something that has primary influence directly on God himself. Only secondarily does it have application to us, and this is only because was a definite event in the relationship between God the Father and God the Son that secured our salvation. (It's this sort of parsing that drives us nuts. Of course the atonement is dealing with God, but the only reason that this is happening is because of our sin. No sin, no atonement. To call one primary and the other secondary is a completely useless distinction.)

1. Christ’s obedience for us (sometimes called his “active obedience”). If Christ had only earned forgiveness of sins for us, then we would not merit heaven. Our guilt would have been removed, but we would simply be in the position of Adam and Eve before they had done anything good or bad and before they had passed a time of probation successfully. To be established in righteousness forever and to have their fellowship with God made sure forever, Adam and Eve had to obey God perfectly over a period of time. (?? Where does the Bible say these things? Paul writes, 

Ro. 4:7 Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose  sins are covered.

According to the author, being forgiven is not blessed. It does not merit heaven. But we cannot lay our finger on any Bible verse that says such a thing.)

Then God would have looked on their faithful obedience with pleasure and delight, and they would have lived with him in fellowship forever. (Sigh. We don't know how long Adam and Eve were in the garden. It could have been millennia. So there is no possible way their obedience was measured by a "time of probation," especially since their disobedience could appear at any time, even after a long time of probation. Whatever that is...)

For this reason, Christ had to live a life of perfect obedience to God in order to earn righteousness for us. (We are getting piqued. Where does the Bible say this?)

He had to obey the law for his whole life on our behalf so that the positive merits of his perfect obedience would be counted for us. (No! There was never any sort of situation that Jesus had to pass some sort of test in order to be worthy. The Bible simply does not tell us this. Rather, His perfection was present at His incarnation, and there was never the possibility He would fail:

He. 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin.

Jesus' worthiness was because he was slain, not because he passed a test: 

Re. 5:9 And they sang a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation."

He was and is eternally the lamb of God: 

Re. 13:8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast — all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.

Notice His slain status was before even creation. He was already worthy.

The author is dangling perilously close to a heresy known as Adoptionism.)

Sometimes this is called Christ’s active obedience, while his suffering and dying for sins is called his "passive obedience." Paul says his goal is that he may be found in Christ, "not having a righteousness of [his] own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith" (Phil. 3:9), It is not just moral neutrality that Paul knows he needs from Christ (that is, a clean slate with sins forgiven), but a positive moral righteousness. And he knows that that cannot come from himself but must come through faith in Christ. Similarly, Paul says that Christ has been made “our righteousness” (l Cor. 1:30). And he quite explicitly says, "For as by one man 's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous" (Rom. 5:19).

Some theologians have not taught that Christ needed to achieve a lifelong record of perfect obedience for us. They have simply emphasized that Christ had to die and thereby pay the penalty for our sins. But such a position does not adequately explain why Christ did more than just die for us; he also became our “righteousness” before God. (The author requires Jesus passing the test of living a perfect life for Him to be worthy. This is patently unbiblical.

Further, our righteousness is not contingent on Jesus living a perfect life, it comes through faith in Jesus: 

Ro. 3:22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

Jesus' death is the effectual agent for bringing our righteousness: 

1Pe. 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

The idea that Jesus was required to live a perfect life in order to be deemed worthy is repugnant to us.) 

Jesus said to John the Baptist, before he was baptized by him, “It is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15).

It might be argued that Christ had to live a life of perfect righteousness for his own sake, not for ours, before he could be a sinless sacrifice for us. But Jesus had no need to live a life of perfect obedience for his own sake – he had shared love and fellowship with the Father for all eternity and was in his own character eternally worthy

pg. 251

of the Father's good pleasure and delight. (?? The author now concedes Jesus' eternal worthiness!)

He rather had to “fulfil all righteousness” for our sake (Now the author deceives us. He has quoted an unreferenced verse: “It is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15). Notice the word "us." Jesus and John the Baptist together were to fulfill all righteousness by John baptizing Jesus. But the author isolates only Jesus in the verse and therefore misrepresents the meaning to fit his narrative. 

This is dishonest.)

- that is for the sake of the people whom he was representing as their head. Unless he had done this for us, we would have no record of obedience by which we would merit God’s favor and merit eternal life with him. (The author just keeps on making these undocumented assertions. Where do we find this in the Bible?)

Moreover, if Jesus had needed only sinlessness and not also a life of perfect obedience, he could have died for us when he was a young child rather than when he was thirty-three years old. (Sigh. Yes, "could have." But He didn't. So the point is moot.)

By way of application, we ought to ask ourselves whose lifelong record of obedience we would rather rely on for our standing before God, Christ’s or our own? As we think about the life of Christ, we ought to ask ourselves, was it good enough to deserve God’s approval? And are we willing to rely on his record of obedience for our eternal destiny? (False choice. We are not depending on His earthly obedience; we have no claim but the blood. Our faith is in our savior, who is and always was worthy.)

2. Christ’s sufferings for us (sometimes called his “passive obedience”). In addition to obeying the law perfectly for his whole life on our behalf, Christ also took on himself the suffering necessary to pay the penalty for our sins. (Where in the Bible does it tell us that His suffering paid for our sins? We already know that He didn't pay for our sins, but now we must note that His suffering, though required by the prophecies of Scripture, had no effect on our eternal state.

His sacrificial death achieved our forgiveness, not His suffering.

Now the author will go into a long explanation of how Jesus suffered. We are certainly grateful that Jesus willingly suffered: 

He. 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

But it was the cross, not the various ways He suffered, that accomplished our forgiveness.)

(...)

(2) The pain of bearing sin. More awful than the pain of physical suffering Jesus endured was the psychological pain of bearing the guilt for our sin. In our own experience as Christians, we know something of the anguish we feel when we know we have sinned. The weight of guilt is heavy on our hearts, and there is a bitter sense of separation from all that is right in the universe, an awareness of something in a very deep sense ought not to be. In fact, the more we grow in holiness as God’s children the more intensely we feel this instinctive revulsion against evil.

Now Jesus was perfectly holy. He hated sin with his entire being. The thought of evil, of sin, contradicted everything in his character. Far more than we do, Jesus instinctively rebelled against evil. Yet in obedience to the Father, and out of love for us, Jesus took on himself all the sins of those who would someday be saved. (Jesus bore our sins as a carrier of them, as we explained above. But He did not become guilty or experience our sins. There is no Bible verse that tells us such a thing.)

Taking on himself all the evil against which his soul rebelled created deep revulsion in the center of his being. All that he hated most deeply was poured out fully upon him. (Another undocumented and offensive statement.)

Scripture frequently says that our sins were put on Christ: “The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” Isa. 53:6), ("Laid" is paga, to meet, encounter, reach. Our sin was laid upon Him in the sense that He become our burden-bearer. He and our sin met up so that He could bring it to the cross. Our sin reached Him so that He could take it away. He was not regarded as having our sin.)

and “He bore the sin of many” Isa. 53:12) (Once again, Jesus carried our sin away as a burden to be lifted up and disposed of. "Bore" is nasa or nasah, to lift, carry, take.) 

2Journal of the American Medical Association 255, no 11 (March 21, 1986): 1461