Our questions include, how did we arrive at our doctrines? Does the Bible really teach what we think it teaches? Why do churches do what they do? What is the biblical basis of church leadership structure? Why do certain traditions get entrenched?
It's easy to be spoon fed the conventional wisdom, but it's an entirely separate thing to search these things out for one's self. In the past we have read the Bible with these unexamined understandings and interpreted what we read through those lenses. We were lazy about our Bible study, assuming that pastors and theologians were telling us the truth, but we rarely checked it out for ourselves.
Therefore, these Rethinks are our attempt to remedy the situation.
We should note that we are not Bible scholars, but we believe that one doesn't need to be in order to understand the Word of God.
We should note that we are not Bible scholars, but we believe that one doesn't need to be in order to understand the Word of God.
Introduction
We have taken many deep dives into Calvinist/Reformed theology in our blog and found that these doctrines are often unsatisfying and sometimes misleading or even completely wrong. One of those doctrines is the idea that the Father punished Jesus in our place (Penal Substitutionary Atonement).
We discuss this bad teaching in more detail here. We will, however, briefly recap what we think is the correct view. Jesus is the Lamb of God who gave His life as a sacrifice for our sin. His work on the cross was foreshadowed by the OT sacrifices, where the spilled blood of sacrificed animals atoned for Israel's sin. Since these sacrifices are representative of, and point to Jesus (typology), we need to understand and view the OT sacrifices and His sacrifice similarly.
It is important to note the OT sacrifices:
- were not tortured to satisfy the priest
- were never imputed with the sacrificer's sin
- did not receive God's wrath
- were not regarded as substitutes
Similarly,
- Jesus was not tortured to satisfy the Father
- Jesus was not imputed with our sin
- Jesus did not experience The Father's wrath
- Jesus did not substitute Himself in our place
Jesus carried (Greek: anapheró), He took, He bore away our sin as a burden to the cross:
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.
He was sacrificed once, not sacrificed and then punished. There isn't a single verse in the Bible that tells us the Father punished Jesus or poured out His wrath on Him. Not one. Check it yourself, dear reader.
Appeased and Turned Away
His work is described in the Bible as the propitiation for our sin:
Hebrews 2:17 Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
"Propitiation" is the Greek word hilaskomai, which means appeasement/satisfaction of divine wrath on sin") – properly, to extend propitiation, showing mercy by satisfying (literally, propitiating) the wrath of God on sin; "to conciliate, appease, propitiate... The Father's wrath was interrupted by Jesus in the middle of an act.
Jesus's death on the cross, His spilled blood, is the effective agent in His propitiation:
Col. 1:19-20 For God was pleased to have all his fulness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Totally Effective
We are pretty certain that no Christian views Jesus' blood as insufficient to save a man. Nothing needs to be added to the blood; nothing needs to supplement His sacrificial death. The blood is enough.
Nothing else. Period. Nothing. Including the punishment of Jesus.
If God's wrath against the sinner is totally appeased by Jesus' blood when he repents, why do some think that His wrath must be poured out somewhere else, i.e., on Jesus? This is the crucial question, and why we began with our assertion that the Father did not punish Jesus for our sin.
Read this carefully: If the Father punished Jesus for our sin, then He didn't forgive at all, He simply redirected his wrath and carried it out anyway.
We've got to land solidly on this, dear reader. Propitiation is the complete appeasement/satisfaction of God's wrath for all who are washed by the Blood. If the Father punished Jesus His wrath wasn't appeased by Jesus' death. The blood wasn't enough. The sacrifice did not propitiate. If that's true the Father went out looking for someone to punish because His wrath didn't go away.
If the blood wasn't enough the Father's wrath landed on Jesus, even though He had already did everything needed to satisfy the Father.
This is an evil idea. It is deception to believe the Father punished Jesus. It violates the character of God to not be satisfied with Jesus' sacrifice. Appeasement negates punishment. Appeasement ends the matter. When someone is appeased, it's over. The blood is enough.
Conclusion
We have sometimes marveled at the devotion some have to Calvin's doctrines. It's almost cultish. But that is the nature of deception. Sometimes the truth can stare us directly in the eye and still we would not see.
We therefore need to better understand God's nature and character. His nature is first holiness, righteousness, and justice. Second it is mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Third, is it blessing and nearness. All this is overshadowed by His love. He does everything in the context of His love.
The Father's relationship to the Son is amazing and complex. It is also characterized by love (Jn. 3:35, Jn. 5:20). Jesus always does what pleases the Father (Jn. 8:29) and was perfectly obedient to Him (Ro. 5:19, Ph. 2:8). It's that obedience the pleased the Father. There was never a time when the Father was angry with Jesus.
The blood is enough. Jesus' propitiated and the Father was satisfied.
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