Session 2 - Atonement COMPLETED PDF

Summary

This document is a transcript of a session on atonement, exploring various theological models and their historical context. It discusses the work of Christ and the concept of atonement from different perspectives.

Full Transcript

Session 2 Transcript: Atonement Introducton If you’d asked one of the frst followers of Jesus why he lived and died in the way he did, I wonder what answer you would get? Well, if the New Testament is anything to go by you would have heard a number of suggestve...

Session 2 Transcript: Atonement Introducton If you’d asked one of the frst followers of Jesus why he lived and died in the way he did, I wonder what answer you would get? Well, if the New Testament is anything to go by you would have heard a number of suggestve metaphors used and some interestng imagery employed. You might have heard them talking in terms of reconciliaton, of things being brought together that afer that point have been estranged you would like to have heard some imagery taken from the Jewish sacrifcial system that was focused on the temple in Jerusalem; you would have heard some language probably taken from a marketplace about the right price to be paid and something being bought back, or language from criminal law. But if you'd asked that simple queston again ‘why did Jesus live and die in the way he did?’ to his followers in other historical periods the reply could likely have been quite diferent. Instead of just hearing a number of interestng metaphors you might have been introduced to some complex theories; for example you might have heard some very interestng ideas expounded if you'd asked a monk in the 11th century that queston partcularly if they’d come under the infuence of Anslem of Canterbury’s theology; and you’d probably likely have heard some very interestng ideas if you'd spoken to a 3rd century Christan in Alexandria who'd sat at the feet of the theologian Origen, a theologian who probably shaped the theology of the Eastern Church more than any other; or if you had spoken to a citzen of Geneva for instance in the 16th century, you would probably heard something quite diferent. So what had happened, why the 1st century would you have heard some simple metaphors taken from the marketplace employed, but in other periods of history you would have been introduced to complex theories? Well, some of the greatest theological minds over the ages had ofen taken those simple metaphors found in a New Testament thought through what they might mean in detail, thought through 1 their implicatons, and in some cases have woven a complex theological theory out of them and sometmes, it’s been suggested, had pushed those original measure to breaking point. Christus Victor But why the diferent stories and theories at diferent tmes and places? Why might you have heard one story from Christans in Alexandria in the 3rd century for instance, and a very diferent story from monks in France in the 11th century? Well that's one of the fascinatng questons that scholars have pondered: why one theory came to prominence in the certain period of history and not another? One suggeston is that partcular theories fted partcular tmes that the ideas they employed resonated with a social setng at the tme. For example, one of the most infuental books writen about atonement in the 20th century, argued that for the frst thousand years in the church in the West a partcular model of atonement dominated and that this model stll is a prevalent one in Eastern Church. This model of atonement its called Christus Victor, which became the ttle of the book. To be honest this theory of why Jesus lived and died in the way he did is more of a dramatc narratve than the theory - it paints a picture of humanity enslaved by evil powers and of Jesus defeatng those powers to set humanity free. As Aulen puts it ‘the work of Christ is frst and foremost a victory over the powers which hold mankind in bondage, sin death and the devil’. It’s been suggested that this theory was so prevalent because it resonated with the outlook at the tme. One writer has argued that ‘the human predicament was frequently understood as that of being oppressed by hostle powers; people lived in fear of the baleful infuence of astral deites or of demons who inhabited the natural world and their own sin either prevented them from overcoming the enemies or pushed them into their grasp. The world felt alien to people because they lost control over it, manipulated as it seemed to be by supernatural forces. Thys the victory of Christ over the devil and all the powers which threaten the life and health of humankind, while already celebrated in the New Testament, became the most popular way of understanding atonement.’ (Paul Fiddes). So, the argument goes the story of Christ’s atonement in terms of overcoming evil powers partcularly captvated imaginaton at the tme because it resonated with the 2 common outlook of the tme. When thinking about the origin of these theories their relatonship to scripture is partcularly interestng: how much do they determine what part of scripture people become familiar with which parts of scripture they neglect? If you asked to ask me to fnd a passage of scripture that supports the model of atonement I grew up with, which talks about Jesus being punished in our stead, it would not take me that long to fnd a passage. But if you asked me to fnd a passage of scripture that expresses Christus Victor, I'd be hard pressed to fnd one - even though there are some clear examples: ‘since therefore the children share fesh and blood he himself likewise shared the same things so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death’. If you’d grown up with Christus Victor story of atonement this passage would likely be far more familiar and might have been the frst memory verse you learned at Sunday school rather than John 3:16. Now, there are few things to notce about this model that make it distnctve. Whereas the most popular model since the Reformaton in the West, has seen the problem that we need saving from as located within us, in our human rebellion, in the sins we commit; this model (Christus Vitor) sees the problem as something external to us, something oppressing us, forces outside of us, something we need rescuing from. The primary problem here seems not to do with guilt or disobedience and the remedy is not to do with acquital or forgiveness. Secondly, on this model it feels as if everything is going on above our heads - Christ can win the victory against the forces of evil without us ever getng involved. It is difcult to see on this model how it could lead to an evangelist asking for a response on this model we don't have to acknowledge that we are sinners in need of forgiveness because the problem with the theme is not primarily within us but the forces of evil that oppress us. Now this theme of defeatng the powers of evil is expanded by some of the theologians of the early church in a way that might seem to many of us today quite bizarre. They take the simple mater for the we've seen the New Testament used for atonement in terms of a ransom being paid and ask the queston who is this payment being made to? And have concluded this payment must be made to the one who held humanity captve. So the ransom must have been paid to the evil one. So Origen, 3 when writng about Mathew 20:28, which talks about the Son of Man giving his life for many, asks the queston: to whom is the ransom paid? Certainly not to God. Can it then be to the evil one for he had the power over us untl the ransom was given to him on our behalf namely the life of Jesus? So in this logic, the one who held us captve has to be paid of. Then you might have thought that this stretches the idea far enough. The New Testament talks of Jesus being given as a ransom for many and they go on to speculate about who's being paid. But some theologians of the early church do not stop there they go on to suggest that in this payof Satan is being tricked and they made the point by taking illustraton from angling in the same way a fsh might swallow some juicy bait not realising that within it is hidden sharp hook. The evil one, seeing Jesus’ human nature, swallows the bait but gets hooked on his divine nature. So, as one fourth century theologian writes, ‘in order secure our ransom on our behalf, the deity was hidden under the veil of our nature so that, as with a ravenous fsh, the hook of diety might be gulped down with the bait of fesh.’ (Gregory of Nyssa). And of course, the divine life was too much for the forces of evil to hold. In fact, it is alleged that Augustne goes so far as to call the cross ‘the devil’s mousetrap’. So it has been suggested that this model of victory of the powers of evil may have been prevalent in the early church because it fted the outlook of the tme partcularly well and possibly it worked well for a church that was a persecuted minority. But the context in which the next theory gets developed historically could not have been more diferent. Ransom Christanity is no longer a persecuted minority religion. It's become part of the very fabric of society and in this more established, sophistcated context there is a desire to make the faith as reasonable as possible. In this new context the idea of the devil being tricked will be ridiculed as ridiculous. We see all this embodied in Anselm of Canterbury's theology. As one writer explains: ‘in the face of the tendency to mythologise the metaphor of ransom, Anselm wished to give a ratonal account of the mater and wrote what he did because he believed that both in himself and his ways towards us God is ratonal. The theology which Anselm rejected failed the test ratonality in a number of ways. In the frst place it made the mistake of taking too 4 literally the illusion to ransom in Mark 10:45. Secondly, as Anselm saw, the theory of ransom was too dualistc, giving the devil too much of an autonomous authority, ‘the devil and man belong to God alone neither one stands outside God's power’. What case then, did God have to plead with his own creature concerning his own creature in his own afair? (Cur Deus Homo I:VII Gunten. The evil one does not have to be treated as an autonomous power with independent rights that God has to honour. Interestngly in order to understand what Anselm puts into place we have to understand the way things worked in society of the tme. God is seen by Anselm as a mediaeval feudal landlord. Under the landlord are his subjects. He ofers his subjects protecton, but they in return have to honour him in terms of tribute and loyalty. Now for Anselm sin is seen as a failure to ofer the Lord that honour. As Anselm explains: ‘the man who does not render God honour which is his due takes away from God what is his own and dishonours God and this is to sin.’ (Anselm of Canterbury). So because humanity is dishonoured God and is not able to satsfy God's demands Anselm argues God cannot let such sin go unpunished. Now Anselm eventually gets to the positon where humanity could not do anything about this predicament and only God can help. So as Anselm states ‘there is no one, therefore who can make satsfacton except God himself’, but this satsfacton has to come from humanity as it is humanity that has sinned, no one ought to make it except man, otherwise man does not make satsfacton. The only soluton therefore is incarnaton. ‘No one can make this satsfacton except God, and no one ought to make it except man, it is necessary that one who is God man should make it.’ In reviewing what has been achieved throughout the book, his dialogue partner concludes ‘the nub of the queston was why God became man… in answering this queston you showed by many conclusive arguments, that the restoraton of human nature ought not be neglected and that it could not be accomplished unless, man paid to God what he owed to sin. But this debt was so great that, although man alone owe the debt, stll God alone was able to pay it, so that the same person would have to be both man and God.' (Anslem) 5 Now notce Christ is not being punished instead of us, this is not penal substtuton, rather he is doing something we could not do. Satsfying God's demand for honour. Now in seeing how Anselm used the social norms of the tme, to explain why Jesus lived and died in the way he did, the queston arises what, ultmately determines this picture of atonement, “So, some have argued, he does more than just use images and experiences from daily life to illustrate the atonement. He allows his experience at medieval life, to have the overwhelming infuence in shaping this model of atonement.” (Green & Baker 2011) Moral Infuence or Exemplary (Abelard) (point in video 14.05) It did not take long before Anselm's theory came in for critcism a contemporary of Anselm, Peter Abelard, was not happy with Anselm’s model of atonement. In his comments on Romans, Abelard suggests that forgiveness is not dependent on Jesus's sacrifcial death. For example, what are we to make of Jesus comments to the onlooking scribes when a paralyzed man is lowered before him. Jesus says, “which is easier to say your sins are forgiven, or to say stand up take your mat and walk? but so that you may know that the Son of Man, will have authority to forgive sins, I say stand up, take your mat and go to your home” (Mark 2 9-11) here Jesus is forgiving sins, long before Calvary or any atoning sacrifce. Now there is some debate, about exactly what Abelard suggests as an alternatve model, but there is no doubt from what he says that Abelard, has real misgivings about the idea that Christ's death pays some penalty for sin. ‘Indeed, how cruel and wicked it seems that anyone should demand the blood of an innocent person as the price for anything, all that it should be in any way please him that an innocent man, should be slain. Stll less that God could see the death of his son so agreeable, that by it he should be reconciled to the whole world’ (Abelard) Now Abelard is probably best known for his part in a medieval romance, rather than his theory of atonement but the two overlap. He had been the tutor one of the brightest young women of the tme, Heloise and in his words their hands strayed from their books to other things. Now to cut a very long story short, her family were not amused and saw to it, that Abelard would never make that mistake again. Later 6 in life when both had taken religious vows, they correspond and refected on the love they once shared. In the leter Abelard directs Heloise to the cross, as an example of supreme love. ‘Are you not moved to tears of remorse, by the only begoten son, who for you and for all mankind, in his innocence was seized by the hands of impious men, dragged along, scourged, blindfolded, mocked and bufeted, spat upon, crowned with thorns and fnally hung between two thieves on the cross. Keep him in mind, look at him, going to be crucifed, carrying his own cross. Be one of the crowd. One of the women who wept and lamented over him. In your mind, be always present at his tomb. Weep and wail with the faithful women. prepare with them, the perfumes for his burial’. (Point in video 16.49) Many commentators suggested, that at the heart of Abelard’s view of atonement, is the idea that the love of God, demonstrated so dramatcally at Calvary, has the power to transform the human heart. That what we see at Calvary primary, has an efect on us, and not on some state of afairs outside of us. What we see in Jesus' life and death is not some victory over evil powers, or some payment of a debt owed to God, but rather a demonstraton of God's love for us that elicits a response. Abelard’s model does not seem to have been that infuenced at the tme. Where we've seen scholars point out a connecton between the social context and the predominant model of atonement, it's not so obvious when it comes to Abelard. The period when theologians embraced Abelard's thoughts enthusiastcally was much later. In fact, interest in his theory, had to wait to the beginning of the 19th century and the rise of romantcism in European culture, but then it seemed to click. A number of writers have seen in Abelard’s theory, what can be described as a subjectve theory of atonement, where the theories we've looked at so far, have seen what's happening in atonement, as afectng some change in what is external to us this model primarily focuses on the human heart. So where other theories are seen as objectve dealing with principalites and powers over and above us while appeasing God's wrath, this view of Abelard’s has seen as primarily subjectve, afectng our attude. This aspect of a Abelard’s theory, wrongly or rightly came in for critcism at the tme. 7 Bernard of Clairvaux, complained about Abelard’s teaching saying that ‘Christ lived and died for no other purpose, than that he might teach us how to live by his words and example, and pointed out, by his passion and death, to what limits our love shall go’. You can see why this theory has been categorized as an exemplarist or the moral inference theory. Penal Substtuton (point in video 19.02) The fnal model we're going to look at is the most infuental model in the Protestant West and has ofen been associated with the Reformaton. This is substtutonary atonement or penal substtuton. Again there is a suggeston that this model fts well with the cultural view at the tme as one writer explains, “the period of the Reformaton laid new stress upon the central place of the law and human society. In an age of politcal turmoil and social upheaval it seemed that the only security lay in the absolute claim of the law to guard rights and to punish ofenders. Thus, the estrangement of human beings from God was understood in terms of being lawbreakers, summoned to receive condemnaton the divine bar of justce. Atonement correspondingly, was a mater of satsfying, not so much the honour of God as the demands of his law, with Jesus punished as a substtute for guilty mankind (Paul Fiddes). One of the main diferences is this new emphasis on the law. This is not very far from Anselm’s ideas of course but the change in culture meant that the Reformers told a diferent story of salvaton to the one that Anselm had told. His story involved the personal ofence against a majestc superior God. The Reformers told the story more in terms of ofence against an impeccable law. You could hear this idea of substtuton, and the demands of the law expressed very dramatcally Martn Luther's theology. “He sent his son into the world, heaped all the sins of all upon him and said to him, you be Peter the denier, Paul the persecutor, blasphemer, assaulter. David the adulterer. The sinner who ate the Apple in paradise, the thief on the cross. In short, you be the person of all people, the one who has commited the sins of all people. Now the law comes and says, I fnd that sinner taking on himself the sins of all people. I see no other sins, but those 8 in him. So let him die on the cross. And so it atacks him kills him. That done the whole world is purged of all sin.” (Luther: Table Talk). As you would expect from Calvin (1509-1564), in his Insttutes of Christan religion. He makes the point far more succinctly than Luther. ‘Christ was put in the place of the evildoer as surety and pledge submitng himself, as the accursed to bear and sufer all the punishment, that they ought to have sustained’ (Book II 2:16:10). Calvin elsewhere, developed the logic behind this view of atonement. ‘The curse caused by our guilt was awaitng us at God's heavenly judgment seat. But the penalty to which we were subject have been imposed upon this righteous man. We could not escape God's dreadful judgment. To deliver us from it Christ allowed himself to be condemned to take away our condemnaton. It was not enough, for him to sufer any kind of death to make satsfacton for Redempton, a form of death had to be chosen, in which he might free us both by transferring our condemnaton onto himself and by taking our guilt upon himself.’ (Insttutes 2:16:5) Others have suggested that the importance of penal substtuton for the Reformers, had litle to do with the change of cultural context and rather was a consequence of their central doctrine, that being justfcaton by faith alone. 'Only faith in a work carried out for them and without their help could justfy them in the sight of God... The infexibility of God's law served to stop the faithful from castng around, for half measures such as indulgences, penances pilgrimages' (Ben Pugh). Faustus Socinus (point in video 22:24) But again, it wasn't long before this approach came in for critcism. The Reformaton is not only associated with Protestant theology's critcisms of Catholicism,a more radical wing was developing that was questoning traditonal orthodoxy like Trinitarian belief and also substtutonary atonement. Chief amongst these was the Italian theologian Faustus Socinus (1539 – 1604) and his followers Socinians. He wrote a book questoning traditonal views of atonement partcularly, penal substtuton and he begins the book by asking a simple queston, 'why can't God just simply forgive sins? Why does he have to insist on punishing the guilty person?' He used the example of someone who owes money, being able to cancel a debt. 'There 9 is no creditor who, according to the strict leter of the law, is not able to forgive the debtor, part of the debt or the whole debt, having received no satsfacton.' (Socinus) So, if you can cancel a date and don't have to insist on it being paid, surely God could just do the same for humanity. In other words, cannot God just forgive us, without insistng on us being punished frst? Probably the most famous response to this, came from the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotus (1583 - 1645). He points out, that if we develop another metaphor, we might see that punishment is necessary afer all. Rather than thinking of God as a creditor and us as debtors, he suggests of thinking of God as a ruler. If someone in his community is wronged and afer much efort the guilty party is bought before the ruler of that community but the ruler of that community does nothing about it and lets the person get of scot-free, how would the community react? The community would be an uproar. A good ruler, they would argue would make sure the person is punished, or some price is paid for the wrong commited. So, by analogy, Grotus argues, that God as ruler cannot just forgive willy-nilly. The ruler must recognize the seriousness of what's been done and do something appropriate about it. We are not just dealing with an individual being wronged and that individual forgiving, as Socinus suggested, here we're talking about something having serious consequences. The Injustce of Substtuton (point in video 24.36) Another complaint that we fnd in Socinus' work, has echoed down the ages and is stll ofen heard today. This concerns the injustce of substtuton. If when at school, one of my children were punished and when I asked, as a parent what they're done wrong, I was told they had not done anything wrong, they were being punished for something that someone else has done wrong. Would I just say, “well that's fne, carry on punishing them”. No, I wouldn't. I would be the frst to complain. As one contemporary has put it: ‘God's justce is hardly maintained by the immoral punishment of an innocent victm instead of a guilty sinner.’ (Frances Young). In civil law it's obviously possible for someone to pay someone else's fne. But that really doesn't work in criminal law. Surely, it's never acceptable for someone to sufer who's innocent for the guilty party. Any legal system that allowed that will be 10 considered scandalous. And he Scriptures themselves queston this. ‘Acquitng the guilty and condemning the innocent the Lord detests them both’ (Proverbs 17:1). As one writer has argued, the illustraton beloved of evangelical preachers of this traditon, of the judge who pronounces sentence on the criminal, and then divest himself of his robes, come down from his judgement seat and says ‘I will bear the punishment in your place’ is in terms of justce quite scandalous story. Any legal system that allows such a thing to happen, will be an unjust system. Whatever the love and compassion of the judge, if the issue is indeed one of punishment, then the one who has sinned, and nobody else, must pay. (Tom Smail) A number of responses have been made to this complaint, but one of the most creatve responses, has looked at those passages partcularly in Paul's epistles where he explores the idea of the believer's union with Christ. On at least 80 occasions, Paul talks to the churches he's speaking to, about them being in Christ. For example, when he says, ‘there is no condemnaton for those in Christ’ or ‘if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creaton’ (2 Cor 5:17). Paul clearly sees some union between the believer and their Lord. So, in some way, people are taken up and incorporated in Christ. (Point in video 26.50) We sometmes talk in such terms about great historical events. I doubt of anybody listening to this video has personally landed on the moon, but we're happy to say we have. Neil Armstrong said 'This is a small step for one man, but a giant leap for mankind'. In fact, Paul can talk about Christ's death, in such terms: 'One man died for all, therefore, all mankind has died' (2 Cor 5:14). As one writer has argued, 'to see why penal substtuton is not a travesty of justce, we need to recall the doctrine of union with Christ. The believer is not separated from Christ, an unrelated third party. He is in us, and we are in him. The doctrine of penal substtuton thus does not propose a transfer of guilt between unrelated persons. It asserts that guilt is transferred to Christ from those who are united to him. In fact 'transfer' may not even be the best term, since you couldn't apply a transfer of guilt between distnct persons. Union with Christ explains how the innocent could be justly punished. We are now in a positon to answer the objecton that penal substtuton entails unjustly 11 punishing an innocent person...The imputaton of our guilt to Christ does not violate justce because he willingly consents to a real, spiritual identfcaton with his people. In short, this objecton to penal substtuton arises from a failure to understand the signifcance of Union with Christ. (Jefrey Ovey Sach). The only problem I suppose with this suggeston is that it sounds more like representatonal atonement rather than substtutonary atonement. When considering how best to express what Paul says about atonement the predominance in Paul's epistles of this language of incorporaton and partcipaton, has understandably led some New Testament scholars to prefer the language of representaton to substtuton. 'For many ‘substtuton’ is perhaps the key word in any atempt to sum up Paul's thought at this point. Nevertheless, although ‘substtuton’ expresses an important aspect of Paul's theology of atonement, I am not sure that Paul would have been that happy with it or that is if the best single word to serve as a key defniton of that theology … a much more appropriate word, is representaton. (James Dunn). Divinely Sanctoned Violence (point in video 29.06) In contemporary scholarship, what has produced some the most heated debate, have not been those observatons by Socinus. But rather, the suggeston that what we see in the cross, appears to be the most grotesque example of divinely sanctoned violence. Two quotes make this point forcefully. 'Do we really believe that God is appeased by cruelty?' (Jones). 'To say that Jesus' executors did what was historically necessary for salvaton. Is to say that state terrorism is a good thing and that torture and murder are the will of God.” (Brock and Parker) Afer a thorough consideraton of substtutonary models of atonement, the Mennonite theologian Danny Weaver sums up his fndings in these terms, 'The conclusion is inescapable, that atonement is based on divinely sanctoned retributve violence. Satsfacton depends on the divinely sanctoned death,as that which is necessary to satsfy the ofended divine entty whether God or God’s law of God's honour … that a wrong deed is balanced by violence. Anyone uncomfortable with the idea of a God who sanctons violence, a God who sends his son so that his 12 death might satsfy a divine requirement should abandon this view of atonement forthwith. What this book has exposed is a centuries-long use of Christan theology to accommodate violence.' He suggests that it was not God's intenton that Jesus died. Christ's death was a reacton of evil men to God's reign, seen in Jesus. “God intended Jesus to give a life afrming, life-giving witness to the reign of God. Rather than understanding Jesus’ death as a divine necessity, I see it as the world's response to the reign of God made present at the life of Jesus. (Weaver) He then seeks to construct a non-violent model of atonement. But as one commentator complains, 'such a rejecton of divine intenton cannot do justce to the many biblical allusions in both the Old and New Testament to divine violence' (Boersma). And further argues that 'Few people truly believe that any and all inficton of harm or damage is immoral. The harm done in these situatons is justfed by appealing to the greater beneft that these actons produce.'(Boersma). This concern about the cross being an extreme example of divinely sanctoned violence is only heightened by the next complaint, that theologically we are faced with a father infictng this violence on a son. So, for some, “God is envisaged as the powerful patriarch in the greater household of the human family. This God demands absolute allegiance and punishes any act of disobedience. The cross of Christ, according to this model, becomes a manifestaton of God's wrath and a paradigm of parental punishment. God is a patriarch who punishes his son in order to satsfy God's parental honour and sense of justce.' (Green) It's not surprising that from this perspectve the cross has been described as a form of cosmic child abuse. There are a number of problems with this straight away. Firstly Jesus may be a Trinitarian terms God's son, but he's not a child in the sense of a minor. As an adult he was fully aware of what he was facing. It also surely caricatures the nature of the Trinity. If Jesus is truly one with the father, of the same substance with the father then what happens on the cross is not a transacton between two individuals, one of whom is abusing the other. The Right Kind of Justce (point in video 32:44) 13 As the key texts supportng substtutonary atonement come from Paul's epistles, there are a number of debates surrounding how best to understand the terminology Paul employs. For example, everyone seems to agree that Paul uses legal metaphors to explain signifcance of the cross. The queston is what legal framework is Paul operatng with. 'Recogniton of legal metaphors in Scripture, however, leaves open the queston of which legal and judicial system we should utlize to shape our understanding the penal nature of the Cross.' (Joel Green) It is claimed that those in the West operate with a rather abstract noton of justce. You are punished within this system because you fail to live up to some sense of justce embodied in legal code. But it is suggested that when God's people are seen as in the wrong, within the scriptural narratve. It is not because of their failure to live up to a moral code, but rather afailure to be faithful to their side of the Covenant. In similar terms, God is seen as righteous, not because he abides by some abstract concept of justce but rather because he's faithful to his side of the Covenant. 'Paul worked out his argument within a diferent legal frame -n ot the frame of Western penal justce, but the frame of Covenant relatons, as this is portrayed in Israel's scriptures. For Paul, God's righteousness is nothing other than his covenant faithfulness, not it’s adherence to an abstract code of law, that demands that he punish those who break that law. And God's covenant faithfulness is revealed in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, partcularly in his death.' (Joel Green). Divine Judgement (point in video 34.30) Another key debate with regard to how atonement might be understood within Paul's epistles surrounds how God's judgment or wrath is conceived. It has been pointed out that at the beginning of Paul's epistle to the Romans, God's judgment appears to be intrinsic rather than extrinsic. People are lef to sufer the consequences of their own wrong choices, people are lef to reap what they have sown: 'For if we ask what is the nature of wrath described in Romans chapter 1:18 – 32, we fnd that it is not the retributve infictng of punishment from outside, but God allowing people to experience the intrinsic consequences of their refusal to live in relatonship with him. God gave them up. God's wrath is his judgment, experienced an alienaton from God.” (Stephen Travis). 14 This is also a familiar refrain with in the Old Testament, 'when the prophets and psalmist think more personally about the relatonship between God and his people, they speak of divine judgment upon human beings, in terms of him giving up people to the natural consequences of their own sin. It is characteristc of Hebrew thought to depict God as hiding his face from his disobedient people, or letng them go. His righteous wrath against sin is worked out by his surrendering people to the way they themselves desire to tread. They insist on running over the precipice of their own making, and God in His justce lets them go.' (Paul Fiddes) But if we conceive of God's judgment primarily in these terms, would that not afect our understanding of the nature of atonement? 'If this insight is correct, would it not imply an interpretaton of what is happening at the cross, in terms other than divine retributon. We would need to talk perhaps less in terms of Christ's sufering the punishment for our sins, but rather of Christ's sufering the consequences … (in this model) Christ does not sufer punishment from God and thereby avert his wrath. He enters into humanity's experience of sin’s consequences in destroying sin and thus restoring people to relatonship with God’. (Stephen Travis) ‘So the wrath of God destroys the sin by letng the full destructve consequences of sin work themselves out and exhaust themselves in Jesus … this means also that we must be careful in describing Jesus's death as penal, … the primary thought is a destructon of the malignant, poisonous organism of sin. Any thought of punishment is secondary.’ (James Dunn) But it has been questoned whether this analysis does justce to all the examples of God's judgment we fnd within the scriptural narratve. As one wit has put it, when considering the plagues of Egypt, it wasn't just a bad year of frogs or for locusts, they weren't just experiencing, intrinsic consequences that their wrongdoing. We started by seeing how a number of diferent theories of atonement have fourished at diferent historical periods ofen resonatng with the cultural context of their tme and then we looked at how the diferent theories have been critcally evaluated. The queston remains however, which of these models best communicates the signifcance of Jesus's atoning work for today? A queston that 15 every preacher and evangelist needs to consider in the light of the context in which they fnd themselves. 16

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