Time to talk about Atonement Theory

 I watched Tim Jennings video "Want Salvation? Here's the Surprising Reason Jesus Had to Die." I was not too impressed with it but was astounded by what Jennings said when trying to explain the Recapitulation Theory of the Atonement (at 25:45). I won't recount Jennings's explanation; I will just post the article that I wrote on the topic of Atonement Theories sometime ago, but I don't think it has been posted on this blog.

Time to talk about Atonement Theory
By Ron Corson

In a Time magazine article entitled Why Did Jesus Die? [April 12, 2004] The author quotes a conversation on the subject by a men’s group, the leader of the group concludes: “It physically had to happen, I’m not sure I would have said that before I saw the movie [Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ]. But now it’s much clearer to me. I can’t say why he had to suffer the way he did. But Christ had to die.” In theological terms, we are have entered the area known as soteriology, which is the theology that deals with salvation as effected by Jesus Christ. In Bible terms, we are dealing with Atonement which means the reconciliation between God and man. As the Time article noted The Atonement is the centerpiece of Christianity. Which theory a person holds defines their Christian views as well as their particular view of God.

There have been several Atonement Theories throughout church history all with their own catchy Theological names. They range from simple to complex. Beginning with the Apostolic Fathers we see the simplest theory which is known as the Moral Influence Theory.  Christ imparted to us: new Knowledge, Fresh life, and Immortality. Clement states: Through Him, God has called us from darkness to light from ignorance to knowledge of the glory of His name. Clement further says that Christ endured it all on account of us and that His sufferings should bring us to repentance. Hemas adds that Christ reveals to us the true God. Barnabas notes that He came to abolish death and to demonstrate resurrection from the dead. Peter Abelard who is most notable for his promotion of this theory one thousand years later said, “Love answers love’s appeal”.  The Moral Influence theory is directed at mankind, to draw them back to God through the knowledge revealed by Christ, God is love He offers forgiveness, reconciliation, and life.

A little later the Theory of Recapitulation was put forward by Irenaeus.  This theory states that just as Adam contained in himself all his descendants so Christ recapitulated in Himself all the dispersed peoples dating back to Adam, the whole race of mankind, along with Adam himself. His conclusion is that humanity which was seminally present in Adam has been given the opportunity of making a new start in Christ, the second Adam, through incorporation in his mystical body. The original Adam by disobedience introduced the principle of sin and death, but Christ by His obedience has reintroduced the principle of life and immortality. Because He is identified with the human race at every phase of its existence, He restores fellowship with God to all. To Irenaeus, it is obedience that God requires, and in order to exhibit such obedience, Christ had to live His life through all its stages, including death.

Later a more fanciful theory gained several centuries of acceptance. The Ransom theory with elements taken from Origin interprets the death of Christ as a Ransom paid by God to Satan to secure the redemption of humanity, which has been brought under his dominion by sin. Different writers had various options on this theory. Some admitted the possession of his captives, and the death of Jesus is interpreted as a ransom due to the devil on grounds of justice. Others denied the devil has a right to sinners, but saw God as too gracious to take what was His by force. Still, others felt that man’s deliverance was secured by deception on God’s part. Satan was deceived by the humble appearance of the Redeemer supposing that he had to do with a mere man. Finding too late that the Deity whose presence he had not perceived escaped his clutches through the Resurrection. Some of the adherents to this view include Augustine, Gregory the Great, and Gregory of Nyssa. While this theory has been forgotten by most Christians, remnants are still seen in many Christian Churches today. An example of this is seen in this statement by the late professor  Arnold V. Wallenkampf:“Satan had challenged Jesus' resurrection of Moses on Mount Nebo (see Jude 9); and legally Satan had a point. Moses had been a sinner, and as such he belonged to Satan.”

Around 1100 C.E. a more complex theory of the Atonement gained precedence. The Satisfaction theory was first produced in a clear coherent manner by Anselm, in his treatise, Cur Deus Homo, ( Why a Godman?) Anselm finds no reason in justice why God was under any obligation to Satan. Christ’s Atonement concerns God, not the devil. Man by his sin has violated the honor of God and defiled His handiwork. It is not consistent with the Divine self-respect that He should permit His purpose to be thwarted. Yet this purpose requires the fulfillment by man of the perfect law of God. For this transgression, repentance is no remedy, since penitence, however sincere, cannot atone for the guilt of past sin. Nor can any finite substitute, whether man or angel make reparation. Sin being against the infinite God, is infinitely guilty and can be atoned for only by an infinite satisfaction. Thus either man must be punished and God’s purpose fails or man must make an infinite satisfaction, which is impossible. The only escape is that someone is found who can unite in his own person the attributes both of humanity and of infinity. This is brought about by the incarnation of Christ. In Christ, we have one who is very man and can therefore make satisfaction to God on behalf of humanity, but who is at the same time very God, and whose person therefore gives infinite worth to the satisfaction which He makes. Christ's death voluntarily given when it is not due since He was without sin, is the infinite satisfaction that secures the salvation of man.

From this, the majority of Christian Churches both Roman Catholic and Protestants have moved to the Theory put forth in the 1500’s known as the Substitution Theory (Penal Theory). With the exception of the Eastern Orthodox Church which really does not focus on any particular Atonement theory instead focusing on Jesus’ triumph over death and the way made to join Him.

The Substitutionary view held many of Anselm’s presuppositions regarding Christ’s Atonement. However, it was modified in one very substantial way. The central position of the Atonement was interpreted not as satisfaction, but as punishment, and hence given a substitutionary significance. The infinite guilt of man’s sin which has so utterly alienated mankind from the Kingdom of Heaven that none but a person reaching to God can be the medium of restoring peace. Such an efficient mediator is found in Christ alone. Through whose atoning death the price of man’s forgiveness is paid and a way of salvation made open. John Calvin considers the Atonement not as a meritorious satisfaction accepted as a substitute for punishment, but as the vicarious endurance by Christ of that punishment itself. Calvin denies that God was ever hostile to Christ or angry with Him, yet in His Divine providence He suffered His Son to go through the experience of those against whom God is thus hostile. In His own consciousness, Christ bore the weight of the Divine anger, was smitten and afflicted, and experienced all the signs of an angry and avenging God.

The Penal Theory was severely criticized by the Socinians, who attacked the entire concept of substitutionary punishment. They held that punishment and forgiveness are inconsistent ideas. If a man is punished he cannot be forgiven, and vice versa. Under the theory of distributive justice, punishment, being a matter of the relation between individual guilt and its consequences, is strictly untransferable. The Socinians held to the Moral Influence Theory as mentioned by the Apostolic Fathers and the Apologists of the second-century church.

Governmental theory of atonement

In response to the Socinians Hugo Grotius wrote a work entitled The Satisfaction of Christ. Grotius was writing in defense of the Penal/Substitution Theory, however, he, perhaps unknowingly modified the theory. In this view, God does not deal with men as a judge but as a governor, who unlike a judge may temper justice with mercy, but the motives which lead him so to be temperate are never arbitrary. Thus Christ’s death is a substitute for punishment, a suffering inflicted by God and voluntarily accepted by Christ, which works upon men by moral influence in order to conserve the ends of righteousness. Such suffering on Christ’s part is necessary since forgiveness on the basis of repentance alone might be misinterpreted by men and lead to grave carelessness. Among Arminians, it has practically supplanted the older Penal Theory.

Sources:
Early Christian Doctrines J.N.D. Kelly Harper & Row, Pub. New York 1960 pp. 163-183, 375-395
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics Vol. 5 pp. 640-650
The New Schaff-Herzog Religious Encyclopedia pp. 349-356

The internet's death blow on Adventism

 Today I watched the video of Ian Reyes interview the recently removed Adventist Pastor Chris Mindanao, who got in trouble with the denominations leadership of say the radical idea found in the Bible that the seal of God is the Holy Spirit. In this part 2 of the interview maybe a month after Minanao's resignation he presents a much deeper examination of the problems in the Adventist Church. 

This should be watched by every Adventist, whether traditional or progressive. Something I had never considered before was why the Millerites and those who became SDAs accepted Hiram Edson's cornfield vision. The following quotes are from the Encylcopedia of Seventh-Day Adventists:

Although no information exists regarding Edson’s schooling, his mastery of grammar and style, evident in his later articles (see below), reveals that he had at least an elementary education. Likewise, while the date and place of his conversion are unknown, from birth he had been reared in a Christian family. Around 1839, he became a steward in the Port Gibson Methodist Episcopal Church, responsible for the use of funds and literature donated by the congregation. He was widely respected as an earnest, soul-winning layman.¹¹

When the Methodists rejected the Millerite teaching of Christ’s imminent second advent and expelled members who accepted it, Hiram and Esther began holding meetings in their home, and many attendees experienced conversion.¹⁵ Also during 1843-44, Edson began having “presentments,” which he defined as supernatural experiences that brought him new understandings, often through visual images of events that soon came to pass.¹⁶ These presentments told him about a revival service yet to occur;¹⁷ instructed him to lay hands on a sick friend and heal him;¹⁸ and told him to plead with a neighbor until he converted.¹⁹ Edson also witnessed incidents of faith healings following prayer and laying on of hands.²⁰ While believers accepted Edson’s presentments as indications of God’s guidance, others, who opposed any manifestations of supernatural phenomena, whether Mormon or Millerite, sometimes reacted violently. Forty hostile men broke up one of his cottage meetings and some neighbors issued death threats. For their safety, the Edson family moved to a rented farm near Centerport.²¹

Following the “Great Disappointment” of October 22, 1844, Edson was devastated. “Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted,” he wrote, “and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before. It seemed that the loss of all earthly friends could have been no comparison. We wept, and wept, till the day dawn.”²² On October 23, after praying with friends in his granary for understanding, Edson and Owen Crosier, a Millerite friend, cut through a cornfield to comfort their disappointed friends. Midway across the field, Edson related, “I was stopped…Heaven seemed open to my view, and I saw distinctly and clearly that instead of our High Priest coming out of the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary to this earth on [October 22, 1844]…He, for the first time, entered on that day into the second apartment of that sanctuary.”²³ Edson’s words, “I saw distinctly and clearly,” have led to various interpretations as to whether he had a vision, saw a flash of light, or received an impression.²⁴

After five months of Bible study, Edson, Crosier, and Franklin Hahn shared their discoveries in the March 1845 issue of the Day Dawn, a private paper edited by Hahn and Edson in Canandaigua, New York,²⁵ and in the February 7, 1846, issue of the Millerite paper the Day-Star Extra.²⁶ These articles (written by Crosier) stated that a literal sanctuary existed in heaven; that the earthly tabernacle services were modeled on the heavenly; that the heavenly sanctuary contained two chambers, a Holy Place and a Most Holy Place, representing two phases of priestly ministry; that Jesus, the High Priest, had entered into the latter on October 22, 1844, to cleanse it by the blotting out of sins by His blood; and that Christ would return to earth after this second phase of His ministry was completed.²⁷

In May 1845, Edson sent a letter to the Jubilee Standard, a Millerite paper published in NYC, in which he argued that while the 2300-day prophecy (Daniel 8:14) ended on October 22, 1844, the 1335-day prophecy (Daniel 12:12) would end in August 1845 with God’s final judgment and Christ’s second coming.²⁸

He later joined the Sabbatarian movement and then the SDA movement. Edson and Crosier wrote the article that established the belief in a two apartment ministry in a heavenly sanctuary. A PDF of the articles is found here.

This article and subsequent reiteration by Ellen White is the basis for the Investigative Judgement of Adventism. It is developed by a convoluted belief that Crosier had about the Old Testament sanctuary service which he assumed was what Jesus was doing in heaven. Most all other Christians believe in the atonement being completed by the death and resurrection and assertion of Christ back to heaven. As Hebrews says:

 11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Hebrews 9:11-14 ESV

To arrive at this supposed two-apartment ministry Crosier says this.

Hebrews 6:19,20, is supposed to prove that Christ entered the Holy of Holies at his ascension, because Paul said he had entered within the veil. But the veil which divides between the Holy and the Holy of Holies is "the second veil," Hebrews 9:3; hence there are two veils, and that in Hebrews 6, being the first of which he speaks, must be the first veil, which hung before the Holy, and in Exodus was called a curtain. When he entered within the veil, he entered his tabernacle, of course the Holy, as that was the first apartment; and our hope, as an anchor of the soul, enters within the veil, i.e. the atonement of both apartments, including both the forgiveness and the blotting out of sins.

19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews 6:19-20 ESV

We see how certain Crosier is about his understanding of the Old Testament sanctuary service as he writes: 

Those who hold that Christ entered the Holy of Holies [2nd apartment] at, and has been ministering therein ever since his ascension, also believe, as of course they must, that the atonement of the Gospel Dispensation is the antitype of the atonement made on the tenth day of the seventh month under the law. If this is so, the events of the legal tenth day, have had their antitypes during the Gospel Dispensation. The first event in the atonement service of that day, was the cleansing of the Sanctuary, as we have seen from Leviticus 16. Then, upon their theory, the Sanctuary of the new covenant was cleansed in the early part of the Gospel Dispensation.  

In reality, I know of no Christians who believe Christ is ministering in the 2nd apartment. 

³ He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, Hebrews 1:3 ESV

¹¹ And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. ¹² But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, ¹³ waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. ¹⁴ For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Hebrews 10:11-14 ESV

²¹ Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, ²² who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. 1 Peter 3:21-22 ESV

 Crosier says there is no evidence of any earthly new covenant sanctuary being cleansed after the 2300 days. Of course, there is equally no evidence of a heavenly sanctuary being cleansed either but all of this is based on his specious thinking that he understands the Old Testament sanctuary system as it relates to Jesus Christ and the new covenant.

He then incorrectly asserts there are now only two options. 

One of these two conclusions is inevitable on the hypotheses that the Gospel Dispensation and the atonement made in it, is the antitype of the legal tenth day, and the atonement made in it. Upon which of these horns will they hang? If on the former, the declaration, "I came not to destroy the law," pierces them; but if they choose the latter, it then becomes them to prove that the law, which had a shadow of good things to come, was fulfilled within itself, that the shadow and substance filled the same place and time; also they will need to prove that the entire atonement for the forgiveness of sins was made before the Lamb was slain with whose blood the atonement was to be made.  

My new realization today was how did anyone in of the Adventist pioneers ever came to accept these ideas? It makes little sense and it depends upon very questionable concepts that are brought from the Old Testament types and symbols to the reality of Jesus Christ who clearly offered forgiveness even before His death, because God can forgive he never needed the blood of animals to grant forgiveness. But Crosier's second problem posed was that the law was fulfilled. Though he does not stop with fulfilled he adds that the law was fulfilled within itself. Again no one thinks that but him! 

¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Matthew 5:17-18 ESV

⁴ For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Romans 10:4 ESV

⁸ By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing ⁹ (which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, ¹⁰ but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation. Hebrews 9:8-11

¹³ For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, ¹⁴ how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Hebrews 9:13-14 ESV

¹⁵ Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. Hebrews 9:15

The only reason I can think of that would lead to accepting the whole Crosier and Edson explanation is to try and save face after the second great disappointment of Oct 22 1844, though Edson as well as other early Adventists had multiple great disappointments along with periods when they thought the door to salvation had been shut. That the Adventist church has not outgrown this is kind of amazing. I do think that with the internet age either have to change or they will simply lose all theologians and the seminaries will be attended only by people who only want to follow Adventist traditions and frankly give up on studying the Bible and Hermeneutics.