Wouldn’t one of those answers that always work in response to any Sunday school question — the Bible, God, or Jesus — be the answer to the dilemma of God’s justice and divine mercy?
But when Pope Francis answers the question, he neglects Jesus and the cross, the ultimate confluence of justice and mercy:
“Sacred Scripture presents us with God as infinite mercy, but also as perfect justice. How are these two things reconciled? How can the reality of mercy be articulated with the need for justice?” the Pope said Feb. 3.
While these two characteristics can seem like opposites, “it’s precisely the mercy of God that brings the fulfillment of true justice,” Francis affirmed.
The Pope made his comments to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly general audience. He recently began a new series of catechesis on the topic of mercy as it is understood in Scripture, in honor of the Jubilee of Mercy.
He said that when we think of justice, what might come to mind is an administration office where victims of an injustice appeal to a judge in court, asking that justice be done.
This, Francis noted, “is retributive justice, imposing a punishment to the guilty, according to the principle that each must be given what is due him.” While certain wrongs can be made right in this way, he said that it “still doesn’t bring true justice.”Instead, it’s “only in responding with good that evil can be truly defeated,” the Pope said, explaining that this is what we find in the Bible
By helping the guilty person to see the evil done and by appealing to conscience, he can change. Such persons are able “to see their wrong and be open to the forgiveness offered,” Francis said, noting that this is also how families forgive each other, spouses and children included.
Might this be a window into the the problem of Roman Catholic laity not knowing church dogma? And don’t forget how the social justice designs of the mainline Protestant churches eventually made doctrine a trifle.
Old Life 
This argument can consume the need for a Savior in the first place. Logically speaking it does away with Hell. What do we say about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? Noah’s Flood? The destruction of Korah’s Rebellion?
Perhaps the Pope should stick to stuff like Climate Change and Amnesty – at least he is misinformed only about temporal, earthly matters of no eternal consequence.
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Darryl,
You only had to look a few paragraphs down – “By making us see the wrongs we have done, the merciful Father helps us to recognize our own need for his mercy, which is revealed in Jesus Christ, he said.”
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Clete,
By making us see the wrongs we have done, the merciful Father helps us to recognize our own need for his mercy, which is revealed in Jesus Christ, he said.
That doesn’t answer the question about justice and mercy.
Francis’ statements are very confused, as usual. Justice isn’t mercy and mercy isn’t justice.
Looks like Rome is catching up to the mainline 150 years later.
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Andrew, don’t worry. James Young has the explanation. Development of doctrine. It’s only non-Roman Catholics who don’t have it. With Rome’s magic, you can do anything and smell like roses.
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James Young, first, not quotes from Francis.
Second, where’s the justice of God in pouring out his wrath upon his son? You guys re-sacrifice — remember the sacrificial system — every gosh darned day and Francis can’t point to the cross as God’s judgment of sin?
Try harder.
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Robert, ding ding.
you beat me (and James Young, the shill).
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Robert,
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1021.htm#article3
“God acts mercifully, not indeed by going against His justice, but by doing something more than justice; thus a man who pays another two hundred pieces of money, though owing him only one hundred, does nothing against justice, but acts liberally or mercifully. The case is the same with one who pardons an offence committed against him, for in remitting it he may be said to bestow a gift. Hence the Apostle calls remission a forgiving: “Forgive one another, as Christ has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). Hence it is clear that mercy does not destroy justice, but in a sense is the fulness thereof. And thus it is said: “Mercy exalteth itself above judgment” (James 2:13).
Mercy and truth are necessarily found in all God’s works, if mercy be taken to mean the removal of any kind of defect. Not every defect, however, can properly be called a misery; but only defect in a rational nature whose lot is to be happy; for misery is opposed to happiness. For this necessity there is a reason, because since a debt paid according to the divine justice is one due either to God, or to some creature, neither the one nor the other can be lacking in any work of God: because God can do nothing that is not in accord with His wisdom and goodness; and it is in this sense, as we have said, that anything is due to God. Likewise, whatever is done by Him in created things, is done according to proper order and proportion wherein consists the idea of justice. Thus justice must exist in all God’s works. Now the work of divine justice always presupposes the work of mercy; and is founded thereupon…. In all that follows, the power of mercy remains, and works indeed with even greater force; as the influence of the first cause is more intense than that of second causes. For this reason does God out of abundance of His goodness bestow upon creatures what is due to them more bountifully than is proportionate to their deserts: since less would suffice for preserving the order of justice than what the divine goodness confers; because between creatures and God’s goodness there can be no proportion.
In the justification of the ungodly, justice is seen, when God remits sins on account of love, though He Himself has mercifully infused that love. So we read of Magdalen: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much” (Luke 7:47).”
So yes, focusing on mercy does not detract from or neglect justice, but necessarily includes it. Just as Francis doesn’t have to talk about the Cross every time he talks about mercy, nor should one conclude he must think the Cross isn’t a big deal if he doesn’t mention it in a particular speech. Since he didn’t mention the Trinity when talking about Jesus in that speech, I guess he’s confused on the Trinity as well.
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Darryl,
“first, not quotes from Francis. ”
Surely you have a link you can provide to the full speech you read then right?
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Darryl,
“Second, where’s the justice of God in pouring out his wrath upon his son?”
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4046.htm
“That man should be delivered by Christ’s Passion was in keeping with both His mercy and His justice. With His justice, because by His Passion Christ made satisfaction for the sin of the human race; and so man was set free by Christ’s justice: and with His mercy, for since man of himself could not satisfy for the sin of all human nature, as was said above (Question 1, Article 2), God gave him His Son to satisfy for him, according to Romans 3:24-25: “Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath proposed to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood.” And this came of more copious mercy than if He had forgiven sins without satisfaction. Hence it is said (Ephesians 2:4): “God, who is rich in mercy, for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ.”
“Christ willed to deliver the human race from sins not merely by His power, but also according to justice. And therefore He did not simply weigh what great virtue His suffering would have from union with the Godhead, but also how much, according to His human nature, His pain would avail for so great a satisfaction. ”
God wasn’t “pouring His wrath upon his son”. That’s your unorthodox Christology and Trinitarianism at work again.
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James,
That quote is nice, but that doesn’t explain that mercy isn’t justice. And Francis isn’t a Thomist.
And the point back to Francis is this idea that true justice isn’t retributive. Which is blatantly false from a biblical perspective. It’s left-wing, liberal clap trap. Justice says “eye for an eye.” Restoration of the offender isn’t justice. It doesn’t have to be opposed to it necessarily, but it’s not justice.
Reading Francis’ words quoted above I hear “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” Yeah, the cross is important to Rome, somehow. It’s a really good example. But it’s not necessary.
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Robert,
“Yeah, the cross is important to Rome, somehow. It’s a really good example. But it’s not necessary.”
The cross is important (understatement). It is more than a good example. It was not strictly necessary. Thus, Aquinas:
First, to show why the atonement was not strictly necessary (if no satisfaction):
“God of His omnipotent power could have restored human nature in many other ways….But if He had willed to free man from sin without any satisfaction, He would not have acted against justice. For a judge, while preserving justice, cannot pardon fault without penalty, if he must visit fault committed against another–for instance, against another man, or against the State, or any Prince in higher authority. But God has no one higher than Himself, for He is the sovereign and common good of the whole universe. Consequently, if He forgive sin, which has the formality of fault in that it is committed against Himself, He wrongs no one: just as anyone else, overlooking a personal trespass, without satisfaction, acts mercifully and not unjustly. And so David exclaimed when he sought mercy: “To Thee only have I sinned” (Psalm 50:6), as if to say: “Thou canst pardon me without injustice.”
But then why satisfaction rather than divine fiat forgiveness?
“God gave him His Son to satisfy for him, according to Romans 3:24-25: “Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath proposed to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood.” And this came of more copious mercy than if He had forgiven sins without satisfaction. Hence it is said (Ephesians 2:4): “God, who is rich in mercy, for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ.”
“That man should be delivered by Christ’s Passion was in keeping with both His mercy and His justice. With His justice, because by His Passion Christ made satisfaction for the sin of the human race; and so man was set free by Christ’s justice: and with His mercy, for since man of himself could not satisfy for the sin of all human nature”
Answering Whether there was any more suitable way of delivering the human race than by Christ’s Passion?:
“Among means to an end that one is the more suitable whereby the various concurring means employed are themselves helpful to such end. But in this that man was delivered by Christ’s Passion, many other things besides deliverance from sin concurred for man’s salvation. In the first place, man knows thereby how much God loves him, and is thereby stirred to love Him in return, and herein lies the perfection of human salvation; hence the Apostle says (Romans 5:8): “God commendeth His charity towards us; for when as yet we were sinners…Christ died for us.” Secondly, because thereby He set us an example of obedience, humility, constancy, justice, and the other virtues displayed in the Passion, which are requisite for man’s salvation. Hence it is written (1 Peter 2:21): “Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps.” Thirdly, because Christ by His Passion not only delivered man from sin, but also merited justifying grace for him and the glory of bliss, as shall be shown later. Fourthly, because by this man is all the more bound to refrain from sin, according to 1 Corinthians 6:20: “You are bought with a great price: glorify and bear God in your body.” Fifthly, because it redounded to man’s greater dignity, that as man was overcome and deceived by the devil, so also it should be a man that should overthrow the devil; and as man deserved death, so a man by dying should vanquish death. Hence it is written (1 Corinthians 15:57): “Thanks be to God who hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” It was accordingly more fitting that we should be delivered by Christ’s Passion than simply by God’s good-will.”
But then why the atonement necessary given satisfaction (besides just being most fitting way to express God’s justice and love as above)?
“He properly atones for an offense who offers something which the offended loves equally, or even more than he detested the offense. But by suffering out of love and obedience, Christ gave more to God than was required to compensate for the offense of the whole human race. First of all, because of the exceeding charity from which He suffered; secondly, on account of the dignity of His life which He laid down in atonement, for it was the life of one who was God and man; thirdly, on account of the extent of the Passion, and the greatness of the grief endured, as stated above (Question 46, Article 6). And therefore Christ’s Passion was not only a sufficient but a superabundant atonement for the sins of the human race; according to 1 John 2:2: “He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.””
Not Aquinas, but Ott: “By atonement in general is understood the satisfaction of a demand. In the narrower sense it is taken to mean the reparation of an insult: Satisfaction is nothing more than compensation for an injury done to another. This occurs through a voluntary performance which outweighs the injustice done. If such a performance through its intrinsic value completely counterbalances the grievousness of the guilt according to the demands of justice, the atonement is adequate or of full value….If the atonement is not performed by the offender himself, but by another in his stead it is vicarious atonement.”
The offering/sacrifice has to adequately compensate for the debt – it cannot just be arbitrary. A mortal human could not satisfy our debt for example because our debt is infinite. Nor could Christ committing suicide or dying involuntarily or with resentment do it either.
So Ott again: “The intrinsic reason of the adequacy of Christ’s atonement lies in the Hypostatic Union. Christ’s actions possess an intrinsic infinite value, because the [person doing the action] is the Divine Person of the Logos. Thus Christ’s atonement was, through its intrinsic value, sufficient to counterbalance the infinite insult offered to God.”
Back to Aquinas: “He properly atones for an offense who offers something which the offended one loves equally, or even more than he detested the offense. But by suffering out of love and obedience, Christ gave more to God than was required to compensate for the offense of the whole human race.”
“The dignity of Christ’s flesh is not to be estimated solely from the nature of flesh, but also from the Person assuming it–namely, inasmuch as it was God’s flesh, the result of which was that it was of infinite worth.”
“…although the grace of God suffices by itself for the remission of sins, as the nineteenth argument was proposing, nonetheless in the remission of sin something is required on the part of him whose sin is remitted: namely, that he satisfy the one offended. And since other men were unable to do this for themselves, Christ did this for all by suffering a voluntary death out of charity. ”
“But it must further be noticed that satisfaction is also measured in accord with the dignity of him who satisfies. For one word of apology by a king offered in satisfaction for some injury is considered greater than if anyone else should either kneel, or prostrate naked, or undertake any humiliation to satisfy someone injured. No mere man, however, had that infinite dignity such that his satisfaction could be reputed worthy in respect to the injury done God. Hence, it was necessary that some man of infinite dignity be found who would undergo punishment for all and so satisfy fully for the sins of the whole world. For this, then, the only-begotten Word of God, true God and Son of God, assumed a human nature and willed to suffer death in it that satisfying He might cleanse the entire human race of sin. Hence, St. Peter also says, “Christ died once for our sins the Just for the unjust, that He might offer us to God” (1 Pet 3: 18).”
And this also touches on the unfathomable extent of Christ’s suffering: “Christ grieved not only over the loss of His own bodily life, but also over the sins of all others. And this grief in Christ surpassed all grief of every contrite heart, both because it flowed from a greater wisdom and charity, by which the pang of contrition is intensified, and because He grieved at the one time for all sins, according to Isaiah 53:4: “Surely He hath carried our sorrows.”
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Clete,
God wasn’t “pouring His wrath upon his son”. That’s your unorthodox Christology and Trinitarianism at work again.
Yep, the Bible is full of teaching wherein the guilty go unpunished. Except of course for that whole sacrificial system where animals are KILLED in place of the guilty.
Oh wait, CTC says this is unorthodox. Must be. They are infallible.
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Cletus,
In other words, its orthodox Roman Catholicism for God to violate His own character. Holiness, justice, no biggies. They aren’t inherent to who God is. All that is inherent to him is vacuous, ill-defined love that means you can hate his son as a faithful Muslim and still be in bliss. All roads lead to heaven.
The offering/sacrifice has to adequately compensate for the debt – it cannot just be arbitrary. A mortal human could not satisfy our debt for example because our debt is infinite. Nor could Christ committing suicide or dying involuntarily or with resentment do it either.
If God can forgive without sacrifice, the whole thing is arbitrary. If there’s no necessity that God’s character imposes on the atonement, then the death of Christ wasn’t the best way to show God’s love or any other such thing. God could have shown his love in better ways if the cross is not a manifestation of his wrath. JIf God’s character doesn’t impose necessity, very hard to see exactly what God’s character is.
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Cletus,
Consequently, if He forgive sin, which has the formality of fault in that it is committed against Himself, He wrongs no one: just as anyone else, overlooking a personal trespass, without satisfaction, acts mercifully and not unjustly.
This is so confused as a conclusion. Yes God has no one higher than Himself to whom He answers. Which means He would wrong HIMSELF just to simply forgive without imposing justice.
Aquinas really blunders here. The basis for our forgiveness isn’t the same as God’s. So much for avoiding univocal predication of God.
And here’s a big one: And so David exclaimed when he sought mercy: “To Thee only have I sinned” (Psalm 50:6), as if to say: “Thou canst pardon me without injustice.”
Talk about eisegesis.
Like most brilliant thinkers, when Aquinas is good, he’s awesome. When he blunders its no ordinary mistake but one of epic proportions.
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Robert,
When did the priests kill the bag of flour?
When was the scapegoat said to be punished and killed for sins, rather than bearing sins in being sent away from the community?
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Robert,
“its orthodox Roman Catholicism for God to violate His own character.”
Uh, no. Read again. Aquinas of all people isn’t saying God violates His own character. Are you saying God’s act of creation was necessitated? As was the Incarnation and the Cross?
” Yes God has no one higher than Himself to whom He answers. Which means He would wrong HIMSELF just to simply forgive without imposing justice.”
It is not unjust for God to forgive without the Cross, He wouldn’t “wrong Himself” in forgiving the debt owed to Him. That’s the point Aquinas is making. And that would also be an act of mercy (as well as justice). Thus tying mercy and justice together per his previous citations I offered.
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CVD: Darryl,You only had to look a few paragraphs down – “By making us see the wrongs we have done, the merciful Father helps us to recognize our own need for his mercy, which is revealed in Jesus Christ, he said.”
and the spotlight – oh so momentary on GOD, on JESUS –before returning to man.. .
for then the article says “Francis also spoke to confessors at the close of his address, telling them that every person who comes to the confessional is looking for a father who will give them the strength to go forward and forgive them in the name of God. Because of this, “being a confessor is a very big responsibility, very big, because that child that comes to you truly seeks a father,” the Pope said, reminding priests that when they are in the confessional, “you are in the place of the Father, who makes justice with his mercy!””
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Ali,
“you are in the place of the Father, who makes justice with his mercy!”
Yup.
And Christ gave the apostles the power to forgive sins. They were men.
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James Young, Francois Hollande does not have authority over me.
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James Young, now New Advent is the magisterium?
I don’t know why you diss the apostle Paul, though I get it, he wasn’t pope. In Romans — get it? — he talks about the law demanding God’s wrath against unrighteousness and that we are “justified by his blood,” and so “much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” (Rom. 5:9).
But I know that is nowhere near as clear as papal infallibility in Matt. 16:18.
As if.
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James Young, “It is not unjust for God to forgive without the Cross”
In other words, God forgives without the cross. So why did Christ die? Was it a flannel graph lesson to teach us not to be bad?
Say hello to Charles Finney.
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Darryl,
So you didnt read the full speech. Cool. Yup. Gotta try to score those points whenever you can.
“God’s wrath against unrighteousness”
Gotcha. So Christ was unrighteous. Thats orthodox Christology. As if.
God forgave with the Cross. The Cross is necessary given satisfaction. Satisfaction is not strictly necessary. All of this was explicitly stated as I went through Aquinas’ explanations. Maybe you missed it.
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CVD Ali,And Christ gave the apostles the power to forgive sins. They were men.
John 20: 23 If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
“The meaning of the passage is not that man can forgive sins that belongs only to God Isaiah 43:23 but that they should be inspired; that in founding the church, and in declaring the will of God, they should be taught by the Holy Spirit to declare on what terms, to what characters, and to what temper of mind God would extend forgiveness of sins. It was not authority to forgive individuals, but to establish in all the churches the terms and conditions on which men might be pardoned, with a promise that God would confirm all that they taught; that all might have assurance of forgiveness who would comply with those terms; and that those who did not comply should not be forgiven, but that their sins should be retained. This commission is as far as possible from the authority which the Roman Catholic claims of remitting sin and of pronouncing pardon.” (Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Whole Bible)
“Verse 23..You say that sounds like we can go around saying, “All right, you, you’re forgiven.” “All right, you, uh-huh.” And we can go around saying your’s are remitted, your’s are retained and we have an arbitrary right to forgive sin. Is that what it’s teaching? Obviously, it can’t be teaching that. Mark 2:7 says, “Who can forgive sin but God?” The answer is no one. So it can’t mean that. Well, the Roman Catholic Church for years has has indicated that this meant that the Apostles were here and they were given the right of absolution. They were given the right to forgive sins. And that in the papal succession, Peter being the Pope and all the Popes after that also have the right of absolution of sins, that the Pope can forgive sins. That doesn’t make any sense from any angle, but least of all from a textual angle here because of the fact that it was not just the ten who were here, not just apostles but there were others who were here. The other indication is that there were women here from the other gospels and some other disciples as well. So this was a general thing for the whole church.You say, “Well then you’re saying the whole church has the right to grant absolution.” No, that’s not what it’s saying either. You say, “What is it saying?” You say, “Well it’s obviously saying that you have the right to say someone’s sins are forgiven and someone else’s aren’t.” And that is true. You say, “Can I go up to somebody and say, ‘Your sins are forgiven.'” The answer: you can, absolutely, yes you can as a believer. Now this may open up a whole new thing for you. You say, “Can I go up to somebody and say, ‘Sorry, your sins are not forgiven.'” Yes you can, absolutely.
“You say, “How can I ever do that?” I’ll tell you how. Ready?”
“To any man who conscious of his sin repents toward God and believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, you can say to that man, “My friend, your sins are forgiven.” To any man who willfully rejects and will not believe and refuses Christ, you can say, “My friend, your sins are retained.” You and I have the right to say to a man whether or not God has forgiven his sins or hasn’t by the fact of what he has done with Jesus Christ. Now can you imagine if we didn’t have this power? Could you imagine the Lord saying…now you go out there and you preach the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit…and we go to some guy and say, “Man, here’s the gospel,” and we fire it away and give him the whole shot and then he prays and he says, “Christ come into my life and I believe.” And then he says, “Well did it happen?” And you say, “Well, I don’t know…you know, one of these days you’ll die, you’ll find out.” No, you’ve got to be able to say, “Brother, on the basis that you confess Christ, I say to you your sins by the mouth of God are forgiven.” You have the right to say that, beloved. That’s a power, isn’t it? What an authority. Can you imagine us going out to witness to a world with no authority to say that they were forgiven or not forgiven? We would be insipid. Nobody would believe anything we said and people would be frustrated to the point of terror. Praise God that Jesus not only told us what to do and gave us the power to do it, but thirdly, He said, “Now you can tell them what’s been done.” gty.org sermon 1577
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Cletus,
When did the priests kill the bag of flour?
The sins of all the people were atoned with blood on the Day of Atonement. So even for those who were poor and couldn’t afford an animal, death for their sin was required. Read your Bible.
When was the scapegoat said to be punished and killed for sins, rather than bearing sins in being sent away from the community?
Hmm, a domesticated goat was sent out into the wilderness to survive. Yeah, that’s it. Domesticated animals do great when left out to fend for themselves in the wilderness.
But of course, even if we assume that almost certainly unlikely scenario that the goat’s death was not intended (and ignore evidence that the goat was actually pushed off a cliff), there’s still the problem of the other goat who was KILLED for the people. Read Leviticus 16.
Are you saying God’s act of creation was necessitated?
No.
As was the Incarnation and the Cross?
In an absolute sense, no. God having decided to show mercy, then yes. Not the cross necessarily but the death of a substitute. Once God chose to save, the death of His Son was the ONLY way it could happen. God doesn’t just wave a wand. That’s not justice. That’s overlooking the sin.
It is not unjust for God to forgive without the Cross, He wouldn’t “wrong Himself” in forgiving the debt owed to Him. That’s the point Aquinas is making. And that would also be an act of mercy (as well as justice). Thus tying mercy and justice together per his previous citations I offered.
The chief error is in viewing sin as exclusively a debt to God’s honor. It is that, but it is much more. Your theology of sin is too weak.
Gotcha. So Christ was unrighteous. Thats orthodox Christology. As if.
2 Cor. 5:21: “21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Gal. 3:13: “13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— ”
Christ himself wasn’t unrighteous. Christ bore the sin of HIs people and stood in their place. Just like the animals weren’t formally sinful but had the sin of the people placed on them. Christ’s receiving divine wrath doesn’t mean He is formally unrighteous or guilty of sin Himself. It’s called substitution. We know Rome doesn’t like the doctrine, but it is what the Bible teaches.
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Clete: “God wasn’t “pouring His wrath upon his son”. That’s your unorthodox Christology and Trinitarianism at work again.”
What is it you have against the apostles, James? Too bad you outlaw Gal. 3:13 and it’s OT source:
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us– for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE ” (Gal 3:13).
Who cursed Jesus? The Father:
“his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.” (Deu 21:23).
Hey CvD, do you know what an apostle says about preaching a gospel that is not a gospel?
So let’s see. You don’t do apostles. You don’t do Jesus. You don’t do His Father. You don’t do the Bible.
Does Satan teach a superior epistemology backstroke in the lake of fire?
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Ali,
The Apostles werent forgiving sins instead of God. Neither do priests. So the appeal to Mark 2:7 or Isaiah is irrelevant. Baptism isnt performed by priests instead of or in lieu of God. God works through men. Stop listening to John Macarthur for “insights” into RCism and see if the church fathers shared your anti-sacramental view.
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James Young, I read what the Roman Catholic reporters report. You’ve got issues with your tribe? Let’s hear them. Nope.
In case you haven’t heard, Christ bore the sins of the world.
So Aquinas is more authoritative than Paul? See where your papal infatuation leads? You don’t read the Bible. Hard to get the impression there that satisfaction is not “strictly necessary.”
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No one, James’ stool has three legs, James, Tradition, Magisterium.
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Darryl,
So Aquinas is more authoritative than Paul? See where your papal infatuation leads? You don’t read the Bible. Hard to get the impression there that satisfaction is not “strictly necessary.”
This is what happens when you start with Aristotle and medieval notions of honor instead of Scripture.
Funny how Aristotle, who never read the NT, is part of the infallible tradition that defines what the NT means.
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Cletus van Damme: Ali, The Apostles werent forgiving sins instead of God. Neither do priests.
CVD, and would you please stop listening to the pope when he contradicts the Lord.
CVD – prooftexts?
for the 1) pope arbitrarily authorizing forgiveness of a certain sin, for a certain period of time; previously unforgiveable;2) so far only for the Year of mercy; 3) but maybe, maybe not permanently depending on what the pope decides); 4) there are some sin penalties only bishops can lift; 5) church practices move beyond rhetoric….etc
“Pope Francis shook up the Catholic world — again — on Tuesday by announcing that priests around the world will be authorized to forgive the “sin of abortion” when the church begins a “Year of Mercy” this December”
“What’s new is that Pope Francis, at least for the Year of Mercy, is universalizing this permission,” said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor-at-large at America magazine in New York. ”
“The Pope’s policy does not change church doctrine and applies only to the Year of Mercy, a centuries-old Catholic practice during which believers may receive special indulgences for their sins.
The mercy year begins on December 8 and runs through November 20, 2016. Vatican officials said it is possible the pontiff will allow the abortion policy to continue in perpetuity.”
“The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that person who procures an abortion incurs automatic excommunication, a penalty that often only a bishop can lift. Some experts in the Catholic canon law expressed confusion about the practical effects of the Pope’s announcement.”
“With the abortion announcement, Francis seems to be signaling a “third way” to govern the church around thorny issues. He’s not changing long-standing church practices, but he’s moving beyond rhetoric.”
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/01/europe/pope-francis-abortion/
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“James Young, “It is not unjust for God to forgive without the Cross””
Wow! So Jesus pleads with the Father to take the cup if possible,
You need to rethink this. Insofar as your description is consonant with RC doctrine, it is a sign of a repudiation of the gospel by your sect.
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and CVD -this is what that repentant woman agonizing over her abortion needs to simply and unequivocally understand:
God’s decreed: the wages of sin is death; Death=God’s decreed penalty for sin
God’s method for the forgiveness of sins- the shedding of blood –without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness
and blood shows the costliness of sin
God’s justice demands the payment of the penalty-death
In God’s mercy, He will accept the death of an acceptable substitute in place of the death of the sinner.
the only acceptance substitute was Jesus
Christ entered the perfect tabernacle through His own blood, once for all, having obtained eternal redemption; how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God-for this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance, for where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it.
Jesus is (only) the way, the truth, the life; no one comes to the Father but through Jesus.
and: therefore, there is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
-AND…incredibly- those in Christ,are not just forgiven but adopted as His children w/all that entails
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Robert, development allows you to be — how to say it — elastic.
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Darryl,
I agree Christ bore the sins of the world. So does Scripture. So does Aquinas. So do the fathers who hammered out the Christological and Trinitarian dogmas you reject. That doesnt entail God pouring his wrath out upon His Son. Aquinas isnt more authoritative than Paul.
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Darryl,
It’s elastic as long as you develop in the direction that the Magisterium says you can. Traditionally, that wasn’t very elastic. But with Francis in charge, who’s to judge?
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CvD,
I agree Christ bore the sins of the world. So does Scripture. So does Aquinas. So do the fathers who hammered out the Christological and Trinitarian dogmas you reject.
DGH rejects those dogmas? The hypocrite!! Run him out of the OPC, now!!
Or, you slander him, and aren’t knowledgeable of the details, the kind paid to homoousian v. homoiousian by some of the Fathers against the Arians.
It is exactly this kind of ignorance seen in RC dogma, Trent forward.
Detail. God is in it.
To wit: its “λογίζεται ἡ πίστις αὐτοῦ εἰς δικαιοσύνην” that pertains to salvation by Christ’s wrath-appeasing crucifixion (Rom. 3:25-4:5), instead of RC mishandling of Gal. 5:6, “πίστις δι᾽ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη”.
Can you wash away your sins by love?
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James Young, well, if Jesus had to die for the sins of the world, and death is the penalty for sin, I’m curious how you think God was pouring out his mercy on his only begotten.
If Paul is more authoritative than Aquinas, why don’t you quote the apostle once in a while? Bible challenged, are you?
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James Young, should I believe you or Fr. Richard G. Cipolla:
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Noon,
““Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us– for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE ””
Right, the curse is physical death. Which Christ undertook as an offer of self-sacrificial love to the Father; He didn’t undergo God pouring His wrath out upon Him. Denying the curse means denying Christ died, not denying your view of penal substitution.
As Augustine said, “Confess then that Christ died, and you may confess that He bore the curse for us; and that when Moses said, “Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree,” he said in fact, To hang on a tree is to be mortal, or actually to die. He might have said, “Cursed is every one that is mortal,” or “Cursed is every one dying;” but the prophet knew that Christ would suffer on the cross, and that heretics would say that He hung on the tree only in appearance, without really dying. So he exclaims, Cursed; meaning that He really died. He knew that the death of sinful man, which Christ though sinless bore, came from that curse, “If you touch it, you shall surely die.” ”
“DGH rejects those dogmas? The hypocrite!! Run him out of the OPC, now!!”
Why would he be run out of the OPC? The OPC shares his views. As do these Reformed teachers:
Piper: “When Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” it was the scream of the damned — damned in our place”
Anyabwile: “At 3 o’clock that dark Friday afternoon, the Father turned His face away and the ancient, eternal fellowship between Father and Son was broken as divine wrath rained down like a million Soddoms and Gomorrah’s.”
MacArthur: “In some mysterious way during those awful hours on the cross, the Father poured out the full measure of His wrath against sin, and the recipient of that wrath was God’s own beloved Son. In this lies the true meaning of the cross…. It was a punishment so severe that a mortal could spend all eternity in the torments of hell, and still he would not have begun to exhaust the divine wrath that was heaped on Christ at the cross. This was the true measure of Christ’s sufferings on the cross. The physical pains of crucifixion – dreadful as they were – were nothing compared to the wrath of the Father against Him.”
Calvin: “Nothing had been done if Christ had only endured corporeal death. In order to interpose between us and God’s anger, and satisfy his righteous judgment, it was necessary that he should feel the weight of divine vengeance.”
Boettner: “He was literally suffering the pangs of hell. For that is essentially what hell is, separation from God, separation from everything that is good and desirable.”
Grudem: “As Jesus bore the guilt of our sins alone, God the Father, the mighty Creator, the Lord of the universe, poured out on Jesus the fury of his wrath: Jesus became the object of the intense hatred of sin and vengeance against sin that God had patiently stored up since the beginning of the world.”
Sproul: “Until that moment that my sin was placed upon Him. And the one who was pure was pure no more. And God cursed Him. It was if there was a cry from Heaven – excuse my language but I can be no more accurate than to say – it was as if Jesus heard the words ‘God damn you’, because that’s what it meant to be cursed, to be damned, to be under the anathema of the Father. As I said I don’t understand that, but I know that it’s true.”
God never hated Christ or “damned” Him. There was no rupture or confusion in the Trinity. Nor did the opponents of the Arians you allude to teach such.
CtC – http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/04/catholic-and-reformed-conceptions-of-the-atonement/ :
“One problem with the Reformed conception is that it would either make the Father guilty of the greatest evil of all time (pouring out the punishment for all sin on an innocent man, knowing that he is innocent), or if Christ were truly guilty and deserved all that punishment, then His suffering would be of no benefit to us.
A second problem with the Reformed conception is the following dilemma. If God the Father was pouring out His wrath on the Second Person of the Trinity, then God was divided against Himself, God the Father hating His own Word. God could hate the Son only if the Son were another being, that is, if polytheism or Arianism were true. But if God loved the Son, then it must be another person (besides the Son) whom God was hating during Christ’s Passion. And hence that entails Nestorianism, i.e. that Christ was two persons, one divine and the other human. He loved the divine Son but hated the human Jesus. Hence the Reformed conception conflicts with the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. The Father and the Son cannot be at odds. If Christ loves men, then so does the Father. Or, if the Father has wrath for men, then so does Christ. And, if the Father has wrath for the Son, then the Son must have no less wrath for Himself.
St. Thomas Aquinas says:
Christ as God delivered Himself up to death by the same will and action as that by which the Father delivered Him up; but as man He gave Himself up by a will inspired of the Father. Consequently there is no contrariety in the Father delivering Him up and in Christ delivering Himself up.
There St. Thomas explains that there is no contrariety between the Father and the Son during Christ’s Passion, no loss of love from the Father to the Son or the Son to the Father. The Father wholly and entirely loved His Son during the entire Passion. By one and the same divine will and action, the Father allowed the Son to be crucified and the Son allowed Himself to be crucified.”
“Can you wash away your sins by love?”
The Passion was an act of love (understatement).
“For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”
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CvD,
When you quote me you always leave out the truly salient point.
In our most recent exchange I asked you 2 times to show me one church from the NT that was like your RCC. Remember? You had claimed there was such a church in the NT writings but when I asked you for one example, you refused to answer. 3 times, James.
And both times you went all Hillary on me, never answering but spinning your own talking point.
And here we go again. The salient point I offered to the debate on whether the Father cursed the Son was the OT source behind the curse of Gal. 3:13, Deut. 21:23, “for he who is hanged is accursed of God.”
And you totally ignored that in your prolix response.
But what’s really bizarre is that you admit above (through Augustine) that death is God’s punishment for sin but fail to do the simple math.
Since Christ never sinned, any death of any kind upon Him is exceedingly unjust.
This leaves you in the darkness of your CtC slander against God the Father:
Fact is Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of the Father was innocent, and yet died.
And worse, He died the death of the cursed, a stumbling block for Jews and foolishness to Gentiles (like you). So just as God promises death for all who sin in Genesis 2, and Gal. 3:10-13 teaches Jesus the sinless One redeemed us by being cursed with a particular type of death by God, your problem with the apostolic gospel remains.
And fwiw, the Son was never hated by the Father, but always loved Him. Nor did the Son ever not love the Father. God can, in magnificent eternal love, impute the iniquity of others to the innocent Servant, as Isaiah says. Your partial quoting of Reformed and non-Reformed teachers above misses how clear they all are on this point.
Please don’t go all Hillary on me again. The point is Gal. 3:13 quoting Deut. 21:23. I might question your MoC.
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NOON,
I had an extended conversation about this very point a few years ago online with several RCs and even one non-RC who denied that “cursed by God” in Galatians and Deuteronomy mean “cursed by God.” Basically it ended up that they believe basically in an impersonal, deistic concept of the Father’s involvement in the crucifixion. God set up a system in which death is the logical consequence of death but not really a punishment. God the Father isn’t really involved at all. You simply can’t square that with Scripture.
As you noted: Death is the punishment for sin. Christ never sinned. Christ died. That requires imputation, otherwise Christ’s death was unjust and our sin remains. The RC position ends up having our sin remaining, at least the temporal consequences of it.
The fundamental problem is Rome’s absolute refusal to view dogma through the lens of Scripture. They take the truth of the Father’s eternal, unbreakable love for the Son and make that such a controlling motif, based on a faulty understanding of what such love must look like, that they ignore Scripture. They don’t let the teaching of Scripture qualify their understanding of God’s love and Christ’s work. They come up with a notion of it and then use that to ignore what Scripture plainly says.
It happens over and over again.
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@ Robert the Valiant,
The gospel is always foolishness to Gentiles.
Have you noticed how exact is the agreement to the Roman formulation of Christ’s cross to Charles Finneys’? Imputation opposes righteousness.
And how they slander the Father, so contemptuous are they, prattling on about God’s love without the wrath of the cross:
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.”
(Rom 5:8-9)
Have a blessed Lord Day.
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Since Christ never sinned, any death of any kind upon Him is exceedingly unjust.
just to clarify, which I think you have elsewhere: God is never unjust.
CVD: Can you wash away your sins by love?” Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8
that verse – different category ,CVD, – human ‘covering’ loving others as they are ; but only Jesus washes away sin
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Ali
Posted February 7, 2016 at 10:18 am | Permalink
Since Christ never sinned, any death of any kind upon Him is exceedingly unjust.>>>>
Yes. Wicked men acted unjustly when they killed Jesus.
Ali:
just to clarify, which I think you have elsewhere: God is never unjust.>>>>
God is just. God’s nature is righteous. He cannot sin. He cannot act unjustly. The injustice done against Christ is not God’s injustice. God used the evil actions of unjust men to accomplish His purposes.
CVD: Can you wash away your sins by love?” Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8
Ali:
that verse – different category ,CVD, – human ‘covering’ loving others as they are ; but only Jesus washes away sin>>>>>>
Is not Jesus the clearest expression of divine love? Jesus’ covering of love does wash away sin.
People were mistaken when they saw Jesus dying on the cross and thought that God was punishing Him.(Isaiah 53:4)
Jesus didn’t defeat God on the cross. He defeated the powers of hell, sin, and death, and rose from the dead 3 days later. God the Father is never the enemy of His Son, nor can He be.
“But St. John goes even further when he affirms that “God is love”: God’s very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.”
– From the Catechism of the Catholic Church
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just to clarify, which I think you have elsewhere: God is never unjust.
Topper.
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Mermaid,
Is not Jesus the clearest expression of divine love?
If death isn’t a punishment for sin, it’s not clear at all how Jesus would be the clearest expression of divine love.
If death is God’s punishment for sin and Christ takes it on Himself in our place, then yes, Jesus is the clearest expression of divine love.
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Robert
Posted February 7, 2016 at 7:33 pm | Permalink
Mermaid,
Is not Jesus the clearest expression of divine love?
If death isn’t a punishment for sin, it’s not clear at all how Jesus would be the clearest expression of divine love.
If death is God’s punishment for sin and Christ takes it on Himself in our place, then yes, Jesus is the clearest expression of divine love.>>>>>>>
Did God pour out His wrath on His innocent Son, or did the Son of God offer Himself up in willing, self- sacrificial love to His Father?
Big difference.
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Mermaid, “Did God pour out His wrath on His innocent Son, or did the Son of God offer Himself up in willing, self- sacrificial love to His Father?”
Why is it either or?
The difference appears to be that you are squeamish that God is angry at and punishes sin. I’m not sure which Bible you read.
Both of those last sentences may well explain your “conversion.”
I know Paul wasn’t a pope:
What exactly about propitiation don’t you understand?
But you’ve got epistemological certainty covered.
Wow.
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“God is angry at and punishes sin.”
So God was angry at Jesus and punished Him to satiate His anger. Got it.
“The word propitiation carries the basic idea of appeasement, or satisfaction”
RCism teaches satisfaction. Satisfaction doesn’t get you penal substitution and God pouring His wrath out and inflicting vengeance upon Christ.
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. — Anselm, Cur Deus Homo 24
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No one of note:just to clarify, which I think you have elsewhere: God is never unjust.
Topper.
oh, noon. topper? thinking it might be ‘valiant’ to clarify God’s character.
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— Anselm, Cur Deus Homo 2.18
In CDH, Anselm clearly lays out that
* Jesus offered himself both in obedience to the Father and also of his own free will.
* That the debt owed is the debt of punishment for sin.
* That the debt is paid by the Son to the Father,
* And that the payment was meritorious precisely because it was not owed.
The Catholics here meanwhile would teach that Jesus gave up his life to Romans and Jews, which made satisfaction because of love.
Mermaid, you rhetorically ask whether God poured out his wrath on the Son or whether Jesus gave his life willingly.
Well: Do you walk to school, or do you take your lunch?
Anselm says both. Jesus is punished. That punishment is offered willingly by the Son to the Father as satisfaction for sin. If you see a conflict there, you’ve missed the point of the Christian gospel.
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Jesus is the God-Man. Fully Man. Fully God. One hypostasis.
So, did God pour out His wrath on Himself?
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“The Catholics here meanwhile would teach that Jesus gave up his life to Romans and Jews”
I missed where anyone said that. I also missed where Anselm taught satisfaction entails God pouring out His wrath and hatred upon Jesus.
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Mermaid,
So, did God pour out His wrath on Himself?
God took HIs own wrath upon Himself in the person of His Son.
Did God pour out His wrath on His innocent Son, or did the Son of God offer Himself up in willing, self- sacrificial love to His Father?
Big difference.
The Son of God willingly offered Himself up in self-sacrificial love to the Father and bore the punishment for sin that was due to sinners. It’s both.
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Clete,
I also missed where Anselm taught satisfaction entails God pouring out His wrath and hatred upon Jesus.
I also missed where the Bible said that cross was unnecessary for forgiveness and that God could simply forgive if He wanted to without satisfaction.
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James Young, got it. Rome blames the Jews.
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James Young, you’ve drunk from the wrong cup for too long. Try the Bible once in a while:
I know, not nearly as impressive as Pope Francis saving trees.
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Mermaid, Have you ever thought for one scintilla of a second about Abraham taking Isaac on a trip to make a sacrifice?
Imagine up.
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Mermaid: God is just. Jesus is the God-Man. Fully Man. Fully God.
DG (to mermaid): I’m not sure which Bible you read.
DG: Imagine up
amen …and more of the same Bible we all read:
The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He. Deut 32:4
it is impossible for God to lie, Hebrews 6:18
Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Matthew 27:46
23Jesus delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, was nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. 24 But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. 36 God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.” Acts 2
3 He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth.8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? 9 His grave was assigned with wicked men,yet He was with a rich man in His death, because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth. Isaiah 53
10 But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.11 As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.12 Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty with the strong; because He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors. Isaiah 53
He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” John 3:36
9you, who turn to God from idols to serve a living and true God, 10 and wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come. 1 Thess 1
8 we,of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. 9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. 11 Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing. 1 Thess 5
If we confess our sins, he is FAITHFUL AND JUST to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9 (Susan, for you)
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Aside from the gross mischaracterization and understanding of penal substitution I’ve seen from R.C.’s here and elsewhere is the notion that the satisfaction theory is the R.C. understanding.
Just ask the RC theologians at Boston College if Anselm’s satisfaction theory is their understanding of the atonement. You’ll be laughed off campus. And why should we believe their views are any less orthodox than the views promoted by RC apologists. Particularly when hardly any RC apologists have the imprimatur of RC schools of theology.
it boggles the mind.
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@Robert
As far as I can tell, what really matters is what Tupac Shakur (the most important theologian in the RC pantheon?) thinks:
http://en.gravatar.com/kmarie1122 (follow the links…totally worth it).
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@cvd
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” — Mt. 26:39
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Matthew 27:46
So how do these texts make sense with your assertion that the crucifixion of Christ was not necessary and that this was something other than a punishment that Christ dreaded? We have Christ begging that this “cup” (clearly a symbol of wrath in Jewish imagery) be taken away “if possible” – evidently it wasn’t – and the Son being forsaken by the Father – sounds pretty harsh to be “forsaken” (the Father turns his face away – sort of the opposite of the OT blessing – may his face shine upon you – is it not?).
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@SDB,
Ah yes, Ms. Grimes.
My question is what is the “principled reason” to reject her view of Roman Catholicism since she is on the faculty of a RC university and hasn’t been disciplined or excommunicated. If we’re supposed to go all-in on the Magisterium and Apostolic Succession, what other recourse is there but to think that any RC theologian is in lockstep with the church unless they’ve been excommunicated.
Something is wrong with the paradigm, and it’s not our attempt to understand it…
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sdb,
“My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
The Passion was necessary in one sense and ordained by God, but not absolutely necessary. The Incarnation wasn’t absolutely necessary. Creation wasn’t absolutely necessary. I already cited Aquinas and Ott above explaining why it was necessary in the former sense under the heading “But then why the atonement necessary given satisfaction (besides just being most fitting way to express God’s justice and love as above)?”.
More could be adduced from Aquinas, such as:
“A thing is said to be necessary for a certain end in two ways. First, when the end cannot be without it; as food is necessary for the preservation of human life. Secondly, when the end is attained better and more conveniently, as a horse is necessary for a journey. In the first way it was not necessary that God should become incarnate for the restoration of human nature. For God with His omnipotent power could have restored human nature in many other ways. But in the second way it was necessary that God should become incarnate for the restoration of human nature. Hence Augustine says (De Trin. xii, 10): “We shall also show that other ways were not wanting to God, to Whose power all things are equally subject; but that there was not a more fitting way of healing our misery.”
and
“As the Philosopher teaches (Metaph. v), there are several acceptations of the word “necessary.” In one way it means anything which of its nature cannot be otherwise; and in this way it is evident that it was not necessary either on the part of God or on the part of man for Christ to suffer. In another sense a thing may be necessary from some cause quite apart from itself; and should this be either an efficient or a moving cause then it brings about the necessity of compulsion; as, for instance, when a man cannot get away owing to the violence of someone else holding him. But if the external factor which induces necessity be an end, then it will be said to be necessary from presupposing such end–namely, when some particular end cannot exist at all, or not conveniently, except such end be presupposed. It was not necessary, then, for Christ to suffer from necessity of compulsion, either on God’s part, who ruled that Christ should suffer, or on Christ’s own part, who suffered voluntarily. Yet it was necessary from necessity of the end proposed; and this can be accepted in three ways. First of all, on our part, who have been delivered by His Passion, according to John (3:14): “The Son of man must be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting.” Secondly, on Christ’s part, who merited the glory of being exalted, through the lowliness of His Passion: and to this must be referred Luke 24:26: “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?” Thirdly, on God’s part, whose determination regarding the Passion of Christ, foretold in the Scriptures and prefigured in the observances of the Old Testament, had to be fulfilled. And this is what St. Luke says (22:22): “The Son of man indeed goeth, according to that which is determined”; and (Luke 24:44-46): “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning Me: for it is thus written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead.””
What is absolutely necessary is the relationship and fellowship between Father and Son, which Reformed teachers make contingent and breakable in the citations I offered.
“this was something other than a punishment that Christ dreaded?”
Christ suffered – physically and interiorly. He prayed to avoid that suffering. Christ bore the punishment of the curse – that is suffering and death. That doesn’t entail God pouring His wrath out upon and hating and “damning” Him, or that the “pure was pure no more”.
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Noon,
“In our most recent exchange I asked you 2 times to show me one church from the NT that was like your RCC. Remember?”
Yep. I remember you refusing to answer whether you think the church as described in the NT shared any of the 5 characteristics I listed. I also remember you saying the promise of the Holy Spirit to guide into truth was only promised to the Apostles and so everything afterwards has no such protection and we and the “church” (whatever you eventually define it as) are all on our own. Similarly, I also remember you refusing to answer whether a promise or command given in Scripture is always to be taken as applicable and exclusive to only the immediate audience it was addressed to unless such words are accompanied with a “prophetic utterance”.
“And both times you went all Hillary on me”
Is going Hillary worse than implying those who disagree with you are taking swimming lessons with Satan in the lake of fire?
“And you totally ignored that in your prolix response.”
I addressed it. You keep asserting the curse implies your view of penal substitution, which is echoed by the Reformed citations I offered. I was showing how the mere fact that Christ was cursed by God does not get you there – denying Christ suffered the curse means denying Christ died, not denying your view of penal substitution.
“Since Christ never sinned, any death of any kind upon Him is exceedingly unjust.”
So God was unjust towards Christ. That’s orthodox. You quote CtC’s point as “slander”, then go ahead and affirm it.
“Fact is Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of the Father was innocent, and yet died.”
Yes. Because he offered his own life up in sacrifice and charity to God. Not because God imputed all our sins to him and then unjustly condemned and poured His wrath out upon Him for that sin.
“So just as God promises death for all who sin in Genesis 2, and Gal. 3:10-13 teaches Jesus the sinless One redeemed us by being cursed with a particular type of death by God, your problem with the apostolic gospel remains.”
Right, a particular type of death by God.
“The point is Gal. 3:13 quoting Deut. 21:23”
Right. Which is what Augustine is responding to Faustus about in the citation I offered. Further, here’s Aquinas on Gal 3:13:
“Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree is explained thus: The punishment itself is a curse, namely, that He should die in this way. Explained in this way, He was truly cursed by God, because God decreed that He endure this punishment in order to set us free.”
And what was “this way” in which Christ suffered and died? Was it via God pouring His wrath out upon and hating Jesus? Nope – http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4046.htm#article6
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Robert,
“Aside from the gross mischaracterization and understanding of penal substitution I’ve seen from R.C.’s here and elsewhere”
Okay, what’s the gross mischaracterization CtC offered:
“The Reformed conception of the Atonement is that in Christ’s Passion and death, God the Father poured out all of His wrath for the sins of the elect, on Christ the Son. In Christ’s Passion and death, Christ bore the punishment of the Father’s wrath that the elect deserved for their sins. In the Reformed conception, this is what it means to bear the curse, to bear the Father’s wrath for sin. In Reformed thought, at Christ’s Passion and death, God the Father transferred all the sins (past, present, and future) of all the elect onto His Son. Then God the Father hated, cursed and damned His Son, who was evil in the Father’s sight on account of all the sins of the elect being concentrated in the Son. (R.C. Sproul says that here.) In doing so, God the Father punished Christ for all the sins of the elect of all time. Because the sins of the elect are now paid for, through Christ’s having already been punished for them, the elect can never be punished for any sin they might ever commit, because every sin they might ever commit has already been punished. For that reason Reformed theology is required to maintain that Christ died only for the elect. Otherwise, if Christ died for everyone, this would entail universal salvation, since it would entail that all the sins of all people, have already been punished, and therefore cannot be punished again.
The Catholic conception of Christ’s Passion and Atonement is that Christ offered Himself up in self-sacrificial love to the Father, obedient even unto death, for the sins of all men. In His human will He offered to God a sacrifice of love that was more pleasing to the Father than the combined sins of all men of all time are displeasing to Him, and thus made satisfaction for our sins. The Father was never angry with Christ. Nor did the Father pour out His wrath on the Son. The Passion is Christ’s greatest act of love, the greatest revelation of the heart of God, and the glory of Christ. So when Christ was on the cross, God the Father was not pouring out His wrath on His Son; in Christ’s act of self-sacrifice in loving obedience to the Father, Christ was most lovable in the eyes of the Father. Rather, in Christ’s Passion we humans poured out our enmity with God on Christ, by what we did to Him in His body and soul. And He freely chose to let us do all this to Him. Deeper still, even our present sins contributed to His suffering, because He, in solidarity with us, grieved over all the sins of the world, not just the sins of the elect. Hence, St. Francis of Assisi said, “Nor did demons crucify Him; it is you who have crucified Him and crucify Him still, when you delight in your vices and sins.” The Passion is a revelation of the love of God, not the wrath of God.”
Where is the gross mischaracterization from the following Reformed lights?
Piper: “When Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” it was the scream of the damned — damned in our place”
Anyabwile: “At 3 o’clock that dark Friday afternoon, the Father turned His face away and the ancient, eternal fellowship between Father and Son was broken as divine wrath rained down like a million Soddoms and Gomorrah’s.”
MacArthur: “In some mysterious way during those awful hours on the cross, the Father poured out the full measure of His wrath against sin, and the recipient of that wrath was God’s own beloved Son. In this lies the true meaning of the cross…. It was a punishment so severe that a mortal could spend all eternity in the torments of hell, and still he would not have begun to exhaust the divine wrath that was heaped on Christ at the cross. This was the true measure of Christ’s sufferings on the cross. The physical pains of crucifixion – dreadful as they were – were nothing compared to the wrath of the Father against Him.”
Calvin: “Nothing had been done if Christ had only endured corporeal death. In order to interpose between us and God’s anger, and satisfy his righteous judgment, it was necessary that he should feel the weight of divine vengeance.”
Boettner: “He was literally suffering the pangs of hell. For that is essentially what hell is, separation from God, separation from everything that is good and desirable.”
Grudem: “As Jesus bore the guilt of our sins alone, God the Father, the mighty Creator, the Lord of the universe, poured out on Jesus the fury of his wrath: Jesus became the object of the intense hatred of sin and vengeance against sin that God had patiently stored up since the beginning of the world.”
Sproul: “Until that moment that my sin was placed upon Him. And the one who was pure was pure no more. And God cursed Him. It was if there was a cry from Heaven – excuse my language but I can be no more accurate than to say – it was as if Jesus heard the words ‘God damn you’, because that’s what it meant to be cursed, to be damned, to be under the anathema of the Father. As I said I don’t understand that, but I know that it’s true.”
“My question is what is the “principled reason” to reject her view of Roman Catholicism since she is on the faculty of a RC university and hasn’t been disciplined or excommunicated.”
Okay, so your church is advocating society killing homosexuals since Swanson hasn’t been disciplined right?
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Clete,
Christ suffered – physically and interiorly. He prayed to avoid that suffering.
So if it wasn’t divine wrath, he was therefore a coward. The saints who followed him in many cases went without such anguish. They did a better job than he did if He wasn’t suffering wrath.
Christ bore the punishment of the curse – that is suffering and death.
And who ordained the punishment. God. So Christ bore the punishment from God that His people deserved.
That doesn’t entail God pouring His wrath out upon and hating and “damning” Him, or that the “pure was pure no more”.
Who is claiming that God hated the Son qua the Son? No Reformed thinker I know. God hated our sin. God even hated us, viewed as sinners. God didn’t hate His Son. The quotes you adduce are taken out of context within the overall teaching of all of those men. No one teaches that Christ became ontologically impure. That’s your error, and the error of CTC who once again demonstrate that they have no clue what they are talking about.
You don’t understand the notion of substitution. Christ as a man experienced the forsakenness of God. He cried out “why have you forsaken me,” and God was silent. That is what all those men are getting at. None of them that I know of teach the perfect eternal fellowship between father and Son was broken. The very fact that the Father allowed the Son to die demonstrates that in relation to Him as the substitute for sinners, the Father turned His back to the Son. If you can’t hold that the Father turned His back to the Son without ever ceasing to love Him as the Son, your God is too small.
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Clete,
Just noted the Anyabwile quote. Yeah, he’s wrong there if He’s talking about the divine fellowship between Father and Son, which he appears to be saying.
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Clete,
Okay, what’s the gross mischaracterization CtC offered:
“The Reformed conception of the Atonement is that in Christ’s Passion and death, God the Father poured out all of His wrath for the sins of the elect, on Christ the Son. In Christ’s Passion and death, Christ bore the punishment of the Father’s wrath that the elect deserved for their sins. In the Reformed conception, this is what it means to bear the curse, to bear the Father’s wrath for sin. In Reformed thought, at Christ’s Passion and death, God the Father transferred all the sins (past, present, and future) of all the elect onto His Son. Then God the Father hated, cursed and damned His Son, who was evil in the Father’s sight on account of all the sins of the elect being concentrated in the Son. (R.C. Sproul says that here.)
CTC selectively quotes Sproul here, and that’s the problem. What does it mean to be “evil in the Father’s sight” according to Sproul? CTC doesn’t explain it. What does it mean for the Son to be “hated, cursed, and damned”? CTC doesn’t explain it. If CTC cared, there is plenty of material online from Sproul and most of those other men to situate their comments in context. I could selectively quote the RCC to prove that Rome teaches that we merit heaven on our own effort without grace.
I can tell you quite confidently that Sproul, Calvin, and Piper don’t mean that the Father viewed the Son as inherently guilty or that the eternal bond of love between Father and Son was broken. As to the former, they are speaking metaphorically. On the cross, God the judge saw not Christ the perfect Son but me the sinner and Darryl the sinner and SDB the sinner, and so on. That’s what imputation means and entails. You lack a category for substitution, and that’s the problem.
Now let’s look at the “Catholic” position:
The Catholic conception of Christ’s Passion and Atonement is that Christ offered Himself up in self-sacrificial love to the Father, obedient even unto death, for the sins of all men. In His human will He offered to God a sacrifice of love that was more pleasing to the Father than the combined sins of all men of all time are displeasing to Him, and thus made satisfaction for our sins.
So essentially, we are saved because God has a scale and Christ has more good works than we have bad works. No wonder so many RCs appropriate that kind of view for their own works.
The Father was never angry with Christ. Nor did the Father pour out His wrath on the Son. The Passion is Christ’s greatest act of love, the greatest revelation of the heart of God, and the glory of Christ. So when Christ was on the cross, God the Father was not pouring out His wrath on His Son; in Christ’s act of self-sacrifice in loving obedience to the Father, Christ was most lovable in the eyes of the Father.
Well aside from the “not pouring out His wrath,” this is Reformed thinking. Except that we can explain why it’s such a great act of love. If death is not God’s punishment for sin, and I’ve had more than one RC tell me that it’s not, that sin is inherent to true humanity, then it’s really difficult to see how any of this is love. All Christ did was endure what we have to endure by nature anyway. Unless the atonement is necessary and sin can’t be forgiven any other way, the death doesn’t show anything except maybe that God is a sadist. Death isn’t owed us. Does the Son just like to be slapped around while His Father stands by and does nothing?
Rather, in Christ’s Passion we humans poured out our enmity with God on Christ, by what we did to Him in His body and soul. And He freely chose to let us do all this to Him.
So Christ is merely a good example of turning the other cheek? Hello moralism.
Deeper still, even our present sins contributed to His suffering, because He, in solidarity with us, grieved over all the sins of the world, not just the sins of the elect. Hence, St. Francis of Assisi said, “Nor did demons crucify Him; it is you who have crucified Him and crucify Him still, when you delight in your vices and sins.”
So in essence, the cross is all about the Father and Son standing there and weeping. It didn’t actually accomplish anything. It doesn’t forgive anyone’s sins. It makes forgiveness possible as long as we will stand there and weep as well.
The Passion is a revelation of the love of God, not the wrath of God.”
For a communion that is supposed to be all about the both-and, we get the either-or. I understand it. If the Reformed are right, then your system of bearing God’s wrath in purgatory is utter blasphemy and your system has sent millions of people to hell.
Okay, so your church is advocating society killing homosexuals since Swanson hasn’t been disciplined right?
I’m not part of the OPC, though I respect it greatly.
The failure to discipline Swanson would seem to imply that His views on such matters aren’t heretical. Ergo, Katie the theologian who thinks Tupac is the model of right theological thinking isn’t a heretic. So I can trust her, apparently, as a RC theologian.
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Robert,
“The saints who followed him in many cases went without such anguish. ”
Nope – Christ’s suffering and pain was more than any mortal has or will bear, as I already said above quoting Aquinas, “Christ grieved not only over the loss of His own bodily life, but also over the sins of all others. And this grief in Christ surpassed all grief of every contrite heart, both because it flowed from a greater wisdom and charity, by which the pang of contrition is intensified, and because He grieved at the one time for all sins, according to Isaiah 53:4: “Surely He hath carried our sorrows.” But such was the dignity of Christ’s life in the body, especially on account of the Godhead united with it, that its loss, even for one hour, would be a matter of greater grief than the loss of another man’s life for howsoever long a time. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. iii) that the man of virtue loves his life all the more in proportion as he knows it to be better; and yet he exposes it for virtue’s sake. And in like fashion Christ laid down His most beloved life for the good of charity, according to Jeremiah 12:7: “I have given My dear soul into the hands of her enemies.”
And elsewhere,
“Objection 1. It would seem that the pain of Christ’s Passion was not greater than all other pains. For the sufferer’s pain is increased by the sharpness and the duration of the suffering. But some of the martyrs endured sharper and more prolonged pains than Christ, as is seen in St. Lawrence, who was roasted upon a gridiron; and in St. Vincent, whose flesh was torn with iron pincers. Therefore it seems that the pain of the suffering Christ was not the greatest.”
Answer:
“As we have stated, when treating of the defects assumed by Christ (15, 5,6), there was true and sensible pain in the suffering Christ, which is caused by something hurtful to the body: also, there was internal pain, which is caused from the apprehension of something hurtful, and this is termed “sadness.” And in Christ each of these was the greatest in this present life. This arose from four causes.
…. The cause of the interior pain was, first of all, all the sins of the human race, for which He made satisfaction by suffering; hence He ascribes them, so to speak, to Himself, saying (Psalm 21:2): “The words of my sins.”
… The magnitude of His suffering may be considered, secondly, from the susceptibility of the sufferer as to both soul and body. For His body was endowed with a most perfect constitution, since it was fashioned miraculously by the operation of the Holy Ghost; just as some other things made by miracles are better than others, as Chrysostom says (Hom. xxii in Joan.) respecting the wine into which Christ changed the water at the wedding-feast. And, consequently, Christ’s sense of touch, the sensitiveness of which is the reason for our feeling pain, was most acute. His soul likewise, from its interior powers, apprehended most vehemently all the causes of sadness.
Thirdly, the magnitude of Christ’s suffering can be estimated from the singleness of His pain and sadness. In other sufferers the interior sadness is mitigated, and even the exterior suffering, from some consideration of reason, by some derivation or redundance from the higher powers into the lower; but it was not so with the suffering Christ, because “He permitted each one of His powers to exercise its proper function,” as Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iii).
Fourthly, the magnitude of the pain of Christ’s suffering can be reckoned by this, that the pain and sorrow were accepted voluntarily, to the end of men’s deliverance from sin; and consequently He embraced the amount of pain proportionate to the magnitude of the fruit which resulted therefrom.
From all these causes weighed together, it follows that Christ’s pain was the very greatest.”
“And who ordained the punishment. God.”
Yup.
” He cried out “why have you forsaken me,” and God was silent”
Yup Christ was handed over to His enemies. That doesn’t entail what “those men are getting at”. Just like Christ being punished with the curse doesn’t entail what “those men are getting at”. Tertullian:
“You have Him exclaiming in the midst of His passion: My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Either, then, the Son suffered, being forsaken by the Father, and the Father consequently suffered nothing, inasmuch as He forsook the Son; or else, if it was the Father who suffered, then to what God was it that He addressed His cry? But this was the voice of flesh and soul, that is to say, of man— not of the Word and Spirit, that is to say, not of God; and it was uttered so as to prove the impassibility of God, who forsook His Son, so far as He handed over His human substance to the suffering of death. This verity the apostle also perceived, when he writes to this effect: If the Father spared not His own Son. This did Isaiah before him likewise perceive, when he declared: And the Lord has delivered Him up for our offenses. In this manner He forsook Him, in not sparing Him; forsook Him, in delivering Him up. In all other respects the Father did not forsake the Son, for it was into His Father’s hands that the Son commended His spirit.”
Aquinas: “Such forsaking is not to be referred to the dissolving of the personal union, but to this, that God the Father gave Him up to the Passion: hence there “to forsake” means simply not to protect from persecutors. or else He says there that He is forsaken, with reference to the prayer He had made: “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass away from Me,” as Augustine explains it ”
Christ did not cease to behold the Father, nor did the Father ever cease to love Him. Christ was never cut off and separated from the Father or had the Father’s back turned on Him. Psalm 22 implies no such thing.
CtC again:
” if the Father had wrath for men while the Son had love for men, this either (1) conflicts with the doctrine of the Trinity, in making the Father and the Son be at odds with each other [i.e. “drives a wedge”]; if Christ loves men, then so does the Father, or if the Father has wrath for men, then so does Christ, which doesn’t fit with “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,” or (2) it conflicts with the doctrine of the incarnation, in making the Son’s divine will to be that of divine wrath directed toward His own human nature, and either (2a) the Son’s human will contradicting His divine will, by loving His human nature while the divine will hates His human nature, or (2b) the Son’s human will being in perfect conformity with the divine will, and in His enraged human will pouring out wrath on His own human nature and wanting to punish it and kill it, like Phinehas in Numbers 25:7, but toward His own flesh.
This theological mess will continue, so long as the sacrificial and substitutionary language of Scripture and the Fathers is misconstrued as meaning that Christ steps voluntarily into the blind stream of divine wrath so that we don’t receive it. We need to remember and recover the original conception of substitutionary atonement, which long preceded the Protestant Christ-takes-the-divine-wrath version.”
CtC again: “Part of the reason for this error is the mistaken notion of the atonement, described in the post above, in which the Father has to pour out wrath on His Son. That notion of the atonement forces the following dilemma: either the Father pours out His wrath only on a human nature, in which case, the suffering isn’t infinite in value and therefore isn’t redemptive, or the Father pours out His wrath on the Logos, which entails tritheism or Arianism for the reasons just explained. Another source of the error is downplaying the Creed among the Reformed, preferring instead to limit themselves to biblical language, and not seeing “eternally begotten” in Scripture. Another possible source of the error is a Christological error in which there are, as it were, two second Persons of the Trinity: the Person of the God-man who can lose union with the Father, and the Logos prior to the incarnation who could not lose union with the Father. According to orthodox Christology, by contrast, the reason the incarnate Logos cannot lose union with the Father is the same reason the pre-incarnate Logos cannot lose union with the Father: there is only one and the same Logos, who is eternally begotten of the Father and consubstantial with the Father. Claiming that the intra-Trinitarian relation between the Father and Son can be (and in fact was) broken implies either that the Logos after the incarnation is not the same Logos who was with the Father before the incarnation [i.e. a form of Nestorian Christology], or it implies that even the Logos prior to the incarnation was only contingently related to the Father, and that entails tritheism or Arianism, as I’ve just explained.”
“You lack a category for substitution”
CCC: “Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned. But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all”, so that we might be “reconciled to God by the death of his Son”.”
“None of them that I know of teach the perfect eternal fellowship between father and Son was broken.”
Anyabwile: “This spiritual forsakenness, spiritual wrath from the Father, occurs deep down in the very godhead itself. We dare not speculate lest we blaspheme. But something was torn in the very fabric of the relationship between Father and Son… In Jerusalem that day hung a picture of Hell as the Son of God was cut off socially from everyone, deserted emotionally on the cross, and separated spiritually from the eternal Father with whom He had always lived face-to-face. That’s hell.”
http://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/thabitianyabwile/2012/04/04/what-does-it-mean-for-the-father-to-forsake-the-son-part-3/
Daniel Wallace: “And he is bold enough to say, “there is nothing in Scripture that says that the Father rejected the Son.” This might come as quite a shock to the majority of Christians throughout twenty centuries who have held otherwise.. To Jesus, at this point, God was no longer acting as his Father; he was his judge.”
“So essentially, we are saved because God has a scale and Christ has more good works than we have bad works.”
Christ is divine.
“Well aside from the “not pouring out His wrath,” ”
Which is the problem.
“that sin is inherent to true humanity,”
Sin and death are not natural to humanity. That would contradict Genesis and the Incarnation.
“So Christ is merely a good example of turning the other cheek? Hello moralism.”
Apparently you don’t bother to actually read what is presented to you. Christ’s example is just one of many purposes behind the Passion, not the sole one, as my citations of Aquinas earlier went over.
“So in essence, the cross is all about the Father and Son standing there and weeping. It didn’t actually accomplish anything. It doesn’t forgive anyone’s sins. It makes forgiveness possible as long as we will stand there and weep as well.”
It accomplished redemption and merited salvation for us. That’s something. If you actually bothered to read instead of eagerly jumping to try to score points, you would see that this point answers part of your question about what good is Christ’s suffering when other martyrs and saints suffer, and so wouldn’t have asked it.
“The failure to discipline Swanson would seem to imply that His views on such matters aren’t heretical.”
Cool, hope to see you at the next kill the gays rally. Maybe your church can team up with Westboro for maximum effect.
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Robert
Posted February 8, 2016 at 5:44 am | Permalink
Mermaid,
So, did God pour out His wrath on Himself?
Robert:
God took HIs own wrath upon Himself in the person of His Son.>>>>>
Did the Son of God punish Himself, then? Did He take out His own wrath upon Himself?
Jesus is the God-Man. Fully Man. Fully God. One hypostasis.
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Robert,
“On the cross, God the judge saw not Christ the perfect Son but me the sinner and Darryl the sinner and SDB the sinner, and so on.”
God sees reality and is omniscient and just. The Father always sees Christ as the “perfect Son” really is, i.e. sinless.
If that’s true, then as already cited above, “One problem with the Reformed conception is that it would either make the Father guilty of the greatest evil of all time (pouring out the punishment for all sin on an innocent man, knowing that he is innocent), or if Christ were truly guilty and deserved all that punishment, then His suffering would be of no benefit to us.
A second problem with the Reformed conception is the following dilemma. If God the Father was pouring out His wrath on the Second Person of the Trinity, then God was divided against Himself, God the Father hating His own Word. God could hate the Son only if the Son were another being, that is, if polytheism or Arianism were true. But if God loved the Son, then it must be another person (besides the Son) whom God was hating during Christ’s Passion. And hence that entails Nestorianism, i.e. that Christ was two persons, one divine and the other human. He loved the divine Son but hated the human Jesus. Hence the Reformed conception conflicts with the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. The Father and the Son cannot be at odds. If Christ loves men, then so does the Father. Or, if the Father has wrath for men, then so does Christ. And, if the Father has wrath for the Son, then the Son must have no less wrath for Himself.”
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Clete,
I’ve read your quotes. They amount to Christ didn’t really need to die, it was just the best way to exemplify God’s love for us. I’ve done this before with other RCs who don’t get the point of the cross except as an example.
Nope – Christ’s suffering and pain was more than any mortal has or will bear, as I already said above quoting Aquinas
You’ve missed the point. If Christ’s death wasn’t under the wrath of God, why the fear, why the pleading. The martyrs suffered greatly not under God’s wrath, and many of them were far more serene than Christ. If Christ experiences no separation, what’s the big deal?
Yup Christ was handed over to His enemies.
And you miss Paul’s point that God did not spare His own Son, alluding to Abraham not sparing His own Son when He handed Him up to who, to God!
It accomplished redemption and merited salvation for us.
By filling up the bucket with more good than with what bad we had. Yes, I get it. Hello moralism.
That’s something. If you actually bothered to read instead of eagerly jumping to try to score points, you would see that this point answers part of your question about what good is Christ’s suffering when other martyrs and saints suffer, and so wouldn’t have asked it.
You are the one not reading. I didn’t ask what good is Christ’s suffering when others suffer; I asked, why so much anguish on the part of Christ if death isn’t the punishment for sin. Why such dread? Because its going to hurt physically really, really bad. That’s one of Aquinas’ answers. It’s a lame answer.
There’s a palpable fear of death that Christ has that many of the martyrs don’t and that many Christians who weren’t martyrs don’t have. If it’s not suffering death for God’s wrath, there’s no reason to fear it. If the sin being put on Him doesn’t cause Him to experience separation from God, what’s the big deal. He’s God. He can handle being sad over sin. He’s been sad over sin for a long time before that.
Cool, hope to see you at the next kill the gays rally. Maybe your church can team up with Westboro for maximum effect.
I said that the failure to discipline implies that his views fall within the realm of orthodoxy, not that I personally agree with him. I’m not in the OPC, and evidently the OPC thinks both theonomy and 2K are orthodox positions, which is why it hasn’t adopted or condemned either.
And of course, the OPC hasn’t ordered the execution of anyone. Rome, however, not so much.
Just like Christ being punished with the curse doesn’t entail what “those men are getting at”.
It does if the one who does the cursing is God. Otherwise, death is just some impersonal consequence. God set up a system and then stands back and watches it all plays out. Meanwhile, Scripture says the one hung on a tree is cursed by God.
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Clete,
God sees reality and is omniscient and just. The Father always sees Christ as the “perfect Son” really is, i.e. sinless.
When He is evaluating the Son qua the Son, yes. When He is evaluating the Son who in HIs humanity took upon the sin of HIs people, then no.
If guilt was not imputed to Christ, Christ’s death is unjust. Innocent men do not deserve sin and, in fact, cannot sin. Remember, you said death isn’t inherent to humanity. It’s a consequence of sin, and Jesus had no sin. Without imputation, Jesus never would have, never could have, died.
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CvD:A second problem with the Reformed conception is the following dilemma. If God the Father was pouring out His wrath on the Second Person of the Trinity, then God was divided against Himself, God the Father hating His own Word. God could hate the Son only if the Son were another being, that is, if polytheism or Arianism were true. But if God loved the Son, then it must be another person (besides the Son) whom God was hating during Christ’s Passion. And hence that entails Nestorianism, i.e. that Christ was two persons, one divine and the other human. He loved the divine Son but hated the human Jesus. Hence the Reformed conception conflicts with the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. The Father and the Son cannot be at odds. If Christ loves men, then so does the Father. Or, if the Father has wrath for men, then so does Christ. And, if the Father has wrath for the Son, then the Son must have no less wrath for Himself.”>>>>>>>>
Yes. The Son, then, must have been pouring out His own wrath and hatred on Himself.
I wonder if any Reformed logician here at Old Life is willing to tackle this one.
Thanks, CvD. Great work.
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Robert:
“The failure to discipline Swanson would seem to imply that His views on such matters aren’t heretical.”>>>>
CvD:
Cool, hope to see you at the next kill the gays rally. Maybe your church can team up with Westboro for maximum effect.>>>>>>
Looks like a huge shrug.
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CvD,
Deut. 21:23:
“he who is hanged is cursed by God”
Gal. 3:13: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us– for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE ”
Boo!!
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Noon,
Right. You still have yet to show how those 2 verses are incompatible with RC view of satisfaction, or alternatively, how your view of penal substitution is necessitated by them. Christ suffered and died. That’s the curse. This was ordained and permitted by God. So Christ was cursed by God. Not news.
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James Young, ” If God the Father was pouring out His wrath on the Second Person of the Trinity, then God was divided against Himself, God the Father hating His own Word.”
And so the Roman Catholic save here is to say that the cross was an act of God the father’s love for his son? Yeah, that’ll work.
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Mermaid, high five for giving James Young props. Way to go, female fish! You rock, yes you really really do!
Woot!
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James Young, “so your church is advocating society killing homosexuals since Swanson hasn’t been disciplined right?”
Why keep elevating our church power to your church’s power? I know it makes you feel better to think that Roman Catholicism is just as bad as the OPC. But you guys are the ones who say God broke the mold once Jesus landed in Rome and installed Peter as bishop. Episcopacy up. Show us how it’s done. Don’t hide behind our failures.
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Darryl,
“And so the Roman Catholic save here is to say that the cross was an act of God the father’s love for his son? Yeah, that’ll work.”
So the Father hated and did not love the Son at the cross. Got it.
Aquinas: “Christ as God delivered Himself up to death by the same will and action as that by which the Father delivered Him up; but as man He gave Himself up by a will inspired of the Father. Consequently there is no contrariety in the Father delivering Him up and in Christ delivering Himself up.”
“I know it makes you feel better to think that Roman Catholicism is just as bad as the OPC.”
The point is I wouldn’t criticize the OPC as in doctrinal chaos simply because of lack of discipline, nor would your confessional brethren like Zrim who argued the public exhortation to self-examination was sufficient for admittance to the table. I’m simply holding Robert to his own standards.
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James,
Noon, You still have yet to show how those 2 verses are incompatible with RC view of satisfaction, or alternatively, how your view of penal substitution is necessitated by them.
So not. Already shown to you, February 7, 2016 at 7:37.
Your response:
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Now you say,
So Christ was cursed by God. Not news.
Not news? That’s good news for sinners, James.
Especially ones who use Roman Catholicism to suppress the righteousness of God from showing them what desperate lawbreakers they are.
Like you.
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“God sees reality and is omniscient and just. The Father always sees Christ as the “perfect Son” really is, i.e. sinless.”
What did Paul mean when he wrote that God made Christ to be sin?
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Noon,
“Already shown to you, February 7, 2016 at 7:37.”
And already replied to. The curse was suffering and death. Not the unorthodox implications you keep asserting, but not demonstrating, are entailed by that.
“That’s good news for sinners”
Great, and since RCism affirms Christ suffered and died, RCism preaches the good news. Glad we can build these bridges.
“Especially ones who use Roman Catholicism to suppress the righteousness of God from showing them what desperate lawbreakers they are. Like you.”
Oh.
Fyi, RCism teaches we are sinners and lawbreakers in need of a savior.
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Well, I don’t know about creation, etc… or whether the crucifixion was “absolutely necessary”. I suppose God could have created nothing or chosen not to save any sinners. I dunno and it is really beside point. However, the question of whether or not Christ’s death was necessary for the salvation of God’s enemies was not answered by any of your beautiful cutting and pasting. If there was some other way to save sinners – one that did not require the Son to face such a traumatic experience, why, when the Son pled to have the cup of God’s wrath taken away (pleading with drops of blood no less), did God say no? Don’t bother repasting Ott and Aquinas if that is all you got. It doesn’t answer my question.
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CvD,
“The curse was suffering and death. Not the unorthodox implications you keep asserting, but not demonstrating, are entailed by that.”
No it wasn’t. It was way, way beyond suffering and death.
It was a certain type of death specified in the Mosaic Law:
The death Christ died is proclaimed by the apostle to be the Deut. 21:23 type of death. This type of death could only come to pass when a righteous determination is made by godly judges. These judges have proven that the accused is, beyond a reasonable doubt, worthy of special type of death that marks him as the worst of transgressors, and therefore, worthy of final public shame:
“If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree,
his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God) (Deu 21:22-23).
Hopefully you can see how unjustly that passage applies to Christ both from men and God.
Great, and since RCism affirms Christ suffered and died, RCism preaches the good news. Glad we can build these bridges.
Love the sarcasm. You’re still fly.
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Anselm again:
We see that “Boso” readily understands. Dare to be a Boso.
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CVD: Christ suffered and died. That’s the curse.
That’s not the debt that sinners owe God. If it were, there would be no Hell.
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Mermaid: Jesus is the God-Man. Fully Man. Fully God. One hypostasis. So, did God pour out His wrath on Himself?
Anselm answers this in Cur Deus Homo. Dare to be a Boso!
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CVD: A second problem with the Reformed conception is the following dilemma. If God the Father was pouring out His wrath on the Second Person of the Trinity, then God was divided against Himself, God the Father hating His own Word. God could hate the Son only if the Son were another being, that is, if polytheism or Arianism were true. But if God loved the Son, then it must be another person (besides the Son) whom God was hating during Christ’s Passion. And hence that entails Nestorianism, i.e. that Christ was two persons, one divine and the other human. He loved the divine Son but hated the human Jesus.
Your dilemma is solved by the word logizomai. Isaiah 53.12:
διὰ τοῦτο αὐτὸς κληρονομήσει πολλοὺς καὶ τῶν ἰσχυρῶν μεριεῖ σκῦλα ἀνθ᾽ ὧν παρεδόθη εἰς θάνατον ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἀνόμοις ἐλογίσθη καὶ αὐτὸς ἁμαρτίας πολλῶν ἀνήνεγκεν καὶ διὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν παρεδόθη
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out his soul to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors. — RSV
Jesus was reckoned to be a transgressor. Reckoned by whom? By the same one who reckons the uncircumcised to be circumcised (Rom 2.26). By the same one who reckons the unrighteous to be righteous by faith. (Rom 4.6 – 8).
On what principle? Does God deceive Himself? No, on the principle of federal headship, of solidarity. God reckoned Jesus as a sinner, treated Him as a sinner, because He willingly took on the headship of His people — and as such, willingly paid the debt of His people.
So it is not the case that the Father was divided against the eternal Son. Nor is it the case that Jesus was two persons.
Rather, it is the case that in His human nature, Jesus united Himself with His people in such a way as to bear their sins.
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James Young,
I don’t know, maybe Aquinas believes Christ needed to endure God’s wrath:
Also, God’s wrath is just and merciful. Aquinas explains more (notice how much he uses Scripture — S-c-r-i-p-t-u-r-e):
So you think Roman Catholicism is in doctrinal chaos? You’re read the Land of Lakes statement on RC higher education?
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James Young, “RCism teaches we are sinners and lawbreakers in need of a savior.”
Does that apply to Jews?
Even Jews who deny Christ?
Oh, but wait. There’s mystery. That’ll fix it. No mystery surrounding the miracles performed by dead saints in order to be canonized. That’s scientific. But salvation? Miiihhhhsterrrrioussssssss.
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Clete,
The point is I wouldn’t criticize the OPC as in doctrinal chaos simply because of lack of discipline, nor would your confessional brethren like Zrim who argued the public exhortation to self-examination was sufficient for admittance to the table. I’m simply holding Robert to his own standards.
I’m fairly certain that Zrim would not hold that to be sufficient to excuse elders for admitting to the table people known to be in gross, impenitent sin, and that’s the point. The public exhortation to self-examination is sufficient when the elders are ignorant of the sin in the congregation. But if an elder knows that Joe is cheating on his wife and continues to do so with no sin of remorse, it’s not sufficient to excuse the elder of culpability for admitting Joe to the table. So in that case, the elders of the church in question are either not very trustworthy or adultery really isn’t against the church’s standards. I’ll let you do the math for what that means for Roman bishops who admit known promoters of homosexuality, abortion, and a host of other sins to the table.
The simple point again is this: the Magisterium can’t solve your epistemological problem if it isn’t consistent. All that happens is you end up with some more dogma that you have to apply when the bishops won’t do so. Who is the guardian of orthodoxy at that point? Not the bishops but the laity. And if the laity are the guardians, your system doesn’t work anymore. If the laity are the guardians, they should be able to trust themselves to know when the Magisterium has gone off the rails. But according to you, the laity can’t be trusted. They need an infallible papa.
Protestants are accused of having a paper pope, but a system such as yours that has dogma but not discipline is a paper pope with a vengeance. I feel bad for RC traditionalists, I really do. But not when they start applying double standards and pretend that modern Rome is something that it’s not. I can go from one parish that is all against abortion to another where the priests and laity give their tacit support to it, and both are in full communion with Rome. There’s no difference between that and being able to go from one professionally Protestant church that is against abortion to another that is for it. No difference at all.
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Robert, mainly agreed with your last remark, though I’m not so sure of holding a Reformed elder culpable for what may well amount to allowing someone his political conscience at the table, as opposed to his known immoral life (2k). The problem for the RCs is that given the combination of ecclesial authoritarianism and the blending of politics and morality, the lack of discipline for known particular politics begins to look pretty loose and chaotic.
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Jeff Cagle
Posted February 8, 2016 at 7:20 pm | Permalink
Mermaid: Jesus is the God-Man. Fully Man. Fully God. One hypostasis. So, did God pour out His wrath on Himself?
Anselm answers this in Cur Deus Homo. Dare to be a Boso!>>>>
Where does Anselm say that Jesus went to hell and that God hated Him when He took our sin away?
Here is what Anselm is proving.:
Anselm.. Let us return and consider whether it were proper for God to put away sins by compassion alone, without any payment of the honor taken from him.>>>>>
This is consistent with Catholic teaching.
Notice the payment has to do with a restoration of God’s honor – His glory.
Anyway, thank you for your response, Jeff. I will lurk here and read what y’all have to say. Thanks.
Your frenemie always,
The Little Mermaid
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Mermaid,
Where does Anselm say that Jesus went to hell and that God hated Him when He took our sin away?
The Reformed position is not that Jesus went to hell or that God hated His Son qua the Son. Meanwhile, it looks to me that the RC position here (Lord knows how accurate it is to whatever the Magisterium of the moment says) is that God is so loving that He can just cover sin with love by waving His hand, forget any need for justice, and that on the cross the Father and Son were standing with us as we cried about sin. Still doesn’t explain the Son getting beaten, but whatever.
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Jeff:Anselm answers this in Cur Deus Homo. Dare to be a Boso!
Jeff: Your dilemma is solved by the word logizomai. Isaiah 53.12
helpful (to me) and thanks.
Luke 22:37 For I tell you that this which is written must be fulfilled in Me, ‘AND HE WAS NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS’; for that which refers to Me has its fulfillment.”
and…
Remarkably, Jesus announced the institution of a new covenant. No mere man could ever institute a new covenant between God and man, but Jesus is the God-man. He has the authority to establish a new covenant, sealed with blood, even as the old covenant was sealed with blood (Exodus 24:8). The new covenant concerns an inner transformation that cleanses us from all sin: For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more (Jeremiah 31:34). This transformation puts Gods Word and will in us: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). This covenant is all about a new, close relationship with God: I will be their God, and they shall be My people (Jeremiah 31:33).We can say that the blood of Jesus made the new covenant possible, and it also made it sure and reliable. It is confirmed with the life of God Himself. http://www.studylight.org/commentaries/guz/view.cgi?book=lu&chapter=022
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Where’s Jesus?
Because of Roman Catholicism, Susan has apparently raised 2 million dollars to get souls out of purgatory:
http://www.medjugorjeusa.org/susantassone.htm
Where’s Jesus?
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Darryl,
You know those 2 citations from Aquinas were ones I already offered in this thread? The second one at February 4, 2016 at 6:34 pm (directly to you), the first February 8, 2016 at 11:33 am. Less heat, more reading.
“Aquinas explains more (notice how much he uses Scripture — S-c-r-i-p-t-u-r-e):”
Huh. So earlier I cite Aquinas referencing Scripture, and I get things like:
“So Aquinas is more authoritative than Paul? See where your papal infatuation leads? You don’t read the Bible.”
“If Paul is more authoritative than Aquinas, why don’t you quote the apostle once in a while? Bible challenged, are you?”
Now Aquinas is all cool when he references Scripture. Got it.
Christ suffered. Christ was cursed by God. Christ bore our sins. Christ made satisfaction on behalf of sinners. Aquinas agrees. Scripture agrees. RCism agrees. This doesn’t get your view of penal substitution or God pouring his wrath out upon the Son or what those Reformed teachers I cited were getting at.
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Cletus,
Christ was cursed by God.
This should be rich. What does it mean to be cursed by someone and not bear the brunt of their anger.
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Noon,
“It was a certain type of death specified in the Mosaic Law”
Right. The sinless one suffered a particular type of death – a very unjust one he willingly took on which was ordained and permitted by God in fulfillment of the Scriptures. That doesn’t entail the curse is your view of penal substitution.
“Hopefully you can see how unjustly that passage applies to Christ both from men and God.”
So God was unjust towards Christ at the Cross, just as men were.
As was already cited earlier from ctc,
“This theological mess will continue, so long as the sacrificial and substitutionary language of Scripture and the Fathers is misconstrued as meaning that Christ steps voluntarily into the blind stream of divine wrath so that we don’t receive it. We need to remember and recover the original conception of substitutionary atonement, which long preceded the Protestant Christ-takes-the-divine-wrath version.”
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Robert,
Christ suffered and died. That’s the curse. This was ordained and permitted by God. So Christ was cursed by God.
Christ wasn’t hated by God. That’s unorthodox.
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Robert,
“They amount to Christ didn’t really need to die, it was just the best way to exemplify God’s love for us.”
No, they don’t. The example is only one aspect and purpose of the Passion. So you didn’t read them.
“If Christ experiences no separation, what’s the big deal?”
Christ did not have spiritual consolation during the Passion. A dark night of the soul experience (infinitely more dark in Christ’s case than anything a mortal will experience) does not entail the Godhead was divided, or that God rejected or hated or was angry with Christ. Christians who suffer dark nights are still loved by God and in union and fellowship with Him. So God lifted divine protection from His physical enemies, and withdrew his spiritual consolation as well (Christ still retained the Beatific Vision though). As JP2 wrote:
“Jesus’ cry on the Cross, dear Brothers and Sisters, is not the cry of anguish of a man without hope, but the prayer of the Son who offers his life to the Father in love, for the salvation of all. At the very moment when he identifies with our sin, “abandoned” by the Father, he “abandons” himself into the hands of the Father. His eyes remain fixed on the Father. Precisely because of the knowledge and experience of the Father which he alone has, even at this moment of darkness he sees clearly the gravity of sin and suffers because of it. He alone, who sees the Father and rejoices fully in him, can understand completely what it means to resist the Father’s love by sin. More than an experience of physical pain, his Passion is an agonizing suffering of the soul. Theological tradition has not failed to ask how Jesus could possibly experience at one and the same time his profound unity with the Father, by its very nature a source of joy and happiness, and an agony that goes all the way to his final cry of abandonment. The simultaneous presence of these two seemingly irreconcilable aspects is rooted in the fathomless depths of the hypostatic union.
Faced with this mystery, we are greatly helped not only by theological investigation but also by that great heritage which is the “lived theology” of the saints. The saints offer us precious insights which enable us to understand more easily the intuition of faith, thanks to the special enlightenment which some of them have received from the Holy Spirit, or even through their personal experience of those terrible states of trial which the mystical tradition describes as the “dark night”. Not infrequently the saints have undergone something akin to Jesus’ experience on the Cross in the paradoxical blending of bliss and pain. In the Dialogue of Divine Providence, God the Father shows Catherine of Siena how joy and suffering can be present together in holy souls: “Thus the soul is blissful and afflicted: afflicted on account of the sins of its neighbour, blissful on account of the union and the affection of charity which it has inwardly received. These souls imitate the spotless Lamb, my Only-begotten Son, who on the Cross was both blissful and afflicted”. In the same way, Thérèse of Lisieux lived her agony in communion with the agony of Jesus, “experiencing” in herself the very paradox of Jesus’s own bliss and anguish: “In the Garden of Olives our Lord was blessed with all the joys of the Trinity, yet his dying was no less harsh. It is a mystery, but I assure you that, on the basis of what I myself am feeling, I can understand something of it”. What an illuminating testimony! Moreover, the accounts given by the Evangelists themselves provide a basis for this intuition on the part of the Church of Christ’s consciousness when they record that, even in the depths of his pain, he died imploring forgiveness for his executioners (cf. Lk 23:34) and expressing to the Father his ultimate filial abandonment: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46). ”
And Newman:
“This being the case, you will see at once, my brethren, that it is nothing to the purpose to say that He would be supported under His trial by the consciousness of innocence and the anticipation of triumph; for His trial consisted in the withdrawal, as of other causes of consolation, so of that very consciousness and anticipation. The same act of the will which admitted the influence upon His soul of any distress at all, admitted all distresses at once. It was not the contest between antagonist impulses and views, coming from without, but the operation of an inward resolution. As men of self-command can turn from one thought to another at their will, so much more did He deliberately deny Himself the comfort, and satiate Himself with the woe. In that moment His soul thought not of the future, He thought only of the present burden which was upon Him, and which He had come upon earth to sustain.”
This is why Christ was distressed and pleading. Not because He was about to be hated by the Father and have the Father’s wrath poured out upon Him.
“And you miss Paul’s point that God did not spare His own Son, alluding to Abraham not sparing His own Son when He handed Him up to who, to God!”
Right. Not spared from death. Christ’s death was offered to God in satisfaction for sinners. So RCism gets Paul’s point just fine.
“I asked, why so much anguish on the part of Christ if death isn’t the punishment for sin. Why such dread? Because its going to hurt physically really, really bad. That’s one of Aquinas’ answers. It’s a lame answer.”
What’s lame is you not reading where I cited Aquinas and ctc explicitly focusing on the interior suffering Christ endured on behalf of all of humanity’s sins – past, present, and future. Instead you offer helpful gems like “the cross is all about the Father and Son standing there and weeping”.
“There’s a palpable fear of death that Christ has that many of the martyrs don’t and that many Christians who weren’t martyrs don’t have. If it’s not suffering death for God’s wrath, there’s no reason to fear it.”
That doesn’t follow at all.
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sdb,
““God sees reality and is omniscient and just. The Father always sees Christ as the “perfect Son” really is, i.e. sinless.”
– What did Paul mean when he wrote that God made Christ to be sin?”
That Christ was made a sin offering. And so His offering to the Father on behalf of sinners was a gift more pleasing than all our sins were displeasing, not that God was pouring His wrath out upon Him and viewing Him as a sinner and hating and damning Him.
Augustine:
“The same Apostle says in another place, “He made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.” “Him who knew no sin:” Who is He who knew no sin, but He That said, “Behold the prince of the world comes, and shall find nothing in me? Him who knew no sin, made He sin for us;” even Christ Himself, who knew no sin, God made sin for us. What does this mean, Brethren? If it were said, “He made sin upon Him,” or, “He made Him to have sin;” it would seem intolerable; how do we tolerate what is said, “He made Him sin,” that Christ Himself should be sin? They who are acquainted with the Scriptures of the Old Testament recognise what I am saying. For it is not an expression once used, but repeatedly, very constantly, sacrifices for sins are called “sins.” A goat, for instance, was offered for sin, a ram, anything; the victim itself which was offered for sin was called “sin.” A sacrifice for sin then was called “sin;” so that in one place the Law says, “That the Priests are to lay their hands upon the sin.” “Him” then, “who knew no sin, He made sin for us;” that is, “He was made a sacrifice for sin.”
“Accordingly the apostle says: “We beseech you in Christ’s stead, be reconciled unto God. For He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21) God, therefore, to whom we are reconciled, has made Him to be sin for us—that is to say, a sacrifice by which our sins may be remitted; for by sins are designated the sacrifices for sins. And indeed He was sacrificed for our sins, the only one among men who had no sins, even as in those early times one was sought for among the flocks to prefigure the Faultless One who was to come to heal our offenses.”
“And they, perchance not understanding this, and being blinded by the desire of misrepresentation, and ignorant of the number of ways in which the name of sin is accustomed to be used in the Holy Scriptures, declare that we affirm sin of Christ. Therefore we assert that Christ both had no sin—neither in soul nor in the body; and that, by taking upon Him flesh in the likeness of sinful flesh, in respect of sin He condemned sin. And this assertion, somewhat obscurely made by the apostle, is explained in two ways—either that the likenesses of things are accustomed to be called by the names of those things to which they are like, so that the apostle may be understood to have intended to call this likeness of sinful flesh by the name of “sin;” or else that the sacrifices for sins were under the law called “sins,” all which things were figures of the flesh of Christ, which is the true and only sacrifice for sins—not only for those which are all washed away in baptism, but also for those which afterwards creep in from the weakness of this life, on account of which the universal Church daily cries in prayer to God, “Forgive us our debts,” and they are forgiven us by means of that singular sacrifice for sins which the apostle, speaking according to the law, did not hesitate to call “sin.” Whence, moreover, is that much plainer passage of his, which is not uncertain by any twofold ambiguity, “We beseech you in Christ’s stead to be reconciled to God. He made Him to be sin for us, who had not known sin; that we might be the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21) For the passage which I have above mentioned, “In respect of sin, He condemned sin,” because it was not said, “In respect of his sin,” may be understood by any one, as if He said that He condemned sin in respect of the sin of the Jews; because in respect of their sin who crucified Him, it happened that He shed His blood for the remission of sins. But this passage, where God is said to have made Christ Himself “sin,” who had not known sin, does not seem to me to be more fittingly understood than that Christ was made a sacrifice for sins, and on this account was called “sin.””
“However, the question of whether or not Christ’s death was necessary for the salvation of God’s enemies was not answered by any of your beautiful cutting and pasting.”
Considering the question was explicitly addressed in my beautiful cutting and pasting, I fail to see why you think that.
“If there was some other way to save sinners”
There was no other way given God’s plan of redemption, as explained in my cutting and pasting you say didn’t answer your question.
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Cletus,
You seem to be expending a large amount of time and electrical energy missing the point of your very own citations.
Augustine affirms that Jesus was regarded as a sinner, yet while without sin. Jesus did so in order to be a sacrifice for our sins, to pay satisfaction to the Father for sins as if the debt were His own — though it was not. That’s what Augustine says.
Funny that Calvin picked that up:
— Calv Inst 2.12.3
— ibid 2.16.2
But in your argument, it is wrong to say that the Father regarded the Son as if a sinner. It is wrong to assert that Christ’s suffering consisted of anything more than physical punishment. It is wrong to understand the curse on sin as anything more than simply dying.
The stumbling-block that keeps tripping you up is that you want to insist that because Jesus was sinless (and He was), that therefore God could not have punished Him as if He were a sinner.
But in so arguing, you rob the gospel of its glory, for you make the curse of the Law to consist merely in dying and suffering physical punishment. All men do that, so if that were the only satisfaction required, then men could pay their own way simply by dying.
No, a greater satisfaction than mere physical death is required. God must regard Jesus the man as if a sinner; as the Scripture says, “He was numbered among the transgressors.”
And the point that you miss is the meaning of logizomai, to “regard.” Jesus was regarded as lawless though he was not.
Now, if you want to press this mystery for detail and try to find there some contradiction in the Trinity or in the hypostatic union, well … that’s really on you and not us.
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Jeff,
“[In my argument] It is wrong to assert that Christ’s suffering consisted of anything more than physical punishment”
That’s news to me considering I’ve repeatedly argued Christ’s suffering was not merely physical. Perhaps instead of criticizing people for “expending a large amount of time and electrical energy missing the point of your very own citations” you should actually read those citations to get the point you claim is missed.
“It is wrong to understand the curse on sin as anything more than simply dying.”
Christ did more than just die. Which I already covered above – mere death was not sufficient.
“you rob the gospel of its glory”
The glory is that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
” All men do that, so if that were the only satisfaction required, then men could pay their own way simply by dying.”
Men are not divine or sinless. Christ’s death wasn’t the only aspect of satisfaction required, as already explained in my previous citations of Aquinas.
“He was numbered among the transgressors.”
Yes, RCism affirms substitution. I already cited CCC to that effect. Substitution (nor satisfaction) doesn’t get you to the Reformed view of penal substitution or what the Reformed authors I cited were getting at.
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CVD: That’s news to me considering I’ve repeatedly argued Christ’s suffering was not merely physical.
CVD: Right, the curse was physical death.
Make up your mind.
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James Young, right. Christ’s death was necessary but not absolutely necessary. So says James Young, not Scripture. Yup.
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James Young, “Christ wasn’t hated by God.”
Right, and Trent’s anathemas were slaps on the wrist.
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noon: Where’s Jesus? “We are their only resource”
And these also too noon, from your same link:
-we’re given this great power and privilege to release souls from purgatory- only we are the deliverers.
-Mass heals the living and deceased
-they (in purgatory) reproach us through inspirations of the Holy Spirit
– the Catechism says, in 958, “Our prayer for them is capable not only of helping them, but also of making their intercession for us effective
– If the soul is already in heaven and you continue to have Masses said for them and continue to pray for them, what they get is “accidental glory.” -the soul gets an increase in its intimacy with God and an increase in its intercessory power.
-Can we say that one goes straight to heaven? Can we say that soul was totally pure and holy and in line with God’s will to go to heaven at once?
Answer: yes
absent from the body..at home with the Lord. 2 Cor 5:8
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through JESUS Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. Jude 1:24-25
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Jeff,
And clearly physical death excludes interior suffering. Since your citation was my response to Noon, surely you read my other energy-wasting posts including:
“The offering/sacrifice has to adequately compensate for the debt – it cannot just be arbitrary. A mortal human could not satisfy our debt for example because our debt is infinite. Nor could Christ committing suicide or dying involuntarily or with resentment do it either.”
“[Citing Aquinas] Christ grieved not only over the loss of His own bodily life, but also over the sins of all others. And this grief in Christ surpassed all grief of every contrite heart, both because it flowed from a greater wisdom and charity, by which the pang of contrition is intensified, and because He grieved at the one time for all sins, according to Isaiah 53:4: “Surely He hath carried our sorrows.””
Right, the curse is physical death. Which Christ undertook as an offer of self-sacrificial love to the Father; He didn’t undergo God pouring His wrath out upon Him. Denying the curse means denying Christ died, not denying your view of penal substitution.
As Augustine said, “Confess then that Christ died, and you may confess that He bore the curse for us; and that when Moses said, “Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree,” he said in fact, To hang on a tree is to be mortal, or actually to die. He might have said, “Cursed is every one that is mortal,” or “Cursed is every one dying;” but the prophet knew that Christ would suffer on the cross, and that heretics would say that He hung on the tree only in appearance, without really dying. So he exclaims, Cursed; meaning that He really died. He knew that the death of sinful man, which Christ though sinless bore, came from that curse, “If you touch it, you shall surely die.””
“Christ suffered – physically and interiorly. He prayed to avoid that suffering. Christ bore the punishment of the curse – that is suffering and death. That doesn’t entail God pouring His wrath out upon and hating and “damning” Him, or that the “pure was pure no more”.”
“The point is Gal. 3:13 quoting Deut. 21:23”
– Right. Which is what Augustine is responding to Faustus about in the citation I offered. Further, here’s Aquinas on Gal 3:13:
“Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree is explained thus: The punishment itself is a curse, namely, that He should die in this way. Explained in this way, He was truly cursed by God, because God decreed that He endure this punishment in order to set us free. And what was “this way” in which Christ suffered and died? Was it via God pouring His wrath out upon and hating Jesus? Nope – http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4046.htm#article6”
“[Citing ctc]: Rather, in Christ’s Passion we humans poured out our enmity with God on Christ, by what we did to Him in His body and soul. And He freely chose to let us do all this to Him. Deeper still, even our present sins contributed to His suffering, because He, in solidarity with us, grieved over all the sins of the world, not just the sins of the elect. Hence, St. Francis of Assisi said, “Nor did demons crucify Him; it is you who have crucified Him and crucify Him still, when you delight in your vices and sins.” The Passion is a revelation of the love of God, not the wrath of God.””
“Christ’s suffering and pain was more than any mortal has or will bear, as I already said above quoting Aquinas, “Christ grieved not only over the loss of His own bodily life, but also over the sins of all others. And this grief in Christ surpassed all grief of every contrite heart, both because it flowed from a greater wisdom and charity, by which the pang of contrition is intensified, and because He grieved at the one time for all sins, according to Isaiah 53:4: “Surely He hath carried our sorrows.” But such was the dignity of Christ’s life in the body, especially on account of the Godhead united with it, that its loss, even for one hour, would be a matter of greater grief than the loss of another man’s life for howsoever long a time. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. iii) that the man of virtue loves his life all the more in proportion as he knows it to be better; and yet he exposes it for virtue’s sake. And in like fashion Christ laid down His most beloved life for the good of charity, according to Jeremiah 12:7: “I have given My dear soul into the hands of her enemies.”
“The cause of the interior pain was, first of all, all the sins of the human race, for which He made satisfaction by suffering; hence He ascribes them, so to speak, to Himself, saying (Psalm 21:2): “The words of my sins.”
… Thirdly, the magnitude of Christ’s suffering can be estimated from the singleness of His pain and sadness. In other sufferers the interior sadness is mitigated, and even the exterior suffering, from some consideration of reason, by some derivation or redundance from the higher powers into the lower; but it was not so with the suffering Christ, because “He permitted each one of His powers to exercise its proper function,” as Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iii). ”
… From all these causes weighed together, it follows that Christ’s pain was the very greatest.”
“[Citing CCC]: Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned. But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all”, so that we might be “reconciled to God by the death of his Son”.”
“Christ suffered and died. That’s the curse. This was ordained and permitted by God. So Christ was cursed by God. Not news.”
“And already replied to. The curse was suffering and death. Not the unorthodox implications you keep asserting, but not demonstrating, are entailed by that.”
“Christ suffered. Christ was cursed by God. Christ bore our sins. Christ made satisfaction on behalf of sinners. Aquinas agrees. Scripture agrees. RCism agrees. This doesn’t get your view of penal substitution or God pouring his wrath out upon the Son or what those Reformed teachers I cited were getting at.”
“Christ did not have spiritual consolation during the Passion. A dark night of the soul experience (infinitely more dark in Christ’s case than anything a mortal will experience) does not entail the Godhead was divided, or that God rejected or hated or was angry with Christ. Christians who suffer dark nights are still loved by God and in union and fellowship with Him. So God lifted divine protection from His physical enemies, and withdrew his spiritual consolation as well (Christ still retained the Beatific Vision though). As JP2 wrote:”
Less heat, more reading.
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Darryl,
“Christ’s death was necessary but not absolutely necessary.”
So the Incarnation and creation were absolutely necessary. Got it.
It’s a merry-go-around of unorthodoxy over things settled over 1000 years ago – semper reformanda.
“not Scripture.”
Oh, well, I guess Aquinas is no longer cool for you with his use of Scripture.
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Cletus,
I do read your posts. The point is that your arguments are not nearly as clear as they need to be, nor do they address the central points. Your ambivalent language on “curse” is a good example of this.
On the one hand, you admit to internal suffering on the part of Christ. On the other hand, you seem anxious to argue that the internal suffering of Christ was the right, Catholic kind and not the wrong, Protestant kind. Yet you never make clear what that difference is, and you push so hard on the Protestant that you end up saying things that you now disclaim, such as that Jesus’ curse was simply physical death.
If you were to pursue clarifying the difference instead of repeating the talking points, you might find that Protestants aren’t saying what you fear.
In other words, laying out your argument clearly and concisely would greatly help the “light” process.
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CVD: nor do they address the central points.
Sorry, that’s overstating. To be fair, I do think you address a couple of central points — namely, the importance of not attributing sin to the Son, and also of understanding that the eternal Son was never separated from the Father, nor died upon the cross.
Those are some central points, and you tackle them.
There are others.
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Wow, Internet. Let’s try again.
@ CVD
JRC: nor do they address the central points.
Sorry, that’s [I was] overstating. To be fair, I do think you address a couple of central points — namely, the importance of not attributing sin to the Son, and also of understanding that the eternal Son was never separated from the Father, nor died upon the cross.
Those are some central points, and you tackle them.
There are others.
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Jeff said:
On the other hand, you seem anxious to argue that the internal suffering of Christ was the right, Catholic kind and not the wrong, Protestant kind.
I, for one, would like to know what the right kind of Christ’s internal suffering was from a RC perspective. The CTC quotes, even if they accurately represent the RCC, aren’t clear.
Is it emotional anguish? I know some people who are going to leave loved ones behind are torn up because they fear for what their loved ones will endure and whether they will be supported. That doesn’t seem to be what Christ felt; He seemed awfully confident that leaving the Spirit would be enough to take care of them.
Is it emotional upheaval over physical pain? Maybe that’s part of it, but how is that redemptive?
What is it? In plain English, not vague “suffering in solidarity with us.” What does that even mean? It sounds like feminist theology.
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Jeff,
“Your ambivalent language on “curse” is a good example of this.”
Was Augustine ambivalent when he said ““Confess then that Christ died, and you may confess that He bore the curse for us.. So he exclaims, Cursed; meaning that He really died.”
And then also said it included suffering?
“If you were to pursue clarifying the difference instead of repeating the talking points, you might find that Protestants aren’t saying what you fear”
Are they saying this?
Piper: “When Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” it was the scream of the damned — damned in our place”
Anyabwile: “This spiritual forsakenness, spiritual wrath from the Father, occurs deep down in the very godhead itself. We dare not speculate lest we blaspheme. But something was torn in the very fabric of the relationship between Father and Son… At 3 o’clock that dark Friday afternoon, the Father turned His face away and the ancient, eternal fellowship between Father and Son was broken as divine wrath rained down like a million Soddoms and Gomorrah’s…. In Jerusalem that day hung a picture of Hell as the Son of God was cut off socially from everyone, deserted emotionally on the cross, and separated spiritually from the eternal Father with whom He had always lived face-to-face. That’s hell.”
MacArthur: “In some mysterious way during those awful hours on the cross, the Father poured out the full measure of His wrath against sin, and the recipient of that wrath was God’s own beloved Son. In this lies the true meaning of the cross…. It was a punishment so severe that a mortal could spend all eternity in the torments of hell, and still he would not have begun to exhaust the divine wrath that was heaped on Christ at the cross. This was the true measure of Christ’s sufferings on the cross. The physical pains of crucifixion – dreadful as they were – were nothing compared to the wrath of the Father against Him.”
Calvin: “Nothing had been done if Christ had only endured corporeal death. In order to interpose between us and God’s anger, and satisfy his righteous judgment, it was necessary that he should feel the weight of divine vengeance.”
Boettner: “He was literally suffering the pangs of hell. For that is essentially what hell is, separation from God, separation from everything that is good and desirable.”
Grudem: “As Jesus bore the guilt of our sins alone, God the Father, the mighty Creator, the Lord of the universe, poured out on Jesus the fury of his wrath: Jesus became the object of the intense hatred of sin and vengeance against sin that God had patiently stored up since the beginning of the world.”
Sproul: “Until that moment that my sin was placed upon Him. And the one who was pure was pure no more. And God cursed Him. It was if there was a cry from Heaven – excuse my language but I can be no more accurate than to say – it was as if Jesus heard the words ‘God damn you’, because that’s what it meant to be cursed, to be damned, to be under the anathema of the Father. As I said I don’t understand that, but I know that it’s true.”
Daniel Wallace: “And he is bold enough to say, “there is nothing in Scripture that says that the Father rejected the Son.” This might come as quite a shock to the majority of Christians throughout twenty centuries who have held otherwise.. To Jesus, at this point, God was no longer acting as his Father; he was his judge.”
Are they saying this?
DGH: “Did God pour out His wrath on His innocent Son, or did the Son of God offer Himself up in willing, self- sacrificial love to His Father?
– Why is it either or?”
”If God the Father was pouring out His wrath on the Second Person of the Trinity, then God was divided against Himself, God the Father hating His own Word.
– And so the Roman Catholic save here is to say that the cross was an act of God the father’s love for his son?
“law demanding God’s wrath against unrighteousness”
“where’s the justice of God in pouring out his wrath upon his son?
Noon:“God wasn’t “pouring His wrath upon his son”.”
– What is it you have against the apostles, James?”
“Hopefully you can see how unjustly that passage applies to Christ both from men and God.”
Robert: “Christ’s receiving divine wrath
God took HIs own wrath upon Himself in the person of His Son.
So if it wasn’t divine wrath, he was therefore a coward.
Well aside from the “not pouring out His wrath,” this is Reformed thinking.”
JRC: “you rhetorically ask whether God poured out his wrath on the Son or whether Jesus gave his life willingly.”
– Well: Do you walk to school, or do you take your lunch?”
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Robert,
“I, for one, would like to know what the right kind of Christ’s internal suffering was from a RC perspective. The CTC quotes, even if they accurately represent the RCC, aren’t clear.”
Is this serious? You were mocking it earlier “the cross is all about the Father and Son standing there and weeping.” and now you claim you don’t even know what it is, except it “sounds like feminist theology”.
Internal suffering and its extent was already covered above:
JP2: “Precisely because of the knowledge and experience of the Father which he alone has, even at this moment of darkness he sees clearly the gravity of sin and suffers because of it. He alone, who sees the Father and rejoices fully in him, can understand completely what it means to resist the Father’s love by sin. More than an experience of physical pain, his Passion is an agonizing suffering of the soul.”
CtC: “Rather, in Christ’s Passion we humans poured out our enmity with God on Christ, by what we did to Him in His body and soul. And He freely chose to let us do all this to Him. Deeper still, even our present sins contributed to His suffering, because He, in solidarity with us, grieved over all the sins of the world, not just the sins of the elect. Hence, St. Francis of Assisi said, “Nor did demons crucify Him; it is you who have crucified Him and crucify Him still, when you delight in your vices and sins.” The Passion is a revelation of the love of God, not the wrath of God.”
Aquinas: ” “Christ grieved not only over the loss of His own bodily life, but also over the sins of all others. And this grief in Christ surpassed all grief of every contrite heart, both because it flowed from a greater wisdom and charity, by which the pang of contrition is intensified, and because He grieved at the one time for all sins, according to Isaiah 53:4: “Surely He hath carried our sorrows.””
“there was true and sensible pain in the suffering Christ, which is caused by something hurtful to the body: also, there was internal pain, which is caused from the apprehension of something hurtful, and this is termed “sadness.” And in Christ each of these was the greatest in this present life.
…The cause of the interior pain was, first of all, all the sins of the human race, for which He made satisfaction by suffering; hence He ascribes them, so to speak, to Himself, saying (Psalm 21:2): “The words of my sins.
… His soul likewise, from its interior powers, apprehended most vehemently all the causes of sadness.
… Thirdly, the magnitude of Christ’s suffering can be estimated from the singleness of His pain and sadness. In other sufferers the interior sadness is mitigated, and even the exterior suffering, from some consideration of reason, by some derivation or redundance from the higher powers into the lower; but it was not so with the suffering Christ, because “He permitted each one of His powers to exercise its proper function,” as Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iii). ”
Fourthly, the magnitude of the pain of Christ’s suffering can be reckoned by this, that the pain and sorrow were accepted voluntarily, to the end of men’s deliverance from sin; and consequently He embraced the amount of pain proportionate to the magnitude of the fruit which resulted therefrom.”
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Clete,
Those quotes aren’t helping. Let’s look at JP2:
Christ alone understands the gravity of sin. So Christ alone knows that sin is really, really bad and it makes Him sad. And you wonder why I talk about him and the father weeping?
And then Christ understands completely what it means to resist the Father by sin? Why? Because He sees other people resisting God while He hangs on the cross? But God sees that anyway. If Christ never sinned, it can’t mean He understands what it means to be a sinner and actually resist God.
So the pope is unclear, and it is not at all evident how such things atone for sin. If I think sin is really bad, does that mean I’ve atoned for sin?
CTC: “He, in solidarity with us, grieves over the sins of the world.” But the problem is that we don’t grieve over sin like we should. And even so, this takes us back to Christ looking at how bad sin is and being so sad that sin is bad and that people are hurting themselves and each other. Certainly that is true of Christ, but how is that atoning. Why does one need to die to understand that? I don’t have to die to understand and be sorrowful that human beings kill each other unjustly.
And the quotes from Aquinas aren’t helpful either. All of it reads as if Jesus got really, really sad and depressed on the cross.
So it’s not clear. And yes, “suffering in solidarity” sounds like feminist theology. And grieving over the sins of the world as the extent of the atonement sounds like liberal hogwash. Yeah, Jesus grieves over such things, but the atonement isn’t reducible to seeing the harm that evil people and power structures cause. And it’s not clear why that is atoning or why death is thereby rendered necessary in any sense.
You’ve got some work to do, as Jeff noted.
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CVD: An argument, please.
And no, Anyabwile does not get to sneak into your witness list.
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Jeff,
Was Augustine ambivalent?
Okay, Anyabwile is a no-go. Everyone else cited is kosher? What about http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-fathers-cup-good-friday
“Then Jesus is startled by a foul odor. It isn’t the stench of open wounds. It’s something else. And it crawls inside him. He looks up to his Father. His Father looks back, but Jesus doesn’t recognize these eyes. They pierce the invisible world with fire and darken the visible sky. And Jesus feels dirty. He hangs between earth and heaven filthy with human discharge on the outside and, now, filthy with human wickedness on the inside.
The Father speaks:
Son of Man! Why have you sinned against me and heaped scorn on my great glory?
You are self-sufficient and self-righteous — consumed with yourself and puffed up and selfishly ambitious.
…
You practice divination and worship demons.
The list of your sins goes on and on and on and on. And I hate these things inside of you. I’m filled with disgust, and indignation for your sin consumes me.
Now, drink my cup!
And Jesus does. He drinks for hours. He downs every drop of the scalding liquid of God’s own hatred of sin mingled with his white-hot wrath against that sin. This is the Father’s cup: omnipotent hatred and anger for the sins of every generation past, present, and future — omnipotent wrath directed at one naked man hanging on a cross.
The Father can no longer look at his beloved Son, his heart’s treasure, the mirror-image of himself. He looks away.”
or Calvin’s explanation of the descent into hell: “Whence also it was necessary that he should engage, as it were, at close quarters with the powers of hell and the horrors of eternal death…. not only was the body of Christ given up as the price of redemption, but that there was a greater and more excellent price—that he bore in his soul the tortures of condemned and ruined man.”
or Hodge: “Therefore if Christ suffered the penalty of the law He must have suffered death eternal; or, as others say, He must have endured the same kind of sufferings as those who are cast off from God and die eternally are called upon to suffer.”
The argument is God did not pour out His wrath out upon Christ.
The argument is satisfaction and substitution are compatible with God not pouring His wrath upon Christ.
The argument is satisfaction and substitution do not entail God pouring His wrath out upon Christ or Christ becoming legally guilty or the Protestant view of PS.
The argument is the curse Christ underwent is not anger and wrath and rejection from God.
The argument is Christ appeased and satisfied God’s wrath for human sin, not had that wrath poured out on Him.
The argument is the view of PS advanced here entails unorthodox affirmations of Arianism, polytheism, Nestorianism, or some mix-and-match of the 3.
All of which has been explained above.
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Robert,
“Those quotes aren’t helping. ”
Your question was how did Christ suffer internally. The quotes explained how he suffered. I’m sorry they don’t say things like the Son was separated from the Father or was accused as a sinner or the Father hated the Son.
“If I think sin is really bad, does that mean I’ve atoned for sin?”
No, just as you dying would not atone for your sin. As Aquinas covered in explaining why the Passion was necessary. And further, as the quotes explicitly covered (the ones that “aren’t helping”), your suffering and grief would not and cannot compare to Christ’s suffering.
“But the problem is that we don’t grieve over sin like we should.”
Here’s one of the “not helping” quotations:
“Christ grieved not only over the loss of His own bodily life, but also over the sins of all others. And this grief in Christ surpassed all grief of every contrite heart, both because it flowed from a greater wisdom and charity, by which the pang of contrition is intensified, and because He grieved at the one time for all sins, according to Isaiah 53:4: “Surely He hath carried our sorrows.””
and
“Thirdly, the magnitude of Christ’s suffering can be estimated from the singleness of His pain and sadness. In other sufferers the interior sadness is mitigated, and even the exterior suffering, from some consideration of reason, by some derivation or redundance from the higher powers into the lower; but it was not so with the suffering Christ, because “He permitted each one of His powers to exercise its proper function,” as Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iii). ”
So yeah, your defective contrition and grief is kind of the point. You’re not divine and sinless with human nature.
“And the quotes from Aquinas aren’t helpful either.”
Read better.
“All of it reads as if Jesus got really, really sad and depressed on the cross.”
Ditto.
“So it’s not clear.”
Ditto.
“And yes, “suffering in solidarity” sounds like feminist theology.”
Ditto.
“And grieving over the sins of the world as the extent of the atonement sounds like liberal hogwash.”
Ditto. No one said grief over sins was the extent of the atonement.
“Yeah, Jesus grieves over such things”
Yeah, it’s no big deal though. Get over it Jesus. Why are you wasting all that time grieving – it wasn’t necessary or essential to your suffering.
“but the atonement isn’t reducible to seeing the harm that evil people”
No one reduced atonement to that. Read better.
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CVD: Everyone else cited is kosher?
No, the point is twofold:
(1) Statements by modern theologians don’t have the same weight as statements by tested theologians, who in turn have less weight than confessional statements.
So “He descended into Hell” matters a lot more in this discussion than Piper.
Hodge and Calvin make sense for you to use here.
(2) Statements by “Reformed baptists” are not entirely relevant for confessional Presbyterianism. If you go back and look at your list and see which ones are Baptists, you will see that they make much less guarded expressions, some of which (eg Anabywile) strike me as having Trinitarian issues.
—
Alright, that’s the beginnings of an argument. To make it into an argument, you now need definitions. You also need to show how those statements are logically connected.
What definitions are you using for the terms “satisfaction”, “substitution”, “wrath”?
We may take “Arianism”, “polytheism”, and “Nestorianism” as well-defined.
When you say that “the curse that Christ underwent is is not anger, wrath, and rejection from God”, what are you positively saying that the curse is? Clearly you have retreated from your earlier statement that the curse is physical death.
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It’s not a “contrapositive 2”, it’s a “De Morgan’s 2”
(2) is ~(S1 or S2 => W)
“It is not the case that satisfaction or substitution imply wrath poured out”
(De Morgan’s 2) is
“satisfaction does not imply wrath, and substitution does not imply wrath”
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CvD,
Me: “It was a certain type of death specified in the Mosaic Law”
You: Right. The sinless one suffered a particular type of death – a very unjust one he willingly took on which was ordained and permitted by God in fulfillment of the Scriptures. That doesn’t entail the curse is your view of penal substitution.
Jim, you are still avoiding the force of the curse described in Deut. 21:23.
It is a DESERVED DEATH OF HANGING, THE CURSE IS ADDED: IT IS DIVINE TESTIMONY ON TOP OF MEN’S EXECUTION THAT THE PERSON BEING EXECUTED IS, BY GOD’S TESTIMONY, DESERVEDLY HELL-BOUND.
Oh, why do I bother?
Me: So God was unjust towards Christ at the Cross, just as men were.
You: As was already cited earlier from ctc,
“This theological mess will continue, so long as the sacrificial and substitutionary language of Scripture and the Fathers is misconstrued as meaning that Christ steps voluntarily into the blind stream of divine wrath so that we don’t receive it. We need to remember and recover the original conception of substitutionary atonement, which long preceded the Protestant Christ-takes-the-divine-wrath version.”
Hey, Augustine didn’t do his work on reading Deut. 21:23, the background of Gal. 3:13 and your quote. But God gave you a Bible, even translated into your language.
You stumble at the stumbling block, which is Messiah dying the death of the worst kind of convicted criminals, with divine testimony as to its justice, not its injustice. You recoil, not believing the excelling virtue of the gospel of the Holy One being treated as God’s curse on sinner’s behalf and dying the death of a transgressor.
You just need to get saved, Jim.
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Then there is this from CvD, which is the testimony of JP2, which is the testimony of Theresa, and omigosh, this is #justsopowerful:
Thérèse of Lisieux lived her agony in communion with the agony of Jesus, “experiencing” in herself the very paradox of Jesus’s own bliss and anguish: “In the Garden of Olives our Lord was blessed with all the joys of the Trinity, yet his dying was no less harsh. It is a mystery, but I assure you that, on the basis of what I myself am feeling, I can understand something of it”. What an illuminating testimony!
HT: CvD
Hmmm, Xt chose to come to earth an forego the privileges of divine fellowship by being a man of sorrows, but Theresa says He was blessed with all the joys of the Trinity in the Garden.
False. He didn’t experience the perichoresis the Father uniquely enjoys in the Holy Spirit in the garden, or the Spirit uniquely of the Father. They are 3 different Persons.
RCs love to quote Christians, esp. RC ones. But are so allergic to the apostles. When you don’t believe the Bible’s testimony about itself (sola Scriptura) all you’re left with is mysticism (and a paradigm).
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To prime the pump, while we are waiting for definitions and a logical account of the relations between your propositions, here is Anselm:
blockquote>And here we must observe that as man in sinning takes away what belongs to God, so God in punishing gets in return what pertains to man. For not only does that belong to a man which he has in present possession, but also that which it is in his power to have. Therefore, since man was so made as to be able to attain happiness by avoiding sin; if, on account of his sin, he is deprived of happiness and every good, he repays from his own inheritance what he has stolen, though he repay it against his will — CDH 14
The key point here is that the debt repaid is one of punishment. That punishment specifically is to be deprived of every happiness and every good.
It follows then that if Jesus pays that debt, then He was punished, and punished by being deprived of every happiness and good.
Thus Anselm.
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CvD,
“The cause of the interior pain was, first of all, all the sins of the human race, for which He made satisfaction by suffering; hence He ascribes them, so to speak, to Himself, saying (Psalm 21:2): “The words of my sins.”
I bet you don’t look up the Scriptural references you cite, amiright? B/c what’s really important is what the dude from history says, amiright?
So, Jim, by what mechanism did Christ experience the interior pain if not by imputation from the Father?
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Clete,
So yeah, your defective contrition and grief is kind of the point. You’re not divine and sinless with human nature.
But of course a person who is divine and sinless doesn’t experience contrition because He has no sins for which He needs to be contrite. So we’re reduced at Jesus grieving over the sins of others for how they hurt others, but that doesn’t require an incarnation, and it’s not at all clear at why that is atoning. One RC, Prejean, told me that God doesn’t actually get angry at sin, so there goes punishment. And Christ can’t be contrite if He’s sinless, so I’m honestly at a loss as to what Christ suffers besides physical pain and being sorry that my sin hurts others like my wife, children, and friends. Jesus the great empathizer?
So no, the quotes don’t explain it. Neither does “His death pleased the Father more than our sins displeased Him” except in some kind of crass balancing act, which I guess is not what you all mean but honestly it’s not that clear.
Protestant Position:
1. God is perfectly just and cannot overlook sin but must punish it.
2. God is love and does not want those whom He loves to endure the punishment.
3. God decides to accept a substitute—Himself in human flesh—to whom sin is imputed and His justice is satisfied because the substitute bears the punishment.
4. Those whom He loves don’t endure the punishment themselves, but justice is not overlooked because their sins were actually punished.
I don’t see where in what you or other RCs have presented that our sin actually gets punished. Maybe you will make it clearer. The closest thing I’ve seen is our bearing our own temporal punishments in purgatory.
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James Young, come on now. Hate the sin, love the sinner.
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James Young, “The argument is the curse Christ underwent is not anger and wrath and rejection from God.”
So you’re one of those who believes in good forms of torture.
How can Christ be a substitute and get good torture when we had bad torture coming?
Then again, I’m not so sure you believe that sinners deserve bad torture. You like all that mercy language of Francis, you liberal, you.
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Darryl,
Love me.
“I’m not so sure you believe that sinners deserve bad torture. ”
Christ wasnt a sinner. Nor does a just God inflict wrath on the innocent or deceive Himself. Watch those rakes.
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“Considering the question was explicitly addressed in my beautiful cutting and pasting, I fail to see why you think that.”
I am so sorry cvd. I didn’t mean to offend you. Unlike God’s infallible word, your writing is utterly perspicuous. Ha!
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Sdb,
If you told me Scripture mentioned Mickey Mouse, Id tell you to reread it.
Im here to clarify as a good and helpful author can and should. Just as I did with Jeff on my view of the curse. He now thinks I was ambivalent, which indicated further clarification was needed. So we are gradually progressing in clarity and understanding. All without mindmelding and omniscience! Who woulda thunk it.
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James Young, Of course you don’t understand this. You’re Roman Catholic.
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21)
You can’t grasp that sinners are righteous or that the righteous become sinners. Not your paradigm.
So you need a pope to proclaim indifferent and diffuse mercy. So much for the mercy of Christ.
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“Im here to clarify as a good and helpful author can and should. ”
“Considering the question was explicitly addressed in my beautiful cutting and pasting, I fail to see why you think that.”
Well at least we agree you didn’t mention Mickey Mouse.
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DG: So you need a pope to proclaim indifferent and diffuse mercy. So much for the mercy of Christ.
back to reflecting on the specific point of the post, topperism .. It is JESUS who is preeminent
that link: “Francis also spoke to confessors at the close of his address, telling them that every person who comes to the confessional is looking for a father who will give them the strength to go forward and forgive them in the name of God.”
confessor? …….
Modern meaning
Since the time when the Roman pontiffs reserved to themselves definite decision in causes of canonization and beatification, the title of confessor (pontiff, non-pontiff, doctor) belongs only to those men who have distinguished themselves by heroic virtue which God has approved by miracles, and who have been solemnly adjudged this title by the Church and proposed by her to the faithful as objects of their veneration.
Later meaning
After the middle of the fourth century we find confessor used to designate those men of remarkable virtue and knowledge who confessed the Faith of Christ before the world by the practice of the most heroic virtue, by their writings and preachings, and in consequence began to be objects of veneration, had chapels (martyria) erected in their honour, which in the previous centuries had been the especial privilege of the martyrs. In the Eastern Church the first confessors who received a public cultus were the abbots St. Anthony and St. Hilarion, also St. Philogonus and St. Athanasius. In the West Pope St. Silvester was so venerated even before St. Martin of Tours, as can be shown from the “Kalendarium” published by Fouteau–a document which is certainly of the time of Pope Liberius (cf. “Praenotata” in the aforesaid “Kalendarium”, iv).
Etymology and primitive meaning
The word confessor is derived from the Latin confiteri, to confess, to profess, but it is not found in writers of the classical period, having been first used by the Christians. With them it was a title of honour to designate those brave champions of the Faith who had confessed Christ publicly in time of persecution and had been punished with imprisonment, torture, exile, or labour in the mines, remaining faithful in their confession until the end of their lives. The title thus distinguished them from the martyrs, who were so called because they underwent death for the Faith. The first clear evidence of the distinction just spoken of is found in an epitaph which is recorded by De Rossi (Bullettino di archeologia cristiana, 1864, p. 30): “A Domino coronati sunt beati confessores comites martyrum Aurelius Diogenes confessor et Valeria Felicissima vivi in Deo fecerunt” [The blessed confessors, companions of the martyrs, have been crowned by the Lord. Aurelius Diogenes, confessor, and Valeria Felicissima, put up (this monument) during their lifetime]. Among writers St. Cyprian is the first in whose works it occurs (Ep. xxxvii): “Is demum confessor illustris et verus est de quo post-modum non erubescit Ecclesia sed gloriatur” (That confessor, indeed, is illustrious and true for whom the Church does not afterwards blush, but of whom she boasts); he shows in the passage that suffering alone for the Faith did not merit the title of confessor unless perseverance to the end had followed. In this meaning the title is of more frequent occurrence in the Christian writers of the fourth century. Sidonius Apollinaris (Carmen, xvii), to quote one instance, writes, “Sed confessorem virtutum signa sequuntur” (But signs of power follow the confessor). A similar use may be verified in Lactantius, “De morte persecut.”, xxxv; St. Jerome, Ep. lxxxii, 7; Prudentius, Peri steph., 55, etc. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04215a.htm
Jesus & His dictionary(the Bible): confessor = anyone who confesses
Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. Matt 10:32
that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; Romans 10:9
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9
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Oops didn’t include full end quote:
“Francis also spoke to confessors at the close of his address, telling them that every person who comes to the confessional is looking for a father who will give them the strength to go forward and forgive them in the name of God.”… “Because of this, “being a confessor is a very big responsibility, very big, because that child that comes to you truly seeks a father,” the Pope said, reminding priests that when they are in the confessional, “you are in the place of the Father, who makes justice with his mercy!”
…”that child that comes to you truly seeks a father”….what that child truly seeks is THE FATHER and JESUS…. so In the year of mercy, (ie, every year), the most merciful and gracious thing to do is point to GOD for ‘strength’ ..full trust and confidence.
Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. 16 Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 10 One Sacrifice of Christ Is Sufficient…
10 by the FATHER’s will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
14 by one offering JESUS has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
15t he HOLY SPIRIT also testifies to us, saying:16 “THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THEM AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS UPON THEIR HEART,AND ON THEIR MIND I WILL WRITE THEM,”He then says,17 “AND THEIR SINS AND THEIR LAWLESS DEEDS I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE.”
18 Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.
19 Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful
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“Smitten of God, and afflicted, but He was pierced through for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed….But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him….He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth. But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief.”
cvd, your quotes do not address the questions at hand in large part because they were addressing different controversies. Citing Is 53:4 skips the stuff above. What we see is that Jesus is:
1) smitten & afflicted by God.
2) pierced and crushed for our sins
3) the torture he faced was what brought our healing.
4) our sins are placed on (counted to) him
5) he himself never sinned, yet it pleased God to crush him.
Secondly, we clearly see that it is “the cup” that the Son pleads to have taken away. Throughout scripture (old and new), “the cup” is a metaphor for God’s wrath. None of your citations explain why “the cup” should be understood as something other than God’s wrath. Read in context of Is 53, it is pretty clear that we have Christ bearing the Father’s wrath for our sins. So when you write,
I have to ask, why didn’t Isaiah get the memo? The cut & paste job don’t address this.
Finally, in Luke, we see that Christ calls out after being “forsaken” by God. Aquinas doesn’t address what “forsaken” really means here as it must have some other meaning for your view to hold together under exegetical scrutiny.
Now I don’t believe that Christ ever sinned, could be regarded as a “sinner”, or that he was “hated by the Father” – I’ve never heard that before and I don’t see why you would dig through sermons of pastors known for the their purple flourishes rather than turn to the confessions that describe our views. Here is what the Belgic Confession (Articles 20-21) has to say:
The Westminster Confession doesn’t go into quite as much detail, but the gist is the same. Here it is for completeness,
Perhaps you can spell out how these statements of our beliefs entail an “unorthodox Christology and Trinitarianism”. Then you can get around to correcting Isaiah – too bad he didn’t have Aquinas around to keep him straight!
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Darryl and SDB,
You point out the fundamental problem with CVD’s and CTC’s analysis; it’s low on actual exegesis.
Roman Catholicism forbids its adherents from believing that God justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5). So that church will allow people to hold to certain questionable deductions they make from those who weren’t even a part of the Magisterium (Aquinas) but not to what Paul says.
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Robert,
“of course a person who is divine and sinless doesn’t experience contrition because He has no sins for which He needs to be contrite.”
Of course a person who is divine and sinless doesn’t experience God’s wrath because He has no sins for which He needs to suffer wrath.
A divine and sinless person doesn’t need to suffer and die. Christ suffered and died on the behalf of sinners. That’s what makes the Passion meritorious and why Christ’s loving sacrifice pleased the Father more than our sins displeased Him, as was already explained in the not helping quotes.
“so I’m honestly at a loss as to what Christ suffers besides physical pain ”
He suffered the loss of spiritual consolation and dark night. He suffered the grief and sorrow over all sins humanity has and will commit. He suffered seeing the full weight and consequences of all sin of all humanity in all its pure evil in its offense to God.
Aquinas: “Secondly, the same is evident on the part of the sufferings which a man can endure. For Christ suffered from friends abandoning Him; in His reputation, from the blasphemies hurled at Him; in His honor and glory, from the mockeries and the insults heaped upon Him; in things, for He was despoiled of His garments; in His soul, from sadness, weariness, and fear; in His body, from wounds and scourgings.”
“It is written (Psalm 87:4) on behalf of Christ: “My soul is filled with evils”: upon which the gloss adds: “Not with vices, but with woes, whereby the soul suffers with the flesh; or with evils, viz. of a perishing people, by compassionating them.” But His soul would not have been filled with these evils except He had suffered in His whole soul. Therefore Christ suffered in His entire soul.”
From the not-helping quotes: “More than an experience of physical pain, his Passion is an agonizing suffering of the soul.” and “The same act of the will which admitted the influence upon His soul of any distress at all, admitted all distresses at once.” and “The cause of the interior pain was, first of all, all the sins of the human race, for which He made satisfaction by suffering; hence He ascribes them, so to speak, to Himself, saying (Psalm 21:2): “The words of my sins.”
The Suffering Servant doesn’t just suffer physically. Is 53:3-4 does not reduce the atonement to “Jesus got really, really sad and depressed on the cross” or “all about the Father and Son standing there and weeping” or “liberal hogwash”.
The “solidarity” part is suffering (most acutely) the curse and consequences of sin common to humanity – physical and emotional and spiritual suffering, death, sadness, grief, etc. – that is, becoming incarnate and entering into a fallen world and allowing Himself to suffer those consequences.
He did not suffer the “pangs of Hell”, “weight of divine vengeance”, “the scream of the damned “, “the wrath of the Father against Him”, “[becoming] the object of the intense hatred of sin and vengeance against sin that God had patiently stored up since the beginning of the world”, where the “Father rejected the Son”, “omnipotent hatred and anger for the sins of every generation past, present, and future — omnipotent wrath directed at one naked man hanging on a cross”
“Darryl, You point out the fundamental problem with CVD’s and CTC’s analysis; it’s low on actual exegesis.”
Huh, and yet I saw this approval from DGH: “Aquinas explains more (notice how much he uses Scripture — S-c-r-i-p-t-u-r-e):”
“Roman Catholicism forbids its adherents from believing that God justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5)”
Is that high exegesis?
God justifies the ungodly. That doesn’t entail he imputes righteousness to them, rather than making them righteous. That doesn’t entail they remain ungodly after justification. That also doesn’t entail Christ was ungodly or viewed as ungodly by the Father.
“I don’t see where in what you or other RCs have presented that our sin actually gets punished.”
Christ suffered the punishment of sin. That’s why he suffered and died.
CCC: “Man’s sins, following on original sin, are punishable by death. By sending his own Son in the form of a slave, in the form of a fallen humanity, on account of sin, God “made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned. But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all”, so that we might be “reconciled to God by the death of his Son”.”
“After agreeing to baptize him along with the sinners, John the Baptist looked at Jesus and pointed him out as the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. By doing so, he reveals that Jesus is at the same time the suffering Servant who silently allows himself to be led to the slaughter and who bears the sin of the multitudes, and also the Paschal Lamb, the symbol of Israel’s redemption at the first Passover. Christ’s whole life expresses his mission: “to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.””
“The cup of the New Covenant, which Jesus anticipated when he offered himself at the Last Supper, is afterwards accepted by him from his Father’s hands in his agony in the garden at Gethsemani, making himself “obedient unto death”. Jesus prays: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. . .” Thus he expresses the horror that death represented for his human nature. Like ours, his human nature is destined for eternal life; but unlike ours, it is perfectly exempt from sin, the cause of death. Above all, his human nature has been assumed by the divine person of the “Author of life”, the “Living One”. By accepting in his human will that the Father’s will be done, he accepts his death as redemptive, for “he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.”
Christ’s death is both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”, and the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the “blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”.
This sacrifice of Christ is unique; it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices. First, it is a gift from God the Father himself, for the Father handed his Son over to sinners in order to reconcile us with himself. At the same time it is the offering of the Son of God made man, who in freedom and love offered his life to his Father through the Holy Spirit in reparation for our disobedience.
Jesus substitutes his obedience for our disobedience
“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” By his obedience unto death, Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant, who “makes himself an offering for sin”, when “he bore the sin of many”, and who “shall make many to be accounted righteous”, for “he shall bear their iniquities”. Jesus atoned for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father.”
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Darryl,
” Of course you don’t understand this. You’re Roman Catholic.
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21)”
I guess Augustine didn’t understand it either. Considering I already addressed this verse above referencing him – https://oldlife.org/2016/02/wheres-jesus/#comment-376483
Christ was made sin in the sense of a sin offering and sacrifice for sin, not through handwaving unorthodoxy a la Sproul’s “As I said I don’t understand that [Jesus being damned and viewed as impure by the Father], but I know that it’s true.”
“You can’t grasp that sinners are righteous or that the righteous become sinners. Not your paradigm”
So Christ was a sinner. Cool paradigm.
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Clete,
Robert,
Of course a person who is divine and sinless doesn’t experience God’s wrath because He has no sins for which He needs to suffer wrath.
If sins are imputed to Him, He does. Contrition, on the other hand, is an admission of personal guilt. Christ isn’t on the cross saying, “I’m sorry for breaking your law.” That’s what your references to contrition imply. You can’t be contrite for another person’s sins. You can’t repent for something you didn’t do.
A divine and sinless person doesn’t need to suffer and die. Christ suffered and died on the behalf of sinners. That’s what makes the Passion meritorious and why Christ’s loving sacrifice pleased the Father more than our sins displeased Him, as was already explained in the not helping quotes.
A sinless person is incapable of dying if He isn’t bearing His guilt or the guilt of someone else. You’ve already admitted that sin is not inherent to humanity and that if there is no sin there is no death, so you’ve got some explaining to do as to how a sinless person could die without imputation.
He suffered the loss of spiritual consolation and dark night.
Hello divine wrath.
He suffered the grief and sorrow over all sins humanity has and will commit. He suffered seeing the full weight and consequences of all sin of all humanity in all its pure evil in its offense to God.
None of that requires an incarnation or death on the cross or death by any other means. So we’re still left with what the point of the cross was.
Aquinas: “Secondly, the same is evident on the part of the sufferings which a man can endure. For Christ suffered from friends abandoning Him; in His reputation, from the blasphemies hurled at Him; in His honor and glory, from the mockeries and the insults heaped upon Him; in things, for He was despoiled of His garments; in His soul, from sadness, weariness, and fear; in His body, from wounds and scourgings.”
“It is written (Psalm 87:4) on behalf of Christ: “My soul is filled with evils”: upon which the gloss adds: “Not with vices, but with woes, whereby the soul suffers with the flesh; or with evils, viz. of a perishing people, by compassionating them.” But His soul would not have been filled with these evils except He had suffered in His whole soul. Therefore Christ suffered in His entire soul.”
From the not-helping quotes: “More than an experience of physical pain, his Passion is an agonizing suffering of the soul.” and “The same act of the will which admitted the influence upon His soul of any distress at all, admitted all distresses at once.” and “The cause of the interior pain was, first of all, all the sins of the human race, for which He made satisfaction by suffering; hence He ascribes them, so to speak, to Himself, saying (Psalm 21:2): “The words of my sins.”
The Suffering Servant doesn’t just suffer physically. Is 53:3-4 does not reduce the atonement to “Jesus got really, really sad and depressed on the cross” or “all about the Father and Son standing there and weeping” or “liberal hogwash”.
But you’ve just said that Jesus is suffering the distress of seeing sin. If he’s not bearing divine judgment and the curse—and if he’s bearing the curse, he’s bearing divine wrath—there’s no despair other than sadness, depression, and the like.
The “solidarity” part is suffering (most acutely) the curse and consequences of sin common to humanity – physical and emotional and spiritual suffering, death, sadness, grief, etc. – that is, becoming incarnate and entering into a fallen world and allowing Himself to suffer those consequences.
But the curse is God’s divine judgment against sin. I’m trying to figure out where when you curse somebody you aren’t showing wrath toward them.
He did not suffer the “pangs of Hell”, “weight of divine vengeance”, “the scream of the damned “, “the wrath of the Father against Him”, “[becoming] the object of the intense hatred of sin and vengeance against sin that God had patiently stored up since the beginning of the world”, where the “Father rejected the Son”, “omnipotent hatred and anger for the sins of every generation past, present, and future — omnipotent wrath directed at one naked man hanging on a cross”
Assertions based on purple flourishes.
God justifies the ungodly. That doesn’t entail he imputes righteousness to them, rather than making them righteous.
If God justifies them while they are still ungodly it sure does. Thus, Rome denies that God justifies the ungodly. What God does is infuse righteousness into the soul and then justifies the person because the person has been made godly. There is no justification of the ungodly in your system.
That doesn’t entail they remain ungodly after justification.
If we say we have no sin… To have sin is to be ungodly.
That also doesn’t entail Christ was ungodly or viewed as ungodly by the Father.
So God cursed the Son, as you have admitted, based on the Son’s unrighteousness? Of course not. He cursed Him based on our unrighteousness.
Christ suffered the punishment of sin. That’s why he suffered and died.
So God punished Christ in our place, then. So what’s the problem?
Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned.
Of course not, Jesus didn’t sin. But the loss of spiritual consolation, even if you want to speak so weakly, is a loss of at least the “felt communion” of God. God withdraws His communion from perfect people?
But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all”, so that we might be “reconciled to God by the death of his Son”.”
So in solidarity with us, He believed that He deserved to be forsaken for His own sin? Or, more likely, in solidarity with us He believed that His being forsaken for His own sin was unjust, cause that’s what sinners believe? This might be clear to your particular version of Roman Catholicism, but it isn’t clear to me. And it doesn’t seem to be clear to the rest of the Protestants here either.
Thus he expresses the horror that death represented for his human nature. Like ours, his human nature is destined for eternal life; but unlike ours, it is perfectly exempt from sin, the cause of death.
So apart from the imputation of sin, how can Christ die? His human nature is perfectly exempt from sin and we agree He was personally sinless. There’s got to be something going on wherein God deals with Him on the cross as if He were deserving of death, otherwise He can’t die. Hello imputation.
This sacrifice of Christ is unique; it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices. First, it is a gift from God the Father himself, for the Father handed his Son over to sinners in order to reconcile us with himself. At the same time it is the offering of the Son of God made man, who in freedom and love offered his life to his Father through the Holy Spirit in reparation for our disobedience.
Jesus substitutes his obedience for our disobedience.
Hello Reformed theology.
So, according to your version of RC theology, Christ suffered a wrathless punishment from God. He was also somehow capable of dying even though His human nature was exempt from sin and death. But since the Reformed view of imputation is wrong, it can’t be as if God somehow dealt with His innocent Son as if He was deserving of death, so although death is the punishment for sin, death really isn’t a punishment or curse in the case of Christ. After all, God can’t treat Him as if He were deserving of death and maintain His personal innocence at the same time. Legal fiction and all that.
Then, God justifies the ungodly not by justifying the ungodly but by justifying those whom He makes godly in baptism. Whether the declaration follows the baptism or occurs simultaneously, the same thing is true that God justifies the godly.
At least that’s what seems to be advocated. And that doesn’t even begin to answer the question as to what exactly a wrathless punishment is, given that every punishment is a manifestation of the punisher’s wrath in some measure.
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sdb,
“I have to ask, why didn’t Isaiah get the memo?”
Isaiah got the memo. The Suffering Servant suffers everything RCism teaches Christ suffered. The Suffering Servant passage does not entail Christ had God’s wrath poured out upon Him or that God reckoned Him as a sinner in doing so or that God inflicted divine vengeance upon Him.
“we see that Christ calls out after being “forsaken” by God.”
That was also already addressed – https://oldlife.org/2016/02/wheres-jesus/#comment-376482
as well as
Yup Christ was handed over to His enemies. That doesn’t entail what “those men are getting at”. Just like Christ being punished with the curse doesn’t entail what “those men are getting at”. Tertullian:
“You have Him exclaiming in the midst of His passion: My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Either, then, the Son suffered, being forsaken by the Father, and the Father consequently suffered nothing, inasmuch as He forsook the Son; or else, if it was the Father who suffered, then to what God was it that He addressed His cry? But this was the voice of flesh and soul, that is to say, of man— not of the Word and Spirit, that is to say, not of God; and it was uttered so as to prove the impassibility of God, who forsook His Son, so far as He handed over His human substance to the suffering of death.</b? This verity the apostle also perceived, when he writes to this effect: If the Father spared not His own Son. This did Isaiah before him likewise perceive, when he declared: And the Lord has delivered Him up for our offenses. In this manner He forsook Him, in not sparing Him; forsook Him, in delivering Him up. In all other respects the Father did not forsake the Son, for it was into His Father’s hands that the Son commended His spirit.”
Aquinas: “Such forsaking is not to be referred to the dissolving of the personal union, but to this, that God the Father gave Him up to the Passion: hence there “to forsake” means simply not to protect from persecutors. or else He says there that He is forsaken, with reference to the prayer He had made: “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass away from Me,” as Augustine explains it ”
“Now I don’t believe that Christ ever sinned, could be regarded as a “sinner””
Christ was not regarded and reckoned as a sinner by the Father? What happened to imputation?
” that he was “hated by the Father” – I’ve never heard that before”
“[CVD:] If God the Father was pouring out His wrath on the Second Person of the Trinity, then God was divided against Himself, God the Father hating His own Word.
[DGH] : And so the Roman Catholic save here is to say that the cross was an act of God the father’s love for his son?”
“you would dig through sermons of pastors known for the their purple flourishes”
Those men were not limited to Sproul and Piper. These men weren’t disciplined for their statements. Therefore their interpretation of the confessions reflected in those statements is perfectly orthodox. So we can’t really know if your intepretation or their interpretation is correct, given the lack of discipline.
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CvD: Nor does a just God inflict wrath on the innocent…
Uh huh. Robert the Valiant over and over again shows that your gospel opposes the power of imputation and that therefore you have no power to explain how Christ experiences the sins of sinners other than human sympathy. As he says to you, “You lack a category for substitution, and that’s the problem.”
Because of that you subscribe to the Bildad school of compassionate theology, amiright?
Then Job answered,
Since you reject imputation, you can only give to Job the answer all his comforters gave – “if you want to be right with God, Job, don’t be like your sons He righteously killed, because He never does wrong. Be better, do better.”
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Robert,
“Christ isn’t on the cross saying, “I’m sorry for breaking your law.” That’s what your references to contrition imply.”
Read better. None of them mention Christ was contrite. They mention he grieved and sorrowed, just as the Suffering Servant grieves and sorrows.
“A sinless person is incapable of dying if He isn’t bearing His guilt or the guilt of someone else … if there is no sin there is no death”
There’s also no suffering. Christ suffered. Was Christ bearing His guilt or the guilt of someone else during his whole lifetime? Or did he only suffer for 3 hours in his life?
“Hello divine wrath. ”
You really don’t read. Christians suffer dark nights and aren’t under divine wrath. I already said above:
Christians who suffer dark nights are still loved by God and in union and fellowship with Him. So God lifted divine protection from His physical enemies, and withdrew his spiritual consolation as well (Christ still retained the Beatific Vision though). As JP2 wrote:
“Jesus’ cry on the Cross, dear Brothers and Sisters, is not the cry of anguish of a man without hope, but the prayer of the Son who offers his life to the Father in love, for the salvation of all. At the very moment when he identifies with our sin, “abandoned” by the Father, he “abandons” himself into the hands of the Father. His eyes remain fixed on the Father. Precisely because of the knowledge and experience of the Father which he alone has, even at this moment of darkness he sees clearly the gravity of sin and suffers because of it. He alone, who sees the Father and rejoices fully in him, can understand completely what it means to resist the Father’s love by sin. More than an experience of physical pain, his Passion is an agonizing suffering of the soul. Theological tradition has not failed to ask how Jesus could possibly experience at one and the same time his profound unity with the Father, by its very nature a source of joy and happiness, and an agony that goes all the way to his final cry of abandonment. The simultaneous presence of these two seemingly irreconcilable aspects is rooted in the fathomless depths of the hypostatic union.
Faced with this mystery, we are greatly helped not only by theological investigation but also by that great heritage which is the “lived theology” of the saints. The saints offer us precious insights which enable us to understand more easily the intuition of faith, thanks to the special enlightenment which some of them have received from the Holy Spirit, or even through their personal experience of those terrible states of trial which the mystical tradition describes as the “dark night”. Not infrequently the saints have undergone something akin to Jesus’ experience on the Cross in the paradoxical blending of bliss and pain. In the Dialogue of Divine Providence, God the Father shows Catherine of Siena how joy and suffering can be present together in holy souls: “Thus the soul is blissful and afflicted: afflicted on account of the sins of its neighbour, blissful on account of the union and the affection of charity which it has inwardly received. These souls imitate the spotless Lamb, my Only-begotten Son, who on the Cross was both blissful and afflicted”. In the same way, Thérèse of Lisieux lived her agony in communion with the agony of Jesus, “experiencing” in herself the very paradox of Jesus’s own bliss and anguish: “In the Garden of Olives our Lord was blessed with all the joys of the Trinity, yet his dying was no less harsh. It is a mystery, but I assure you that, on the basis of what I myself am feeling, I can understand something of it”. What an illuminating testimony! Moreover, the accounts given by the Evangelists themselves provide a basis for this intuition on the part of the Church of Christ’s consciousness when they record that, even in the depths of his pain, he died imploring forgiveness for his executioners (cf. Lk 23:34) and expressing to the Father his ultimate filial abandonment: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46). ”
And Newman:
“This being the case, you will see at once, my brethren, that it is nothing to the purpose to say that He would be supported under His trial by the consciousness of innocence and the anticipation of triumph; for His trial consisted in the withdrawal, as of other causes of consolation, so of that very consciousness and anticipation. The same act of the will which admitted the influence upon His soul of any distress at all, admitted all distresses at once. It was not the contest between antagonist impulses and views, coming from without, but the operation of an inward resolution. As men of self-command can turn from one thought to another at their will, so much more did He deliberately deny Himself the comfort, and satiate Himself with the woe. In that moment His soul thought not of the future, He thought only of the present burden which was upon Him, and which He had come upon earth to sustain.”
This is why Christ was distressed and pleading. Not because He was about to be hated by the Father and have the Father’s wrath poured out upon Him.
“None of that requires an incarnation or death on the cross or death by any other means. So we’re still left with what the point of the cross was. ”
This pattern of shifting around is getting annoying for real now. I’m answering you on your own terms. I’ve addressed all those points repeatedly in replies to you. In this case, you ask and focus on one aspect (interior suffering) which I then respond to focusing on just that, and then you reply with whining about not answering the other aspects to the Passion in that response. If you continue doing that, there’s no point in continuing as progress will never be made.
“If we say we have no sin… To have sin is to be ungodly.”
Venial sin and concupiscence. Venial sin and concupiscence doesn’t make you ungodly or bereft of sanctifying grace.
“No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.”
“We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them.”
“The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did”
To be justified is to partake of the divine nature. To be justified is to be indwelt with the Trinity. That’s godly and theosis.
“So God cursed the Son, as you have admitted, based on the Son’s unrighteousness?”
Nope, God cursed the son by ordaining and permitting His suffering and death. Not by pouring divine wrath out upon Him and acting like what those undisciplined Reformed teachers were “getting at” with their “purple flourishes”.
“He cursed Him based on our unrighteousness.”
Christ suffered and died for our sins, it’s true.
“God withdraws His communion from perfect people?”
God didn’t withdraw His communion from Christ or from Christians. Christ never lost the Beatific Vision or his fellowship. As was already said to you. Christians who suffer dark nights aren’t separated from God or out of fellowship with Him.
“Hello Reformed theology. ”
Reformed theology doesn’t have an exclusive on the Atonement.
“God somehow dealt with His innocent Son as if He was deserving of death,”
Christ was never deserving of death. That’s the point of the Atonement.
“death really isn’t a punishment or curse in the case of Christ”
Death and suffering was the curse Christ bore, as all humanity does. This has been gone over repeatedly.
“God justifies the ungodly not by justifying the ungodly but by justifying those whom He makes godly in baptism”
The justified were ungodly before they were justified. Justification made them godly. Not difficult.
“At least that’s what seems to be advocated. ”
Read better.
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Noon,
“As he says to you, “You lack a category for substitution, and that’s the problem.””
Ott: “By atonement in general is understood the satisfaction of a demand. In the narrower sense it is taken to mean the reparation of an insult: Satisfaction is nothing more than compensation for an injury done to another. This occurs through a voluntary performance which outweighs the injustice done. If such a performance through its intrinsic value completely counterbalances the grievousness of the guilt according to the demands of justice, the atonement is adequate or of full value… If the atonement is not performed by the offender himself, but by another in his stead it is vicarious atonement (satisfactio vicaria).”
CCC:
“Jesus substitutes his obedience for our disobedience
“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” By his obedience unto death, Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant, who “makes himself an offering for sin”, when “he bore the sin of many”, and who “shall make many to be accounted righteous”, for “he shall bear their iniquities”. Jesus atoned for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father.”
“Nor does a just God inflict wrath on the innocent…
– Uh huh.”
Okay so God was unjust towards Christ at the Cross. Got it.
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CvD,
Yes, I agree with Ott, and have always appreciated his authority and clarity. And yes, you do have a category for substitution.
Satisfactio vicaria. Mmmm, it’s so much more sexy in Latin, amiright?
CCC 616: It is love “to the end” (John 13:1) that confers on Christ’s sacrifice its value as redemption and reparation, as atonement and satisfaction.
That’s only half the story, and not enough to save. Yes, true enough, Christ loved His own until the end (hey, look at how CCC teaches limited atonement in 615 and then universalism in 616, tee hee!)
But John, to soften the blow upon Christians for our sins (not “faults” as in CCC 615) refers Christians to the wrath appeasing sacrifice the Father accepted, thus he directs our conscience to Jesus Christ the righteous, not Jesus Christ the lover.
So I’m going to take your satisfactio vicaria category and upgrade it with God’s words:
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.” (1 John 2:1-2)
Christians are justified by His blood atonement which, as you say, demonstrates love. But we who have been (past tense) justified are saved so much, God promises we are saved from all future wrath:
“For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” (Rom. 5:7-10)
Now that’s satisfactio vicaria, God’s gospel way. God’s love, and God’s wrath appeasement, in Christ the ilasmos, not just a sacrifice of love, but a putting away of wrath.
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Noon,
“refers Christians to the wrath appeasing sacrifice the Father accepted”
Correct. Christ appeased and satisfied the Father via his sacrifice. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Good news. We disagree on the nature of that sacrifice.
“Christians are justified by His blood atonement which, as you say, demonstrates love.”
Yup. So we’re back full circle. It’s a silly question to ask “Where’s Jesus?” when Francis talks about and focuses on His mercy as if that focus automatically excludes justice or righteousness or the Cross.
“God promises we are saved from all future wrath”
Provided we remain in fellowship and union with Him and don’t squander our inheritance.
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CVD,
Provided we remain in fellowship and union with Him and don’t squander our inheritance.
See, you don’t believe in the love of God revealed in Rom. 5:7-9 because you don’t accept the wrath appeasing sacrifice that requires blood for atonement, not just death.
It isn’t good news. Its Galatianism.
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Roman Catholic version of Romans 8:38–39:
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else
in all creationwill be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, except ourselves, of course.LikeLike
CvD,
You forgot this too – I refuse to hear Roman Catholicism, and it’s why I’m going to hell, amiright?
if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered – so the Lord commands – as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit.”
http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_29061943_mystici-corporis-christi.html
Or do you go with Vat 2….. What, no one to clarify the opposing sides for you but the non-charismed at CtC?
C’mon, Jim. Gotta step up your RC con game. You know, development of doctrine.
Like your non-gospel could ever touch my confidence in Christ, granted through His Spirit by holy calling from all eternity (2 Tim. 1:9).
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R the V – hahahaha
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Noon,
“you don’t accept the wrath appeasing sacrifice that requires blood for atonement, not just death.”
Is this like where I didn’t have a category for substitution?
CCC: Consequently, St. Peter can formulate the apostolic faith in the divine plan of salvation in this way: “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers. . . with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake.” Man’s sins, following on original sin, are punishable by death. By sending his own Son in the form of a slave, in the form of a fallen humanity, on account of sin, God “made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
On the eve of his Passion, while still free, Jesus transformed this Last Supper with the apostles into the memorial of his voluntary offering to the Father for the salvation of men: “This is my body which is given for you.” “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
Christ’s death is both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”, and the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the “blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”
The name of the Savior God was invoked only once in the year by the high priest in atonement for the sins of Israel, after he had sprinkled the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies with the sacrificial blood. The mercy seat was the place of God’s presence. When St. Paul speaks of Jesus whom “God put forward as an expiation by his blood“, he means that in Christ’s humanity “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.”
Aquinas: “That man should be delivered by Christ’s Passion was in keeping with both His mercy and His justice. With His justice, because by His Passion Christ made satisfaction for the sin of the human race; and so man was set free by Christ’s justice: and with His mercy, for since man of himself could not satisfy for the sin of all human nature, as was said above (Question 1, Article 2), God gave him His Son to satisfy for him, according to Romans 3:24-25: “Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath proposed to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood.” And this came of more copious mercy than if He had forgiven sins without satisfaction. Hence it is said (Ephesians 2:4): “God, who is rich in mercy, for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ.”
“It isn’t good news. Its Galatianism.”
This part of Galatians right – “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”
“I refuse to hear Roman Catholicism, and it’s why I’m going to hell, amiright”
Here’s what you forgot to read from MC:
“We have committed to the protection and guidance of heaven those who do not belong to the visible Body of the Catholic Church… We ask each and every one of them to correspond to the interior movements of grace, and to seek to withdraw from that state in which they cannot be sure of their salvation. For even though by an unconscious desire and longing they have a certain relationship with the Mystical Body of the Redeemer, they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church.”
So I go with both it and Vat2. Vat2 affirmed EENS. Pre-Vat2 affirmed separated brethren and invincible ignorance.
“Like your non-gospel could ever touch my confidence in Christ, granted through His Spirit by holy calling from all eternity (2 Tim. 1:9).”
RCism affirms 2Tim 1:9. RCism is not Pelagian or semi-Pelagian. If a denial of your view of PS and imputation and perseverance entails a non-gospel, I suppose the entire patristic east and west blew it for 1000+ years. Oh well. Maybe that was just due to the Holy Spirit leaving the church after the Apostles as you insist upon.
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CVD: From the not-helping quotes: “More than an experience of physical pain, his Passion is an agonizing suffering of the soul.” and “The same act of the will which admitted the influence upon His soul of any distress at all, admitted all distresses at once.” and “The cause of the interior pain was, first of all, all the sins of the human race, for which He made satisfaction by suffering; hence He ascribes them, so to speak, to Himself, saying (Psalm 21:2): “The words of my sins.”
The Suffering Servant doesn’t just suffer physically. Is 53:3-4 does not reduce the atonement to “Jesus got really, really sad and depressed on the cross” or “all about the Father and Son standing there and weeping” or “liberal hogwash”.
The “solidarity” part is suffering (most acutely) the curse and consequences of sin common to humanity – physical and emotional and spiritual suffering, death, sadness, grief, etc. – that is, becoming incarnate and entering into a fallen world and allowing Himself to suffer those consequences.
He did not suffer the “pangs of Hell”, “weight of divine vengeance”, “the scream of the damned “, “the wrath of the Father against Him”, “[becoming] the object of the intense hatred of sin and vengeance against sin that God had patiently stored up since the beginning of the world”, where the “Father rejected the Son”, “omnipotent hatred and anger for the sins of every generation past, present, and future — omnipotent wrath directed at one naked man hanging on a cross”
This is where you lose me through lack of definition.
You admit that Jesus suffered in the soul.
At whose hands?
You admit that Jesus ascribed the sins of humanity to himself. But you deny that the Father ascribed those sins to Him, even in the same sense.
You admit that Jesus was punished for our sins. By whom?
You admit that “The “solidarity” part is suffering (most acutely) the curse and consequences of sin common to humanity – physical and emotional and spiritual suffering, death, sadness, grief, etc.”
Yet you deny that Jesus suffered in any sense the one consequence of sin that Scripture most directly attributes to humanity — namely, Hell.
I get that you want to avoid an interTrinitarian rupture, but I don’t see how your solution is pragmatically any different from ours.
Clarify, please?
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Same post, better tagging:
CVD: From the not-helping quotes: “More than an experience of physical pain, his Passion is an agonizing suffering of the soul.” and “The same act of the will which admitted the influence upon His soul of any distress at all, admitted all distresses at once.” and “The cause of the interior pain was, first of all, all the sins of the human race, for which He made satisfaction by suffering; hence He ascribes them, so to speak, to Himself, saying (Psalm 21:2): “The words of my sins.”
The Suffering Servant doesn’t just suffer physically. Is 53:3-4 does not reduce the atonement to “Jesus got really, really sad and depressed on the cross” or “all about the Father and Son standing there and weeping” or “liberal hogwash”.
The “solidarity” part is suffering (most acutely) the curse and consequences of sin common to humanity – physical and emotional and spiritual suffering, death, sadness, grief, etc. – that is, becoming incarnate and entering into a fallen world and allowing Himself to suffer those consequences.
He did not suffer the “pangs of Hell”, “weight of divine vengeance”, “the scream of the damned “, “the wrath of the Father against Him”, “[becoming] the object of the intense hatred of sin and vengeance against sin that God had patiently stored up since the beginning of the world”, where the “Father rejected the Son”, “omnipotent hatred and anger for the sins of every generation past, present, and future — omnipotent wrath directed at one naked man hanging on a cross”
This is where you lose me through lack of definition.
You admit that Jesus suffered in the soul.
At whose hands?
You admit that Jesus ascribed the sins of humanity to himself. But you deny that the Father ascribed those sins to Him, even in the same sense.
You admit that Jesus was punished for our sins. By whom?
You admit that “The “solidarity” part is suffering (most acutely) the curse and consequences of sin common to humanity – physical and emotional and spiritual suffering, death, sadness, grief, etc.”
Yet you deny that Jesus suffered in any sense the one consequence of sin that Scripture most directly attributes to humanity — namely, Hell.
I get that you want to avoid an interTrinitarian rupture, but I don’t see how your solution is pragmatically any different from ours.
Clarify, please?
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Clete,
Robert,
Read better. None of them mention Christ was contrite. They mention he grieved and sorrowed, just as the Suffering Servant grieves and sorrows.
They mentioned that His grief was greater than contrition in that He was more acutely aware of evil and righteousness. The language isn’t that clear. But it is Aquinas.
In any case, what it seems to me to be saying is that being sorry for how someone else has offended God is sufficient to atone for sin.
There’s also no suffering. Christ suffered. Was Christ bearing His guilt or the guilt of someone else during his whole lifetime? Or did he only suffer for 3 hours in his life?
According to the Heidelberg Catechism, He did so His whole life, but especially at the end.
“Hello divine wrath. ”
You really don’t read. Christians suffer dark nights and aren’t under divine wrath. I already said above:
Christians who suffer dark nights are still loved by God and in union and fellowship with Him.
Well that is true. But Christians also don’t suffer dark nights as a means of atoning for the sins of others.
So God lifted divine protection from His physical enemies, and withdrew his spiritual consolation as well (Christ still retained the Beatific Vision though).
And here’s the problem—you want to affirm Christ lost spiritual consolation and experienced the dark night of the soul and at the same time had the Beatific Vision. I’d like to know how that is possible. Now you can say mystery if you want, but then you can’t object if we say that Christ was the object of divine wrath without being disunited from the Father and claim mystery.
The dark night of the soul is the loss of the sense of God’s presence, the loss of the sense of fellowship. So in some way, if Christ suffered the dark night of the soul, He suffered at least the loss of the sense of fellowship. It’s hard to see how that isn’t wrath, especially when the Son was used to absolutely perfect fellowship with the Father.
Further, believers suffer the dark night of the soul in some broad way because of their own sin. God doesn’t owe us the sense of His presence given that we were and are sinners. This isn’t to say that the dark night is directly imposed for specific sins; only that we don’t deserve fellowship because we come into this world fallen. It’s a lot easier to conceive of God, therefore, withdrawing the sense of His presence. But Jesus never sinned. He didn’t deserve the loss of spiritual consolation. So you have God giving Jesus something He didn’t deserve personally, including death. I’m still having trouble seeing how that is even possible without imputation.
As JP2 wrote:
“Jesus’ cry on the Cross, dear Brothers and Sisters, is not the cry of anguish of a man without hope, but the prayer of the Son who offers his life to the Father in love, for the salvation of all. At the very moment when he identifies with our sin, “abandoned” by the Father, he “abandons” himself into the hands of the Father.
Really? I mean this makes sense to a point, but on the cross Jesus does not refer to God as Father until the very end, which is most unusual given His ministry. It’s not “my Father, why has thou forsaken me?” It’s “my God.”
His eyes remain fixed on the Father. Precisely because of the knowledge and experience of the Father which he alone has, even at this moment of darkness he sees clearly the gravity of sin and suffers because of it. He alone, who sees the Father and rejoices fully in him, can understand completely what it means to resist the Father’s love by sin.
This is confused. It actually implies that Jesus Himself resists the Father’s love. I don’t think that is what’s meant, but how does someone know what it means to resist the Father’s love completely unless one is doing the resisting. More importantly, if the suffering of hell is what it means to resist the Father’s love by sin completely—and this is certainly an EO emphasis, which is also echoed in RCism—then how is the cross not the Son suffering hell?
More than an experience of physical pain, his Passion is an agonizing suffering of the soul. Theological tradition has not failed to ask how Jesus could possibly experience at one and the same time his profound unity with the Father, by its very nature a source of joy and happiness, and an agony that goes all the way to his final cry of abandonment. The simultaneous presence of these two seemingly irreconcilable aspects is rooted in the fathomless depths of the hypostatic union.
So why does JP2 get to claim mystery but we don’t?
Not infrequently the saints have undergone something akin to Jesus’ experience on the Cross in the paradoxical blending of bliss and pain.
Where do we see Jesus expressing anything close to bliss on the cross? At the end, maybe. But of course the Reformed could explain that as being due to the fact that the curse had been satisfied. Where’s the bliss before that?
even in the depths of his pain, he died imploring forgiveness for his executioners (cf. Lk 23:34)
There are questions about whether that verse is original, but even if it is, it doesn’t read as an account of personal bliss.
This is why Christ was distressed and pleading. Not because He was about to be hated by the Father and have the Father’s wrath poured out upon Him.
“Hated by the Father” is being read far to literally by you. But I’m still waiting to see how punishment isn’t wrath. So Christ was about to be punished by God by having the sense of His presence removed, at least in His human apprehension, but this wasn’t wrath. And yet if we are punished in hell and with death under God’s curse, it is wrath. Or is it not?
Venial sin and concupiscence. Venial sin and concupiscence doesn’t make you ungodly or bereft of sanctifying grace.
So venial sin really isn’t that bad. It is not evidence of ungodliness. I guess that means we can sin venially in heaven?
To be justified is to partake of the divine nature. To be justified is to be indwelt with the Trinity. That’s godly and theosis.
Where does Scripture say justified=partakers of the divine nature or indwelt by the Trinity. I’m not denying that those things take place; I just want to know where the Apostles say justification is theosis.
Nope, God cursed the son by ordaining and permitting His suffering and death. Not by pouring divine wrath out upon Him and acting like what those undisciplined Reformed teachers were “getting at” with their “purple flourishes”.
So God’s curse wasn’t really a curse then. A curse is something actively pronounced against another. So Christ wasn’t really cursed by God even though Scripture says the one hung on a tree is cursed by God. God’s curse means him standing back and doing nothing and letting bad stuff happen to His Son? That reads as if the ones doing the cursing for our sin are the wicked leaders who had Christ crucified. Wicked judges cursing our sin, and that’s just?
God didn’t withdraw His communion from Christ or from Christians. Christ never lost the Beatific Vision or his fellowship. As was already said to you. Christians who suffer dark nights aren’t separated from God or out of fellowship with Him.
If you have the Beatific Vision, by definition you have spiritual consolation, in fact, the greatest spiritual consolation possible for human beings. So it looks like Christ did have spiritual consolation. But I thought He didn’t.
Christ was never deserving of death. That’s the point of the Atonement.
Without imputation of guilt, how is death even possible? Death is a punishment for sin and guilt, not for righteousness. I know we keep going round in circles, but that is not my fault. You can’t account for how it was even possible for a sinless human to die. Sinless people don’t die.
Death and suffering was the curse Christ bore, as all humanity does. This has been gone over repeatedly.
Then Christ was directly cursed by God.
The justified were ungodly before they were justified. Justification made them godly. Not difficult.
But Paul says that God justifies those who are presently ungodly. There’s nothing there about baptism first making them godly so that they could then be justified. Further, Paul is awfully concerned to show how God can be just and justifier at the same time. That is no concern if justification actually makes someone inherently godly. It is a concern if God is justifying ungodly people.
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“The Suffering Servant passage does not entail Christ had God’s wrath poured out upon Him”
Yes it does… read the text. He was smitten and afflicted by God.The Lord was pleased to crush Him. That is the cup of God’s wrath being poured out…the cup of wrath he pled to have taken away. Your cut and paste job does not explain this text.
Not sure why you refuse to engage confessions instead of quote mining.
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Robert, “it’s low on exegesis”
But it’s high on paradigm, so high they don’t need an infallible pope.
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James Young, “He suffered the loss of spiritual consolation and dark night. He suffered the grief and sorrow over all sins humanity has and will commit. He suffered seeing the full weight and consequences of all sin of all humanity in all its pure evil in its offense to God.”
So I guess that’s why Jesus needs a co-redemptrix.
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James Young, God regarded Christ as a sinner. Our sins were imputed to him. This is forensics 101.
It’s a great paradigm. Without it you spend eternity not in purgatory but hell.
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James Young, hey James, how do you explain Pope Francis going to celebrate the Reformation with Lutherans? Why all the bother about setting us straight? Pope Francis is praying with Muslims.
Crack wise now.
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James Young, Christ’s obedience cannot make up for my disobedience. If I murdered someone, Christ’s not killing doesn’t restore justice.
But boy your guys can go to such great lengths to justify your paradigm. And the Bible never touches.
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James Young, “It’s a silly question to ask “Where’s Jesus?” when Francis talks about and focuses on His mercy as if that focus automatically excludes justice or righteousness or the Cross.”
Say that with a straight face after watching Francis’ January prayer video with Muslims and Hindus where “love is in the air.”
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b, sd, James doesn’t read the Bible except when Aquinas quotes it, or when Pope Francis is quoting it plus the Quran.
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CvD,
Here we are discussing what happened on the cross and you trot out quote after quote from all these writers, as if they illuminate what happened there. Some few of them are a bit helpful, but few, very few help us see how their assertions about the cross derive from sacred Scripture. For the most part they are detached-from-the-source thoughts, men and women pontificating on things like interior sufferings and but not rooted in Scripture.
Here’s a good one you gave, good I mean because the writer sort of cites the Scripture, but then does not subject his mind to the author’s thought therein:
And then Aquinas immediately adds this:
Now why, why did he have to say that? The next verse in Romans shows that is so profoundly not what God is saying there:
The apostle assumes the opposite of exactly what Aquinas says: the blood sacrifice of Christ, done in the way it was done, proves God as the one who requires satisfaction by appropriate sacrifice to forgive sin. So here’s a quote from a good man (Aquinas) but woefully inadequate because it doesn’t draw its wisdom from Scripture but some other source, and contradicts God.
That’s a good one. Much more typical of your quotes, and intended to convince us that we are somehow missing out on the real Christian heritage of truth, are the ridiculous, like:
But Jesus’ bliss and agony are not able to be known by sinners: For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. (Heb 7:26-27)
The Theresa story is incredibly proud and arrogant when viewed from the apostolic teaching on Christ’s uniqueness, and anyone convinced of the apostolic uniqueness in teaching doctrine will read Theresa as no different than Mary Baker Eddy or Emanuel Swedenborg. So she held to Trinitarianism? She didn’t derive cautiousness about asserting an astonishing likeness to the glorious Son of God, or in that which like Him is holy – the teaching of the cross from the apostles. Your quote offers no root in Scripture, but personal religious vanity.
Then you give us this: “As JP2 wrote:
Again, this notion of “resisting the Father’s love by sin” is simply naïve, biblically. Oh, I’m not saying you can’t find a sort-of human parallel in Scripture (Prodigal Son), but the apostles under inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote extensively on the cross, and never gave to Christ this kind of dimension, to “understand completely what it means to resist the Father’s love by sin” This is only so much religious twaddle, being bereft of teaching from Scripture. It was JP’s imagination, which was fine if he wants to write stories. But here he made his imagination more profound and relatable than God’s testimony to what happened on the cross, and his transgression was great thereby since it bore false witness to God.
Now, why you believe this stuff is important for us to read is a question only you can answer. But to guys like us, who care deeply about what men like Paul, Peter, and John wrote in Scripture, it’s weird because all your stuff isn’t rooted in helping us understanding specific passages of Scripture.
Therefore, men like us are moved further away from worship of the God-man Jesus by following you and lending credence to your quotes. The only ones among us who might become RC are those of us who really don’t find Scripture compelling, and find the sort of stuff you quote more relatable.
It isn’t just stories, but philosophy too. You offered this:
Whether looked at from the unmoved Mover, or from wisdom, this is simply man in his creatureliness and foolishness presuming God does not need, absolutely, to do what He does. But He possesses all knowledge and all wisdom, so what glory is there in His willing that which is not necessary but contingent? But there is no willing in God separated from action, nor an absolute inside of God but which is greater than a contingent outside of God directed to creation. “The LORD has sworn and will not change His mind, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.”” (Psa 110:4).
It’s the same nonsense that Christ only needed to die, but not die the death of the cross (however, see Phil. 2:6-11). This nonsense is why we rebuke you so much, and offer you so much Scripture, exegesis, and reason in reply. That which we give you and is not based on Scripture, explicitly, please feel most free to dismiss and pee upon.
But you likely think we give you Scripture as you give it to us, as a platform through which to give us better pontifications. So, you might reason, who is Robert, who is sdb, who is dgh, or noon, compared to JP2, Aquinas, and Augustine.
But we don’t think that way. We ask, “who bases his doctrine on Scripture so that we too may know Scripture through their teaching?” If its JP2, awesome! If its CvD, wonderful. Even Theresa, super. It isn’t about winning. For us, it’s about worshiping God through what we can learn about Him from Scripture.
And we still, somehow, hope Scripture will sway you away from your religious authorities which do not rely on Scripture before the day we can discuss no more.
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CVD: Maybe that was just due to the Holy Spirit leaving the church after the Apostles as you insist upon.
Someone says that CVD? Please do not quench/grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you (the church) were sealed for the day of redemption.
Noon: before the day we can discuss no more.
the bottomline and the greatest topper- near is the great day of the LORD’S wrath-how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? ;see to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven. And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “YET ONCE MORE I WILL SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE HEAVEN.” This expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.
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Noon,
“the blood sacrifice of Christ, done in the way it was done, proves God as the one who requires satisfaction by appropriate sacrifice to forgive sin. ”
Was Christ bleeding when he said, “Then He said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.””, or “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.””?
God is the one offended, therefore He has the authority to forgive the debt (as already said above, “But God has no one higher than Himself, for He is the sovereign and common good of the whole universe. Consequently, if He forgive sin, which has the formality of fault in that it is committed against Himself, He wrongs no one: just as anyone else, overlooking a personal trespass, without satisfaction, acts mercifully and not unjustly.”)
The Cross was necessary given God’s redemptive plan – the Scriptures were to be fulfilled – as already explained above by Aquinas when he goes over the various reasons for the Cross’ necessity (given God’s plan) and fittingness. That does not mean God was necessitated into forgiving sin only through the Cross as if His hands were tied. The Incarnation wasn’t absolutely necessary. The Cross wasn’t absolutely necessary. That’s what makes those events merciful and grace in the first place. Thus Aquinas’ statement you take issue with, “And this came of more copious mercy than if He had forgiven sins without satisfaction.” or Augustine, “We assert that the way whereby God deigned to deliver us by the man Jesus Christ, who is mediator between God and man, is both good and befitting the Divine dignity; but let us also show that other possible means were not lacking on God’s part, to whose power all things are equally subordinate.”
“But Jesus’ bliss and agony are not able to be known by sinners… The Theresa story is incredibly proud and arrogant when viewed from the apostolic teaching on Christ’s uniqueness.. Your quote offers no root in Scripture, but personal religious vanity.”
Absurd. You really think JP2 or Theresa thinks she’s the 2nd person of the Trinity and redeemed man? That citation is talking about participatory suffering – why do you think JP2 puts experiencing in quotes when he says, ” “experiencing” in herself the very paradox of Jesus’s own bliss and anguish: “In the Garden of Olives our Lord was blessed with all the joys of the Trinity, yet his dying was no less harsh. It is a mystery, but I assure you that, on the basis of what I myself am feeling, I can understand something of it”. Why do you think he prefaced it with, ” Not infrequently the saints have undergone something akin to Jesus’ experience on the Cross in the paradoxical blending of bliss and pain”.
Do you think Paul was incredibly proud and arrogant and vain when he said:
“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.”
“Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. ”
“For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”
“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”
“That I may know him and the power of his Resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.””
“I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
or when Christ said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
“This is only so much religious twaddle, being bereft of teaching from Scripture.”
What’s twaddle is affirming there was a break or rupture in the Trinity at the Cross, or that Christ was damned and hated by the Father at the Cross, or that God acted unjustly at the Cross, or that God judged falsely or deceived Himself at the Cross. JP2’s point, echoing Aquinas, is that Christ’s interior suffering was of the greatest magnitude, due to his acute sense of all of humanity’s sin past, present, and future in that moment He was atoning for.
“Now, why you believe this stuff is important for us to read is a question only you can answer. ”
Because Tradition is important. When you ignore Tradition and just jump to your oh-so-obvious interpretations of Scripture as if they’re self-evident, you – unsurprisingly – resurrect heresies and unorthodox positions that were already condemned 1500 years ago. DIY-Christianity reinvents the wheel every generation. I know, the HS has been an absentee landlord for guiding the church after the apostles according to you, but not everyone buys that.
“But to guys like us, who care deeply about what men like Paul, Peter, and John wrote in Scripture,”
I see. Aquinas and JP2 didn’t care deeply about what those men wrote. So DGH blew it when he lauded Aquinas, “Aquinas explains more (notice how much he uses Scripture — S-c-r-i-p-t-u-r-e)”
“Whether looked at from the unmoved Mover, or from wisdom, this is simply man in his
creatureliness and foolishness presuming God does not need, absolutely, to do what He does.”
That’s heresy. I’m sorry, but saying all of God’s acts are necessitated is not orthodox Christianity. Are you now a necessary rather than contingent being since He created you? Congratulations – certainly a boastworthy trait for a Calvinist. You just made the Incarnation and Atonement acts of necessity rather than mercy and grace. Stop with the DIY-Christianity and you don’t run into these errors.
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James Young, “Was Christ bleeding when he said, “Then He said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.””, or “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.””? God is the one offended, therefore He has the authority to forgive the debt (as already said above, “But God has no one higher than Himself, for He is the sovereign and common good of the whole universe.”
More reasons why God didn’t have to become man.
Do you ever learn from the rakes?
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Darryl,
“More reasons why God didn’t have to become man.”
Correct. God did not *have to* become man. Does God *have to* regenerate and save you, or is doing so a free act of mercy on His part? Did God *have to* create you in the first place? Did God *have to* create the earth and mankind in the first place? Did God *have to* choose the kinds of animals used in OT sacrifice and the universe would’ve spun into chaos if he commanded other animals to be used? God *chose* to do all of those things, as part of His redemptive plan, thus the OT sacrifices serving as shadows and types. Given the redemptive plan He *chose* to design and implement, rather than was a slave of necessity to, it was then necessary and fitting for Christ to become man.
“God regarded Christ as a sinner. Our sins were imputed to him. This is forensics 101.”
Hmm. sdb: “Now I don’t believe that Christ ever sinned, could be regarded as a “sinner””
I agree that’s forensics 101. So God regarded Christ as a sinner. So God judged falsely or didn’t see reality or was deceived or was “guilty of the greatest evil of all time (pouring out the punishment for all sin on an innocent man, knowing that he is innocent)”. Cool paradigm.
“Do you ever learn from the rakes?”
You were saying.
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sdb,
“The Suffering Servant passage does not entail Christ had God’s wrath poured out upon Him”
– Yes it does… read the text. He was smitten and afflicted by God.The Lord was pleased to crush Him. That is the cup of God’s wrath being poured out…the cup of wrath he pled to have taken away.”
I’ve read the text. God ordained and permitted His suffering and death. Christ was distressed and prayed for that suffering and death to be avoided. That doesn’t entail God’s wrath was poured out upon Him while He was reckoned as guilty of and committing all the elect’s sins.
“Your cut and paste job does not explain this text.”
What are you talking about? My cut and paste job talks about Christ suffering the curse and suffering physical and interior torment as the Suffering Servant underwent and being forsaken. As I said in my reply to you:
That was also already addressed – https://oldlife.org/2016/02/wheres-jesus/#comment-376482
as well as
Yup Christ was handed over to His enemies. That doesn’t entail what “those men are getting at”. Just like Christ being punished with the curse doesn’t entail what “those men are getting at”. Tertullian:
“You have Him exclaiming in the midst of His passion: My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Either, then, the Son suffered, being forsaken by the Father, and the Father consequently suffered nothing, inasmuch as He forsook the Son; or else, if it was the Father who suffered, then to what God was it that He addressed His cry? But this was the voice of flesh and soul, that is to say, of man— not of the Word and Spirit, that is to say, not of God; and it was uttered so as to prove the impassibility of God, who forsook His Son, so far as He handed over His human substance to the suffering of death.? This verity the apostle also perceived, when he writes to this effect: If the Father spared not His own Son. This did Isaiah before him likewise perceive, when he declared: And the Lord has delivered Him up for our offenses. In this manner He forsook Him, in not sparing Him; forsook Him, in delivering Him up. In all other respects the Father did not forsake the Son, for it was into His Father’s hands that the Son commended His spirit.”
Aquinas: “Such forsaking is not to be referred to the dissolving of the personal union, but to this, that God the Father gave Him up to the Passion: hence there “to forsake” means simply not to protect from persecutors. or else He says there that He is forsaken, with reference to the prayer He had made: “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass away from Me,” as Augustine explains it ”
As I’ve said repeatedly, affirming Christ suffered and died, that God ordained and permitted this suffering and death, is taught by RCism and compatible with satisfaction. That doesn’t entail God poured His wrath out upon Christ or anything in the ballpark of those “purple flourishes”. You have to do more work than just cite the Suffering Servant to get there.
“Not sure why you refuse to engage confessions instead of quote mining.”
Do the confessions assert Christ had God’s divine wrath poured out upon Him? Or are you and others here being non-confessional in affirming such?
Do your theologians affirm things like Calvin’s “In order to interpose between us and God’s anger, and satisfy his righteous judgment, it was necessary that he should feel the weight of divine vengeance.”
and “Whence also it was necessary that he should engage, as it were, at close quarters with the powers of hell and the horrors of eternal death…. not only was the body of Christ given up as the price of redemption, but that there was a greater and more excellent price—that he bore in his soul the tortures of condemned and ruined man.”
or Hodge: “Therefore if Christ suffered the penalty of the law He must have suffered death eternal; or, as others say, He must have endured the same kind of sufferings as those who are cast off from God and die eternally are called upon to suffer.”
or Wallace’s “To Jesus, at this point, God was no longer acting as his Father; he was his judge.”
or Grudem’s ““As Jesus bore the guilt of our sins alone, God the Father, the mighty Creator, the Lord of the universe, poured out on Jesus the fury of his wrath: Jesus became the object of the intense hatred of sin and vengeance against sin that God had patiently stored up since the beginning of the world.”
Or are those Reformed lights expressing non-confessional sentiments?
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Clete,
Stop with the DIY-Christianity and you don’t run into these errors.
No, you get more sophisticated ones like Jesus in toast and magic pills from saints and vials of breast milk and enough pieces of the true cross to build a mansion for Al Gore.
Sorry, too easy.
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Clete,
God did not *have to* become man.
Once he decided to save He did. No other way but by death. God doesn’t violate justice by waving His wand.
As I’ve said repeatedly, affirming Christ suffered and died, that God ordained and permitted this suffering and death, is taught by RCism and compatible with satisfaction. That doesn’t entail God poured His wrath out upon Christ or anything in the ballpark of those “purple flourishes”. You have to do more work than just cite the Suffering Servant to get there.
Do the Math:
1. To curse someone is to show wrath toward that person.
2. It was God who cursed sinners with death.
3. God therefore shows wrath by imposing death.
4. Death was the wrathful sentence God imposed.
5. Christ willingly underwent suffering and death.
6. Therefore Christ received the wrathful sentence.
Punishment demands an agent and wrath. So either Christ didn’t take on punishment, or death really isn’t a punishment God imposes but an abstract, impersonal consequence. Incidentally, I’ve had many RCs tell me its the latter. They recognize the implication of your position. You don’t seem to.
And I still haven’t seen where Christ is even able to die without imputation, since sinless creatures don’t die, as you’ve said. Maybe you’ve addressed it. If so, I missed it.
N.B., neither Grudem nor Wallace are Reformed. Grudem is a Pentecostal Baptist with a Calvinistic soteriology. Wallace teaches at DTS.
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Ali,
When CVD says to me Maybe that was just due to the Holy Spirit leaving the church after the Apostles as you insist upon.
he’s replying to my pressing him on John 16:13, that the apostles and only the apostles received “all the truth.” He then illogically takes my point to mean Christians don’t have the Holy Spirit.
It is absolutely foundational to the entire RC theology and institution to misinterpret John 16:13, from “He will guide you….” referring to the apostles, to “He will guide you….” referring to the RC ecclesial hierarchy.
See footnote 16, but this is everywhere in RCism. It is the “do not pass go, do not collect $200 text.
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/07/ecclesial-deism/#identifier_15_1667
Your topper is, as always, awkward.
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@cvd Clearly I’m not connecting the dots. Let’s try to keep it simple and focused. The text reads:
You say,
Do you mean to deny that God the Father smote the Son, cast affliction on the Son, was pleased to crush the Son, or put the Son to grief? If so what do you understand Isaiah’s use of those phrases to mean. A plain reading of the text does lead one to an allowance. It is quite explicitly active.
That isn’t what he prayed. His prayer is reported in a way that draws on a specific metaphor that shows up through scripture. Why do you think the gospel writer would use sucha loaded term without qualification? Are you aware of cup being used elsewhere to mean something other than God’s wrath?
Well first things first. That isn’t quite how I would put it…he is always sinless even as our guilt is imputed to him while his righteousness is counted towards us. The great exchange…good news for sinners! My sins were nailed to the cross and I bear them no more, so I can approach his throne of grace with confidence that my sins are forgiven and my Father hears my prayer. I look forward to that day of judgment when I will stand before him clothed in Christ’s righteousness and enter not purgatory, but his everlasting rest.
The text says God was pleased to crush him. It does not say he was just handed over. Your quotes do not address Isaiah’s claim that Christ was smitten and afflicted by God.
I gave you the text…what do you think? Divine wrath poured out on Christ in our place is one thing – I affirm it. I also affirm that our guilt was imputed to christ, but i dont think it is proper to say he was a sinner, but I could be wrong here. I’ve just never heard that construction. To say that the Father hated the Son seems too far and strikes me as an helpful fluorish.
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CvD,
That’s heresy. I’m sorry, but saying all of God’s acts are necessitated is not orthodox Christianity. Are you now a necessary rather than contingent being since He created you? Congratulations – certainly a boastworthy trait for a Calvinist. You just made the Incarnation and Atonement acts of necessity rather than mercy and grace. Stop with the DIY-Christianity and you don’t run into these errors.
You simply don’t understand mercy and grace as essential to God, but optional. Kinda like clothes He puts on… “hmmm, shall I or shan’t I. Nah, I don’t feel like it today.”
Or, “Gee, if I hadn’t made man and decreed the Fall, I wouldn’t have to act in mercy and grace, b/c those are contingent things, not really a part of me essentially. But now that I did, OK, let us dig in our contingency bag, and oh where did we put that…. ah, here it is. Now Son, you have some grace in you, right. What do you think about this plan. God down and yadda yadda yadda….? Oh, it’s good wit You. Cool. OK. Here We go.”
But God doesn’t speak that way as if grace is contingent.
And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.
The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
The sovereign will of God is not contingent. The moral will, as exercised by His creation, is.
Even Aquinas got close to this, but pulled back:
God knows necessarily whatever He wills, but does not will necessarily whatever He wills.
(Treatise on the One God, Q. 19, Art. 3, Reply 6)
This is wrong, due to the simplicity of God.
But you missed the point of my post. Even all your quotes about suffering, “Do you think Paul was incredibly proud and arrogant and vain when he said:”
so sad. Like Theresa knew what an apostle knew, or like any apostle said anything she did.
It isn’t about throwing out quotes, Jim, or calling something Orthodox when it isn’t, just to score points. It’s about making Scripture clear.
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Noon: Your topper is, as always, awkward.
speaking of more topperism, noon … Mary, the co-redemptrix ?
There may be spiritual ‘ leading’ in that theological ‘development’, but we can say with certainty, it was not the Holy Spirit’s leading.
btw, appreciated this informative discussion here yesterday:
http://www.dts.edu/thetable/play/key-differences-between-protestantism-and-roman-catholicism/
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@Robert
Clete: God did not *have to* become man.
Robert: Once he decided to save He did. No other way but by death. God doesn’t violate justice by waving His wand.
And of course, temporal clauses like “once he decided to…” are anthropomorphically written for us, but do not reflect how Scripture speaks of God’s decrees b/c temporal phrases do not dignify those elements that pertain to eternity, and which delve into the eternal and mysterious decrees of God.
But never does Scripture whisper a hint of “God did not *have to* become man.”
“He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you” (1Pe 1:20)
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@sdb,
Do you mean to deny that God the Father smote the Son, cast affliction on the Son, was pleased to crush the Son, or put the Son to grief? If so what do you understand Isaiah’s use of those phrases to mean. A plain reading of the text does lead one to an allowance. It is quite explicitly active.
Jim isn’t like us. We read the text to understand the authorial intent. Jim reads it and checks his RC authorities to see what they say about it, and reports back.
He handles Scripture no different, methodologically, than Mormonism, 7th Day Adventism, Scientology, Swedenborgianism, Rosicrucianism, etc.
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James Young, switcheroo. God didn’t have to become man to regenerate and save me?
There’s another rake. Heard of Anselm? The Bible?
God regards me as righteous. So what do you make of that rake?
And why don’t you get all wise acrey about the Pope celebrating Luther next year? All I still hear from you and the converts is what crickets say.
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James Young, “I’ve read the text. God ordained and permitted His suffering and death. Christ was distressed and prayed for that suffering and death to be avoided. That doesn’t entail God’s wrath was poured out upon Him while He was reckoned as guilty of and committing all the elect’s sins.”
Why don’t you ask the pope whom I believe sits with you in your front room? It’s his paygrade.
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No one, it’s not just about scoring points. It’s about doubling down on the paradigm when the bishops have abandoned the task.
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No one, “Jim reads it and checks his RC authorities to see what they say about it, and reports back.”
Cool.
Yup.
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NOON and Darryl,
He handles Scripture no different, methodologically, than Mormonism, 7th Day Adventism, Scientology, Swedenborgianism, Rosicrucianism, etc.
And, may I add, that he thinks this is a point in Rome’s favor. Which is odd. Protestantism shouldn’t even be considered because we don’t claim infallibility. Except I’m pretty sure that the Rome of today doesn’t say that and would in theory be better with Joe Christian being Lutheran than Mormon. And that also raises the issue as to why, if the claim to infallibility is so vital, Rome is even a contender. Rome makes a more limited claim to infallibility than the Mormons do. The paradigmatic mumbo jumbo would seem to favor the body with the highest claim.
Unless of course the whole approach is rigged from the get go in favor of the Vatican and the motives of credibility are a broadly circular means to justify the narrow circularity of Rome. But that couldn’t be it, could it?
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sdb,
“Do you mean to deny that God the Father smote the Son, cast affliction on the Son, was pleased to crush the Son, or put the Son to grief?”
No more than I deny God the Father smote Job, cast affliction on Job, was pleased to crush Job, or put Job to grief. Was Job having God’s divine wrath poured out upon him? No, God withdrew divine protection and ordained and permitted Satan to test him.
Pharoah’s heart was hardened. That’s an example of divine wrath. Was Christ’s or Job’s or the Suffering Servant’s heart hardened? No.
Since Calvin and others say things like Christ suffering the “pangs of hell” and the “tortures of condemned and ruined man”, what do the condemned experience? They have hatred towards God, they have hatred towards God’s justice and unrepentant remorse rather than godly sorrow, they curse God, they experience despair and loss of hope. Did Christ, Job, or the Suffering Servant experience these? No.
“The great exchange”
RCism affirms an exchange. That doesn’t get you to PS or imputation, any more than the Suffering Servant entails God’s wrath was poured out upon Christ while He was reckoned as guilty of and committing all the elect’s sins.
“The text says God was pleased to crush him. It does not say he was just handed over.”
The text does not say God poured His wrath out upon Him or hated Him or rejected Him or damned Him or was angry with Him or judged Him as a sinner or gave Him up to the pangs of Hell. God was pleased to crush Him. Christ willed the same. This was part of the redemptive plan. That crushing included the withdrawal of protection to allow Satan full power and maximal influence – in both the physical torment through actors and the interior torments of humiliation, abandonment from his friends and people, mockery and blasphemy, betrayal, fear, weariness, and where the full weight of all history’s sins was given to Him, and temptation that such a burden was too great or to avoid it – all of which were most acutely felt due to Christ’s union with God and perfect charity and beatific vision which was never lost. Thus the sweating blood and forsaken cry.
“Divine wrath poured out on Christ in our place is one thing – I affirm it. ”
Was David under divine wrath in Psalm 22? Do any of the following mention Christ suffering divine wrath and being regarded and judged guilty as a sinner?
Aquinas:
I answer that, As observed above, Christ suffered voluntarily out of obedience to the Father. Hence in three respects God the Father did deliver up Christ to the Passion. In the first way, because by His eternal will He preordained Christ’s Passion for the deliverance of the human race, according to the words of Isaias (53:6): “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquities of us all”; and again (Is. 53:10): “The Lord was pleased to bruise Him in infirmity.” Secondly, inasmuch as, by the infusion of charity, He inspired Him with the will to suffer for us; hence we read in the same passage: “He was offered because it was His own will” (Is. 53:7). Thirdly, by not shielding Him from the Passion, but abandoning Him to His persecutors: thus we read (Mat. 27:46) that Christ, while hanging upon the cross, cried out: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” because, to wit, He left Him to the power of His persecutors, as Augustine says (Ep. cxl).
Chrysostom:
Why does he speak this way, crying out, “Eli, Eli, lama sabach-thani?” That they might see that to his last breath he honors God as his Father and is no adversary of God. He spoke with the voice of Scripture, uttering a cry from the psalm. Thus even to his last hour he is found bearing witness to the sacred text. He offers this prophetic cry in Hebrew, so as to be plain and intelligible to them, and by all things Jesus shows how he is of one mind with the Father who had begotten him.
Ambrose:
It was in human voice that he cried: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” As human, therefore, he speaks on the cross, bearing with him our terrors. For amid dangers it is a very human response to think ourself abandoned.
Augustine:
Out of the voice of the psalmist, which our Lord then transferred to himself, in the voice of this infirmity of ours, he spoke these words: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He is doubtless forsaken in the sense that his plea was not directly granted. Jesus appropriates the psalmist’s voice to himself, the voice of human weakness. The benefits of the old covenant had to be refused in order that we might learn to pray and hope for the benefits of the new covenant. Among those goods of the old covenant which belonged to the old Adam there is a special appetite for the prolonging of this temporal life. But this appetite itself is not interminable, for we all know that the day of death will come. Yet all of us, or nearly all, strive to postpone it, even those who believe that their life after death will be a happier one. Such force has the sweet partnership of body and soul.
Aquinas:
“For it should be known that someone is said to be forsaken by God when God does not go to him, just as he appears to approach when he protects him, and fulfils his petition… And because Christ was not freed from corporeal suffering at the time of his passion, for this reason it is said that you forsook (him) at that hour, that is, exposed him to the passion – Romans 8: He did not spare his only son etc.
However, when his passion was approaching, Christ prayed, Father, if it be possible, etc. But these words which Christ prayed can be explained in two ways. First, so that Christ, by these words, revealed one bearing, as it were, the person of infirmities, which are in the Church: for the sake of the future so that some members would fear their own weaknesses when passion threatened them. Second, this petition revealed in Christ one bearing the responsibility of weakened flesh which naturally fears and flees death… Words, by which he seeks to be freed, which are, of my transgressions, that is of the faithful, for whose transgressions I suffer; or they are of the weakened flesh which has a similitude to transgression: far from bodily safety, since this cup, or passion, does not pass from me as I have requested; as if he were saying, “I do not attain the safety which I desire, if my petition was heard. Father, let this cup pass me by.” And for this reason, Jerome’s version has, Far from my safety are the words of my moaning.”
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Robert, Jeff, Darryl and all,
To me it’s telling that the in each person’s( Jerome, Sugustine, Aquinas, Chrysostom…)commentary agrees with the other, and none supports the idea of the Father cursing the Son, as in hating Him, punishing Him with what would be the same torrments experienced by the damned.
So whatever is tied-up in PS, “damning” of the second person is a heretical error and is unsubstantiated by ” the Fathers”(think what it means to be a father in a tradition) who commented on this theme in holy scripture.
Now take that along with the typology of Adam and New Adam and you have the right( as in capital “T” tradition of the Church) which isn’t new nor does it commit a heresy.
“A. Sacrifice and Selfishness
What’s going on here in the Garden? Adam failed a test of his love – not only of his love for Eve, but his love for God.
God gave Adam the responsibility of guarding the garden sanctuary, the dwelling place of God and man.
In the confrontation with the serpent, he failed in his duties. He didn’t protect the garden or his wife or himself.
Why did God test him like this? Because covenant love requires total self-giving. Self-sacrifice is essential to fulfilling the obligations of the human relationship with God. ”
https://stpaulcenter.com/studies/lesson/lesson-two-creation-fall-and-promise
I’m not sticking around, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut when I see you ignoring the correct interpretation that CVD continues to give to you, but which you haggle about just like others are doing on the other thread concerning law and grace.
Ad Fontes! 🙂
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Noon,
Think it through. God had to save you. It wasn’t a free gift. That’s your position.
“God knows necessarily whatever He wills, but does not will necessarily whatever He wills.
– This is wrong, due to the simplicity of God.”
No, that’s classical theism as affirmed by Scripture, the fathers, and the councils. Put away DIY-Christianity.
“Even all your quotes about suffering, “Do you think Paul was incredibly proud and arrogant and vain when he said:”
so sad. ”
You complain about lack of Scripture and going to men (even though those men cited Scripture in support of their position), then when Scripture is given, offer the above as a substantive reply.
“It isn’t about throwing out quotes”
Then you should stop doing that. Or maybe you can point me to where you’ve done “high-level” exegesis in this thread.
“It’s about making Scripture clear.”
I agree. You’re not doing it.
“We read the text to understand the authorial intent.”
Which you haven’t understood, given the bizarre positions you espouse.
Darryl,
“God didn’t have to become man to regenerate and save me?”
God didn’t have to create man in the first place. God didn’t have to regenerate you. Which was already pointed out. But feel free to keep dancing and pulling switcheroos.
“God regards me as righteous. So what do you make of that rake?”
Same rake. God is falsely judging and regarding you, just as He falsely judged and regarded Christ. Cool paradigm.
“No one, “Jim reads it and checks his RC authorities to see what they say about it, and reports back.”
Cool. Yup.”
DGH: “Aquinas explains more (notice how much he uses Scripture — S-c-r-i-p-t-u-r-e)”
Cool. Yup.
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Thinking further: If PS and what it entails was ever opined by anyone as a possible interpretation, it must have been rejected as unorthodox since it is never taught, and therefore never belonging to Tradition.
We can safely know then that if it ever did raise its ugly head, it didn’t become part of the church’s orthodoxy since it has never been approvingly spoken of or taught.
It never made its powerful existence( and if it is the gospel it would have all power, not to mention being explicitly with the church from the beginning) known at any council ,otherwise it , just like other theological questions looking for a home, would been approved if it was true.
Since it has not been believed by the church and taught either orally or in writing since the beginning, or believed implicitly but needed a council to officially define what some group (?)of Catholics were arguing, and needed the magisterium’s say, you can safely assume it was a new error( or at least the resurrection of an old and similar, and perhaps better developed one).
But it probably isn’t nice of me to pop in and then not engage with any arguments.
Sorry, but I can’t get embroiled here, no matter how much I enjoy the discussion and care about you all.
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Susan: To me it’s telling that the in each person’s( Jerome, Sugustine, Aquinas, Chrysostom…)commentary agrees with the other, and none supports the idea of the Father cursing the Son, as in hating Him, punishing Him with what would be the same torrments experienced by the damned.
I don’t actually agree with the second part of that. As I previously established, Anselm agrees with the idea of the Father treating Jesus as if a sinner (though He was not) by placing the punishment for sins upon Him as satisfaction.
Anselm is not alone. Thus Chrysostom:
— Chrysostom, Homily 2 Cor 5.11 – 21.
So I think you are mistaken about the Church Fathers. Granted that they used different language, but still and all, they affirm what you cannot, that God treated Jesus as if a sinner.
CVD has had no real rebuttal for that point, nor has he been able to answer the questions posed, nor has he been able (or perhaps willing) to provide clear definitions and a logical account of how his argument holds together.
Now THAT is truly telling.
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Clete,
No more than I deny God the Father smote Job, cast affliction on Job, was pleased to crush Job, or put Job to grief.
Where does Scripture say God any of that to Job? “I, God, smote you.” “I, God, crushed you.” The closest we get is “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”
The language in Isaiah is very active. This is not the case in Job. I mean if you want to extend what happened with Job to how God is active with everyone in affliction you can try, but you need to make an argument for that.
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Robert,
“And here’s the problem—you want to affirm Christ lost spiritual consolation and experienced the dark night of the soul and at the same time had the Beatific Vision. I’d like to know how that is possible.”
Christ suffered the abandonment in the lower sensitive powers of His human soul – that is, his emotions. The higher powers – His will and reason – was united with God (He willed to have and experience the abandonment in the first place – fallen humans cannot simply feel what we will to feel – Christ can as perfect man and without concupiscence). If that union and the vision during the Passion was not so, then his sorrow over sin would not have been maximal since the degree of grief is in proportion to the degree of charity in soul, nor would He have been able to suffer for every sin since He wouldn’t see every sin the vision affords, nor would He have perfectly known the full weight of sin seen in all its malice and disorder in its offense to God – Jesus knows that since he utterly knows the Father and full extent of His love. Fallen humans don’t truly know or fully grasp what sin is (nor God’s love), that’s why we do it. The union and vision present in the higher powers is what allows the same abandoned (in his lower powers) Christ to also say “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” and ask forgiveness for his persecutors. That is not the “scream of the damned” or anything in the ballpark of those other purple flourishes.
More on the vision:
Aquinas: “Christ is said not to have known sin, because He did not know it by experience; but He knew it by simple cognition. ”
“As was said above, by the power of the Godhead of Christ the beatitude was economically kept in the soul, so as not to overflow into the body, lest His passibility and mortality should be taken away; and for the same reason the delight of contemplation was so kept in the mind as not to overflow into the sensitive powers, lest sensible pain should thereby be prevented… Now even as sensible pain is in the sensitive appetite, so also is sorrow.”
“Nevertheless we must know that the passions were in Christ otherwise than in us, in three ways. First, as regards the object, since in us these passions very often tend towards what is unlawful, but not so in Christ. Secondly, as regards the principle, since these passions in us frequently forestall the judgment of reason; but in Christ all movements of the sensitive appetite sprang from the disposition of the reason. Hence Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 9), that “Christ assumed these movements, in His human soul, by an unfailing dispensation, when He willed; even as He became man when He willed.” Thirdly, as regards the effect, because in us these movements, at times, do not remain in the sensitive appetite, but deflect the reason; but not so in Christ, since by His disposition the movements that are naturally becoming to human flesh so remained in the sensitive appetite that the reason was nowise hindered in doing what was right. Hence Jerome says (on Matthew 26:37) that “Our Lord, in order to prove the reality of the assumed manhood, ‘was sorrowful’ in very deed; yet lest a passion should hold sway over His soul, it is by a propassion that He is said to have ‘begun to grow sorrowful and to be sad'”; so that it is a perfect “passion” when it dominates the soul, i.e. the reason; and a “propassion” when it has its beginning in the sensitive appetite, but goes no further.”
“So in some way, if Christ suffered the dark night of the soul, He suffered at least the loss of the sense of fellowship. It’s hard to see how that isn’t wrath”
That’s not wrath. Christians who suffer dark nights aren’t under divine wrath. David writing that Psalm that Christ is echoing wasn’t under divine wrath. Pharaoh was under divine wrath. Those in hell who hate God, curse God, have utter despair, are under divine wrath. Christ, the Suffering Servant, Job, David did not share those characteristics.
JP2: “We often feel this cry of [Jesus’] suffering as “our own” in the painful situations of life which can cause deep distress and give rise to worry and uncertainty. In moments of loneliness and bewilderment, which are not unusual in human life, a believer’s heart can exclaim: the Lord has abandoned me!”
That’s not divine wrath.
JP2: “In hearing Jesus crying out his “why,” we learn indeed that those who suffer can utter this same cry, but with those same dispositions of filial trust and abandonment of which Jesus is the teacher and model. In the “why” of Jesus there is no feeling or resentment leading to rebellion or desperation. There is no semblance of a reproach to the Father, but the expression of the experience of weakness, of solitude, of abandonment to himself, made by Jesus in our place.
If Jesus felt abandoned by the Father, he knew however that that was not really so. He himself said, “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30). Speaking of his future passion he said, “I am not alone, for the Father is with me” (Jn 16:32). Jesus had the clear vision of God and the certainty of his union with the Father dominant in his mind. But in the sphere bordering on the senses, and therefore more subject to the impressions, emotions and influences of the internal and external experiences of pain, Jesus’ human soul was reduced to a wasteland. He no longer felt the presence of the Father, but he underwent the tragic experience of the most complete desolation.
Here one can sketch a summary of Jesus’ psychological situation in relationship to God. The external events seemed to manifest the absence of the Father who permitted the crucifixion of his Son, though having at his disposal “legions of angels”, without intervening to prevent his condemnation to death and execution. In Gethsemane Simon Peter had drawn a sword in Jesus’ defense, but was immediately blocked by Jesus himself. In the praetorium Pilate had repeatedly tried wily maneuvers to save him; but the Father was silent. That silence of God weighed on the dying Jesus as the heaviest pain of all, so much so that his enemies interpreted that silence as a sign of his reprobation: “He trusted in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God'”.
In the sphere of feelings and affection this sense of the absence and abandonment by God was the most acute pain for the soul of Jesus who drew his strength and joy from union with the Father. This pain rendered all the other sufferings more intense. That lack of interior consolation was Jesus’ greatest agony.”
That’s not divine wrath.
JP2: “When he is on the Cross, the spectators will sarcastically remind him of his declaration: “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said, “I am the Son of God’”. But at that hour the Father was silent in his regard, so that he could show his full solidarity with sinners and redeem them. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned. But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin”. On the cross Jesus actually continues his intimate dialogue with the Father, living it with the full force of his lacerated and suffering humanity, never losing the trusting attitude of the Son who is “one” with the Father. On the one hand, there is the Father’s mysterious silence, accompanied by cosmic darkness and pierced by the cry. On the other hand, Psalm 22, quoted here by Jesus, ends with a hymn to the sovereign Lord of the world and of history. ”
That’s not divine wrath.
JP2: “Then Jesus adds: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Mt 27:46; cf. Ps 22:2). These words of the Psalm are his prayer. Despite their tone, these words reveal the depths of his union with the Father. In the last moments of his life on earth, Jesus thinks of the Father.”
That’s not divine wrath.
B16: “Christ’s prayer reaches its culmination on the Cross. It is expressed in those last words which the Evangelists have recorded. Where he seems to utter a cry of despair: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, Christ was actually making his own the invocation of someone beset by enemies with no escape, who has no one other than God to turn to and, over and above any human possibilities, experiences his grace and salvation. With these words of the Psalm, first of a man who is suffering, then of the People of God in their suffering, caused by God’s apparent absence, Jesus made his own this cry of humanity that suffers from God’s apparent absence, and carried this cry to the Father’s heart. So, by praying in this ultimate solitude together with the whole of humanity, he opens the Heart of God to us. There is no contradiction between these words in Psalm 22 and the words full of filial trust: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Lk 23: 46; cf. Ps 31: 5). These words, also taken from Psalm 31, are the dramatic imploration of a person who, abandoned by all, is sure he can entrust himself to God. The prayer of supplication full of hope is consequently the leitmotif of Lent and enables us to experience God as the only anchor of salvation. ”
That’s not divine wrath.
B16: “Jesus, with the cry of his prayer, shows that with the burden of suffering and death in which there seems to be abandonment, the absence of God, Jesus is utterly certain of the closeness of the Father who approves this supreme act of love, the total gift of himself, although the voice from on high is not heard, as it was on other occasions. This also happens in our relationship with the Lord: when we face the most difficult and painful situations, when it seems that God does not hear, we must not be afraid to entrust the whole weight of our overburdened hearts to him, we must not fear to cry out to him in our suffering, we must be convinced that God is close, even if he seems silent. However a question arises within us: how is it possible that such a powerful God does not intervene to save his Son from this terrible trial? It is important to understand that Jesus’ prayer is not the cry of one who meets death with despair, nor is it the cry of one who knows he has been forsaken. At this moment Jesus makes his own the whole of Psalm 22, the Psalm of the suffering People of Israel. In this way he takes upon himself not only the sin of his people, but also that of all men and women who are suffering from the oppression of evil and, at the same time, he places all this before God’s own heart, in the certainty that his cry will be heard in the Resurrection. In this prayer of Jesus are contained his extreme trust and his abandonment into God’s hands, even when God seems absent, even when he seems to be silent, complying with a plan incomprehensible to us. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church we read: “in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (n. 603). His is a suffering in communion with us and for us, which derives from love and already bears within it redemption, the victory of love. At the supreme moment, Jesus gives vent to his heart’s grief, but at the same time makes clear the meaning of the Father’s presence and his consent to the Father’s plan of salvation of humanity.”
That’s not divine wrath.
B16: “Often we cannot understand why God refrains from intervening. Yet he does not prevent us from crying out, like Jesus on the Cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). We should continue asking this question in prayerful dialogue before his face. Our protest is not meant to challenge God, or to suggest that error, weakness or indifference can be found in him. Instead, our crying out is, as it was for Jesus on the Cross, the deepest and most radical way of affirming our faith in his sovereign power. Even in their bewilderment and failure to understand the world around them, Christians continue to believe in the “goodness and loving kindness of God” (Tit 3:4). Immersed like everyone else in the dramatic complexity of historical events, they remain unshakably certain that God is our Father and loves us, even when his silence remains incomprehensible.”
That’s not divine wrath.
B16: “This Psalm presents the figure of an innocent man, persecuted and surrounded by adversaries who clamour for his death; and he turns to God with a sorrowful lament which, in the certainty of his faith, opens mysteriously to praise. The anguishing reality of the present and the consoling memory of the past alternate in his prayer in an agonized awareness of his own desperate situation in which, however, he does not want to give up hope. His initial cry is an appeal addressed to a God who appears remote, who does not answer and seems to have abandoned him: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest” (vv. 3-4).
Yet, in his cry, the praying man of our Psalm calls the Lord “my” God at least three times, in an extreme act of trust and faith. In spite of all appearances, the Psalmist cannot believe that his link with the Lord is totally broken and while he asks the reason for a presumed incomprehensible abandonment, he says that “his” God cannot forsake him.
As is well known, the initial cry of the Psalm, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, is recorded by the Gospels of Matthew and Mark as the cry uttered by Jesus dying on the Cross. It expresses all the desolation of the Messiah, Son of God, who is facing the drama of death, a reality totally opposed to the Lord of life. Forsaken by almost all his followers, betrayed and denied by the disciples, surrounded by people who insult him, Jesus is under the crushing weight of a mission that was to pass through humiliation and annihilation. This is why he cried out to the Father, and his suffering took up the sorrowful words of the Psalm. But his is not a desperate cry, nor was that of the Psalmist who, in his supplication, takes a tormented path which nevertheless opens out at last into a perspective of praise, into trust in the divine victory.
Under the jeering blows of irony and contempt, it almost seems as though the persecuted man loses his own human features, like the suffering servant outlined in the Book of Isaiah (cf. 52:14; 53:2b-3). And like the oppressed righteous man in the Book of Wisdom (cf. 2:12-20), like Jesus on Calvary (cf. Mt 27:39-43), the Psalmist saw his own relationship with the Lord called into question in the cruel and sarcastic emphasis of what is causing him to suffer: God’s silence, his apparent absence. And yet God was present with an indisputable tenderness in the life of the person praying. The Psalmist reminds the Lord of this: “Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you did keep me safe upon my mother’s breasts. Upon you was I cast from my birth” (vv. 10-11a).
Here then, impelling, once again comes the request for help: “But you, O Lord, be not far off! O you my help, hasten to my aid!… Save me” (vv. 20; 22a). This is a cry that opens the Heavens, because it proclaims a faith, a certainty that goes beyond all doubt, all darkness and all desolation. And the lament is transformed, it gives way to praise in the acceptance of salvation: “He has heard…””
That’s not divine wrath.
“So you have God giving Jesus something He didn’t deserve personally”
Jesus didn’t deserve suffering or death. He willed and assumed those, just as He willed the dark night, in solidarity with sinners.
“I don’t think that is what’s meant, but how does someone know what it means to resist the Father’s love completely unless one is doing the resisting.”
See above. That’s the vision/union part tied to the solidarity with sinners and substitution part.
“Where do we see Jesus expressing anything close to bliss on the cross?”
So you’re asserting Christ lost the union and beatific vision. That’s the problem.
“There are questions about whether that verse is original, but even if it is, it doesn’t read as an account of personal bliss. ”
Here we go with the semper reformanda and solo scriptura slicing and dicing. The point is the verse shows the union was still in effect. Christ says “Father” and asks for mercy and love. This is not the action of a damned sinner.
“I guess that means we can sin venially in heaven?”
Nope. Venial sin is not opposed to the love of God, but it is also not in perfect conformity with it. To enjoy heaven and to be fully ordered to our ultimate end, our soul must be fully ordered and integrated and must be in perfect conformity. I fail to see why in your system God cannot simply continue to look at you with imputed righteousness in heaven for all eternity though and just leave you as you were at regeneration.
“Death is a punishment for sin and guilt, not for righteousness.”
So Christ was unrighteous.
“Sinless people don’t die.”
Were Elijah and Enoch sinless?
God became man. He can choose to die, just as he chose to hunger, to suffer, to cry, to get tired, to fear, and to forgive people without cutting himself before He did so. As Paul said, “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin”.
“Then Christ was directly cursed by God.”
If you want to say Christ was cursed by God and all that entails is He suffered and died, we can move along.
“But Paul says that God justifies those who are presently ungodly”
Yup. Someone who gets justified is presently ungodly. They become godly at justification. They then don’t remain ungodly afterwards, as we see in the countless verses affirming theosis in the justified and that those born of God do not go on sinning and being ungodly.
“There’s nothing there about baptism first making them godly so that they could then be justified”
You’re equivocating on initial justification/adoption/translation-to-state-of-grace and growth in that justification and righteousness. Scripture speaks of justification in both senses.
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Susan, is it telling to you that you don’t refer to the Bible?
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James Young, if God can use imperfect and sinful men to make infallible pronouncements, surely you can imagine God regarding a sinner as righteous.
Why get all literal on us now? Whatever happened to that Roman Catholic imagination nurtured on all those sacraments?
Or why not accept that grace is not fair? But that would end your time in purgatory. Oops.
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Jeff,
Was Augustine ambivalent?
Nothing in your Chrysostom quote contradicts the RC view of the atonement, nor affirms the purple flourishes. Satisfaction and substitution/vicariousness and bearing sin and suffering don’t get you there.
” punishing Him with what would be the same torrments experienced by the damned.”
– I don’t actually agree with the second part of that.”
Is Christ suffering in Hell right now and for eternity? Are the damned?
Did God hate or was He angry with Christ? Is He with the damned?
Did Christ hate and curse God and His justice? Do the damned?
Did Christ have utter despair and no hope? Do the damned?
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DGH: “God regards me as righteous. So what do you make of that rake?”
CvD: God is falsely judging and regarding you, just as He falsely judged and regarded Christ. Cool paradigm.
Nice play, Lucifer, but God says:
“being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus”
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CvD: Noon, Think it through. God had to save you. It wasn’t a free gift. That’s your position.
Boy, do you live in a contradiction of terms. What was free for me was not for God, for He says,
I pointed out Aquinas’ error in his important discussion on necessity and contingency in the will of God:
Aquinas: “God knows necessarily whatever He wills, but does not will necessarily whatever He wills.”
Me: ”This is wrong, due to the simplicity of God.”
You: No, that’s classical theism as affirmed by Scripture, the fathers, and the councils.
Now Jim, here’s how you can do me a favor. Show me that from Scripture. Otherwise, are you too saying that God does not necessarily will what He wills? Dude, Paul, not God is not the struggler in Romans 7.
Aquinas was asserting a God who is contingent within Himself at the level of His will, but the Scripture says:
“God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” (Num 23:19).
You: Put away DIY-Christianity.
That’s your Christianity. You know, faith plus works. I’m saved by Christ, and Christ alone.
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Sdb: “Do you mean to deny that God the Father smote the Son, cast affliction on the Son, was pleased to crush the Son, or put the Son to grief?”
CvD: No more than I deny God the Father smote Job, cast affliction on Job, was pleased to crush Job, or put Job to grief. Was Job having God’s divine wrath poured out upon him? No, God withdrew divine protection and ordained and permitted Satan to test him.
Wow. Wow! Wow-wa wow wow wow. Can you say Ransom theory?
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@Jeff,
Chrysostom: For to die thus was far greater than to die; and this he also elsewhere implying, says, Becoming obedient unto death, yea the death of the cross. For this thing carried with it not only punishment, but also disgrace.
Jeff: ….they used different language, but still and all, they affirm what you cannot, that God treated Jesus as if a sinner.
And of course, there are many other like quotes from history. But as time moves on and circumstances change theological terms, phraseology, precision, and hence theological dialogue, dare I say, ‘develops.” Chrysostom shows here not only reliance on 2 Cor. 5:21, but Paul’s Hymn of Christ in Phil. 2:6-8, whose “not only” descent culminates with “death, even death of the cross.”
Guys like you and me would feel quite irresponsible before God for not dealing with Sacred Scripture first, and rooting our understanding of the atonement by Paul’s theology. Not RC men. For them it is about finding out who in the past explained a Scripture so it comported to a previously existing understanding so it fits with a prior understanding of things.
It’s why CvD ignored my post in this thread explaining the legal background of Deut. 21:23, the source of Gal. 3:13. It doesn’t matter, even though the legal background of Deut. 21:23 is critical to understanding the cross of Christ. So what that it provides background to PS.
What’s really important in the RC theological context is what Augustine or Aquinas said (or a recent Pope). The grammatical historical method of scriptural interpretation is simply irrelevant to Roman Catholicism, and where it is going. But we who know the rigor of genuine exegesis see the casualness with which Scripture is often handled by even the greats in church history at times, while recognizing those men were dealing with other theological kerfuffles in their day. We are often unmoved, and RCs consider us spiritually handicapped when we don’t bow down and cry uncle.
We, for our part, consider them spiritually dead.
Now, James, by virtue of his methodological commitments will either explain away your excellent Chrysostom quote or more likely, claim his position is better because you are reading Chrysostom through modern lenses. Further, he will produce more quotes from Christians of olden days, including Chrysostom to show you haven’t a clue as to what his theology actually was.
The general idea is to get you to shift from the authority of sola Scriptura to his authority. He does not believe it is methodologically responsible to read Scripture and believe it without an ancillary authority, which is certain men and their understandings.
It’s why his method is no different than Mormonism, 7th Day Adventism, etc. It avoids actually reading Scripture like the plague.
The doctrine of the atonement has gone through phases through history, in part b/c the writers were very light in the exegesis of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures, and usually through no fault of their own. Thus there is a heavy dose of Christus Victor and Christus Exemplar but not Christ the Propitiator of the Father, until the Reformers and their careful reading of Scripture.
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Noon,
““being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus””
Yup. That doesn’t get you imputation over and against infusion as justification.
“What’s really important in the RC theological context”
That’s really important if one is trying to understand or explain the RC position. Which was what kicked off this thread.
“The grammatical historical method of scriptural interpretation is simply irrelevant to Roman Catholicism”
That’s one method of interpretation. It is used within RCism past and present. It’s viewed as a useful tool, but limited. So it’s not irrelevant.
“explain away your excellent Chrysostom quote”
There’s nothing to explain “away” as there’s nothing that contradicts the Catechism or Trent or my citations of the fathers or Aquinas or the popes. Just like tablepounding “Suffering Servant!” and “He was made sin!” doesn’t contradict them.
“he will produce more quotes from Christians of olden days, including Chrysostom to show you haven’t a clue as to what his theology actually was.”
No, but multiple quotes from an author can help shape and govern the context and sense of other quotes from that author. Kind of like with Scripture.
“an ancillary authority, which is certain men and their understandings. ”
You mean the church and its divinely protected and guided understanding.
“It avoids actually reading Scripture like the plague.”
That’s odd since Scripture is read and referenced at every Mass, cited copiously in the Catechism, cited in the councils, cited by popes, cited in RC prayers and devotionals, cited in RC theological works.
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Did Jesus go to a little hell that didn’t involve conscious, eternal torment?
Did Jesus’ divinity go to hell with Him?
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CvD
JP2: “Then Jesus adds: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Mt 27:46; cf. Ps 22:2). These words of the Psalm are his prayer. Despite their tone, these words reveal the depths of his union with the Father. In the last moments of his life on earth, Jesus thinks of the Father.”
That’s not divine wrath.
Whoa, this is soooooo deep, “In the last moments of his life on earth, Jesus thinks of the Father.”
Whoa, the way he makes Scripture come alive is like so, so, oh, what’s the word, “uninteresting.”
I bet he got that insight from the
GreekLatin, huh?I mean, who else but a man with charism could have seen that in there, amiright?
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“That silence of God weighed on the dying Jesus as the heaviest pain of all, so much so that his enemies interpreted that silence as a sign of his reprobation: “He trusted in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’””
CvD, first of all this doesn’t even make sense – why would Jesus’ enemies have expected God to speak? What, was He in the habit of doing so at crucifixions?
And then, when God shred the temple curtain, like, they heard that? Sheesh.
And says no apostle, ever: “That silence of God weighed on the dying Jesus as the heaviest pain of all.”
This is like shooting fish in a barrel.
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Clete,
Christ suffered the abandonment in the lower sensitive powers of His human soul – that is, his emotions. The higher powers – His will and reason – was united with God (He willed to have and experience the abandonment in the first place – fallen humans cannot simply feel what we will to feel – Christ can as perfect man and without concupiscence).
Scripture? So Christ willed to feel abandoned, though He really wasn’t abandoned in any real sense? He willed to feel what wasn’t true? And you tell us that in our system God isn’t dealing with reality?
The union and vision present in the higher powers is what allows the same abandoned (in his lower powers) Christ to also say “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” and ask forgiveness for his persecutors. That is not the “scream of the damned” or anything in the ballpark of those other purple flourishes.
Um, how does one see God with your will and reason and that not improve your emotions for the better? You are disintegrating the human nature. Scripture simply doesn’t speak of human beings this way. It’s Aristotelian. Justify this higher/lower powers stuff with Scripture.
Note also that Christ does not cry out in forsakenness at the same time that He says “My Father.”
And also, this notion of mind and emotion—you guys are all about sin being fundamentally tied to the mind and will being able to control the emotions. On the cross, Christ’s mind and will apparently aren’t controlling His emotions any longer. So He feels what isn’t really true. Talk about Christological problems.
That’s not wrath. Christians who suffer dark nights aren’t under divine wrath.
Christians who suffer dark nights don’t have the sin of the world on them.
David writing that Psalm that Christ is echoing wasn’t under divine wrath.
David writing that Psalm was writing not merely of His own experience, since He was a prophet.
Pharaoh was under divine wrath. Those in hell who hate God, curse God, have utter despair, are under divine wrath. Christ, the Suffering Servant, Job, David did not share those characteristics.
Job and David weren’t under divine wrath. The people in hell don’t acknowledge the justice of God. It’s one reason why hell is eternal. They don’t accept that sin deserves punishment but keep on piling on sin in resisting the judgment. Christ accepts that the punishment for sin is something that is deserved. Presumably, if the people in hell accepted that sin deserves punishment, hell wouldn’t be eternal. In fact, if they had accepted it, they wouldn’t be in hell to begin with.
So you’re asserting Christ lost the union and beatific vision. That’s the problem.
Christ as the Son never lost union with God. Christ as representative of sinners was abandoned by God for a time. I’m not even sure that Christ had the Beatific vision according to His humanity before the resurrection. If He did, He couldn’t have been tempted at every point like we are and yet without sin. And there is certainly no notion that Adam had the beatific vision before sin, (God seems to come and go in the garden) and Christ was the second Adam.
Your problem is that you cannot conceive of God relating to the Son in two distinct ways. A human judge can relate to His son on trial as judge and condemn Him if He is guilty while still perfectly loving Him as Father. Why is this impossible for the Creator to do something similar?
Here we go with the semper reformanda and solo scriptura slicing and dicing.
Until Rome disavows the practice of textual criticism and delivers an infallibly determined original text, this criticism applies equally well to your side.
The point is the verse shows the union was still in effect. Christ says “Father” and asks for mercy and love. This is not the action of a damned sinner.
Christ according to His deity never lost union with God. He experienced loss in His humanity. Christ says “Father” at the end. He doesn’t say “My Father.” Christ isn’t a damned sinner; He is cursed in place of sinners.
Nope. Venial sin is not opposed to the love of God, but it is also not in perfect conformity with it. To enjoy heaven and to be fully ordered to our ultimate end, our soul must be fully ordered and integrated and must be in perfect conformity.
I fail to see why in your system God cannot simply continue to look at you with imputed righteousness in heaven for all eternity though and just leave you as you were at regeneration.
1. God does look at us with imputed righteousness for all eternity. He demands perfection, and even in our forgiven state, it is true that we ourselves weren’t perfect. Still needs to be covered.
2. God doesn’t want people who don’t want Him. Without regeneration, nobody want’s to be around Him.
3. There is no imputation without faith and there is no faith without regeneration.
So Christ was unrighteous.
Sin was imputed to Christ. In the same way that God sees Christ’s merit, not my own, when He looks at me with the eyes of justice, He sees my demerit, not Christ’s own (for Christ had none), on the cross.
Were Elijah and Enoch sinless?
Before the bar of God’s justice, yes. They were covered with the righteousness of Christ.
God became man. He can choose to die, just as he chose to hunger, to suffer, to cry, to get tired, to fear, and to forgive people without cutting himself before He did so. As Paul said, “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin”.
Death isn’t inherent to humanity and impossible without sin. You’ve admitted as much. So no, God can’t choose to die without sin being transferred to Him. Moreover, God’s forgiveness was based on the cutting of Christ even before Christ came. Unless of course you want to go all dispensational on us.
Your quote only proves that the Law could not forgive but that Christ could BECAUSE he died. It’s required.
And Paul says that without death, sin is just passed over and God is unrighteous: “This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance he had passed over former sins” (Rom. 3:25). So no, God can’t forgive without atonement, according to Scripture.
If you want to say Christ was cursed by God and all that entails is He suffered and died, we can move along.
I could, except Scripture makes it clear that the curse is not only physical death but separation from God (Adam was kicked out of Eden) and hell. If the curse is only physical death, you should be an annhilationist.
Yup. Someone who gets justified is presently ungodly. They become godly at justification.
But God doesn’t justify the ungodly in your system. First righteousness has to be infused. And then you get a final justification based on your godliness. God justifies those whom He first makes godly in RCism. He doesn’t justify the ungodly.
They then don’t remain ungodly afterwards, as we see in the countless verses affirming theosis in the justified and that those born of God do not go on sinning and being ungodly.
That the justified enjoy theosis doesn’t mean that justification is theosis. And I see no category for sin in Scripture that says some sins are ungodly and some aren’t. Meanwhile, I see God striking dead people for trivial sins committed in relative ignorance like trying to steady the ark and collecting sticks on the Sabbath.
But of course, the justified don’t remain ungodly after justification, depending on the perspective from which you are viewing things. In practice, they do ungodly things. In position, they are perfect in righteousness. Christ doesn’t give just a little of himself and count on you to make up the rest through penance and purgatory. The gospel really is that gracious.
You’re equivocating on initial justification/adoption/translation-to-state-of-grace and growth in that justification and righteousness. Scripture speaks of justification in both senses.
Scripture never says that you can be more justified at the final point than you are when you are initially justified.
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NOON, Darryl, Jeff, SDB
An important point about the fathers.
RC: “Protestant view of penal substitution not in the fathers, therefore it’s wrong.”
Prot. “RC view of papacy not in the fathers, therefore it’s wrong.”
RC: “No problem, development.”
Prot. “But Penal Substitution is a development, too.”
RC: “No it’s not. Because Magisterium says it isn’t the consensus of the fathers.”
Prot. “What then is the consensus of the fathers”
RC: “Whatever the Magisterium says it is.”
Prot: “But that seems self-serving. What if the Magisterium gets some bad guys in there who are wrong.”
RC: “That can’t happen.”
Prot. “How do you know that?”
RC: “Magisterium says so.”
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James Young, “Nothing in your Chrysostom quote contradicts the RC view of the atonement”
Why so literal? There’s always development.
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Mermaid, haven’t you read your own catecism?
Or did Christ’s divinity remain with Mary to be assumed when she was beamed up?
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Robert, it’s like dealing with the Communist Party.
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Darryl,
CCC does not affirm what Calvin and your tradition do regarding the descent which naturally follows from the position your side has been advocating here and the purple flourishes.
The abode of the dead Christ descended to in order to liberate faithful souls is not the hell of the damned.
JP2’s commentary: https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP890111.htm
everyone’s fave site: www(DOT)calledtocommunion.com/2010/04/the-harrowing-of-hell/
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“Do you mean to deny that God the Father smote the Son, cast affliction on the Son, was pleased to crush the Son, or put the Son to grief?”
No more than I deny God the Father smote Job, cast affliction on Job, was pleased to crush Job, or put Job to grief. Was Job having God’s divine wrath poured out upon him? No, God withdrew divine protection and ordained and permitted Satan to test him.”
I see. No exegetical justification for your reading. I will have to re-read Job. I don’t recall the text describing Job’s calamity as “God being pleased to crush him”. Nor have you dealt with why cup is used in the gospels to represent something other than it always did. You don’t have to have an answer for everything. Perhaps you should think through the text more carefully. Asserting the active is really just allowing needs to be justified. You haven’t done that.
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D. G. Hart
Posted February 12, 2016 at 9:38 pm | Permalink
Mermaid, haven’t you read your own catecism?
637 In his human soul united to his divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven’s gates for the just who had gone before him.
Or did Christ’s divinity remain with Mary to be assumed when she was beamed up?>>>>>
He was not punished in Hell as your theology teaches.
—————————————————-
Institutes of the Christian Religion Book II, Chapter 16, 10 But, apart from the Creed, we must seek for a surer exposition of Christ’s descent to hell: and the word of God furnishes us with one not only pious and holy, but replete with excellent consolation. Nothing had been done if Christ had only endured corporeal death. In order to interpose between us and God’s anger, and satisfy his righteous judgment, it was necessary that he should feel the weight of divine vengeance. Whence also it was necessary that he should engage, as it were, at close quarters with the powers of hell and the horrors of eternal death. We lately quoted from the Prophet, that the “chastisement of our peace was laid upon him” that he “was bruised for our iniquities” that he “bore our infirmities;” expressions which intimate, that, like a sponsor and surety for the guilty, and, as it were, subjected to condemnation, he undertook and paid all the penalties which must have been exacted from them, the only exception being, that the pains of death could not hold him. Hence there is nothing strange in its being said that he descended to hell, seeing he endured the death which is inflicted on the wicked by an angry God. It is frivolous and ridiculous to object that in this way the order is perverted, it being absurd that an event which preceded burial should be placed after it. But after explaining what Christ endured in the sight of man, the Creed appropriately adds the invisible and incomprehensible judgment which he endured before God, to teach us that not only was the body of Christ given up as the price of redemption, but that there was a greater and more excellent price—that he bore in his soul the tortures of condemned and ruined man.
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James Young, “CCC does not affirm what Calvin and your tradition do”
really?
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Mermaid, but your theology leaves Christ’s divinity on earth but sends his humanity to hell?
That’s worse than Nestorianism.
Drink less koolaid, read more Bible.
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@Robert,
“RC: “Magisterium says so.”
Mormon: “Our Mormon elders says so”
SDA: “Ellen G White says so.”
Christ Scientist: “Mary Baker Eddy says so”
Gnostics: “Valentinus says so”
Qoheleth: “All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing. That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one might say, “See this, it is new “? Already it has existed for ages Which were before us.”
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Gnostics: “Valentinus says so”
speaking of, don’t forget (if not too synergistic) -important to the ladies…and pets http://time.com/3684556/valentines-day-pets/
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The Little Mermaid
Posted February 13, 2016 at 2:02 am | Permalink
“He was not punished in Hell as your theology teaches.”
The Bible and Reformed theology (and Calvin) deny Jesus “went to hell,” period.
Heidelberg Catechism
44. Why is it added: “He descended into hell?”
That in my greatest temptations I may be assured that Christ my Lord, by His inexpressible anguish, pains, and terrors, which He suffered in His soul on the cross and before, has redeemed me from the anguish and torment of hell.(1)
1) Ps.18:5; 116:3; Is.53; Mt.26:36-46, 27:46; Heb.5:7-10
Luke 23:43 “And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
Jesus endured the wrath and punishment of our hell ON THE CROSS.
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@ Bruce: Thank you.
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Turns out it’s not just Protestants who have differing opinions on this topic.
https://whosoeverdesires.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/ratzinger-on-christs-descent-into-hell/
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And more…
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2006/12/balthasar-hell-and-heresy-an-exchange
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This amused me just because Oakes’ trajectory sounded really familiar …
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/003-more-on-balthasar-hell-and-heresy
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Susan: ” punishing Him with what would be the same torrments experienced by the damned.”
JRC: I don’t actually agree with the second part of that.”
CVD: Is Christ suffering in Hell right now and for eternity?
No.
CVD: Are the damned?
If dead, yes.
CVD: Did God hate or was He angry with Christ?
God treated Christ as if a sinner, and withdrew from Him sufficiently to warrant the cry “why have you forsaken me?” We know this from 2 Cor 5.21 as well as many other Scriptures, and the church fathers affirmed it as well.
I don’t feel the need to probe into the depth of that treatment, or its duration. Scripture gives us no guidance there, which perhaps should warn against idle speculation.
What we can say with certainty is that Jesus’ suffering was sufficient for our justification, whence it detracts from His merits to say that those who are justified still owe satisfaction in purgatory.
CVD: Is He [angry] with the damned?
Quite.
CVD: Did Christ hate and curse God and His justice? Do the damned?
Irrelevant.
CVD: Did Christ have utter despair and no hope?
No. He knew that on the third day He would rise.
CVD: Do the damned?
We aren’t told. Perhaps they are as foolish in death as in life.
From my answers, you can see that affirming that God treated Jesus as if a sinner does not entail that He treated Him so identically in every way. It’s pretty obvious that He didn’t.
Now for my questions to you:
* By whom was Jesus punished?
* What definitions are you using for the terms “satisfaction”, “substitution”, “wrath”?
* When you say that “the curse that Christ underwent is is not anger, wrath, and rejection from God”, what are you positively saying that the curse is?
—
You should be aware that both Piper and Grudem explicitly reject the idea that Jesus descended into Hell. I say this in order to underscore Bruce’s point. Believing that God poured out wrath on Christ does not entail believing that Jesus literally went to Hell to be tormented for three days.
Nuance!
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Jeff, “What we can say with certainty is that Jesus’ suffering was sufficient for our justification, whence it detracts from His merits to say that those who are justified still owe satisfaction in purgatory.”
But we can’t say that when the church is all mercy, all the time.
And we’re supposed to heed the call to communion with universalism?
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CvD,
I said,
“The grammatical historical method of scriptural interpretation is simply irrelevant to Roman Catholicism”
You replied:
“That’s one method of interpretation. It is used within RCism past and present. It’s viewed as a useful tool, but limited.”
And yet it’s how you read DGH here.
It’s also how you read everyone else here.
It’s also how you read Augustine, Aquinas, JP2, and everyone else you quote.
It’s even how you expect to be read by your interlocutors here, and when you feel they don’t, you make sure they know it.
Without it, you can’t know what is being communicated by the author and given our propensities, will make what written self-serving.
Like what RC theology does with John 16:12-13.
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no one, but you need development of doctrine as a fall back. All that history, so many words, all those flip flops.
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NOON,
The line I’ve basically been told on that is that the Bible is special because it is inspired and therefore GH is inadequate to get the full meaning of the text.
What is self-serving is that the only people equipped to get the meaning of the text beyond the GH is the Magisterium. It’s Gnosticism.
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Like what RC theology does with John 16:12-13.
….and with v. 14-15…. since the verses are brought up so often here, it would also be helpful to say what precepts ARE taught by them …
“The ministry of the Holy Spirit is progressive, personal, truth-centered, Christ-centered, Christ-glorifying….It refers to all spiritual truth that the apostles and the church needs for growth in godliness…The point in our text is that the Lord doesn’t dump the whole thing on us at once. “Guide” suggests that this is a process and since the subject is “the unfathomable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8), it is a never-ending process. The Holy Spirit is the divine guide, who takes you from room to room, revealing the riches of Christ to your soul….The comforting truth is, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells in you and tailors His ministry to you personally. He knows what you’re feeling and ministers His comfort to you through the Word or through other believers or sometimes through your unique circumstances. As Jesus says here, the Spirit guides you in the truth, but He does that as you study the Word of truth. He knows what you need to know and when you need to know it…The designation, “the Spirit of truth,” implies, of course, that there is such a thing as knowable, unchanging truth in the spiritual realm. The fact that the Spirit communicates this truth by speaking shows that the truth is expressed by words and sentences that can be understood. That should not need to be affirmed among evangelicals, but the spirit of postmodernism has infiltrated the church so that fewer than one out of three who claim to be born again believe that there is such a thing as absolute moral truth….These verses can also be plumbed for their insights on the nature of the Triune God. The three persons are distinct and yet each is fully God. Each person has different roles or functions. The Lord wants us to apply His teaching here to our walk with God: Is the Holy Spirit progressively guiding you in all the truth, especially the truth about Christ, as you study His Word? Do you see His personal ministry in your life as He works to conform you to Christ? Are you growing to understand more deeply the great truths of Scripture, centered in Christ and the gospel? And, is your life increasingly Christ-centered and Christ-glorifying?” Barclay, Barnes Calvin, biblical illustrator, Cole commentary
and from the Topper – God – Father, Son, Spirit
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Robert the Valiant,
What is self-serving is that the only people equipped to get the meaning of the text beyond the GH is the Magisterium. It’s Gnosticism
aka unbelief
The minions get all those other levels of meaning derivatively. The blind leading the blind.
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Topper,
Like what RC theology does with John 16:12-13.
You agree with me, and to show your support you quote Barclay, who in turn negates what John 16:12-13 teaches, namely, that the apostles, and the apostles alone were guided by the Holy Spirit into all the truth for the churches. Well done.
Ask questions, don’t assume you know.
https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/681-enigmatic-william-barclay-the
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NOON,
The RC Apologetic:
“Rome is the Church Jesus founded.”
Prot: How do you know this?
RC: The Three-legged stool of Magisterium, Scripture, and Tradition tells me.
Prot: How do you know that there is such stool?
RC: The Magisterium tells me, as does Scripture and Tradition.
Prot: But I read the Scripture and tradition, I don’t see the stool.
RC: You can’t find the stool without the Magisterium, it’s one of the legs.
Prot: How do you know that?
RC: The Magisterium tells me.
Prot: But Cyprian and others deny the unique claims of the papacy even though they have a high view of the church.
RC: Cyprian is wrong about the papacy, or he says nothing that invalidates my paradigm, but his view of the church is otherwise wrong. The first part is not tradition, the second one is.
Prot: How do you know?
RC: The Magisterium tells me.
Prot: Okay…well, then tell me what tradition is.
RC: The common life, teaching, and worship of the church.
Prot: But I look at that tradition and I see no papacy. Papacy not a common belief at all.
RC: You’re wrong, it’s very common, just look at authentic tradition.
Prot: What is authentic tradition.
RC: The Magisterium tells me.
Prot: Okay…then what is Scripture?
RC: Whatever the Magisterium says it is.
Prot: I can’t find the Roman church in Scripture.
RC: You’re wrong, it’s there.
Prot: How do you know?
RC: The Magisterium tells me.
Prot: Can I find the Roman church just by reading the Scripture, then?
RC: I’ve yet to find anyone who has. That proves that you need the Magisterium to understand it rightly.
Prot: But then how do I know if I’ve read the Magisterium is correct.
RC: It’s clear and self-evident.
Prot: So the Magisterium is self-authenticating and sufficient?
RC: Magisterium is not self-authenticating but it is sufficient, or at least Magisterium plus tradition is sufficient. To say its self-authenticating is circular.
Prot: How then, do I know Rome is the Church Christ founded?
RC: Motives of Credibility, including holiness, tradition, Scripture, etc.
Prot: But I can’t find Rome in Scripture without the Magisterium’s help.
RC: Correct.
Prot: So Rome must first tell me that Rome is there and how to read Scripture to find it.
RC: Correct.
Prot: But isn’t that circular?
RC: No.
Prot: How do you know?
RC: The Magisterium tells me.
Prot: So it’s not circular for Rome to tell me that Scripture’s teaching on her is a motive of credibility even though I can’t know what Scripture is or what it means without Rome telling me.
RC: Correct.
Prot. Okay…what about holiness? How do I know what holiness is and that it is a motive of credibility?
RC: The Magisterium tells us. And holiness is something you can kind of know apart from the Magisterium.
Prot: But Islam claims to teach holiness, does that mean Islam is right?
RC: No, the Magisterium tells me what holiness is.
Prot: But you just said you don’t have to have the Magisterium define holiness to know it.
RC: Yes, holiness is whatever you see in natural law as long as the Magisterium agrees.
Prot: But that’s circular.
RC: No it’s not.
Prot: How can you defend that?
RC: Because the Magisterium says so.
Prot: So, you need the three-legged stool of S, T, and M.
RC: Correct.
Prot: And the MoC will tell you Rome is true.
RC: Correct.
Prot: And I know what the MoC, the S, T, and M are by the Magisterium.
RC: Correct.
Prot: So all I really need is the Magisterium.
RC: Correct, I mean, no.
Prot: But all that other stuff seems superfluous, shouldn’t I just believe what Rome says and not care about her justifying her claims.
RC: Correct, I mean, no.
Prot: I don’t get it.
RC: You don’t have the right paradigm. Trust the Magisterium and all will be clear.
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Did not know about Barclay’s views. Pretty wild.
I want to carefully consider the question of the scope of John 16. Ali has raised the view that it refers to the ongoing process of the Spirit guiding the church, while no one — I mean, No One — has countered that it refers specifically to the inspiration given to the apostles.
It is certainly true that the Spirit guided the apostles into all truth, but is it not true that He also guided Mark, Luke, Paul, and the author to the Hebrews, as well Jude?
So: what is the guidance provided by the Spirit promised here? To whom is that guidance given? Over what time period? What is the relationship, if any, of that guidance to the work of the Spirit in building the church into a dwelling place for God per Eph 2.22?
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Noon: Topper,Like what RC theology does with John 16:12-13.You agree with me, and to show your support you quote Barclay, who in turn negates what John 16:12-13 teaches, namely, that the apostles, and the apostles alone were guided by the Holy Spirit into all the truth for the churches. Well done. Ask questions, don’t assume you know. https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/681-enigmatic-william-barclay-the
Thanks noon. Interesting article. Appreciated it and the warning. I see some of that concern here below -will continue being careful reading him and any other human. Amazing the Lord uses all of us ‘enigmas’, some way or t’other.
Here’s the whole studylight of him for John 16:12+ -definitely need to be careful –especially in some of it (2 John 1:9,etc)- submitting it all to the Lord.
thoughts?
“To Jesus the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, whose great work is to bring God’s truth to men. We have a special name for this bringing of God’s truth to men; we call it revelation, and no passage in the New Testament shows us what we might call the principles of revelation better than this one.”
“(i) Revelation is bound to be a progressive process. Many things Jesus knew he could not at that moment tell his disciples, because they were not yet able to receive them. It is only possible to tell a man as much as he can understand. We do not start with the binomial theorem when we wish to teach a boy algebra; we work up to it. We do not start with advanced theorems when we wish to teach a child geometry; we approach them gradually. We do not start with difficult passages when we teach a lad Latin or Greek; we start with the easy and the simple things. God’s revelation to men is like that. He teaches men what they are able and fit to learn. This most important fact has certain consequences. “
“(a) It is the explanation of the parts of the Old Testament which sometimes worry and distress us. AT that stage they were all of God’s truth that men could grasp. Take an actual illustration–in the Old Testament there are many passages which call for the wiping out of men and women and children when an enemy city is taken. At the back of these passages there is the great thought that Israel must not risk the taint of any heathen and lower religion. To avoid that risk, those who do not worship the true God must be destroyed. That is to say, the Jews had at that stage grasped the fact that the purity of religion must be safeguarded; but they wished to preserve that purity by destroying the heathen. When Jesus came, men came to see that the way to preserve that purity is to convert the heathen. The people of the Old Testament times had grasped a great truth, but only one side of it. Revelation has to be that way; God can reveal only as much as a man can understand.”
“(b) It is the proof that there is no end to God’s revelation. One of the mistakes men sometimes make is to identify God’s revelation solely with the Bible. That would be to say that since about A.D. 120, when the latest book in the New Testament was written, God has ceased to speak. But God’s Spirit is always active; he is always revealing himself. It is true that his supreme and unsurpassable revelation came in Jesus; but Jesus is not just a figure in a book, he is a living person and in him God’s revelation goes on. God is still leading us into greater realization of what Jesus means. He is not a God who spoke up to A.D. 120 and is now silent. He is still revealing his truth to men.”
(ii) God’s revelation to men is a revelation of all truth. It is quite wrong to think of it as confined to what we might call theological truth. The theologians and the preachers are not the only people who are inspired. When a poet delivers to men a great message in words which defy time, he is inspired. When H. F. Lyte wrote the words of Abide with me he had no feeling of composing them; he wrote them as to dictation. A great musician is inspired. Handel, telling of how he wrote The Hallelujah Chorus, said: “I saw the heavens opened, and the Great White God sitting on the Throne.” When a scientist discovers something which will help the world’s toil and make life better for men, when a surgeon discovers a new technique which will save men’s lives and ease their pain, when someone discovers a new treatment which will bring life and hope to suffering humanity, that is a revelation from God. All truth is God’s truth, and the revelation of all truth is the work of the Holy Spirit.”
“(iii) That which is revealed comes from God. He is alike the possessor and the giver of all truth. Truth is not men’s discovery; it is God’s gift. It is not something which we create; it is something already waiting to be discovered. At the back of all truth there is God.”
“(iv) Revelation is the taking of the things of Jesus and revealing their significance to us. Part of the greatness of Jesus is his inexhaustibleness. No man has ever grasped all that he came to say. No man has fully worked out all the significance of his teaching for life and for belief, for the individual and for the world, for society and for the nation. Revelation is a continual opening out of the meaning of Jesus.”
“There we have the crux of the matter. Revelation comes to us, not from any book or creed, but from a living person. The nearer we live to Jesus, the better we will know him. The more we become like him, the more he will be able to tell us. To enjoy his revelation we must accept his mastery.”
http://www.studylight.org/commentaries/dsb/view.cgi?bk=42&ch=16
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Noon: Topper,Like what RC theology does with John 16:12-13.You agree with me, and to show your support you quote Barclay, who in turn negates what John 16:12-13 teaches, namely, that the apostles, and the apostles alone were guided by the Holy Spirit into all the truth for the churches. Well done. Ask questions, don’t assume you know.
Thanks noon. Interesting article. Appreciated it and the warning. I see some of that concern here below -will continue being careful reading him and any other human. Amazing the Lord uses all of us ‘enigmas’, some way or t’other.
Here’s the whole studylight of him for John 16:12+ -definitely need to be careful –especially in some of it (2 John 1:9,etc)- submitting it all to the Lord.
thoughts?
“To Jesus the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, whose great work is to bring God’s truth to men. We have a special name for this bringing of God’s truth to men; we call it revelation, and no passage in the New Testament shows us what we might call the principles of revelation better than this one.”
“(i) Revelation is bound to be a progressive process. Many things Jesus knew he could not at that moment tell his disciples, because they were not yet able to receive them. It is only possible to tell a man as much as he can understand. We do not start with the binomial theorem when we wish to teach a boy algebra; we work up to it. We do not start with advanced theorems when we wish to teach a child geometry; we approach them gradually. We do not start with difficult passages when we teach a lad Latin or Greek; we start with the easy and the simple things. God’s revelation to men is like that. He teaches men what they are able and fit to learn. This most important fact has certain consequences. “
“(a) It is the explanation of the parts of the Old Testament which sometimes worry and distress us. AT that stage they were all of God’s truth that men could grasp. Take an actual illustration–in the Old Testament there are many passages which call for the wiping out of men and women and children when an enemy city is taken. At the back of these passages there is the great thought that Israel must not risk the taint of any heathen and lower religion. To avoid that risk, those who do not worship the true God must be destroyed. That is to say, the Jews had at that stage grasped the fact that the purity of religion must be safeguarded; but they wished to preserve that purity by destroying the heathen. When Jesus came, men came to see that the way to preserve that purity is to convert the heathen. The people of the Old Testament times had grasped a great truth, but only one side of it. Revelation has to be that way; God can reveal only as much as a man can understand.”
“(b) It is the proof that there is no end to God’s revelation. One of the mistakes men sometimes make is to identify God’s revelation solely with the Bible. That would be to say that since about A.D. 120, when the latest book in the New Testament was written, God has ceased to speak. But God’s Spirit is always active; he is always revealing himself. It is true that his supreme and unsurpassable revelation came in Jesus; but Jesus is not just a figure in a book, he is a living person and in him God’s revelation goes on. God is still leading us into greater realization of what Jesus means. He is not a God who spoke up to A.D. 120 and is now silent. He is still revealing his truth to men.”
(ii) God’s revelation to men is a revelation of all truth. It is quite wrong to think of it as confined to what we might call theological truth. The theologians and the preachers are not the only people who are inspired. When a poet delivers to men a great message in words which defy time, he is inspired. When H. F. Lyte wrote the words of Abide with me he had no feeling of composing them; he wrote them as to dictation. A great musician is inspired. Handel, telling of how he wrote The Hallelujah Chorus, said: “I saw the heavens opened, and the Great White God sitting on the Throne.” When a scientist discovers something which will help the world’s toil and make life better for men, when a surgeon discovers a new technique which will save men’s lives and ease their pain, when someone discovers a new treatment which will bring life and hope to suffering humanity, that is a revelation from God. All truth is God’s truth, and the revelation of all truth is the work of the Holy Spirit.”
“(iii) That which is revealed comes from God. He is alike the possessor and the giver of all truth. Truth is not men’s discovery; it is God’s gift. It is not something which we create; it is something already waiting to be discovered. At the back of all truth there is God.”
“(iv) Revelation is the taking of the things of Jesus and revealing their significance to us. Part of the greatness of Jesus is his inexhaustibleness. No man has ever grasped all that he came to say. No man has fully worked out all the significance of his teaching for life and for belief, for the individual and for the world, for society and for the nation. Revelation is a continual opening out of the meaning of Jesus.”
“There we have the crux of the matter. Revelation comes to us, not from any book or creed, but from a living person. The nearer we live to Jesus, the better we will know him. The more we become like him, the more he will be able to tell us. To enjoy his revelation we must accept his mastery.”
http://www.studylight.org/commentaries/dsb/view.cgi?bk=42&ch=16
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JRC: It is certainly true that the Spirit guided the apostles into all truth, but is it not true that He also guided Mark, Paul…
Well that was awkward. Let’s try again.
It is certainly true that the Spirit guided the apostles present in John 16 into all truth, but is it not true that He also guided Mark, Paul, …
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Hi Jeff,
First, thanks for all your many excellent posts here. I’ve been sharpened a great deal by your ministry. Greatly.
It is certainly true that the Spirit guided the apostles into all truth, but is it not true that He also guided Mark, Luke, Paul, and the author to the Hebrews, as well Jude?
So: what is the guidance provided by the Spirit promised here? To whom is that guidance given? Over what time period? What is the relationship, if any, of that guidance to the work of the Spirit in building the church into a dwelling place for God per Eph 2.22?
You are probably aware that the non-apostle’s canonical writings were prophetic in nature, and thus, all these writers wrote under direct inspiration. Thus, they too were prophets.
They did not write alone though but were typically approved by other men who not only had prophetic gifts but apostolic gifts as well (cf. 1 Cor. 14:29); Mark under Peter, Luke under Paul. Jude may be an exception, although it is possible that like his brother James he had a “second-level apostolic gifting, i.e., limited to one church only (cf. Gal. 1:19 in Jerusalem).
Paul is unique, isn’t he? And yet, the Lord personally appeared to him and personally revealed the gospel to him (JBF). This revealing work continued through his life (1 Cor. 2:10, 16). But notice what he says about doctrinal fidelity with all the apostles:
“Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed” (1 Cor. 15:11).
Now to John 16. Tertullian noted,
Tertullian claimed the apostles were the recipients of Christ’s promise in the Upper Room and that “there was nothing of which the apostles were ignorant.”
In the Upper Room, the apostles couldn’t give witness to the meaning of Christ’s incarnation, resurrection or Christ’s ascension. Nor could they interpret it for other people as Christ’s witnesses. They were weak in the Upper Room. Unlike all Christians who have ever lived after them, the apostles couldn’t handle the truth of the gospel message in the Upper Room:
“I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” (John 16:12)
So when Jesus made His promise to reveal “all the truth” in the next verse He specifically made it to men who couldn’t bear the truth of the cross, before the cross. But Pentecost changed all that because since that time every Christian has been able to bear the truths of the death-resurrection-ascension of the Messiah.
So the promise of plenary guidance is being made specific to those who couldn’t handle the gospel in the Upper Room, and then we have the exception made in Paul.
Otoh, we are guided by the HS into a saving comprehension of the gospel already revealed under apostolic supervision, but our knowledge of all NT doctrine it is not plenary, and we require gifted teachers, thus the Universal Church of Eph. 2:20ff is built on Jesus’ preaching to the far off through His apostles (2:17). We all (teachers included), unlike the apostles, have a partial and in places corrupt knowledge of all the truth revealed by the HS to the apostles for the churches. The gaining of this partial knowledge in us is sometimes called “illumination” in order to safeguard the uniqueness of ‘revelation.”
If i was unclear, let me know. Blessings.
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Topper,
There’s a reason it’s called Study light, just as there’s a reason it’s called Bud light.
Try this. Much more in line with Scripture.
http://www.ligonier.org/blog/general-and-special-revelation-reformed-approach-science-and-scripture/
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thanks noon. Have a great day.
Phil 1: 9 And this (we all pray, for all of us), that our love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ
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Noon,
“Whoa, this is soooooo deep, “In the last moments of his life on earth, Jesus thinks of the Father.” … I mean, who else but a man with charism could have seen that in there, amiright?”
Apparently it is deep since you didn’t see that in there – your side maintains He was feeling the pangs of Hell and torments of the damned. The damned don’t think of God as Father.
“CvD, first of all this doesn’t even make sense – why would Jesus’ enemies have expected God to speak?”
Read again. “That silence of God weighed on the dying Jesus as the heaviest pain of all, so much so that his enemies interpreted that silence as a sign of his reprobation: “He trusted in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’””
Compare with “Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.”
“Without it, you can’t know what is being communicated by the author and given our propensities, will make what written self-serving.”
Right – which is why RCism views it as useful and necessary, but not sufficient or exhaustive. Can you tell me where GHM warrants interpreting a particular text and deriving its authorial intent via a canonical hermeneutic of using a specific set of other texts spanning hundreds of years, different cultures, different languages, different authors, and different genres, coupled with something called the “Holy Spirit” guiding said interpretation? Is that how you interpret other texts?
It’s naive to just say GHM is the answer. GHM does not claim to nor does it answer which method – including itself – can or should be used in discerning divine revelation and truths from human opinion, or whether it should serve as the primary method, or if and how it should be combined with other methods to yield proper exegesis, or what the relevant sources of divine revelation it is to be applied to in the first place consist of, or how to best apply it as a method in the first place (thus different erudite practitioners of GHM coming to conflicting or divergent conclusions and opinions), or, related to last point, which ever-shifting data sources and academic analysis in various fields (archaeology, history, linguistics, textual criticism, philology, sociology, anthropology, etc) integral to GHM get to count in its application and which don’t.
Nor does it answer why church fathers would freely use other techniques in hammering out core doctrines and exegetical conclusions, or why Jews as supposed GHM practitioners reached different OT exegetical conclusions than the Apostles did as supposed GHM practitioners.
Nor does it answer how to peel back the multiple layers present in interpreting Scripture – http://douglasbeaumont.com/2011/07/03/sola-scriptura-death-by-a-thousand-or-ten-qualifications/ – layers which can be masked – either intentionally or unintentionally – when presenting self-serving interpretations and admitted opinions as self-evident and divine truth.
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Robert,
“Note also that Christ does not cry out in forsakenness at the same time that He says “My Father.””
So Christ was forsaken, and that was a punishment of Hell and sin, but He was not forsaken at His moment of death, which was also a punishment of Hell and sin.
“So He feels what isn’t really true.”
It’s not true in an ontological sense, just as it isn’t true in an ontological sense for Christians suffering dark nights. They are still united to and loved by God – they aren’t reprobates under divine wrath during dark nights. Our emotions don’t always conform to reality – that should be obvious. Christ (and the Father) willed the sense of abandonment in his human emotions, He was not actually abandoned and did not lose the beatific vision or union or caused a rupture within the Trinity.
“The people in hell don’t acknowledge the justice of God.”
And yet your position is Christ suffered the torment and punishment and sense of those in hell. Hmm.
“It’s one reason why hell is eternal. ”
And yet Christ isn’t in hell. Hmm.
” They don’t accept that sin deserves punishment but keep on piling on sin in resisting the judgment. ”
And yet Christ accepted sin deserved punishment and isn’t keeping on piling on sin in resisting the judgment. Hmm.
“Christ as the Son never lost union with God.”
Christ is one person.
“I’m not even sure that Christ had the Beatific vision according to His humanity before the resurrection”
He had it since His conception.
“A human judge can relate to His son on trial as judge and condemn Him if He is guilty while still perfectly loving Him as Father.”
So Christ was guilty of sin. Is the human judge deceiving himself or judging falsely when condemning his son as guilty?
“Christ says “Father” at the end. He doesn’t say “My Father.” Christ isn’t a damned sinner; He is cursed in place of sinners. ”
Right, do the damned say “Father” in hell?
“God does look at us with imputed righteousness for all eternity.”
Okay, so you’re not fully sanctified or purified after death. So you’re never actually made righteous, just regarded as such, even in heaven and for all eternity.
“Death is a punishment for sin and guilt, not for righteousness.”
– So Christ was unrighteous.
— Sin was imputed to Christ.”
So Christ was punished unjustly by the Father.
“In the same way that God sees Christ’s merit, not my own”
So the Father judges falsely in both cases.
“Were Elijah and Enoch sinless?
– Before the bar of God’s justice, yes.”
But they didn’t die. You still die with imputation. So what happened? Did God mess up following his own demands of justice since “God can’t choose to die without sin being transferred to Him” which is what necessitated Christ’s death?
“Moreover, God’s forgiveness was based on the cutting of Christ even before Christ came. ”
So why did the faithful OT Jews looking to the messiah still have to kill animals then? Shouldn’t Christ have killed an animal or cut Himself whenever He forgave people in the NT to satisfy God’s justice He tied his hands with?
“Your quote only proves that the Law could not forgive but that Christ could BECAUSE he died. It’s required. ”
The salient point of the quote was the “sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin”. God chose to become man (in the manner just described). He can choose to die (in accordance with the manner just described).
“So no, God can’t forgive without atonement, according to Scripture.”
Right, once God implemented his redemptive plan, He followed it. That’s why Christ fulfilled the OT.
“but separation from God ”
So Christ was separated from God.
“But God doesn’t justify the ungodly in your system. First righteousness has to be infused.”
Right. And that happens to the ungodly. After which they are godly.
“And I see no category for sin in Scripture that says some sins are ungodly and some aren’t. ”
As was already cited to you,
“No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.”
“We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them.”
“The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did”
“Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”
Paul and Christ’s lists of sins and behavior incompatible with true believers and charity resulting in exclusion from the kingdom.
combined with:
“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins”
“for though the righteous fall seven times”
“For we all stumble in many ways.”
“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
Sins requiring death penalty of offender in OT vs those that don’t.
“In practice, they do ungodly things”
Then you have not been born of God. In practice, the reprobate do ungodly things.
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Jeff,
Was Augustine ambivalent?
So Christ was “[punished] with what would be the same torments experienced the damned” except for the following torments and experiences:
Eternal suffering
Hatred and anger from God
Hatred and anger towards God
Utter despair and no hope
So the full penalty of sin was not paid by Christ.
On one hand,
“You should be aware that both Piper and Grudem explicitly reject the idea that Jesus descended into Hell.”
On the other,
“Statements by modern theologians don’t have the same weight as statements by tested theologians, who in turn have less weight than confessional statements. So “He descended into Hell” matters a lot more in this discussion than Piper. Hodge and Calvin make sense for you to use here. Statements by “Reformed baptists” are not entirely relevant for confessional Presbyterianism.”
So TLM’s citation of Calvin on the descent seems more than appropriate.
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Please answer my questions first.
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CvD, g’day, mate.
Can you tell me where GHM warrants interpreting a particular text and deriving its authorial intent via a canonical hermeneutic of using a specific set of other texts spanning hundreds of years, different cultures, different languages, different authors, and different genres, coupled with something called the “Holy Spirit” guiding said interpretation? Is that how you interpret other texts?
The grammatical historical hermeneutic is not sympathetic to the so-called “canonical hermeneutic.” Usually one’s theological system worms it’s way in between the two. Apples and oranges, really.
your side maintains He was feeling the pangs of Hell and torments of the damned. The damned don’t think of God as Father.
Nor do the cursed of Deut. 21:23. And yet, Gal. 3:13.
It’s naive to just say GHM is the answer. GHM does not claim to nor does it answer which method – including itself – can or should be used in discerning divine revelation….
Then Jesus was really naive, because every quote He makes of the OT is grammatically and historically connected, so that every quote is authoritative, verifiable and understandable. Not one use of the OT in all His teachings evidence anything other than that He read the law and the prophets as any man could have – according to its literal sense.
What’s more, He upbraided those religious priests who misread it according to the same grammatical historical intent of the author, charging them with horrific sin (something your priests appear being incapable of hearing).
Hey, if we all got the John 16:13 charism like RCs, some Prots, Charismatics, and the 700 Club teach, then every Christian would agree on every point of doctrine. But the authority of Scripture comes by the meaning of the Scripture, and the meaning of the scripture is only known by rightly reading it.
Scripture contains a self-attesting hermeneutic. Everything else obscures the authority of God.
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Robert,
So Christ was forsaken, and that was a punishment of Hell and sin, but He was not forsaken at His moment of death, which was also a punishment of Hell and sin.
The forsakenness includes death, but of course Christ went into death confident that such forsakenness would not last. And paradoxically, he had that confidence even during the “my God, my God.” He was divine and omniscience, you know.
It’s not true in an ontological sense, just as it isn’t true in an ontological sense for Christians suffering dark nights.
And no one I know affirms an ontological separation on this side. Even Thabiti doesn’t. Read his comments with Bryan Cross in the comments section of the piece you quote.
They are still united to and loved by God – they aren’t reprobates under divine wrath during dark nights.
To say Christ in Himself is a reprobate isn’t an accurate construal of our position. Further, the Christians suffering the dark night of the soul isn’t suffering it because He has been made sin.
Our emotions don’t always conform to reality – that should be obvious. Christ (and the Father) willed the sense of abandonment in his human emotions, He was not actually abandoned and did not lose the beatific vision or union or caused a rupture within the Trinity.
So Christ willed something that wasn’t true ontologically. That’s great if you want to believe that, but if you do believe that, you should have absolutely no problem with imputation in either direction, none whatsoever. God willed to treat Christ as if He were a sinner even though He wasn’t a sinner ontologically, and He wills to treat us as having met His perfect standard even though we haven’t done so ontologically.
There’s also no rupture within the Trinity.
And yet your position is Christ suffered the torment and punishment and sense of those in hell. Hmm.
Well obviously there is some point of discontinuity; the hellbound sinners aren’t resurrected and seated at the right hand of God the Father. But the point is that Christ suffered on the cross exactly what the people in hell suffer. The difference is in the response of Christ to said suffering.
And yet Christ isn’t in hell. Hmm.
Because an infinite person can exhaust an eternal punishment and because Christ doesn’t keep on sinning in hell. In hell people are sinning. In fact, they’d rather be in hell then to see God’s glory.
And yet Christ accepted sin deserved punishment and isn’t keeping on piling on sin in resisting the judgment. Hmm.
Yes, and it is one reason why the judgment can be exhausted in him and not in hell. There comes a point where all the deserved punishment is exhausted because Christ accepts it as just. No such thing happens in hell, where people keep on sinning.
Christ is one person.
Yes He is. And just as He can will to receive the abandonment/loss of consolation/whatever according to His humanity, He can will for it to be preserved according to His divine mind, will, heart, etc.
He had it since His conception.
Scripture?
So Christ was guilty of sin.
Personally, no. Guilty in the sense of being the sin-bearer imputed with all of our sins, even the non-ungodly ones that you think happen, yes.
Is the human judge deceiving himself or judging falsely when condemning his son as guilty?
No, and neither is God. God doesn’t condemn His Son as personally guilty for the sins as if they actually belonged to Him ontologically. I-m-p-u-t-a-t-i-o-n.
Lets go through this again and ask why imputation is so hard for you guys. The only logical explanation is that your church is still mad that Luther inflicted such a blow to the theology of glory around which your church is built. You all want us to regard something as not being bread even though by any normal sensory observation it is bread. You all want us to believe Christ could will something of Himself—the sense of abandonment—without it being true ontologically. And yet to say that God regarded Christ in some way as being that which He wasn’t ontologically is unforgiveable blasphemy. I would chalk it up to consistent theology if there weren’t these cases where regard things as one thing though they really are another. As it is, development and Magisterial teaching just looks like a giant temper tantrum against a German monk and a Genevan lawyer, a temper tantrum that you all got over and went all universalist on us.
Right, do the damned say “Father” in hell?
It seems to me that according to your church’s dogma that we’re all children of God simply by existing, that they would have to in Romanism. In Protestantism, no.
Okay, so you’re not fully sanctified or purified after death.
Does not follow.
So you’re never actually made righteous, just regarded as such, even in heaven and for all eternity.
No, we’re actually made righteous in heaven. The problem is that no matter how righteous God makes us in heaven, we were still sinners at one point. That stuff just doesn’t go away. An infinite amount of righteousness now won’t make up for all of my sins before conversion. And only absolutely perfect people can get into heaven. Something has to be done about the record of imperfection. It needs to be regarded as perfection.
– So Christ was unrighteous.
Christ was regarded as unrighteous in a legal sense but fully righteous in an ontological sense.
So Christ was punished unjustly by the Father.
No, because Christ agreed to be treated as if He were a sinner even though He really wasn’t. He agreed to pay the price. I can cosign a loan and agree to receive the wrath of the legal system if the cosigner defaults. Why can we do this on earth, but God can’t do this in heaven? Is it because it ruins the whole Christ=church business?
But they [Elijah and Elisha] didn’t die. You still die with imputation. So what happened? Did God mess up following his own demands of justice since “God can’t choose to die without sin being transferred to Him” which is what necessitated Christ’s death?
God is free to preserve from death anyone who is covered with the righteousness of Christ, as Elijah and Elisha were. He’s not obligated to do so, however. Elijah and Elisha could actually live because they’re sins were paid for. Why he doesn’t do that for all Christians, I don’t know, any more than you know why people can be in a state of justification and have no temporal sin and still die.
So why did the faithful OT Jews looking to the messiah still have to kill animals then?
Because God said so. Because God felt it best to teach people the need for death that way at that time. I’m sure there are other reasons, but the main one is “Because God said.” Why is that answer never ever satisfying to Roman Catholics but “Because the church said” is?
Shouldn’t Christ have killed an animal or cut Himself whenever He forgave people in the NT to satisfy God’s justice He tied his hands with?
Don’t know why you would say that. Forgiveness was in light of the atonement to come. I’m pretty sure even your church teaches that, unless there’s some latent dispensationalism there somewhere.
The salient point of the quote was the “sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin”. God chose to become man (in the manner just described). He can choose to die (in accordance with the manner just described).
“Sinful flesh” is the salient point. God couldn’t have chosen to die if He sent His own son in the likeness of sinless flesh.
Right, once God implemented his redemptive plan, He followed it. That’s why Christ fulfilled the OT.
But if God imposes the sentence of death for sin, there is no redemptive plan that can’t include death. So if God had said, “in the day that you sin, you shall surely have a broken leg,” it would have been a broken leg.
So Christ was separated from God.
According to His humanity, yes.
Right. And that happens to the ungodly. After which they are godly.
Then God justifies the godly, not the ungodly. He takes ungodly people, infuses them with righteousness in baptism, which justification is based on inherent righteousness. So God doesn’t justify the ungodly; He justifies the godly. This is all over your system. Final justification is based on the life lived—a godly life. There’s no justification of the ungodly going on.
As was already cited to you,
Without exegesis, yes.
Sins requiring death penalty of offender in OT vs those that don’t.
There’s only one sin in the OT that absolutely requires the death penalty of the offender—first degree murder. Nothing else. But somehow the list of mortal sins is much longer than first-degree murder. In all cases except 1st degree murder, the death penalty is the maximum but not required sentence. This is all over the commentaries and the way legal system functions. See also the book of Numbers where the ONLY sin for which a ransom could not be accepted was first degree murder.
Then you have not been born of God. In practice, the reprobate do ungodly things.
So venial sins aren’t bad. They aren’t ungodly. They aren’t going to send you to hell. They aren’t going to disrupt fellowship with God in any real way. God will overlook them AND he’ll punish you for millions of years for them. Great system!
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Robert: temper tantrum
and thus tampering with the glory of God
man’s chief end: to glorify God.. would behoove us not to minimize the utter revulsion of God-Father, Son, Spirit -to all sin – He is of purer eyes than to behold evil (Hab 1:13), – yet Himself, in Jesus, bore our sins for us; and would behoove us never to consider any possibility of remaining condemnation, since His divine, legal, irrevocable decision has declared complete pardon of all sentencing and all punishment for us who are in Christ.
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