The Five Sticking Points of Calvinism, and Their Common Taproot

The notorious Five Points of Calvinism all conspire to reinforce the penal substitution doctrine of the Atonement. Hence the denial and invalidation of any of them tends to the subversion of this latter doctrine as well. So it is passing strange that opposition to Calvinism as a whole does not more often manifest a similar opposition to penal substitution, as such. To be sure, the “governmental” theory of the Atonement did take up residence in the gap following the death of Arminius himself, but that was merely a compromised or mediating stance—an unsatisfactory half-way house for the Remonstrants seeking a more thorough rehabilitation of Biblical truth about the Atonement. Many American theologians, following the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century also espoused versions of the governmental theory of Hugo Grotius (e.g., Charles Finney, many Restorationists of the Stone-Campbell movement, some Wesleyans, as well as William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, in England), but this position was still immovably based on penal “justice” entirely, not on premial, in the least. Yet without at least some conception of a just atonement (however construed) this doctrine can wander even farther afield. [7/29/11; 12/2/24]

I have no stake or interest in “exposing” the truths that the renown Calvin or Beza or Owen or Turretin or Hodge or Dabney or Warfield or Murray or Morris or Packer or their successors may have taught, but only their errors concerning salvation. For the whole truth, after all, we have the Bible at our fingertips, and for our guides, Jesus and his select apostles, who have no peers. [7/31/11]

BAD PRAYER HABITS

We Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, Reformed, Lutherans, and so forth, proud heirs of the Protestant Reformation, have not generally been taught to pray for justice for ourselves, much less for others. With variations, we have been drilled that “mercy, not justice” is all we dare expect. Under the aegis of Pietist and Puritan instructors, we have felt we were “miserable sinners,” unworthy of claiming our just due when we are wronged. May we not, then, beseech God for compensation from hurts and injuries? Since, to be sure, we are not to avenge ourselves but to forgive one another and love even our enemies, may we not ask God to restore what at least Satan has wrongfully taken—stolen!—from us? Can we not plead, “How long, O Lord, will you not avenge our souls?” Our traditional Protestant practices greatly diminish us and dim our sense of justice and our outrage at injustice. It palpably eviscerates our social witness to thus numb our self-consciousness, and hence our social conscience. The premial doctrine of the Atonement, by stark contrast, heralds AN INTEGRAL RESTORATION OF CONSCIENCE ACROSS THE BOARD! [7/30-31; 12/2/24]

The obvious, glaring, even embarrassing fact (hard fact!) that the apostles and the entire early church appear to have no problem whatever with the sense and logic of the Atonement, whereas the penal substitution theory has never won universal acclaim among Christians and has always had strenuous opponents in spite of its show of bravado and denunciations of its critics, and in further combination with the peculiar fact (hard fact) that the historic Christian movement worldwide has never established any authoritative universal (“catholic”) creedal statement on the topic of the Atonement, these observations all conspire to argue persuasively for an exceedingly simple and, dare I say, obvious solution to what has become (but most certainly was not originally) a veritable hornet’s nest of buzzing contradictions and stinging conundrums. [8/1/11]

Is it just possible that a major reason the vaunted logic of penal payment simply does not compute to many candid minds, and that there seems to be no way out (either to its proponents or, especially and poignantly, to its critics who were former adherents, some of whom, in overreaction, have thrown out the Bible along with the dirty bathwater produced in failed attempts to “clean” the dogma) is that we have culpably neglected what Scripture communicates about restorative justice, and in particular, that offenders ought to RESTORE with a surplus what they deprived their victims of, to whatever degree possible? In other words, haven’t we taken true justice altogether out of the picture and instead clumsily sketched in “punishment of the offender” in place of restitution, reparation, and restoration by the offender to the victim? For penal payment is predicated on punishing…somebody! And since no recognizable salvation can be derived from punishing sinners outright for their sins (indeed, its full measure might destroy them, ironically enough!), then obviously that “somebody” must be somebody else—a “substitute.” But such a delusive solution only ushers in cartloads of conundrums that have afflicted the theory ever since Calvin gave it its first definitive form in the 16th century, following its proto-demi-articulation in Anselm’s “vicarious satisfaction” theory more than four centuries earlier.

However, whenever we once firmly grasp that divine justice ultimately, fundamentally, requires RESTORATION, plus further over-compensation in case of criminal intent, then “the veil is removed,” and we behold God’s RESURRECTION of Jesus RESTORING to him what he lost by Satan’s chicanery at the cross! Then we can dramatically observe what “the righteousness (actually, justice) of God is all about! Then the Atonement makes perfect sense and all “mystery” evaporates under the passionate heat of God’s abiding love for our ephemeral race! [8/1/11]

Surprise! It was God Himself who performed the stupendous “ACT OF SUPEREROGATION” that “merited” Jesus with overflowing immortality and unlimited sovereignty over all the works of God’s hands.

John McLeod Campbell, by famously pursuing Jonathan Edwards [Sr.]’s, rejected option of Christ’s presenting to God on behalf of sinners “an adequate sorrow and repentance,” an “answerable repentance and sorrow,”* was after all still seeking “satisfaction” for sins. He never apprehended that God the Father himself “satisfied” (“paid”) for sin, as exhibited by the most heinous sin of the crucifixion of His very own Son—a sin SUPEREXCESSIVELY “PAID FOR” BY HIS REPAYING THE VICTIM WITH RESURRECTION TO IMMORTAL LIFE AND FURTHER ROYAL EXALTATION. This “premial” satisfaction far outshines any variation on the penal theme! [6/27/11]

In the apostolic premial explanation of the atonement it is none less than God the Father who performs an act of “SUPEREROGATION,” COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED, AND SO EXTREME IN ITS CAPTURE THAT THE WHOLE SINFUL SPECIES OF MANKIND CAN BE SAVED PROVIDED THEY BELIEVE THE EXTRAORDINARY MESSAGE. [6/27/11]

Campbell’s unreeling of Jonathan Edwards’ throwaway alternative to penal substitution, namely, into a theory of vicarious repentance and sorrow, has this against it, that it sees God as demanding imperfect sorrow for sin from human beings, and perfect sorrow from a sinless substitute, yet no sorrow, to speak of, from God Himself! For if Jesus was veritably commissioned to reveal the heart of the Father in Heaven, then where is the fatherly sorrow that is ostensively getting mirrored in this construction? To be sure, there must have been sorrow, even perfect sorrow in the Son, reflective of the Father’s own, but how could the Son, by exhibiting sorrow at the Cross, be making any kind of “reparation” back to the Father? Rather, such an obedient reflection of the Father’s own attitude concerrning sin more properly amounts to an additional virtue to evoke the Father’s impending premial “satisfaction” of his native justice via rewarding Christ with resurrection to agelong life plus an incomparably glorious inheritance of all things.

Much less can we agree with the notion that Jesus “satisfied” God by a perfect repentance since not only did he have no personal sins to repent of, but neither did God(!), whom he was commissioned to reveal, after all. Of course, God is indeed said to repent of His oft intention to do evil to sinners who themselves don’t repent of their sins. On the flip side, He can even repent of His plans to do them good when it appears they have turned back to those sins “like a dog to its vomit and a bathed sow to its wallowing in the mire” (2 Peter 2:22). But this is evidently not what Campbell had in mind concerning the Cross. And in any case such measures could hardly be “perfect” inasmuch as Jesus lacked the possession of the key element indispensable to render any repentance perfect: sin and the consciousness thereof.

Furthermore, Scripture is perfectly silent about any “imputation” of sin to Christ such as Reformation-era Protestants taught (and even more so the post-Reformation). Conversely, neither could Christ’s alleged “perfect repentance” be “imputed” to human beings without some sufficient warrant from Scripture. Where is it? Many a synthesizing theologian has scoured Scripture for imputation language to justify “justification” of a Protestant variety, without notable success. What good can possibly be expected of such an ostensibly “moral” fiction any more than what, for instance, John Wesley famously observed resulting from the legal fiction of orthodox Lutheran stripe (which he himself had preached for a while, but came to regret and repent of)? [6/27/11; 5/22/24]

That God can accept mere faulty human repentance and faith as quite “sufficient” to “satisfy” the insistence of His penal justice and accordingly relax the “demand” for punishment of a sin, can only be accounted for satisfactorily by a prior supervening incursion of an event of premial justice possessing such super-compensating graciousness toward sinful humanity that God is warranted to count (ΛΟΓΙΖ-) such heartfelt—and God can see all hearts!—impulses as righteousness FOR THE SAKE OF HIS SON AND THE INJUSTICE HE SO GRACIOUSLY BORE AND ENDURED FOR THEIR SAKES, AND THEREUPON POUR OUT THE SHEER GIFT THAT HIS JUSTICE DECREED FOR CHRIST: THE HOLY SPIRIT OF LIFE! For since Christ’s perfect obedience and faithfulness to God through every trial won the promised award of God’s premial justice to such a One (according to and witnessed by the Law of Moses and the Prophets), God exerted the right and authority to dispense it at His own holy ‘whim’! Praise be to God for His indescribable Gift! [6/27/11; 5/22/24]

SATISFACTION vs. RESURRECTION

Only the Proclamation of a Resurrectionary Justification, i.e., of God’s Restorative Justice, and an understanding of the Atonement that accords with it, can provide sufficient discernment to judge among the composite options that have come down to us in the whole history of theology and credology.

The Socinians, it turns out, in spite of their serious errors, nonetheless displayed astonishing insight into the work of Christ that it behooves every serious Berean of a Bible student to analyze with care and due appreciation. Likewise Abelard, the Anabaptists, the Amyraldians and many other minority positions must be mined for their nuggets of wisdom and gems of truth. But God’s rewarding (not penal) justice is the indispensable criterion. [03/02/08]

Utterly foundational to the Protestant (i.e., Lutheran and Calvinistic) doctrine of “forensic justification,” by which they always mean “the imputation of Christ’s own righteousness to the believing sinner” is a shearing of this ostensibly “objective” justification, forgiveness, and reconciliation from whatever the Holy Spirit does, allegedly, “subjectively” within the believer, which is commonly termed “sanctification,” and which, they assert, always comes “afterward.” This shearing of “objective” from “subjective” (their distinction and terminology), paralleled or at least echoed in their distinction between Christ’s “active” and “passive” “righteousness” or obedience, constitutes a pernicious dualism that sabotages an integral apostolic ethic again and again. The Holy Spirit is said to do a “subjective” work in us—not including justification, forgiveness, or reconciliation!—only after and subsequent to the “objective” accomplishment of those three aspects of salvation “on the cross.”

This was an overreaction to the Roman Catholic error of making justification, forgiveness, and reconciliation subsequent to the lifelong operation of the Holy Spirit. Thus Protestantism is an overreaction to Roman Catholicism; neither is truly apostolic at this pivotal point. The truth is that all of those three (and much more) are continuously operative or true so long as faith exists and even reinforce faith, but do not guarantee continued faith since our increated (although restricted and mortal) sovereignty and authority resulting from our being made in the image and after the likeness of God always exists and remains inalienable until death. God’s forceful and heavily corroborated Proclamation of His Kingdom must be given the credit for keeping and preserving us in safety by its power to induce faith.

Moreover, this characteristic Protestant disconnect between “Christ’s work on the cross” (not a pattern of sound explanation found anywhere in Scripture) and “the Spirit’s work in the heart,” in effect, virtually snips the vital conduit that empowers ethical fruit or productivity. They may teach otherwise, indeed, the Holy Spirit may get a great deal of work done in spite of the erroneous doctrine, especially in those who are tutored in it less than they are in Scripture alone (which has power to override errors for those who stay in it faithfully and regularly). Nevertheless the Protestant doctrine is subversive of sound teaching by its very nature and needs to be exposed, confronted, and rejected in favor of the apostolic literature in the New Testament. [03/02/08]

SATISFACTION vs. RESURRECTION

The notion of “satisfaction” at the Cross cannot be dispensed with unless and until the Resurrection is grasped in its full justifying significance. This is why all attempts to deny and nullify the Anselmian notion of “satisfaction” have tended to be unsuccessful. For unless God’s justice can be clearly read out of Messiah’s resurrection, it will invariably be read into his crucifixion, where, to be sure, none whatever is to be found. Yet the opponents of the notion that the Cross is in any way “just” have routinely failed, one and all, to perceive God’s saving, rewarding, restorative justice in his resurrection and hence have denied the centrality of the “juridical metaphor” and, consequently of divine justice. But this loss only weakens the meaning of the Atonement as a whole and thus actually guts the full glory of God’s graciousness, which is, amazingly and wonderfully, the just outcome of Messiah’s unjust crucifixion via resurrectionary reversal!

Medieval cataracts concerning justice as seemingly purely penal (by the time of the Reformation of the 16^th century) all but blinded theologians concerning the ancient Hebrew assumptions about justice as avenging evil to restore good, i.e., eviscerating the vicious in order to enrich the righteous. [03/02/08]

The “Power of the CROSS” vs. the Power of the RESURRECTION!

The Wholesome Spirit of promise that the Father has given because of the Son’s obedience unto death, to immerse us welcomingly and fill us repeatedly during our earthly sojourn, is the earnest (arrabon), surety, pledge, guarantee, or down payment, that is, firstfruits (aparche) of our full inheritance (kleronomia) of salvation and the Kingdom of God.  For this reason alone, if for no other, we may and ought to expect signs and miracles and powers to hold a significant place in current Christian experience.  These elements are themselves pledges-in-kind of the future reality of God’s Kingdom whose power was most fully manifested historically in Christ’s Resurrection from the dead.  Talk about “healing in the Atonement” misses the mark by comparison, especially when the Lord’s Resurrection is left out of the picture (as it is in the orthodox Anselmian, Lutheran, and Calvinistic variations on atonement).

It is because our great salvation is what it is that signs, miracles, and powers are what they are.  They are cut from the very same cloth.  The Proclamation (“gospel”) that informs us of that salvation is an empty letter without all the power manifestations that illustrate it in kind!  Signs and miracles are not some sort of extrinsic proof of the Proclamation; they are the intrinsic proofs that such a salvation has in fact historically arrived, in part, to confirm and corroborate its full and absolutely certain future advent in kind.

People who do not understand that the Resurrection, not the Crucifixion, is the central saving moment of the Proclamation of God, also find it hard to compute the Biblical language about Jesus’ own salvation.  Their soteriology (doctrine of salvation) is literally CROSS-wired!  For it is when we ask the decisive question, “When was Jesus saved?” that we discover the “grave” (pun intended) weakness of the medieval doctrines of the Atonement.  However, Jesus was not saved by the Cross; he was destroyed by it!  He was only saved come his Resurrection!  And that is likewise our salvation…in kind!

It follows that healing—a lesser sign and miracle—must likewise, then, be a part of such a salvation.  To substitute the words, “such an atonement,” here reveals the traditional misapprehension of the larger truth that only a sound, Biblical pattern of explanations can clarify and restore.  Salvation, signs, miracles, healing, prophecy, etc., constitute one seamless garment of wholesomeness being restored to this disrupted creation.

The New Testament never talks about “the power of the Cross.”  It speaks about “the Explanation which is of the Cross” (1 Cor. 1:18) as being the power of God, but that is a very different matter!  The power of the Cross is only a power of death for it was an instrument of torture and public execution.  But the Proclamation of God never glorifies that; in fact it pronounces the triumph of Resurrection power over the weakness exhibited in Christ’s Crucifixion, in the wisdom of God’s overruling plan (2 Cor. 13:4).  The Cross of Christ is thereby transformed into a symbol of human viciousness neutralized and overwhelmingly reversed; of a treasonous act playing gullibly into God’s hands; of a Divine jujitsu deftly countervailing the clumsy lunges and ill-aimed momentum of the Great Dragon.  It is forever the symbol of the stupidity of a blustering usurper and his failed coup.  By contrast, the New Testament veritably bristles with the power of the Savior’s  Resurrection that overcomes Death and its fright—the only “power” the Cross can ever claim.  We should cease using misleading, deceiving metaphors and instead discipline ourselves to stick with sound explanations, even those of the apostles and the Scriptures.

Think only of the book of Romans, where the theme of resurrection recurs like a steady cadence, but where no term for “cross” is ever used by Paul anywhere.  Or how about the book of Acts, where words for “cross” are occasionally used (when any such word is used at all!), but where “raise” or “resurrection” occur without fail in every public address!

To speak of “the power of Christ’s death” is very misleading because it distracts the understanding from the saving power of his Resurrection.  This strange language (from a Biblical standpoint!) is a reflex of the death-centered view of the Atonement inherited from the medieval theory of Anselm, cinched up by Luther’s ill-conceived theologia crucis, and severely reinforced by the penal theory of Calvin.  In such a view, indeed, one can never discover “healing in the Atonement” for in such an atonement there is no healing!  Healing is most certainly a facet of our salvation, even on an orthodox reading (although attended with an acute sense of inner contradiction plus endless jangling and wrangling), yet human theories have separated what God has joined together, for salvation and atonement belong together.  So when an “atoning death” is explained apart from the saving Resurrection (and exactly to that extent, since there are variations on this theme), resort is being taken to a lame rationalization whereby even salvation may sometimes (by the figure of metonymy) be predicated of the instrument of destruction, though ironically (but oxymoronically if taken literally!), rather than in spite of or “through” that instrument, as the apostles express the matter.  [10/10/96]