Flotsam & Jetsam from the Slow Shipwreck of Calvinistic Soteriology on Account of Neglecting the Premial Atonement in Heaven

Occasionally sprawling, not seldom convoluted, excruciatingly tedious, yet often extraordinally innovative, seclect elaborations of the Atonement such as those of Hugo Grotius, John Owen, William Pynchon, John McLeod Campbell, Robert C. Moberly, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Leon Morris, René Girard, H. D. McDonald, John Stott, I. Howard Marshall, Fleming Rutledge, Eleonore Stump, N. T. Wright, William Lane Craig, Adonis Vidu, Michael Gorman, David Brondos, Greg Boyd, Hans Boersma, Douglas Campbell, Darrin Snyder Belousek, Mako Nagasawa, and W. Ross Hastings, hailing from widely disparate standpoints and Christian traditions, all alike manifest obliviousness to the inextricable roles of Christ’s resurrection, ascension, and enthronement WITHIN THE INTEGRAL PROCESS OF GOD’S PREMIAL JUSTICE CULMINATING IN THE PROTECTIVE COVER (“ATONEMENT”) CHRIST OFFERED EXCLUSIVELY AT GOD’S THRONE IN HEAVEN, followed by the outpouring of the promised award of Holy Spirit and Christ’s continual intercession thereafter. And that’s despite the sterling advances of many of these authors in multiple respects. I find this state of affairs almost heartbreaking, especially in view of the visibly and increasingly deleterious societal consequences of this “little” perennial oversight by “us Christians (all!).” The inevitable side-effect and byproduct of thus shunting around these vitally essential components is the palpable sense of ill-satisfaction that proliferates via compulsive but needless over-qualifying, over-elaboration, and over-defensiveness—in effect, “multiplying words without knowledge.” [3/13/11; 4/10-12/24]

A telling example of the burgeoning excesses that can spawn from just one prominent sectarian tradition of theologizing is the following ample tally of historically scattered and systematically superfluous flotsam & jetsam that has accumulated over five centuries from the slow-motion deterioration and imminent shipwreck of Calvinistic soteriology in particular, including both its own due property as well as outlying spinoffs by way of inevitable counteractions and overreactions. It should be disturbing to “true believers” that none of the following phrases or technical terms is to be found, as such, in Scripture itself, unless by way of unwarranted imposition and even outright mistranslation from the original, a practice regrettably becoming more common among scholars now that such error has become increasingly and calmly assured of widespread acceptance without risk of contradiction. (Accordingly, some or parts of the following might have been placed in quotes, but where to stop? That said, I shall spare you the technicality.)

acceptilation

active righteousness/obedience [vs. passive righteousness/obedience] of Christ

Amyraldianism

antinomianism

common grace [vs. special grace]

divine decrees

divine sovereignty [vs. human freewill]

double/triple imputation

double jeopardy (of the reprobate)

double predestination

effectual calling

equal ultimacy

eternal conscious punishment (of human beings)

eternal security

external call [vs. internal call]

fideism

freewill (hunan) [vs. divine sovereignty]

God’s reconciliation to man

governmental theory of atonement

hypothetical/conditional universalism

impetration vs. application

imputation of Adam’s sin to his descendants (from Augustine)

imputation of Christ’s righteousness to believers/the elect

imputation of sin(s) to Christ

infralapsarianism

internal call [vs. external call]

irresistible grace

justification vs. sanctification

legalism

limited atonement

monergism [vs. synergism]

order of decrees

ordo salutis

original sin (reprising Augustine)

passive righteousness/obedience [vs. active righteousness/obedience] of Christ

payment for (debt of) sin(s)

penal satisfaction

penal substitution

perfectionism

predestination

perseverance of the saints

preterition

prevenient/preventive/preceding grace

rectoral theory of atonement

reprobation (decree of…)

sanctification vs. justification

secret regeneration

sovereign grace

sovereignty of God

special call [vs. universal call]

special grace [vs. common grace]

spiritual death (being dead in sin)

sublapsarianism

suffering of Christ in hell

supralapsarianism

synergism [vs. monergism]

total depravity

unconditional election

universal call [vs. special call]

universalism

The foregoing litany comprises, one and all, artificial byproducts of a toxic (if well-meaning) theology industry: plastic pollution. These irreversibly degrading plastic components cannot be rendered non-toxic and will inevitably spread within the environmental footprint of any church that tolerates their use. We must pursue the difficult task of disemploying them and getting comfortable with the crisp, spare, consistent terminology of apostolic formulation inspired by the Spirit of wholesomeness. Isn’t it about time to take out the trash, provided we can somehow dispose of it where it’s not liable to re-enter the safe places of the church and surrounding environment to recontaminate them, perhaps with yet more inveigling iterations? [3/13/11; 4/9-12/24]

The curious fact that an extremely low percentage of relatives, friends, pastors, scholars, authors, and other Christian leaders to whom I have communicated the premial approach to the Atonement, even on multiple occasions, have ever responded, and that even those who have replied were mostly non-enthusiastic, rather curt, and certainly non-committal (although curiously, somewhat fewer in number being overtly opposed or hostile to the message), and, finally, that after several years I can still count on one hand those who seem to have warmed up to it, and on the other hand those who did not maintain objections to it—all suggest the unusually captivating grip of the penal hypothesis concerning atonement on a worldwide scale (my contacts span the globe).

Clearly. I have not yet communicated…clearly! Or the Holy Spirit, whose message I firmly believe this to be, has not yet deemed it quite ready to endorse. Now, I’m not whining, but what sober, plausible reasons might be advanced to account for this odd circumstance (well, of course, aside from my own delaying to submit it for publication in normal book fashion)? [3/14/11; 4/10-12/24]

Was it Christ’s “earnest and honest REPENTANCE” or his loyal and faithful OBEDIENCE that won the promised blessings of the Covenant on behalf of humanity?

If, rather than the throwaway remark Jonathan Edwards [Sr.] did make—“Could God be satisfied by Christ’s earnest and honest REPENTANCE on behalf of humanity, or was his death necessary for satisfaction, forgiveness, and atonement to occur?” (all emphases added)—he had instead quipped something like, “Could God be satisfied by Christ’s loyal and faithful OBEDIENCE such that he was deemed worthy of receiving all the Covenant blessings promised of old, and could thereafter rightfully mediate their redistribution on behalf of humanity, or etc.?” Edwards might have put John McLeod Campbell onto a fruitful path of discovery, or rather rediscovery, of a more authentically apostolic gospel. Instead, not only was Campbell led down a rabbit trail, but his results prompted a further wayward bit of trailblazing by Robert Campbell Moberly at the dawn of the twentieth century. Results, of course, were mixed, as usual. But on the plus side came a fresh plowing of the field conjoining the doctrine of the Atonement with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and none should begrudge Moberly that solid advance. After all, this result was not so ‘far afield’ from the revivalist Jonathan Edwards’ labors, as it turns out. May we see yet more, greater, and even deeper revivals as long-term fruits! (2/17/11; 2/18/24)

The Protestant so-called “doctrine of justification” is only secondary to and derivative from the more fundamental “doctrine of atonement.” i.e., the climactic Messianic event of the Gospel. Once the Atonement is properly understood, the matter of justification follows naturally in due course. By contrast, a “penal substitution” assumption concerning atonement will cause any subsequent treatment of justification to boggle. This is because the Atonement, in actuality, entailed the exclusively premial execution of divine justice, not its penal manifestation in any respect. So the justification of all who trust this Gospel is premised on the positive divine judicial decision of doing justice to the Lord Jesus Christ via resurrection on earth and enthronement in Heaven, along with the subsequent sending of the Holy Spirit to all who believe, in order to perfect/mature their faith by good works in the New Covenant version of justness (apart from Moses’ Law). [2/21/11; 2/19/24]

Penal satisfaction (in tandem with its fraternal twin, penal substitution) is so extremely entrenched and nearly ineradicable for the simple reason that it “satisfies” the reflex for instant punishment and gratifies the carnal urge for immoderate revenge, all under the hollow pretext of God’s need to punish every sin to the fullest extent of the law, i.e., to get full satisfaction/payment for all his injuries from human beings.

The appalling example this sets for human behavior, which is quite sufficiently punitive without it, should go without saying. But the risky job of actually saying it, in view of the consequent punitive backlash it is likely to provoke among a smugly orthodox officialdom, still remains to be done and its disturbing effects to be seen. May God grant the grace to declare this singularly disgraceful state of affairs without flinching, regardless of predictable acting out by its defenders. [2/23/11]

The vigorous alleging of a penal atonement serves to justify its defenders to behave in similar manner via mimetic reflex. It has, accordingly, become an historic habit, contrary to the general tenor of the entire New Covenant ethic of Jesus and his apostles. How can this be? How can this continue? [2/24/11]

When we say that a person is “righteous” or “just,” do we first of all or above all or, yes, even at all think of them as “PUNITIVE AGAINST EVILDOERS”? Rather, don’t we first of all think of them as upright, honest, judicious, virtuous, kind, merciful, tolerant, thoughtful, forgiving, generous, true-to-their-word, gently corrective, and so forth? Why, then, when it comes to God’s righteousness, do we get it all backwards and upside down? How have our theologians and preachers so betrayed us…nay, betrayed God and His clear Word? [2/24/11]

Assorted Wrinkles in the Uneven Development of Atonement Doctrine

Observation concerning comments on Isaiah 52:13-53:12 in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, OT, Vol. 11. Edited by Mark W. Elliott; General Editor, Thomas C. Oden. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007.

This most revealing assemblage of early (and some quite late) Christian authors is the more amazing in its virtually total lack of penal substitutionary construals of Isaiah’s most famous text, in view of the fact that the general editor is Tom Oden, who has gone on record decisively as a champion of penal substitution being authentic early Christian doctrine. If ever there was a golden opportunity to marshal a definitive swat team of early Christian quotations to settle the score on the embattled issue of the Atonement, this was surely it. Yet the grand opportunity was forever lost as the requisite materiel failed to materialize, and the remainder tended to deviate from this bullseye by an embarrassing margin along a rather broad front of eight centuries. Either this was a culpable neglect of essential sources (hardly likely), an unaccountably inept oversight (not plausible), or a conclusive proof of the authentic unacquaintance of earliest Christianity with anything closely resembling penal satisfaction/penal substitution. Is the question even still open now? [2/14/11; 10/24/23]

John McLeod Campbell (1800-1872) picked up and tried to unfold an incidental throwaway thought of Jonathan Edwards [Sr.] (1703-1758) concerning atonement. Robert C[ampbell]. Moberly (1845-1903), in turn, picked up the same thought and tried to iron out a few more wrinkles. However, neither Campbell’s nor Moberly’s attempts seem supportable by Scripture, nor would Edwards likely have expected anyone to take up his conjecture and explore it seriously. [2/15/11]

It seems curious that in the hitory of opposition to penal substitution there is not more successive building on predecessors, at least not explicitly so. William Pynchon (1590-1662), author of The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption (London, 1650), New England’s first banned (and burned) book, does not explicitly build on Socinus, for instance. John Balguy (1586-1648) does not refer to any of Pynchon’s books, although the emphasis of both authors on Christ’s obedience was unique. John Taylor of Norwich (1694-1761) seems oblivious of Pynchon’s or Balguy’s contributions. And Barton W. Stone (1772-1844) does not show overt dependence on any of them, although he is aware of Taylor’s Hebrew Concordance. And so it goes. Yet authors like this keep thinking through many of the same problematics and keep stumbling across the same or similar solutions. One could wish, however, for a treatment that proceeds systematically with cognizance of all likely predecessors and gives credit to whom it seems due. Even so, vital truths discovered independently, repeatedly, and cogently must reveal something about the weaknesses of the dominant orthodoxy. Scripture resolutely continues to untwist itself from false representations over time, though seldom without controversy and stiff opposition. [2/15/11; 10/24/23]

The theory of penal substitution has introduced counterfeit currency in ‘payment‘ for sins. It postulates a certain amount of suffering to be equivalent to a specific amount of sin. However, no matter how they figure, they can never quite come up with sufficient bona fide suffering to cover the debt of sin(s) even for the ‘elect,’ much less for “the whole world.” [2/15/11]

The apostle Paul’s unique phrase, “the righteousness (or justice) of God” almost always refers to the singular event of God’s raising of Jesus from among the dead, but it never alludes to Christ’s crucifixion. [2/16/11]

An OPEN LETTER to Jesse Morrell and FRIENDLY CRITIQUE of The Vicarious Atonement of Christ (2012), part 12

AHASUERUS, DARIUS, CYRUS, and GROTIUS

Hugo Grotius’s governmental or rectoral theory of the Atonement should have been the last gasp of Substitutionary theories of atonement. Yet at least two more of significance followed. John McLeod Campbell (1800-1872), a 19^th century Scottish professor of theology and pastor, building on a passing remark by Jonathan Edwards, Sr. (1703-1758), devised a theory of Christ’s vicarious repentance (but, as Leanne Van Dyk has argued, not technically substitutionary repentance, although that may have been the raw undeveloped idea behind Edwards’ original speculative remark). Opening the 20^th century, Robert C. Moberly (1805-1903) developed a further variation on this, vicarious confession.

All these varieties of atonement doctrine play off the possibilities that are imaginable to derive from vicarious or substitutionary actions of Christ “in the place of” or “instead of” sinners.

The premial alternative to all of the above (to mention no others) plays off the rewarding possibilities inherent in the worthiness of Christ’s obedient faithfulness to God. This results in benefits due directly to Christ, which he, by right, may give to whomever he pleases. Yet he is not arbitrary. In accord with the Old Testament covenantal promises and prophecies, “which cannot be broken,” God is both pleased by faith and pleased to reward faith with the benefits of His Kingdom. Likewise, God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect image of his Father, acts under identical motives to dispense his bounty from God on the very same grounds as he himself was justly awarded: faith in God according to His covenanted promises.

God awards sinners who believe His Proclamation about His raising Jesus Christ, His Son, from the dead, by giving them, for the sake of Christ’s own personal faithfulness to the death, portions of the rightful award He bestowed on His Son for that perfect and exemplary obedience to His will, as expressed in Scripture. There is nothing remotely comparable among vicarious theories to this logic of direct premial ultra-compensation to the Lord Jesus Christ as God’s judicial execution of justice in repayment for Christ’s criminal crucifixion.

Jesse, you may risk fooling yourself by sidestepping the inevitable judgment against the “government” that would dare penalize the Son of God with a punishment—even a token one—“just to prove” something about government necessity that he by no means deserved. That kind of government itself deserves to fall! My dear brother, all of these substitutionary, vicarious, or penal doctrines that dare to penalize and condemn the Lord Jesus Christ, the absolutely sinless Son of God, may be, if I may be so bold, only so many doctrines of demons afflicting honest, pure, truthful Biblical doctrine.

You make a splendid start in your book, Natural Ability, by showing how very unjust it is to punish anyone at all for anything in the least, under any circumstances, that they do not deserve. (You thereby risk the wrath of Grotius, who appears to be quite doctrinaire about equivocating on his definition of “punishment”! But, after all, what choice does he really have since he knoweth not the category “premial,” and even he cannot tolerate full-on punishment of the Savior without at least a definitional amelioration?) But then you pirouette 180 degrees and march forward heedless of consequences to assert the “righteousness” of a government that insists on its prerogative to indulge in that precise injustice for its own precious reasons! It’s only a charade! Sneak a look behind the curtain, Jesse. This “government” so concerned for its own perpetuity that it would trample the Just One needs to be taken down, humbled, even as the Law of Moses has been demoted. It competes with the Kingdom of God itself! Therefore it must be ground to powder by “The Stone cut out without hands” (Daniel 2:34-35, 44-45). As Jesus Christ is raised up, such Humpty Dumpty governments must all fall down, and there is no help for them. We must not get entangled in putting forth a hand to prop up such decrepit, oppressive establishments. I urge and admonish you to put such a theory out to dry.

The true and premial justice of God exposes it as a counterfeit, just another weary substitute to seduce God’s holy saints away from the Gospel truth and pattern of sound words. Do beware, my wonderfully fearless friend, lest you build on sand and suffer loss in your vital ministry instead of building on the Stone of God’s Rock-solid Foundation. The premial Gospel renders obsolete by its absoluteness all previous means of absolution, all prior human experiments in government over the works of God’s hands.

God had no “interest”—indeed, it was not in “the public interest,” seen in its full divinely royal dimensions—in promoting, advancing, “honoring,” or “upholding” the primitive wooden laws of ancient oppressive empires such as those of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Ahasuerus, Darius, or Cyrus. God’s didn’t “keep” their laws, He dodged their laws; He found ways around them—miraculous ways! God, as usual, was ever mindful of His own always-coming Kingdom. (He had already set the precedent, of course, by the founding events of ancient Israel whereby He folded up the proud native civilization of ancient Egypt for more than four centuries for presuming to enslave and cruelly oppress His people over a similar span of time.)

So also “when the time was fully come,” God sent His own Son and immediately proceeded to dodge Herod’s decree to slaughter the infants in Bethlehem (although He “surfed,” so to speak, Caesar’s decree that all the inhabitants of his empire get registered). That was only the auspicious kickoff, however. Jesus learned how to dodge mobs out for blood as well as virtual assassins, along the way. In the bargain, he mastered the art of dodging crafty questions meant to make him look stupid, dangerous, heretical, and treasonous. But at the last, having fulfilled his educational, healing, and training mission in sterling fashion, he deliberately, strategically surrendered to an armed mob and submitted to a plot to execute him according to “public justice” and bury him where he could do no more “harm” to “public welfare” or “public interest.”

Alas, he tricked them! Jesus knew full well his Father’s character of strict justice and that, as usual (indeed, Jesus had been all along revealing, manifesting, and displaying his Father’s “tricky” character—like Father like Son…), God would pull a fast one right out of His sleeve to GET AROUND THE GOVERNMENT yet again. Sure enough. After barely a decent two days, and while his murderers were congratulating themselves on their official governmental and public “success” at doing in “public enemy #1” (Barabbas notwithstanding) or catching some much needed sleep after a couple of all-nighters, he, uh…ESCAPED! OH MY GOD! Never truer words were exclaimed. By God, he did it again and managed to GIVE THEM THE SLIP! This is worth a hearty belly laugh! It was the “same old Story” even by that time. Still the Devil and his henchmen were clueless. And the Old, Old Story just goes on and on, winning victory after victory, placing enemies under his feet. ONWARD SHALL HE LEAD!

Jesse, might I suggest that the governmental or rectoral theory is, in effect (good intentions aside) “raised up against the knowledge of Christ”? I appeal to your conscience here. This theory isn’t perhaps the worst one out there. Penal satisfaction is arguably the worst (although we would probably want to soften that judgment by adding that it may stand as a textbook example of good intentions leading to unintended consequences). But, as I quipped earlier, would you be satisfied with ranking “Second Worst”? Not likely.

~to be continued~