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]

Socinus vs. Calvin on JUSTICE

Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) clearly knew what God’s justice isn’t, and he denounced its misrepresentation, especially by John Calvin (1509-1564), unsparingly.  But did he as clearly grasp what God’s justice is, and how it was manifested supremely at the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ?  We may presume not.  However, his distinctive writings on the subject have never been translated into English in full.  What else might they actually reveal, apart from their Antitrinitarianism, of course, that could be so threatening to Satan’s kingdom that it would lead to the vicious persecution of Socinians and the suppression of their writings even to the present day?  [6/16/08]

THE GREAT REVIVALS ACCOMPANIED SERVICES OF THE LORD’S SUPPER!

The historic fact that God brought stupendous, unprecedented revivals of his people during services of the Lord’s Supper (annual events of the Scottish Presbyterians and Cambuslang, Scotland; the First Great Awakening, and especially the Second Great Awakening, in America) should have caused a rethinking of the theological dogma concerning the reception of the Holy Spirit at infant baptism or merely upon faith or profession of faith, etc.  For God Himself had acted from on high in undeniably extraordinary manifestations of healing, prophecy, conversion, etc., only in association with these historic events of Communion.  Perhaps it’s time we awakened from spiritual slumber, too.  [6/16/08]

GETTING OUR “BEARINGS” STRAIGHT

Penal Substitution champions talk much of “guilt,” much of “penalty,” much of “eternal punishment” (i.e., punishing), much of God’s wrath, much of “original sin,” much of “God’s hatred of sin,” but suspiciously and revealingly little about the bearing of SIN-AS-SUCH.  Yet this is what Isaiah 53 dwells on (along with echoes throughout the New Testament).  From its very extensive usage throughout the Old Testament, the Hebrew verb “bear” (nasah), along with its other grammatical forms, with perfect consistency makes clear that it means to “carry” the weight of a load imposed, taken up, or inflicted, not the “guilt,” not the “penalty,” not “wrath,” but sin—the sins that were being inflicted against Jesus between the garden tryst and the garden tomb (reminding us of the garden transgression at the garden tree…) and especially at the bare “cranial” (kranion—“skull”) site of the tree (xulon—“tree” in the Septuagint; “timber,” “wood,” “log” by New Testament times) on which he was hung by nails—Jesus was emphatically not bearing any human “guilt,” nor any divine “penalty,” nor any “infinite punishment,” much less the “wrath of God,” or “divine hatred of sin,” and nor was he “paying for sin.”  HE WAS DOING PRECISELY WHAT SCRIPTURE ALLEGES (with some considerable justification) HE WAS DOING:  BEARING (ENDURING) SIN!

If God’s “holiness” hates sin, what’s the solution?  TRANSFER HOLINESS to the sinner, somehow, AND THUS OUT OF JEOPARDY BY BEING MADE HOLY!  Duh.  Isn’t that what salvation is all about?  [6/16/08]

The inner disconnect of divine character in Evangelical atonement theory is reconnected by premial justice

Orthodox Evangelical atonement theory teaches perforce that the ultimate logic of the Atonement is the necessity of penal retribution—the logic of God the Father. Subordinate to that is the logic of the Son of God—forgiveness. The Son manifests God as love; the Father, as “holiness.” This inner disconnect in Deity is what necessitated the Cross, putting together again what all the king’s horsepower and all the king’s manpower were powerless to achieve, for they too “had a great Fall” (though winter came early…). To give us a choice of logics to emulate (being the sinners we are) is almost to guarantee a landslide victory for avenging, i.e., unforgiveness. For if this representation of ultimate realities is anywhere near accurate, God made a big boo-boo by revealing it to sinners.  [12/19/06]   Only the premial justice of God, showing up at the Resurrection to reverse the fait accompli, can set the record straight and make the Story come out right.

“IMPUTATION”: A SHORT CIRCUIT

The doctrines (there are three) of so-called “imputation” amount to short circuits—wayward alternative paths of access to the meaning and power of Messiah’s saving work. Following the rewirings by Augustine, Calvin, Ames, and Piscator, the pivotal significance of Pentecost was often shunted past so that the Holy Spirit’s role in the Atonement got bypassed. Historic attempts of the Holy Spirit to gently retake full and proper governance were bitterly accused of “irregularities” and viciously downgraded: Montanists, mystics, Anabaptists, Huguenot prophets, Quakers, Moravians, Cambuslang, Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening, frontier Camp Meetings, Edward Irving, Charles Finney, Revivals, Faith Cure Movement, Scandinavian Free Church Revivals, Pentecostalism, Charismatic Movement, Third Wave, Toronto Blessing, Brownsville Revivals, etc. [12/20/06]  As if we should not expect Satan to be wily enough to insinuate occasional counterfeits especially in the midst of fresh manifestations of his Enemy’s Kingdom of authentic healing and restoration!  Now who’s being naïve?