Atonement

’Twas in the year when Judah’s Archon died
    That I beheld the Lord upon the tree,
Exalted, lifted up, and crucified,
    While seraphim were singing rev’rently
The Sanctus of the Holy Trinity,
    Which chanting made the very thresholds quake;
And I, with unclean lips, cried, “Woe to me!”
    As Jesus bled and did atonement make.
With tongs a seraph winged his flight to take
    the flesh of Him who died all-gloriously,
And touched it to my eager lips, and spake,
    “Take, eat; the body of the Lord for thee.”
“Amen! Amen!” with clean lips I replied,
And went down from the temple justified.

Andrew Richard, “Atonement”, Christian Culture, Issue 1, pg. 8

Should We More Emphasize Reconciliation?

Courtesy of Pexels.com

The following was written by Pastor Andrew Preus (LCMS pastor serving in northeast Iowa) on Facebook. It is a good reminder that we tend to promote one aspect of atonement over another, when the truth lies in seeing the entire multifaceted truth of what Christ accomplished.

As far as I can tell, Lutherans historically did not use the term “penal substitution” so much, but, rather, “vicarious satisfaction” and “reconciliation.” Of course the concept of penal substitution is not denied. Jesus paid the penalty we owed to God, as Luther says in article 2 of the Creed in the Large Catechism. But paying the penalty doesn’t say it all. In fact, there are those who have taught a theory of penal substitution while also denying that Jesus made satisfaction to God’s eternal will (law), such as Hugo Grotius and the New England Reformed theologians like Jonathan Edwards Jr. Instead, for them, Jesus simply paid the penalty to God’s governmental popular law merely so that God, as the governor of the universe, can now bring about the best possible result by making reconciliation available under the condition that we accept it by faith.

Instead, the term vicarious satisfaction means that Christ fulfilled the very heart of God. He fulfilled the law, not merely as a payment to some legal standard distinct from God’s nature, but as the fulfillment of God’s own righteousness summarized in loving God above all things and his neighbor as himself. Certainly this includes paying our penalty. But this penalty is payed not merely to some government run by God, but this is a penalty against God’s own personal righteousness. Certainly it is a legal, forensic transaction. But it isn’t simply a payment to make reconciliation a possibility for us. It is, instead, a fulfillment of the very heart and will of God, commending himself to God who judges justly, confessing his name, upholding his Word to give rest to sinful men, honoring his parents and all authority, giving his life for his neighbor and healing those who were sick and dead, living a chaste life while cleansing his bride the church, not stealing even what was his but taking the form of a servant, blessing those who cursed him, and being satisfied with all of what God gave him. This will of God, revealed in the Ten Commandments, is fulfilled to its very heart and weighty matters in mercy, faithfulness, and justice. This is the vicarious satisfaction, not merely a payment to make reconciliation possible, but a payment to the eternal, immutable will of God, satisfying every desire of God on behalf of every sinner. Here he has satisfied not merely some example of justice, but the personal wrath of God. The infinite will of God is fully contained in this body, blood, obedience, and satisfaction of the Son. This means that the peace of God toward all sinners is identified fully in this work of atonement, not in some invisible possibility of sovereign grace to which we must cognitively add Christ’s payment and our own faith. No, the fullness of satisfaction, rest, peace, and reconciliation is in Christ’s complete obedience.

Therefore this fullness of reconciliation is in the Word of the gospel, not in some invisible testimony of the Spirit. Just as Christ offered himself through the eternal Spirit to God, so does this same Spirit fully testify this complete atonement through the gospel and sacraments. He takes what is Christ’s and declares it to us in full. He doesn’t merely lay out the conditions for reconciliation with Christ’s payment as only one of the parts of the equation. No, Christ satisfied all righteousness for all (Rom 5:18,19). This means that the gospel is already the fullness of God’s revealed pleasure toward sinners. Faith therefore rests on this, comes from this, and builds on this foundation.

So don’t rely on some theory. Don’t rely on an equation you make by adding your faith to what Christ merely made possible. Rely on the fullness of the gospel, which declares the complete obedience and satisfaction of Christ by which God’s personal anger is turned away and by which he has established peace with you. Amen.

Are We Missing Something?

I mentioned previously about our pastor’s current teaching series on prayer and the importance of beginning with God’s Word and incorporating worship.  Thinking more on these things, my mind returned to the general topic of worship, and how it, too, begins with God’s revelation of Himself.  Pulling out my copy of Worship: the Christian’s Highest Occupation, I noted that A. P. Gibbs gives seven characteristics of worship drawn from Genesis 22.

1.  Worship is based on a revelation of God.
2.  Worship is conditioned by faith in, and obedience to that Divine revelation.
3.  Worship involves a costly presentation to God.
4.  Worship necessitates a deliberate separation unto God.
5.  Worship predicates the absolute renunciation with self, in all its varied forms.*
6.  Worship glorifies God.
7.  Worship results in blessing to the worshiper.

Gibbs makes good points, but the list paints an incomplete picture.  Local assemblies to often have defaulted to the same general approach of worship: we perform rituals (singing, praying, giving money) to God to demonstrate our appreciation.  Those three rituals fall within the domain of worship, however they all are directed from man to God.  Scripture seems to indicate that the reverse direction is equally true.  To partially fill some missing gaps, we need to examine a portion of the Levitical system.

Moses gave a good summary of worship practice to the people of Israel before crossing the Jordan River:

But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lᴏʀᴅ your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, then to the place that the Lᴏʀᴅ your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lᴏʀᴅ.  And you shall rejoice before the Lᴏʀᴅ your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you.  (Deut 12:10-12)

God promised to meet with His collected people who will be engaged in sacrifices, offerings, and rejoicing very much like a typical evangelical church service.  The reader may assume, “See?  All this giving with no receiving.”  But that view demonstrates an important, but often forgotten, function of offerings and sacrifices in worship—atonement.  In a section on the correct procedures for dealing with the blood, Moses instructs that it is not to be consumed, because it serves a holy use.

For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.  (Lev 17:11)

By extension, then, all blood sacrifices make atonement.  This can be seen most plainly in the Guilt (Lev 4:1-5:13) and Sin (Lev 5:14-6:7) offerings, as well as the Day of Atonement (Lev 16).  Even the Burnt offering (Lev 1), considered the epitome of pure, costly worship, is an atoning sacrifice (Lev 1:4).  Our best is tainted with sin.  Over and again the instruction is given: the priest shall make atonement.

Our concept of the connection between atonement and worship is that sins are first covered, and then we are allowed to worship the Lord.  In a sense that is correct, because if no atoning sacrifice is given, no worship can be offered or accepted.  When the atoning offering is presented with the sin(s) of the person or people pronounced on the animal, it must precede the any other offering when they are brought together.  What we fail to apprehend is that offerings to atone for sin and transgression are as much worship as any other offering.  Through an understanding of guilt before God and the promise of His forgiveness, the sinner comes in an act of repentance with confession.  When forgiveness is pronounced, God has communicated His good gifts through the Levitical priest to the worshiper who, by virtue of his restored status before the Lord, is then allowed to present whatever other gift might be deemed appropriate for the occasion and to enter into the praise.

Jesus’ death on the cross fulfilled the need for further bloodshed by His final sacrifice for sin on the cross.  He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  That work is complete.  Sin is covered and guilt is removed for those who are in Christ Jesus.  That being said, is there a need for believers today to expect this atoning work to be accomplished in their lives as part of worship?  The atoning working work of Jesus, while completed, has eternal effects continually meted out, because He ever lives to make intercession.  I contend that God is still giving His gifts in worship.

When you go to worship, does sin interfere?  If you come repentant, desiring to confess because you bear a great guilt and can echo David's words:

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
    through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
    my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. (Psa 32:3-4)

As you are present in worship, do you receive the Lord Jesus in the bread and cup of Communion?  Do you come under conviction as God’s Law is preached, seeing your great need?  Confess the sin, and receive the Lord’s sure forgiveness.  Do you come in assurance of comfort and grace bought by Jesus’ perfect sacrifice?  Worship boldly, knowing that your worship, though zealous and sincere, is imperfect.  In each case, atonement is received.

 In this world Jesus’ atoning work never stops.  We always need it.  We look forward to a day, when the Lord returns and makes all things new.  Until that time, praise God that our Lord ever lives to make intercession for us.  We are a needy people.

*  Some of my readers will quibble on the validity of this point since nobody can absolutely renounce self.  I think the post will help address that concern.

Christ Is the One True Atoning Sacrifice

But in fact there has been only one propitiatory sacrifice in the world, namely, the death of Christ, as the epistle to the Hebrews 10:4 teaches: It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.  And a little after, of the will of Christ, Heb. 10:10: By the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.  And Isaiah interprets the Law, in order that we may know that the death of Christ is truly a satisfaction for our sins, or expiation, and that the ceremonies of the Law are not; wherefore he says, Isa. 53:10: When you shall make His soul an offering for sin, He will see His seed, etc.  For the word employed here, asham, signifies a victim for transgression; which signified in the Law that a certain Victim was to come to make satisfaction for our sins and reconcile God, in order that men might know that God wishes to be reconciled to us, not on account of our own righteousnesses, but on account of the merits of another, namely, of Christ.  Paul interprets the same word asham as sin, Rom. 8:3: For sin, he condemned sin, i.e., He punished sin for sin, i.e., by a Victim for sin.… Isaiah and Paul, therefore, mean that Christ became a victim, i.e., an expiation, that by His merits, and not by our own, God might be reconciled.  Therefore let this remain established in the case, namely, that the death of Christ alone is truly a propitiatory sacrifice.  For the Levitical propitiatory sacrifices were so called only to signify a future expiation.  On account of a certain resemblance, therefore, they were satisfactions redeeming the righteousness of the Law, lest those persons who sinned should be excluded from the commonwealth.  But after the revelation of the Gospel they had to cease.  And because they had to cease in the revelation of the Gospel, they were not truly propitiatory, since the Gospel was promised for this very reason, namely, to set forth a propitiation.

Apology of the Augsburg Confession XXIV.22-24

It's Not About You; It's About Jesus For You

For anyone who has listened to the weekday radio program, Issues, Etc., those are familiar words. I enjoy listening to this Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod affiliated program, because Todd Wilken is a good host and interviewer, and the program has relevant topics from a unique (for me) perspective.

This past January 14th had a segment on the topic of "decision theology."[1] Todd was interviewing Bryan Wolfmueller, pastor of Hope Lutheran, Aurora, CO who related the follow comments.

The question that [Lutherans] ask is not, "Have you made a decision for Jesus?" but rather "Has Jesus made a decision for you?" The question is not, "Have you accepted Jesus into your heart?" but rather "Has Jesus accepted you into his heart?" The question is not "Have you given your whole life for God?" but rather "Has God given his whole life for you?". . . It's Jesus who's done it all. It's Jesus who won [our] salvation. It's Jesus who's made the way to heaven open for [us]. And to know that, to know the answer that, yes, even though my faith wavers, even though I have doubts and I have questions, yes, Jesus has given himself to me. Yes, he has prayed for me. Yes, he has poured out his life and his blood so that I would be his and my sins would be forgiven. And there's no question, there's no doubt, there's no room for wondering there. It's just this absolutely wonderful, forgiving, confidence-building assurance that I am the child of God.

That gave me pause. A potential problem of decision theology is the notion that, since I had to actively decide for Christ, then I must constantly be working as if the work of atonement secured on the cross was not complete. We question ourselves out of uncertainty and find either Bible verses lifted out of context or "helpful" brethren instructing us on all that must be done externally to continue in righteousness. The Law of Moses gets replaced by the Law of "First Pious Church of the Only True Brethren." Eventually, we wrap ourselves in a cocoon of laws and obligations to keep the world out or implode under the burden and walk away from it all. What we need to remember is that the work is done. There is no more atoning work left. The Lord has done it all.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4)

[1] Arising out of a reaction to the Reformed teaching on predestination (see "Election"), advocates teach that man is saved and born-again when he makes a decision to accept Jesus Christ (see "Arminianism"). Taken from http://www.mtio.com/articles/aissar101.htm.