Thanks to Travis for introducing us to the various theories of atonement. It was particularly amazing that all of you were able to enter straightaway into the various issues of the debate seeing that for many of you it was the first time you’ve probably been introduced to these theories.
Malcolm's group rightly pointed out the insidious nature of the Ransom Theory. It would look like, because of our sin, we belong to Satan, and God buys us back with the death of Jesus, only to then turn the tables on Satan with the Resurrection. Implicates God for what would look like a sleigh of hand. Further it makes Satan out to be the one who demands payment and not God. We need to be clear that it was God’s holiness, not Satan’s, that was offended, and payment had to be made to God to avert His wrath. Furthermore, Satan did not have the power to free man, God alone had the power.
Brent’s group pulled down the hidden weaknesses of the Moral Influence Theory. It made Jesus out to be just another charismatic martyr whose life and death merely inspires people to live morally well. It gives the idea that people are able to raise themselves out of sin by their own bootstraps. If this were so, then Jesus' death was not necessary as an expiation for sin. It made the basis for the death of Christ His love rather than His holiness. It assumes that people’s emotions can be moved sufficiently to lead them to repentance. There is no running away from the clear teaching of the Word that the death of Christ was substitutionary (Matt. 20:28). Sinners are justified before a holy God, not merely influenced by an example of love.
Aun’s group examined what is perhaps the most popular of all the theories - Penal Substitution.
Travis pointed out the vital difference between what is a “penal crime” and what is a “pecuniary crime”. Consequently, opponents have argued that no criminal justice system in the world would ever consider it is just to punish the innocent in place of the guilty. Further, this theory gives the impression that sin is an external matter to be transferred from one person to another. But is it? This group also pointed out that Penal Substition made God out to be an austere Judge whose interest is chiefly forensic. Recently Steve Chalke from the UK mounted a fresh attack on Penal Substitution by arguing that it portrays God as a vengeful Cosmic Child Abuser. But I remember Leon Morris saying that whilst such criticisms may be valid they do not rock the essential basis of the Penal Substitution view. He helpfully points out that there is a “double identification”: Christ is one with sinners (the saved are "in" Christ, Rom. 8:1) and he is one with the Father (he and the Father are one, John 10:30; "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself," 2 Cor. 5:19). Packer himself may have some aversion with Penal Substitution but he warms up to it and positively affirms that there is a "substantial rightness of the Reformed view of the atonement."
I like Travis' emphasis that it is helpful to look at these critiques not as attempts to pull down our faith but to build it up by saving it from the older, perhaps cruder forms of understanding.
As we prepare for the Global Day of Prayer, let us begin to turn to God and ask Him to first cleanse our hands and hearts and then ask Him to fill us with a renewed enthusiasm and passion for prayer. Like all things we desire, a deeper prayer life can be requested for from the Lord “who gives all things freely to those who ask”.
As part of our preparation for the GDOP, let us begin to ask for a fresh passion for prayer. Let us ask Him to give that desire in our hearts for intercession. Let us lock ourselves up in our rooms and seek the Lord.
Yesterday Gloria showed me the testimony of Jaeson Ma and what he wrote really enthused me. He tells us that he had a vision of large groups of young people storming the gate of heaven in prayer.
He writes: "I saw a field full of young people crying out to God – so many in fact, that I could not see the end of the field. They were young people, some jumping, some screaming. Others were on their faces weeping and praying, but they were all seeking God’s face. I didn’t know what to think of what I saw, but something in my heart was stirred and my spirit became excited with hope for my generation.”
Jaeson goes on to say: “Indeed, the Holy Spirit was birthing a new college revival through prayer. It was not led by any man, bur by the Spirit of God. Prayer was once again at the forefront, making college-revival history and changing a new generation. It starts with prayer"
Then, in a prophetic tone, he says: "I believe there is coming a moment when hundreds if not thousands of students will turn to Christ in a brief moment. There is coming a movement of supernatural sons and daughters who will walk in their identity as His beloved, move in God's power, and boldly speak God's prophetic message unashamed. I will not be satisfied until I see the power of God shake campuses the way it shook Jerusalem in the book of Acts. It can happen. It must happen. It will happen.
But it starts with us-with my generation repenting and reaching out to God, and with the older generation repenting and reaching out, too. It will require all of us humbling ourselves before Almighty God, turning from our wicked ways, and releasing a desperate cry for revival (see 2 Chron. 7:14). It will require praying as if it all depends on God and living as if it all depends on us.
Pray for us. Pray with us. Pray that we will be released to pray with greater passion and Presence, because prayer brings revival. What God has done before in and through praying young people, He can do again.
I pray your heart, reader, will be set ablaze with a passion and fire to see this generation saved-no matter the cost. God, give us every campus, every city, and every nation in this generation! Revival and reformation-nothing less!”
Let us be open to this young man’s challenge. He speaks from the Spirit of God.
As usual, no one wanted to go home last night. But the feijoa party was somewhat subdued don't you think? The cake was very good though even if I may say so.
But when the door was finally shut, I kept thinking that we ran out of time and didn't touch on a very important issue. It has to do with some very serious defective views concerning the nature of Jesus when he was in his incarnated form. These defective views emerged some three to four hundred years after the death of Jesus. I don't want us to miss this vital chapter of the church out. So here it is. I hope you find this interesting.
1. The earliest of these was a view termed Apollinarianism, after Apollinaris, who became bishop in Laodicea c. AD 361. He propounded the view that the person of Christ had a human body but not a human mind or spirit. He further taught that the mind and spirit of Christ were from the divine nature of the Son of God. It is no surprised that even in his own time, his views were rejected. It was rightly noted that not only our human body needed salvation and needed to be represented by Christ, indeed our human minds and spirits as well needed regeneration.
Consequently, if He was to fully save us, Christ had to be fully and truly human. Heb 2:17 says: “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.”
Rightly, Apollinarianism was rejected by a number of church councils from the Council of Alexandria in AD 362 to the Council of Constantinople in AD 381.
2. Another heresy was to rear its ugly head. This came to be called Nestorianism. The heresy was named after Nestorius, who was born in Syria and died in 451 AD. He was a popular preacher at Antioch. From AD 428 he was bishop of Constantinople.
Nestorius taught that there were two separate and distinct persons in Christ; a human person and a divine person. This teaching clearly threatens the doctrine of atonement. If Jesus is two persons, then which one died on the cross? If it was the “human person” could we still deem the atonement to be of divine efficacy?
It is important to understand why the church could not accept the view that Christ was two distinct persons. For nowhere in Scripture do we have the teaching that the human nature of Christ is an independent person; that the human nature of Christ could decide to do something contrary to the divine nature of Christ.
Instead, we have a consistent picture of a single person acting in wholeness and unity. The Bible always speaks of Jesus as "he" not as "they".
The church stood up against Nestorius and insisted that Jesus was one person although possessing both a human and a divine nature. Nestorius was deposed as Patriarch and sent to Antioch, then Arabia, and then Egypt.
3. There was a third serious heresy at around that same period. Monophysitism was a teaching often associated with Eutyches who lived from AD 378-454). He was a leader of a monastery at Constantinople.
It is helpful to note that Monophysitism arose out of a natural reaction against Nestorianism which taught Jesus was two distinct persons instead of one. This teaching asserts that Jesus had only one nature, not two; and it insisted that the single nature was divine, not human. It propounded the view that that the human nature of Christ was taken up and absorbed into the divine nature so that He had one nature only (Gk monos "one"; and phusis "nature")
This is a serious error for the denial of the human nature of Christ is in essence a denial of the incarnation of the Word as a man. If Christ was neither truly God nor truly human, he could not truly represent us as a human nor could he be true God and able to earn our salvation. Unless incarnation involved God becoming human, there can be no efficacious atonement of sin.
But what came of those heretical teachings?
In response to the heresies over the person of Christ, a large church council was convened in the city of Chalcedon, near Constantinople (modern Istanbul) from October 8 to November 1 A.D. 451. The resulting statement called the Chalcedonian Definition was a carefully-crafted, definitive piece of document that defined in great precision what the Church held to be the nature of the person of Jesus. It guarded against Apollinarianism, Nestorianism and Eutychianism.
I hope you can read the Council of Chalcedon Definition attached in the image above.
It established the orthodox view that Christ has two natures, human and divine, that are unified in one person.
Personally, I find it helpful to note the following:
1. In opposition to the view of the Apollinaris that Christ did not have a human mind or soul, we have the statement that he was "truly man, of a reasonable soul and body...consubstantial with us according to the Manhood in all things like unto us" (The word "consubstantial" means "having the same nature or substance")
2. In opposition to the view of Nestorianism that Christ was two persons united in one body we have the words "indivisibly, inseparably ...concurring in one Person and one Subsistence not parted or divided into two persons"
3. In opposition to the view of Monophysitism that Christ had one nature that his human nature was lost in the union with the divine nature we have the words "to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably...the distinction of natures being by no means taken away from the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved." The human and the divine natures were not confused or changed when Christ became man, but the human natured remained a truly human nature, and the divine nature remained a truly divine nature."
In short, the Chalcedon Definition taught
- that Christ has two natures; a human nature and a divine nature;
- that his divine nature is exactly the same as that of the Father ("consubstantial with the Father
according to the Godhead");
- that the human nature is exactly like our human nature yet without sin ("consubstantial with us
according to the manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin");
- that in the person of Christ
- the human nature retains its distinctive characteristics and
- the divine nature retains its distinctive characteristics ("the distinction of natures being by no
means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each other being preserved")
Finally it affirmed that, regardless of whether we can understand it or not, these two natures are united together in the one person of Christ.
When the Chalcedonian Definition says that the two natures of Christ occur together "in one Person and one Subsistence", the Greek word translate as "Subsistence" is the word hypostasis, "being". Hence the union of Christ's human and divine natures in one person is sometimes called the
hypostatic union. This phrase simply speaks of the union of Christ's human and divine natures in one being.
What are we make of all this?
For me, apart from this superb theological resolution, which surely is a great victory to be hailed in its own right, what grips me whenever I revisit this chapter of early church history, is to note the grit and gumption of the early church to hold its own ground and to fight tooth and claw for the purity of the gospel. In our own jaded age, we run the danger of having less steam and drive and stamina to defend the faith that is now entrusted to us. What an example the early church has given us all.
Let me hear your responses, you little theologians!
BTW Great to have you home Kerry!
We started with the first two words of the Apostles' Creed last Sunday.
Deo-volente (God-willing), we will walk through the creed in its entirety together. I believe the Lord is going to unfold for us fresh insights of His truth.
As I mentioned on Sunday, the creeds were originally written to combat doctrinal heresy. They can and must do the same for us today. We live in a time when our beliefs are challenged and trounced. To saveguard the purity of our beliefs, we need to stand watch by our citadel. We need to keep a special vigilent watch over those pillars that would most likely come under heavy attack.
When one is identified, we need to stand by it to defend it.
Luther puts it compellingly. He said, “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”
But where may that point be located today?
Even as I write, there is one point in the creed that is coming under heavry artillery fire. I am talking about our belief in God as the "
Maker of heaven and earth". Creationism and Darwinianism have perhaps never been at each other's throat this relentlessly, concertedly and fiercely. And this, is the point at which some of us must resolve to stand and fight.
You may want follow the debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox at
Rob's site.
Let us not be oblivious to this battle. To be sure it is ultimately a battle of the heart, but as it now stands it is a battle of the mind. And we need to defend young peoples' minds from being molested by this philosophy of naturalism. Let us understand what the issues are so that we may engage it intelligently. There comes a time, when the defence of the Creed, will mean that we not only be conversant with the Word of God, but also be cognizant of the arguments of the enemy, so that we may be able to give an answer to anyone who asks us to account for the hope that is in us. (1 Pet 3:15).
As Lewis said somewhere, let's not just outlive them, let's outthink them!
