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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Well, after 2000 years of Bible study, do you not think the scholars - in fact, any one of us - would have found that Bible verse by now that nobody has seen before, that tells us of another way of describing what God has done?

Mr Cheesy, it's all there in the Bible to read.
People have gone through it with a fine toothed comb and the truth is all there.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
OK Gamaliel, maybe you'd like to try to explain to me how the atonement can both be a substitutionary act for a required penal punishment at the same time as being a ransom to satan. Are those things not contradictory?

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Good question.

I can only punt out some possibilities.

We could say that it's like the proverbial elephant with the blind-men each grabbing a corner as it were - one an ear, another the trunk, another the tail, one a leg ...

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Or we could say that something that 'looks' one way from a particular perspective, appears somewhat differently from another. So, in a sense we could say that the atonement achieves something different but complementary whether Godward, humanity-ward or Satan-ward ...

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It's a while since I've read Stott's 'The Cross of Christ' and I suspect I'm not as well-read as you are when it comes to other readings-round the subject ... I claim no more than a reasonable level of familiarity with the scriptures, a smattering of Patristic quotes and bits and bobs from some of the Reformers and their heirs and successors ...

So, no, I'm not an expert and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I'm simply punting a few things out, asking questions and listening to the answers.

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Those are my suggestions and they may be half-baked and I'm open to correction.

But bandying 'bollocks' around at people isn't the best way to convince them of 'a more excellent way' ...

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

quote:

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
OK Gamaliel, maybe you'd like to try to explain to me how the atonement can both be a substitutionary act for a required penal punishment at the same time as being a ransom to satan. Are those things not contradictory?

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Good question.

I can only punt out some possibilities.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Mr cheesy - I'm not sure that Mudfrog was accusing you of not reading or knowing the Bible - I felt your response was a tad over-sensitive there - and no, I'm not offended in any way by people calling 'bollocks' on things ... I do that myself quite often.

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

Ignore any of the theories/metaphors, then you ignore a glorious truth.

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That sounds like quite a romantic idea but must be hard to live in practice. How do you know that all of the various metaphors have been discovered and that one hasn't somehow been omitted? How do you know that you're not missing a part of the glorious truth.

ISTM that this just isn't how truth works. If ideas are contradictory, they can't both be truth without first bending the very idea of truth.

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Well, after 2000 years of Bible study, do you not think the scholars - in fact, any one of us - would have found that Bible verse by now that nobody has seen before, that tells us of another way of describing what God has done?

Mr Cheesy, it's all there in the Bible to read.
People have gone through it with a fine toothed comb and the truth is all there.

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Originally posted by Martin60:

quote:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

quote:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

Ignore any of the theories/metaphors, then you ignore a glorious truth.

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That sounds like quite a romantic idea but must be hard to live in practice. How do you know that all of the various metaphors have been discovered and that one hasn't somehow been omitted? How do you know that you're not missing a part of the glorious truth.

ISTM that this just isn't how truth works. If ideas are contradictory, they can't both be truth without first bending the very idea of truth.

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Well, after 2000 years of Bible study, do you not think the scholars - in fact, any one of us - would have found that Bible verse by now that nobody has seen before, that tells us of another way of describing what God has done?

Mr Cheesy, it's all there in the Bible to read.
People have gone through it with a fine toothed comb and the truth is all there.

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Where? What? How?

Is scientific truth there? Is ontological truth there?

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
OK Gamaliel, maybe you'd like to try to explain to me how the atonement can both be a substitutionary act for a required penal punishment at the same time as being a ransom to satan. Are those things not contradictory?

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Not really very helpful at all. Can it be both satisfactory and ransom(y)?

I think they are hedging their bets and coming out with something that's effectively meaningless. Which is obviously the Anglican's staple answer to everything, stop copying

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Nobody is trying to claim that 'it' can be "both satisfactory and ransom(y)?".

What I have tried to say over this whole topic is that in The Atonement there are elements of ransom, victory, PSA, sacrifice, recapitulation, moral influence, etc.

Just remember this. Before the 16th century there was no word 'Atonement' so really, we need to stop defining the work of Christ as if it were one thing with one effect.
Yes, there was a three hour event on a little hill 'without a city wall' but that event, alongside the whole of the Incarnation revealed a while lot that was going on in the heart f God and potentially in the heart of those who believe.

The 'at-one-ment' (the artificial word made up by William Tyndale) really means reconciliation and covers all the different ways in which God has made reconciliation with the world.

There are many ways described in the Old Testament (the word atonement appears only once in the New) in which God has moved to be reconciled with his people.

Sometimes this work, this effort, is described in sacrificial terms, others in terms of loving gracious forgiveness, in other places in terms of ransom, in other places in terms of bearing our punishment.

All of these ways are gathered together and, together, form the overall story of 'Atonement'.

I really fail to grasp, despite all I've read here, why these images, pictures, descriptions (even with their finite and imperfect nature) are not equally valued and appreciated as windows into the great mystery of how God in Christ is reconciling the world to himself.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
OK Gamaliel, maybe you'd like to try to explain to me how the atonement can both be a substitutionary act for a required penal punishment at the same time as being a ransom to satan. Are those things not contradictory?

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How can God be a humble shepherd and a mighty king? How can he be a mother hen and a rock or fortress? Are those things not contradictory?

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

quote:

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
OK Gamaliel, maybe you'd like to try to explain to me how the atonement can both be a substitutionary act for a required penal punishment at the same time as being a ransom to satan. Are those things not contradictory?

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Good question.

I can only punt out some possibilities.

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Gamaliel, how about this for a possibility.

I have already said that the Atonement is not one 'thing' that we try to define using different theories: I wrote that "in The Atonement there are elements of ransom, victory, PSA, sacrifice, recapitulation, moral influence, etc."

People say that you can't do that, but maybe, instead of 'The Atonement' being one thing with a single identity that we are trying to give different definitions, the Atonement like I said is the word we use to cover all the many different ways that God is reconciling us to himself.

Jesus describes himself as shepherd, son of Man, I AM, Lord, light, bread, etc. Ate these contradictory? No.
There is one Jesus to whom is ascribed different metaphorical descriptions. They are 'contradictory' in that bread cannot be described as light, a shepherd is not a vine.

So, just for a moment, think of the Atonement as a roof that covers many rooms. The structure is one building and that building is the house of reconciliation.

One of its rooms is the room of satisfaction, another room is of sacrifice, another room is loving example, another room is victory.
All of them speak of different ways that God can be pictured as reconciling the world to himself.
No room is the same as the others, but they are all under the roof that covers them, completing the building - the house of reconciliation.

Is a house not a house because the bathroom is not the same as the kitchen? Do we deny the usefulness of a living room/lounge because there is no bed in it? Do we say that a study is contradictory because it goes against what is supposed to happen in a bedroom?
These rooms have all different uses and yes, they are incompatible. One does not bathe in the hallway. But together they all make one house, ne dwelling place.

The Atonement is a house, a single edifice that speaks of reconciliation. Each room adds to the breath and depth of the truth of that atonement.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
In another room a child is tortured to death so a parent won't hurt anyone else apart from those that won't accepted that.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Martin - sounds interesting. Any more?

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
How can God be a humble shepherd and a mighty king? How can he be a mother hen and a rock or fortress? Are those things not contradictory?

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Originally posted by Martin60:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Martin - sounds interesting. Any more?

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'strewth q! You've called my bluff! I tried to avoid postmodern culture, but there it is. Average westerners don't buy Bronze Age metaphors as being true any more. They don't buy polar opposites which are invariably false dichotomies like crime and punishment any more. None of the atonement theories work. The shock sacrifice of Christ does. The deed does. It's meaning is timelessly obvious. Give me a minute and I'll make some up.

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How can God be a humble shepherd and a mighty king? How can he be a mother hen and a rock or fortress? Are those things not contradictory?

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
In another room a child is tortured to death so a parent won't hurt anyone else apart from those that won't accepted that.

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*Sigh*
Which comment brings us full circle back to the very beginning of the discussion and reveals, yet again, that the opponents of PSA would rather stick to their cherished caricature of the doctrine than accept the Trinity-supporting truth of the doctrine as properly expressed in any evangelical doctrine book of worth that you'd like to read.

Have I really wasted all that reading and typing?
I've just been pissing in the wind as far as you're concerned haven't I?

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of course mate! That's a genuine smile. You DO have my sympathy. None of the ancient similes can possibly work. None of them are ontological. The more helpless conservatives try to make them work (been there) the more I move in a post-conservative direction. As on gay marriage, the ordination of women, creationism, claims. But you KNOW I do have sympathy. Like you and Kaplan and Gamaliel and Jamat I can't not see PSA in Jesus. It just isn't in Him now.

Come up with better stories. Relevant, contemporary, satisfying ones.

Coating rat turds with chocolate doesn't make them raisins.

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Love wins

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Mr cheesy - I'm not sure that Mudfrog was accusing you of not reading or knowing the Bible - I felt your response was a tad over-sensitive there - and no, I'm not offended in any way by people calling 'bollocks' on things ... I do that myself quite often.

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A huge post saying essentially "I presented all these proofs and arguments and scholars, and you still don't believe me" seems like just that. Cheesy wasn't being over-sensitive, he was just reading for content.

We piped for you, and you did not dance.

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
In another room a child is tortured to death so a parent won't hurt anyone else apart from those that won't accepted that.

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*Sigh*
Which comment brings us full circle back to the very beginning of the discussion and reveals, yet again, that the opponents of PSA would rather stick to their cherished caricature of the doctrine than accept the Trinity-supporting truth of the doctrine as properly expressed in any evangelical doctrine book of worth that you'd like to read.

Have I really wasted all that reading and typing?
I've just been pissing in the wind as far as you're concerned haven't I?

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Originally posted by Kwesi:
To continue from your last post, Gamaliel:

As far as I can, see for Mudfrog's catholicity to be sustained he has either to see all the images as metaphors, or to regard one of them as a model/theory and the others as (mere) metaphors.

For example, were one to plump for PSA a one's preferred model/metaphor i.e. the real thing, then one could accommodate Christus Victor as a metaphor of Christ's victory over sin and death, and the believer could experience his/her relationship to the cross as being like one released from the thrall of Satan (Ransom), and so on. Thus, whereas to treat these metaphors as theories would be incompatible with a belief in PSA, or, indeed, with one another, they are acceptable as non-theories or non-models, metaphors that are subordinate to or point to the underlying reality of PSA.

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Originally posted by Kwesi:
I find Mudfrog's quotation from the doctrinal position of the Salvation Army helpful and open-minded, when it says:

"There is no single comprehensive way to interpret the Atonement through the sacrifice of Christ. But in the New Testament, helpful analogies and images, when taken together, provide insight into its meaning."...................

"The meaning of the Atonement has been reinterpreted through successive periods of Church history. As followers of Christ have reflected on their experience, they have discovered its relevance within their own cultural and historical contexts and have used various metaphors to explain its significance. The terms used to describe them are highlighted below: (big explanatory paragraph follows talking about Origen, Athanasious, Anselm, Abelard, etc, etc, down to the modern day)"...................

"No explanation of the saving work of God in Christ is adequate that does not include the full scope of redemption."

It seems to me capable of encompassing most of the positions taken in this thread, perhaps even Mudfrog's!

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Well exactly!!
At long bloody last




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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton

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... in the New Testament, helpful analogies and images, when taken together, provide insight into its meaning.

1. Ransom.... (big explanatory paragraph follows)
2. The law courts (PSA - another big explanatory paragraph follows)
3. Redemptive sacrifice (big explanatory paragraph follows)
4. Victory over sin (big explanatory paragraph follows)
5. Self-giving love (big explanatory paragraph follows)

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It [SA Doctrinal Statement] doesn't say so in the particular article of faith relevant to the atonement, but PSA and all the other theories are needed in order to witness to the full range of 'measures' used by God to reconcile the world.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I am teasing, but there is, of course, the well-known Wesley quote about communion being a 'converting ordinance' ...

The Salvation Army's approach makes sense on its own terms - that of getting a particular message and form of Christianity out to a largely 'unreached' 19th century working-class audience in as direct and unfussy a way as possible.

There's something very sleeves-rolled up and pragmatic about it, and something also very romantic and rough and ready too ...

The Salvation Army hasn't been as 'reductionist' as the Quakers, of course, who were themselves fairly evangelistic in the early days.

But part of me baulks at the whole 'what's the minimum we need to wage a jungle campaign' approach ...

But then, I'm not a Salvationist ...

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2. The law courts - Another concept was borrowed from the law courts: anyone who breaks the law, which is given for our good, deserves punishment. In God’s morally ordered world sin has consequences. Jesus paid the penalty and bore the cost of sin on our behalf: ‘He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities’ (Isaiah 53:5). Christ voluntarily accepted punishment as a substitute for us (John 10:11-18; 15:13).
3. Redemptive sacrifice - Another New Testament picture of the Atonement emphasises that Christ became the once-for-all sacrifice which buys our salvation (Hebrews 10:10-14). He gave himself for our sin and so fulfilled the purpose of the great sacrifices of the Hebrew faith, to restore the fellowship between God and human beings (Matthew 26:28). The death of Christ provides a way by which all people can be reconciled
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to God (Ephesians 1:7). His was a vicarious sacrifice, that is to say a sacrifice made on behalf of others. It was not made for his own sin, for he was sinless: it was made for us – on behalf of humanity (Romans 3:25, 26; 2 Corinthians 5:21).

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l. Since the 18th century, there has been a shift in the meaning of the term ‘sacrifice’, so that the commonly understood meaning is no longer associated with a specifically religious ritual slaughter, but with a heroic or costly action by an individual, especially the giving up of life, but not necessarily in a religious context.
m Western thinking at the close of the 20th century and in the early years of the 21st century has developed a culture of suspicion that questions the motives of those in authority, seeking to discover the dominating power that underlies them. This has led to some loss of confidence in the institutions of society, including the Church, and to some loss of hope. Theologian Anthony Thiselton suggests an interpretation of the work of Christ that answers these accusations and restores hope. Describing the grace of God demonstrated by the Cross as ‘love without strings’, he argues that a love which gives itself for another, in the interests of the other, cannot be an attempt to manipulate or gain power over them.9 The self-giving of Jesus therefore offers new hope as the individual is loved, accepted and reconciled with God without manipulation or conditions. It gives new meaning to a life in which the image of God is being restored.

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Christ's sacrifice I never represented in the Bible as having purchased or begotten the love of the father, but only as having opened a channel through which that love could flow out to his rebellious and prodigal children.

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Originally posted by Kwesi:
Mudfrog

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It [SA Doctrinal Statement] doesn't say so in the particular article of faith relevant to the atonement, but PSA and all the other theories are needed in order to witness to the full range of 'measures' used by God to reconcile the world.

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I'm not so sure that is unambiguously the case. I was intrigued by the words":
"The meaning of the Atonement has been reinterpreted through successive periods of Church history. As followers of Christ have reflected on their experience, they have discovered its relevance within their own cultural and historical contexts and have used various metaphors to explain its significance." (SA Doctrinal Statement).

To my mind there is a heavy element of theological relativism in this paragraph, because it refers to "reinterpretation" in the light of "experience, and "cultural and historical contexts." If that is the case then the theology of the atonement would be expected to change over time and across cultures.

If the argument is that the various theories thrown up at specific times in various culture contexts can be retained as the times and contexts which produced them change, then are we not suggesting that we have a better understanding of the atonement than the apostles because we have more theories and metaphors: a bigger armoury than they?

Or do we look to theologians in our historical and social contexts to provide an understanding of the atonement which speaks to us, as did those of the past to their generations? The need, surely, is not for lots of redundant weapons but one which has coherence and conviction for contemporary humanity, ain't it? It's time to put Christus Victor, PSA, and a number of others in the theological museum.

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Originally posted by Kwesi:
The need, surely, is not for lots of redundant weapons but one which has coherence and conviction for contemporary humanity, ain't it? It's time to put Christus Victor, PSA, and a number of others in the theological museum.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Other than the sacraments ...

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Meanwhile, if the Salvation Army isn't a church but simply a mission agency, then why doesn't it pass on its converts to those Christian bodies which make a bigger deal about 'being church' and of having some kind of ecclesiology ...?

Tangent alert ... But it's a fair question. An RC priest once asked me what our then Baptist church plant was 'about' and what exactly it was we thought we were doing. Why did we exist? What were we trying to achieve?

It was a fair question. I didn't really have an answer.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Sure, but that was then and this is now ...

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Ah, but now we say we are a church - ignoring Mr Calvin's assertion that one of the marks of a church is the sacraments.

We have all the hallmarks of a church ...

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