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Forgiveness, like repentance, is so much more than a 'mental ascent' to NOW think something which one had previously not thought.

It, if it is to copy the very nature of God, must involve a fundamental shift in desire and aim. A metamorphasis of the heart.

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Let not the fact, then, of our having been reconciled unto God through the death of His Son be so listened to or so understood, as if the Son reconciled us to Him in this respect, that He now began to love those whom He formerly hated, in the same way as enemy is reconciled to enemy, so that thereafter they become friends, and mutual love takes the place of their mutual hatred; but we were reconciled unto Him who already loved us, but with whom we were at enmity because of our sin.

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Originally posted by Callan:
(Incidentally we ought to chalk this one up to the thesis that the Fathers may have used PSA like language but did not teach PSA.)

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Not unlike the Bishope of Durham in that case.

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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
But my answer is that it IS retribution not forgiveness if taken out on the guilty party. The point is that Jesus as God takes the "retribution" and pain thereof on himself: so God's attitude towards us is "forgiveness".

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
I do think Atkins has it right that PSA is far more about God saying "sin matters to me" than it is about retributive justice, because, as many people have pointed out, substitution actually gets in the way of retribution.

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I wasn't meaning to say that I thought God's forgiveness involved a 'shift' from hating to loving - but was trying to say that in our forgiving we seek to attain the immutable 'state of God' which - as you rightly point out - is always loving.

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Originally posted by Callan:
(Incidentally we ought to chalk this one up to the thesis that the Fathers may have used PSA like language but did not teach PSA.)

Not unlike the Bishope of Durham in that case.

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Originally posted by Doulos:
it's not that nasty angry authoritarian God sent poor little innocent Jesus into the world to be killed - as Jeffrey John said, if any human behaved like that they would be a monster. No, appreciating the Trinity teaches us that in Christ, God himself came into the world and of his own choice, out of love, took upon himself the sin of the world.

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There can be no status or heirachy in the Trinity, can there?

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God is God is God, whether manifested through the father in heaven, the suffering man on the cross, or the Spirit at work in the world today. Therefore Christ on the cross was the highest expression of God there is, because every moment of his life was the higest expression of God. So the idea of God the Father being the authority which must be placated suggests that the Father has a greater status within the Trinity than the Son - that doesn't sound right to me. As Jeffrey JOhn said, the Trinity cannot be divided.

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The whole thing about 'cosmic child abuse' becomes a nonsense when the gospel is interpreted in a trinitarian way. People who choose, with full understanding of what they are doing, to give their lives for a higher cause, in order to benefit others, are considered heroes. Isn't that just what God did on the cross?

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
The point being, of course, that the price HAS been paid and acknowledged, and we are therefore free to forgive.

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
I'd say that models Christian forgiveness far more clearly than any of the other atonement "models".

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"Friend, your sins are forgiven you."

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Your sins are forgiven."

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Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:


Assume for a moment that my wife has done something which has really upset me. For example, I've planned a great meal out for our wedding anniversary and she forgets to be there.

I love her - but what do I say?

"I can't forgive you until reparation has been paid"? Of course not.

"I can forgive you but only because Jesus has paid the price on the cross"? No - that won't do either.

"I forgive you because I love you". That's what I would say. It doesn't ignore the hurt but chooses to freely forgive. Why does there have to be a price attached to forgiveness? Why can't it just be freely given?

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You may forgive your wife because you love her. But let's take the situation that is much more like the Bible describes: your wife has an affair, sells your wedding ring to buy a present for her new boyfriend, and isn't sorry.

Is it then right that you should say "I forgive you because I love you" and that be the end of it? Maybe you say yes. That's fine. I think, and I think the Bible says about God that he demands there be some recognition that that was wrong, that it did not deserve forgiveness. Not that he is unwilling to forgive, but sees that wrong should be resognised as wrong. That's the heart of PSA.

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The other issue is why forgiveness has to have a price. Well, its linked, but I guess that depends on how you think the Bible (and church tradition if that's your bag) is concerned with God being seen to be God and sin being seen to be sin. As I said on a few pages before, that's why one of the key questions is whether you think the important effect of sin is on us or on God. Classic PSA, influenced very strongly by the Reformers and Augustine's emphasis that the Gospel is God-centred and ultimately he saves for his glory, puts the "effect" our sin has on God at the centre of the atonement.

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I guess Callan, in answer to your question why I think Tom Wright is miles away from classic PSA. The idea of Jesus as lightning conductor drawing evil away from us is S, but not P, because it is not God's attitude to sin being vindicated, but God getting us out of a mess. God is not an active agent in punishing (which is, after all why the word penal is in there!) I guess that's why his view is acceptable to so many who reject classic PSA, which is fair enough, but I think he should come clean!

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Originally posted by Doulos:
There can be no status or heirachy in the Trinity, can there?

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God is God is God, whether manifested through the father in heaven, the suffering man on the cross, or the Spirit at work in the world today.

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So the idea of God the Father being the authority which must be placated suggests that the Father has a greater status within the Trinity than the Son - that doesn't sound right to me.

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The biblical doctrine of God's wrath is rooted in the doctrine of God as the good, wise and loving creator, who hates - yes, hates, and hates implacably - anything that spoils, defaces, distorts or damages his beautiful creation, and in particular anything that does that to his image-bearing creatures. If God does not hate racial prejudice, he is neither good nor loving. If God is not wrathful at child abuse, he is neither good nor loving. If God is not utterly determined to root out from his creation, in an act of proper wrath and judgment, the arrogance that allows people to exploit, bomb, bully and enslave one another, he is neither loving, nor good, nor wise.
<snip>
if you get one part of Isaiah 53 you probably get the whole thing, and with it not only a substitutionary death but a penal substitutionary death, yet without any of the problems that the caricature would carry:

He was wounded for our transgressions
and bruised for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that brought us peace
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned every one to his own way;
And YHWH has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
(Isaiah 53:5-6.)
<snip>
He is the wise and loving creator who cannot abide his creation being despoiled. On the cross he drew the full force not only of that despoiling, but of his own proper, judicial, punitive rejection of it, on to himself. That is what the New Testament says. That is what Jesus himself, I have argued elsewhere, believed what was going on.
<snip>
"God is love, say [some], and therefore he does not require a propitiation. God is love, say the Apostles, and therefore he provides a propitiation. Which of these doctrines appeals best to the conscience? Which of them gives reality, and contents, and substance, to the love of God? Is it not the apostolic doctrine? Does not the other cut out and cast away that very thing which made the soul of God's love to Paul and John? . . . Nobody has any right to borrow the words 'God is love' from an apostle, and then to put them in circulation after carefully emptying them of their apostolic import. . . . But this is what they do who appeal to love against propitiation. To take the condemnation out of the Cross is to take the nerve out of the Gospel . . . Its whole virtue, its consistency with God's character, its aptness to man's need, its real dimensions as a revelation of love, depend ultimately on this, that mercy comes to us in it through judgment." (James Denney, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Expositor's Bible, Hodder, 1894, p. 221f.)

When I read that, it sounded as though Denney were addressing Dr John directly. And I was put in mind of a characteristically gentle remark of Henry Chadwick, in his introductory lectures on doctrine which I attended my first year in Oxford. After carefully discussing all the various theories of atonement, Dr Chadwick allowed that there were of course some problems with the idea of penal substitution. But he said, 'until something like this has been said, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the full story has not yet been told.'
<snip>
Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and all because of the unstoppable love of the one creator God. There is 'no condemnation' for those who are in Christ, because on the cross God condemned sin in the flesh of the Son who, as the expression of his own self-giving love, had been sent for that very purpose.

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Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and all because of the unstoppable love of the one creator God. There is 'no condemnation' for those who are in Christ, because on the cross God condemned sin in the flesh of the Son who, as the expression of his own self-giving love, had been sent for that very purpose.

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
You may forgive your wife because you love her. But let's take the situation that is much more like the Bible describes: your wife has an affair, sells your wedding ring to buy a present for her new boyfriend, and isn't sorry.

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Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:

quote:

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
You may forgive your wife because you love her. But let's take the situation that is much more like the Bible describes: your wife has an affair, sells your wedding ring to buy a present for her new boyfriend, and isn't sorry.

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Sorry - but this is just setting up a pointless diversion and I don't think it is at all "much more like the Bible describes". It may be what you would like the Bible to describe, but that's another matter. I guess you're trying to describe "total depravity", but as that is a concept I find as alien to Christian faith as PSA, you're not really helping me at all.

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I still maintain that you can only really hold to PSA by having an impoverished understanding of forgiveness. I can't see anything in what you have written so far that leads me to think that you really have grasped what it means to be forgiven. You seem to know what it means to buy someone off (which is what PSA is basically about) - but that ain't forgiveness.

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Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
BroJames, the clue is here, in the last paragraph you cited:

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Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and all because of the unstoppable love of the one creator God. There is 'no condemnation' for those who are in Christ, because on the cross God condemned sin in the flesh of the Son who, as the expression of his own self-giving love, had been sent for that very purpose.

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God is, in Christ, condemning our sin. Thus God's wrath is directed at our sin, not at us. Thus this is substitutionary, but not penal, because "sin", being a non-sentient concept, cannot suffer and thus cannot materially be punished.

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Originally posted by BroJames:
Yes, but sin does not exist in a vacuum. It is always enfleshed, as it were. It is because God enfleshes himself incarnationally in Christ that in that enfleshment in Jesus he bears the penalty of sin.

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The transformed fulfilment of the Jewish hope is one of Paul's main subjects in galatians 3. He describes in verses 10-14 how the promise to Abraham, that the whole world would be blessed 'in him', had apparently got stuck when Israel fell victim to the curse of the law. But Israel's God has acted through the Messiah, who bore the law's curse on Israel's behalf , so that "the blessing of Abraham might come on the gentiles in the Messiah, Jesus..."

(p.221)

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Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
Well I could equally say that cancer does not exist in a vacuum, that it can only exist enfleshed in the victim. That does not stop the surgeon hating cancer, nor does it mean that in order to destroy the cancer, he has to hate the person (OK, not necessarly hate, but punish) the victim in order to excise it. If you doubt that +Tom's view is different from the understanding of most (all?) PSAers, consider the lengths he goes to in order not to say that God's wrath is directed towards sinners.

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Originally posted by Leprechaun:
I have tried very hard to engage in this debate without questioning anyone's relationship with God or appreciation of the grace of God in Christ. I don't really want to continue in the conversation if you won't extend the same courtesy.

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Originally posted by MouseThief:
Maybe somebody can help me out here with a Bible question. Is the term "wrath" ever used in connexion with the crucifixion, in either the NT, or in OT texts which are thought to be prophecies of the event? I don't mean wrath at sin outside the context of the crucifixion. If as PSA seems to suppose the crucifixion was a matter of Christ redirecting God's wrath from us to himself, which scriptures attest to that?

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Jeremiah 31:10 “ Hear the word of the LORD, O nations,
And declare it in the isles afar off, and say,
‘ He who scattered Israel will gather him,
And keep him as a shepherd does his flock.’
11 For the LORD has redeemed Jacob,
And ransomed him from the hand of one stronger than he.
12 Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion,
Streaming to the goodness of the LORD—
For wheat and new wine and oil,
For the young of the flock and the herd;
Their souls shall be like a well-watered garden,
And they shall sorrow no more at all.

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Hosea 13:13 The sorrows of a woman in childbirth shall come upon him.
He is an unwise son,
For he should not stay long where children are born.
14 “ I will ransom them from the power of the grave;
I will redeem them from death.
O Death, I will be your plagues!
O Grave, I will be your destruction!
Pity is hidden from My eyes.”

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So it's all pretty confusing if we are thinking in terms of where the wrath is directed, how the ransom works, and what redemption is.

[ 28. April 2007, 12:06: Message edited by: Freddy ]

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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Originally posted by Freddy:
So the connection is easy to make.

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Originally posted by Freddy:

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Originally posted by MouseThief:
Maybe somebody can help me out here with a Bible question. Is the term "wrath" ever used in connexion with the crucifixion, in either the NT, or in OT texts which are thought to be prophecies of the event? I don't mean wrath at sin outside the context of the crucifixion. If as PSA seems to suppose the crucifixion was a matter of Christ redirecting God's wrath from us to himself, which scriptures attest to that?

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I don't think the term "wrath" is ever used in connection with the crucifixion, in either the NT, or in OT texts which are thought to be prophecies of the event. Of course the wrd "wrath" is used about 200 times in the Bible, and many of those times seem to refer to humanity's ultimate judgment because of sin. So the connection is easy to make.

Lots of passages say things like:

quote:

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Jeremiah 31:10 “ Hear the word of the LORD, O nations,
And declare it in the isles afar off, and say,
‘ He who scattered Israel will gather him,
And keep him as a shepherd does his flock.’
11 For the LORD has redeemed Jacob,
And ransomed him from the hand of one stronger than he.
12 Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion,
Streaming to the goodness of the LORD—
For wheat and new wine and oil,
For the young of the flock and the herd;
Their souls shall be like a well-watered garden,
And they shall sorrow no more at all.

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So God scatters Jacob in wrath, but He also redeems and gathers him.

God's wrath is directed at death:

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Hosea 13:13 The sorrows of a woman in childbirth shall come upon him.
He is an unwise son,
For he should not stay long where children are born.
14 “ I will ransom them from the power of the grave;
I will redeem them from death.
O Death, I will be your plagues!
O Grave, I will be your destruction!
Pity is hidden from My eyes.”

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So it's all pretty confusing if we are thinking in terms of where the wrath is directed, how the ransom works, and what redemption is.

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until the fierce wrath of our God is turned away from us in this matter

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Is it actually possible to forgive someone who doesn't want to be forgiven? (I can think of instances where people have been terribly offended to hear 'I forgive you' because they don't think they have done anything wrong!)Surely unconditional forgiveness would only be possible by forcing others to accept their guilt?

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Maybe it is just semantics but I don't understand what forgiveness means without it being willing accepted - isn't forgiveness, by definition, a relational term?

Interesting to quote from Romans 12 in this discussion. There Paul's ethic is one of offering forgiveness unconditionally (no need for the guilty person to appease the innocent). However, the BASIS of Paul's ethic is that God's wrath will avenge the wrongdoing (Romans 12 v 19)

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Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
I think it is a huge exegesical step to move from "God is able to vindicate you, so don't take revenge, and here is an OT writing that backs me up", to "You can only forgive if you accept that somewhere, someone has to be made to pay for the wrongdoing". I would see the basis of Paul's ethic as being, "Because you have been freely forgiven, freely forgive others." IMHO this seems to be Jesus' thinking as well.

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I agree that there is big jump between the two ideas above. However, my point was that Paul does not base his ethic on "God is able to vindicate you, so don't take revenge..." you are changing what Paul said. He specifically speaks about 'leaving room for God's wrath'.

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Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
He will repay evil with good, sin with restoration, rebelliousness with repentance. As it says, do not let evil defeat you (i.e. by participating in it) but instead repay evil with good. Don't you think Paul got that from somewhere?

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Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
The other point is that, if we are to take 5:9 in a literal sense, then it doesn't seem to back PSA, because Paul is saying, you have been put right with God - therefore, if God is able to do that, then you will also be saved from God's wrath. This is not the same as saying that the saving from God's wrath and the being put right with God refer to the same event.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:

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Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
He will repay evil with good, sin with restoration, rebelliousness with repentance. As it says, do not let evil defeat you (i.e. by participating in it) but instead repay evil with good. Don't you think Paul got that from somewhere?

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How is God going to do all that without coercion? Otherwise will heaven be heaven?

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Originally posted by Johnny S:

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Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
The other point is that, if we are to take 5:9 in a literal sense, then it doesn't seem to back PSA, because Paul is saying, you have been put right with God - therefore, if God is able to do that, then you will also be saved from God's wrath. This is not the same as saying that the saving from God's wrath and the being put right with God refer to the same event.

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Point taken, but it seems a bit pointless for Paul to talk about it unless there is wrath that we need to be saved from. Clearly there is a sense here of being under God's wrath and then for something to 'change God's mind' (for want of a better expression)

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Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
But, of course, that is how it seems to us. People fear (in the non-theological sense of the word) God, because they don't understand that He is loving and forgiving. One of the aims of Jesus' ministry was to replace this image of a wrathful God in people's minds with that of the loving Father.

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So presumably Jesus didn't do a very good job on Paul - poor Paul

"But of course, that is how it seems to us... people assume that God loves us and never punishes sin and therefore we read this into the Bible"

I'm sorry, but as soon as you start saying 'how it seems to us' you've lost me. Anybody could use that to say (pretty much) anything.

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Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
obviously one of us is right and one is wrong, and we can each pick verses that seem to back our pov. That's the problem with proof texting. The question is which interpretation is the more valid when viewed in the light of the whole of scripture.

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Originally posted by leo:
In 4 Maccabees, ‘expiation’ is used of any Jewish martyr under the Seleucids.(17:22) and they become ‘a ransom for the nation’ 17:21

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Ezekiel 4.4 “Lie also on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it. According to the number of the days that you lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity. 5 For I have laid on you the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days; so you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. 6 And when you have completed them, lie again on your right side; then you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days. I have laid on you a day for each year.

Ezekiel 14:10 And they shall bear their iniquity; the punishment of the prophet shall be the same as the punishment of the one who inquired,

Lamentations 5:7 Our fathers sinned and are no more, But we bear their iniquities.

Micah 6:16 And you walk in their counsels, That I may make you a desolation, And your inhabitants a hissing. Therefore you shall bear the reproach of My people.”

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Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
Good post, Freddy. I hadn't seen the significance in that text before, vis-a-vis Is. 53.

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