|
|
| |
 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
|
| |
| The Nashville Statement
|
| |
|
|
| |
Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
|
| |
Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
|
| |
|
email
|
|
| The Mercy Seat. |
The mercy seat was fashioned to sit on top of the ark of the covenant. While it is a common enough error to imagine that the mercy seat was just the "lid" of the ark of the covenant, it actually was a separate piece. It was placed atop the open ark, but it was not a part of the ark, not simply a fancy lid with a name.
The primary purpose of the ark was to hold the tablets of the covenant. Eventually the staff of Aaron was also placed in the ark, to testify to the fact that God chose Aaron and his descendants to be the priests to Him. Likewise a pot of manna was placed in the ark to testify to God's provision for Israel while they were in the wilderness. The ark therefore held both the promise and the testimony of God's provision for Israel and was set apart (made holy) for this purpose.
The primary purpose of the mercy seat was to act as the seat of God's presence on earth - the "place" where God would meet with Moses "in person" as it were - and this meeting place was intentionally supposed to reside above the artifacts of God's testimony - artifacts that were to reside in the ark of the testimony (i.e. ark of the covenant).
In Hebrew, the mercy seat is called the kapporeth. The word itself favors a translation of "to cover" over a translation of "to expiate" though both translations are possible. The Greek term, hilasterion, in the Septuagint, arguably favors the notion of propitiation/expiation.
Both expiation and propitiation deal with settling the debt of an offence. Consider an innocent person who is randomly attacked by some angry offender. The person is doused in some flammable liquid and set afire so that they experience third degree burns to, let's say, 90% of their body. The perpetrator is caught, and the victim of this act of senseless violence is now in a state of having been "offended" by an "offender" such that until the offence is expiated/propitiated, the victim will continue to be offended.
If it were possible for the victim to be restored to full and perfect health, and even to have all memory of the offence removed; that is, if it were possible to entirely remove all those consequences of the original offence from the victim so that experientially speaking, the offence was entirely removed from the victim - this "cleansing" if you will, would be described as "expiation".
Expiation then overcomes an offence, not by satisfying justice, but rather by cleansing or removing that which was originally offensive.
On the other hand, if victim's memory was not erased, and the damage was not repaired, the offence against the victim (as opposed to the consequences of that offence) could also be satisfied by appropriately punishing the offender. This will satisfy the just outrage of the crime, though not necessarily removing the effects of the crime. This overcoming animosity by appeasing a breach of justice is more rightly called propitiation.
Propitiation then overcomes an offence by satisfying the demands that justice makes when an offence occurs.
To be sure, the notion of expiation as it pertains to scripture, is favored by those who reject the notion that Jesus was bearing any kind of punishment on Calvary. These argue that the idea of "appeasing" a "just" God concerning the offence of sin is pagan in origin and only portrays God as a divine Tyrant.
Likewise, the notion of propitiation, as it pertains to scripture, is favored by those who do not reject the notion that Christ bore some sort of punishment on Calvary. Propitiation here, however, includes the original notion of expiation, that is, they would say that God is propitiated by the death of Christ which is the means by which we are expiated (cleansed) and made acceptable to God.
When the Septuagint calls the mercy seat that sits atop the ark of the covenant the "hilasterion epithema" ( the mercy seat handpiece), it implies that the seat itself is an agent in the process by which expiation/propitiation is being made.
Once each year, on the day of atonement, the high priest came into the Holy of Holies bearing the blood of the sacrificed atonement offering. It was his sacred duty to sprinkle that blood on and before the mercy seat of God. That makes for quite a picture. God's holy presence was so pungent in that place that the slightest infraction in ceremony would result in the immediate death of the high priest. He came into God's presence, as it were, with only God's promises, testimony, and the blood of a sacrifice between himself and God's wrath. If one stops to think about all that had to meet in the holy of holies on the day of atonement we have God on the one side, the sins of Israel coming in through the door, and between the two we have God's promises and testimony concerning those promises, and the blood of the atoning sacrifice. It seems to me, at least, that this is not a picture of expiation, but of propitiation - not a picture of God setting aside justice and offering cleansing, for the justice is answered by the blood of the sacrifice - and it is through this sacrifice that God is appeased, and sin is expiated.
But is this the picture we see in the New Testament?
When Paul uses the term hilasterion in Romans 3:25, most translations do not use the word "mercy seat", though some do (see below):
"sacrifice of atonement" (NIV),
"sacrifice for sin" (NLT),
"propitiation" (ESV, NASB, KJV, AKJV, ASV, ERV, WNT, Geneva)
"atonement" (ISV)
"throne of mercy" (God's Word translation)
"sign of His mercy" (BBE)
"mercy seat" (Darby, YLT, NET)
"atoning sacrifice" (WEB)
The text itself reads (NASB), as follows: "[Jesus Christ] ...whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;"
The only intellectually honest conclusion I can come to is that Paul is portraying Jesus Christ as being whatever it was that the mercy seat in the O.T. pictured. The mercy seat in the Holy of Holies was the only "place" in all the O.T. that God could be satisfied (concerning the sins of Israel). "At" this mercy seat, and only at this seat of God's mercy, sinful Israel was reconciled to God. What Paul is explaining in Romans 3:25 is that Jesus Christ is the only "place" where sinful man can be reconciled to God - the only place where God can be propitiated.
The blood of Christ is not brought before God through the a physical doorway as it was in the OT, but now, Paul writes, this blood is set before God by faith. I will not hesitate at this point, to note that when we speak of blood, we are talking about the life that was spent in its shedding, and not about the fluid itself. That is what scripture means when it says that the life is in the blood. The blood itself has no magical properties, but testifies to the life that was spent.
In this way, therefore, Paul teaches that sinful men are reconciled to God by trusting in God's promises concerning the pouring out of the life of Christ as the only means by which God's righteous wrath against that man's sin can be appeased.
When we speak of the atonement, if we are speaking biblically at least, we are speaking about what it is that accomplished the feat of reconciliation. We are talking about how a sinful man is reconciled to God.
Now there are a few things we need to mention to guard against going all airy-fairy in our theology...
First we need to understand that under the OT system, the high priest was not atoning for the sins of every person in the world. He was -only- atoning for the sins of Israel.
Even that has to be qualified, since Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, makes it plain that not everyone who was born and circumcised as a Jew was considered (by God) to be a *real* Israelite. As far as God was concerned, an Israelite was someone who shared a faith like Abraham's, whether they were born an Israelite, or had joined themselves to the nation of Israel.
So when the high priest went into the holy of holies on the day of atonement, it was to make atonement for the sins of those Israelites whose faith was of the same substance as the faith of Abraham.
To deny that is to invent or revise the very history of redemption. Salvation, we are told, is of the Jews. The O. T. imagery did not save anyone, but pictured a reality that wouldn't be fully articulated until the Messiah came.
Many however have come to interpret the O. T. imagery concerning the atonement as though it were a very hazy, and ill fitting picture. They do not like the idea that the atonement, under the O. T. system, was not made for all of mankind, but only for Israel, and only for the true Israelites. They prefer to think of the atonement in terms of potentiality or provision. They want to see the high priest offer up the blood of the atonement sacrifice in order to generate a sort of indiscriminating potential reconciliation, an avenue made available to all men everywhere, by and through which any person could be atoned for, if that person exercised faith.
The problem I have with that notion is that the only way I have ever seen these ideas in the text or the context is when I first presume them to be there. I believe the emperor has new clothes, and so I see them when I look for them. Once I project the idea onto the text, I can not only interpret this text or that text to mean something other than what it plainly says, I can use that to bolster similar interpretations into subsequent texts.
There is a lot of debate today about the scope of the atonement. People have strong opinions about whether Jesus died for everyone that was ever born, or whether Jesus died only for those who would eventually be saved.
I regard this debate as largely a red herring, since most of the people I have heard argue one way or the other in this debate couldn't give a biblically solid definition of what the atonement actually is. They have a sort of general or indistinct understanding, they know that Jesus died for sin, and they know that God saves sinners, and that God loves the world, and they toss it all into their own theological stew, give it a stir, and then argue zealously from a position which for themselves is actually resting on an inarticulate hodgepodge of settled, but vague ideas.
When I first began to study biblical Greek, I remember shaking my head over a sudden, clarifying reality. I had heard, or read, just as you all have, how godly and apparently learned men argued on both sides of a debate about which translation was better/best. When I began to study Greek, I found that while the arguments were more erudite and high falutin, they were otherwise no better than those same arguments amongst less godly/learned men.
In fact, one of the things I hear often enough to gall me, is the old stand by that godly men on both sides of an issue have debated such and such a point, and are still debating that point today. I suppose that I am supposed to infer from this that it is pointless to discuss anything that men disagree on, because, apparently, there will never be any resolution.
I say it galls me because it is clearly a demonic wisdom. It may be that both sides in any debate or argument are wrong in whole or in part, but it cannot be that both parties are right in things that they disagree about. If one party is defending a truth, and the other a lie or a deception, it is never okay to set aside discussion in the matter on the grounds that you probably won't resolve it because men godlier and more learned than yourself have failed to resolve it.
First of all, iron only sharpens the iron it is being used against. The purpose of discussing things you disagree about is not to bring the entire world into an universally harmonious opinion that flows from one side or the other. It is to sharpen one another, and to correct wooden-headed thinking. Godly and learned men have this in common with less godly and less learned men - they are sinners, and owe anything they rightly understand, not to their godliness or learning, but to God who has shown them mercy. Thus I couldn't give a donkey's ear if someone more godly or more learned than myself has debated an issue, since it is neither godliness nor learning that opens our eyes, but the grace of God in the person of the Holy Spirit. How many fools, and I use the word with all terrible intent, have stumbled at this idea that they must not discuss theologically difficult ideas because other men have failed to find resolution in the matter? Good gravy!
So just as I found the same kind of arguments that riddled the debate over English translations reborn in more erudite dress amongst those who studied the Greek, I likewise find that those who have the presence of mind to step above the arguments concerning the scope of the atonement, to examine the atonement itself, bring the same arguments along with them.
For though I labor to explain what the atonement is, I do not doubt that there are some who do not see it as I have laid it out, and would argue passionately to say that I am mistaken and in error, and teaching the fruit that rises thereof.
I am speaking now, not of the scope of the atonement, but of its nature. Did the blood of the atonement offering in the Old Testament make people right with God, or was the blood only a necessary piece of a greater, atonement puzzle?
You see, some might argue that the blood of the atonement offering was only "effective" for those whose faith was like the faith of Abraham. They would write that atonement happens according to the formula: Faith + Blood = Atonement. Thus this shed blood was applied to (and available for) all of mankind, but only became effective in producing actual atonement when it was applied by and through faith.
I remember, in my childhood, mashing together pieces from a puzzle that didn't quite fit. It wasn't that I was malevolently trying to ruin the puzzle, rather I just thought this was the right piece and that the only reason it was not fitting easily and cleanly was because of some imperfection in the original cutting of the pieces. In the same way, when I hear that kind of understanding of the atonement - that it is some universal thing offered up to all, and pregnant with potential, though impotent unless applied through some other means - I am reminded of those puzzle pieces that almost fit, but don't really belong there.
First of all, what the high priest did on the day of atonement is never, ever described in scripture as providing a means of, or opportunity for, atonement. It is always described as "making atonement" - or said in less ambiguous language "accomplishing" atonement. When Jesus cried out, "It is finished!" was He referring to His own suffering ("My suffering is over!")? Was He referring to providing the world with a potential benefit ("I have finished bringing a potential reconciliation into the world!")? Again, the idea isn't that something had merely ended, but that something was accomplished.
The idea that what was accomplished on Calvary was the instantiation of a potential/conditional solution to sin - the opening of an indiscriminating and impersonal avenue, if you will, by which any person could be reconciled to God, if they so desired, is actually more than just popular, it is the majority opinion.
Most Christians think of the atonement in this way - Jesus' death atoned for all the sins of the world, but that atoning work is only applied to those who by faith and repentance, are reconciled to God.
According to this view, the benefits of Jesus's death are available to every man woman and child who was ever, and will ever be, born, because Jesus "died for" every man woman and child. Many, though not all, in this camp would argue that Jesus' death likewise makes it possible for any sinner to seek God without God first enabling them personally to do so, in this way, salvation is made "possible" for as many people as hear the gospel. They would argue that the death of Christ "pays for sins" but even though the death is applied to all men, women, and children, it is only effective (legally speaking) for those who believe on Jesus.
I have a few problems with the notion that "Jesus died for everyone".
Under this scheme justice is being satisfied through adequate compensation. That kind of thinking works fine in a situation where the debt is impersonal and justice itself is not an issue. If a car is stolen, and the owner is financially reimbursed, as long as the owner feels that the compensation was sufficient, the owner will be "satisfied". That kind of system falls apart when the crime is say, the brutal murder and rape of a daughter. What parent will be pacified by having their murdered daughter "replaced" by a new daughter of equal value? Here we see the truth of sin's debt - for it cannot be made impersonal. Nothing but the restored life of the daughter will satisfy as compensation - and even if that compensation were possible, the outrage over the act of violence will not be overcome by mere compensational equity.
The idea that Jesus death provides a kind of universal currency comes about when people have to deal with a passage like 1 John 2:2. There we read this of Jesus, "...He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world."
Doesn't it seem to say, reading it plainly and literally, that Jesus is the propitiation for everyone's sins? Anyone who understands what propitiation means, understands that propitiation and atonement are one and the same, here then the text seems to plainly say that Jesus is the "propitiation" of the sins of everyone in the world.
Some would argue that the "whole world" here is an hyperbole. They would say that this is just a colourful exaggeration intended to signify many people, but not all people. They would point to examples like when the high priest Caiaphas said that all the world had gone after Christ. Since not every man, woman, and child had gone after Christ, we understand it as an hyperbolic expression. Some would argue that way I suppose, and not without merit. This sort of language is almost always hyperbolic, and any argument in that direction has quite a head start when given an honest hearing. What John wrote here can easily fits the hyperbole mold. John, they would argue, simply means to say that Jesus is not only the propitiation for the sins of those whom John denotes by the word "our" but is also the propitiation for everyone else who ever happens to be saved etc.
I think that is certainly possible, and may even be the intended meaning. But it isn't really necessary to make an argument about the intended scope of the phrase "also for those [sins] of the whole world" - since we have the word propitiation to guide us.
The word used here is not the same as is found in Romans 3:25, though they do share a common ancestry. Here the word is hilasmos, and it refers specifically to the removal of guilt, and in the context, the removal of guilt that is directly associated with those who are confessing their sin, as we read in 1 John 1:8. John is not abandoning what he just said in favor of introducing something new. When John talks about Jesus being the propitiation for sin, he is explaining why God is just in forgiving the sins of those who confess their sins - God is just because Jesus =is= the propitiation for our sins, and not ours only, but also for the sins of everyone in the whole world who likewise confesses their sins. That is the only consistent way to understand this passage.
I don't marvel that some people miss it at first, but I do marvel when those people who do miss it, replace it with something that totally misses the boat; and worse, go on to interpret other passages according to this same, confused (and wrong) understanding.
In summary, the mercy seat in the old testament was something God provided, and was intended as the "place" where men could be reconciled to God through means of a propitiating sacrifice. That sacrifice, ultimately was the life of Jesus Christ, and the propitiation itself was not universal in scope, but peculiar to those who were of a like faith to Abraham's, that is, peculiar to those who confessed themselves sinners and placed their faith in the promises of God as demonstrated through and by the provision of God, most notably, in Christ.
The atonement is an accomplished work of propitiation, such that every person who was ever atoned for, has had God's wrath against their sin satisfied on account of their having become partakers in the death and resurrection of Christ. God's righteous wrath has already been spent, once and for all time, on the sins of those who are in Christ, and that pouring out of wrath happened 2000 years ago on Calvary.
Those who are not in Christ when they die (or are alive when Christ returns to judge the living and the dead) will themselves propitiate God's wrath by personally receiving the wages of their sin - a pouring out of God's wrath upon themselves - condemnation that is described in scripture as the second death. This will not gain these same an entrance into heaven because, while their eternal suffering will satisfy God's wrath, they will not have the sinless life of Christ applied to themselves by which a man is reconciled to God. That is, they will make their own propitiation to satisfy God's wrath concerning their sin - but this will by no means reconcile them to God, it will only appease God's wrath.
The atonement was not and is not a universally supplied, "infinite" bucket out of which some grab their atonement, and others let theirs go to waste. It is rather an accomplished propitiation that forever reconciles a sinner to God. Only those who are in Christ are atoned for. Those who are not in Christ were not atoned for.
This doesn't mean that we have to change our gospel (unless, of course, you are telling unregenerate sinners that Jesus died for them). If you preach that Jesus died to reconcile penitent sinners to God through faith, keep on keeping on. If you preach that Jesus will save whosoever will come - keep on preaching it. But if you preach that Jesus has already paid for your sins, you are preaching something that isn't found in scripture. The gospel is not, "Jesus died for you" it is, "Repent and believe, and you will be saved!"
Having said all that, people who don't rightly understand the atonement can still be ardent, godly, kingdom minded believers. That is, however, no excuse for allowing confusion and wrong-headed theology to continue. If a person is a godly soul and clinging to wrong-headed theology - imagine how they might shine if they had their thinking straight!Labels: atonement; theology, expiation, mercy seat, propitiation, the atonement. |
posted by Daniel @
2:57 PM
9 comment(s)
 
|
|
|
|
| Why doesn't God save everyone? |
Have you ever heard anyone ask that? If God can save one person from hell, why doesn't He save everyone?
The Universalist believes that God has saved everyone regardless of what they believe.
At the core of this conviction is the idea that life is something we all deserve, and God is obligated to respond to a moral truism that is bigger than Himself. He saves everyone because everyone deserves to live. Theological Universalism does not have scripture as its foundation, but secular humanistic opinions about the value of life.
The Arminian believes that God wants to save everyone, but only gets to save those who are fortunate enough to hear the right gospel, and who, having heard it, were personally wise enough to respond to it properly.
Arminianism is similar to Universalism in that it presupposes that God wants to save everyone and is obligated to do so by His "goodness" but Arminianism differs from Universalism in that Jesus doesn't actually cause anyone to be saved, He just facilitates the means of salvation through His own death, and only for those who freely choose to receive it. God therefore wants to save everyone, and provides the means to save everyone, but ultimately only saves those who hear and believe the gospel.
In Arminianism, it is a tragedy when someone goes to hell because God is trying to save everyone.
The Calvinist believes that sin's penalty (eternal damnation, the wrath of God, etc.) is just, and that God is not obligated by the "sanctity of life" to preserve the lives of guilty sinners. If God chooses to preserve even one life, that in no way obligates God to preserve another. Therefore the Calvinist believes that God is not trying to save everyone, but will certainly save every soul that He intended to save beforehand.
In Calvinism, it is not a tragedy when someone goes to hell - it is justice, plain and simple.
Thus the question, "Why doesn't God save everyone?" is going to be answered differently depending on who you ask. The Universalist will say, "God does save everyone!". The Arminian will say, "God wants to save everyone, but not everyone wants to be saved" and the Calvinist will say that God, "...saves as many as He chooses to save, no more, no less."
I use these labels (Universalist, Arminian, Calvinist) as a matter of convenience. When I say that someone is a universalist, I am not suggesting that they are disciples of someone named "Bob Universal"; likewise, when I say "Arminian", I don't mean these people study and believe all that Jacubus Arminius believed and taught, I merely mean they think God has provided a means to save everyone, with the purpose of trying to save as many as possible, and that God is by no means sovereign in the process. Likewise with the label Calvinist - I don't intend to say that the person studies and adheres to every nuance of Calvin's theological thought, I mean only that they ascribe to the doctrines of grace and the sovereignty of God.
My answer to the question then, is decidedly "Calvinist" in that it presumes man to be guilty and deserving of damnation, and does not impose the humanistic notion that there is a moral rule that is above God: that life must be preserved at all costs, so that God is bound to some moral "truism" that exists apart from Himself.
Let's start with the facts: Hell is a judgment. If God really is just, He isn't, and cannot be, in the business of helping men avoid justice. That must be the foundation we begin with, because God does not and will not set justice aside for anything. Every sin will be punished fully - bar none.
God is just, but God is also merciful, and full of glory, yet God's mercy is never exercised at the expense of His justice.
If I buy my child an ice cream, even if my child didn't deserve it, does that obligate me to buy an ice cream for every other person on earth? Said another way, does this act of grace to my child obligate me to give the same grace to everyone else?
Unless you're quite confused, you will see that my giving my own child an ice cream does not obligate me to give ice cream to anyone else. In fact, if I give the first reader to read this post an ice cream, that doesn't obligate me to give the next reader an ice cream, because an act of grace is not, and cannot be made, obligatory. You don't suddenly deserve an ice cream just because someone else got one.
I know, I know - the world has a moral "truism" called fairness that teaches that if everyone is equally undeserving, and I give something to one, that obligates me to give to everyone else or I am being unfair.
Let's use scripture to show that this is bunk."For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. "When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. "And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; and to those he said, 'You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.' And so they went. "Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. "And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, 'Why have you been standing here idle all day long?' "They said to him, 'Because no one hired us.' He said to them, 'You go into the vineyard too.' "When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.' "When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius. "When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. "When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, saying, 'These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.' "But he answered and said to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 'Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. 'Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?' - Matthew 20:1-15 [NASB] I confess, when I first read this in scripture, I sided with the workers who had worked all day. I believed that even though they agreed beforehand to work for a days wage, and were paid (as promised) a days wage, I honestly felt that unless the owners generosity was proportionately unilateral (i.e. if he paid one man a days wages for half day's work, he should be obligated to double everyone else's wages too).
It took me a while to see through my the blinders of my default, humanistic opinon, but eventually I saw that the owners generosity really didn't obligate him to be generous to the others - that the others received the wages of their work, and that the ownder's generosity shown to those who came late to the party, by no means obligated him to be generous to anyone else. I was imposing an obligation upon the owner that was not justified based on a concept of fairness that I presumed (without challenge) to be accurate and true. It was only as my eyes were opened to my error that I learned how false my default opinion was. Generosity cannot be obligatory, or it becomes a wage: something owed. I don't "owe" my other children ice cream because I have given a cone to one of them.
The heart is a wicked, deceived, insane thing and remains so until we die, but in Christ, relying on God's wisdom, the light can push out the darkness, and so it was for me when I began to see it. I used to get miffed if someone I knew inherited money. Why them? Why don't I ever inherit money? They paid off their house, and look at me, I am still saddled with a mortgage! I am pretty sure I stopped short of actually believing that I "deserved" to inherit money, but the truth is, it was not a sense of violated fairness that I was feeling - it was greed and desire being stirred up by someone else's sudden prosperity. There was nothing good about my greed, but it is the same emotion that drives the illusion of fairness.
When I was finally able to see things as they truly are, I began to see that God's mercy and grace shown to one sinner, does not, and cannot obligate Him to show the same mercy and grace to some other sinner. It was the same lesson. Grace is not grace if it is owed, and God does not owe salvation to anyone.
Thus, God is not obliged to provide salvation to me or to you, or to your neighbor down the street, and He is not wicked or evil even if He decides to allow all of humanity to receive (in full) the wages of their sin; yet in contrast, God -is- obliged by His own righteousness to pay the wages of sin in full (i.e. to condemn all of us to hell).
If showing mercy to one person, does not oblige God to show mercy to anyone else, then we answer the original question (why doesn't God save everyone?) with a sober truth: God is not obligated to do so.
You see, we need to rid ourselves of the image that God is saving people from hell. What God is doing is administering justice unilaterally, then extending generosity to some.
All of us will receive the wages of sin; some will receive the wages of their sin in hell, and some will receive the wages of their sin in Christ. Those who are in Christ will be raised to life in Christ after the judgment, those who are not in Christ will not. God will pour out His wrath on every sin: no sin shall go unpunished; but God where God's righteousness demands that He deal with all sin equalaterally, mercy and grace (by their nature) make no demand. We wouldn't even be aware of mercy and grace if everyone received it unilaterally - for we would regard the status quo as neutral, and not full of mercy and grace.
What Universalists and Arminians seem to miss is the fact that sending people to hell is an act of justice. When these insist that God is trying to save people from hell, they are unwittingly teaching that God is trying to save people from His own judgment, and therefore unwittingly proclaiming that God's judgment is unjust.
These rail against the idea that God could be satisfied in letting even one sinner receive the just penalty for his sin. God (to them) is working overtime to spare men -- from His own justice -- and when they fail to comprehend the irrationality of their position, they also fail to understand election and the scope of atonement, because this is just the kind of misunderstanding that can blind a person.
Here's the scoop: God isn't trying to save everyone. When God gave Noah the design for the ark, it wasn't designed to accommodate every living person that was on the earth, nor every living animal. It was designed to house those whom God chose beforehand to be on the ark --and no more! Was Noah instructed to build the ark to provide a possible salvation for every man woman and child on the earth at the time? No. Noah, was told to build an ark just large enough to provide salvation for those few whom God chose beforehand.
Did God change? Was He mean and cold hearted in the OT. Why didn't God tell Noah to build the ark big enough to hold everyone? Shouldn't God have done that? I mean, if God were really trying to save the world from His own wrath, shouldn't he have instructed Noah to build an ark big enough to save "whosoever would come?". Yet don't some Christians believe that God suddenly became "nicer" when He sent Jesus to be an "ark" for those of us whom God chose beforehand to pass through eternal judgment. They believe that even if God was sort of particular about who was saved from His wrath the first time, that all changed with Jesus. God is now new and improved - having grown out of His Old Testament fickleness, and into a New Testament humanitarian. Now God is trying to save everyone, and is a very nice guy, but a miserable failure.
Here is what I believe: God is not obligated to save anyone, and doesn't become obligated to save anyone by saving someone else just because neither of them deserve to be saved. I think that people who have been influenced by secular moralism and humanistic reasoning will find it hard to see what I am talking about, because their world view is partially being formed by philosophies that run contrary to scripture and contrary to truth.
God doesn't have to save anyone, and certainly doesn't have to save everyone. He saves whomever He wills, and no one whom He determines to save fails to be saved. Jesus didn't come to provide a means for everyone to be saved, but came to save those whom God chose beforehand, and only those whom God chose beforehand. Jesus doesn't merely provide everyone with a possibility of salvation, but saves every last soul whom He chose beforehand to save, and was sent here to save, dying only for them, and for no others. Period.
If hell is just, then God cannot be trying to save everyone (or anyone) from it. God must therefore be saving some, and only some (and these for some reason other than trying to preserve life at all cost).
Why does God do it that way?
I suspect the reason is, as the Westminster divines might have said it, to put God's grace, mercy, and glory on display - a thing which cannot be done unless there is some arena in which these things can be seen. In order to see mercy, we need there to be something that requires mercy. In order to show grace, we need to see something that requires grace - these attributes of God only be seen in contrast, and so we need sin (and the fall) to frame God's glory and grace otherwise they could not be comprehended.
The problem people have with that is that if a man were to put his glory on display it would be a boastful act of pride, an egoism. Why? Because that man is a creature and everything He has, He has received from God. He has nothing to boast about. Is he smart? Talented? Healthy? Born into a good family? Is there anything we can do that we can honestly and soberly say we do apart from God's enabling? Who then can boast? All such boasting is sin - scripture tells us (just in case we are too blind to reason that much out for ourselves). God is not being boastful if He puts His glory on display. If God puts His glory on display it is because His glory ought to be on display. The heart that insists that God's grace and glory are not worhty of display, is sick and confused at best.
Our lives are not something we have a right to. our lives are a privilege. God is not obligated to sustain our lives just because He graced us with them. We have been given life to put God's glory on display, and we will put God's glory on display - one way or another. Those who imagine that God exists to provide mankind with life are missing a very big boat. Life is granted by God according to God's grace, and serves a noble purpose - God's glory. We are not owed life, and when we forfeit our lives by sinning, God is not obligated to save us from the consequences of our sin. That God chooses to put His glory on display in a way that is merciful and gracious only magnifies His glory, and anyone who misses this turns God into a servant of "life" - making life itself greater than the God who is its Author and Lord. When we do that, we put ourselves in a place where we will not be able to see past the blind and we set ourselves up to remain there until that notion is corrected.
My hope of course, is that this post is corrective.Labels: salvation., the atonement. |
|
posted by Daniel @
12:21 PM
7 comment(s)
|
|
|
|
| 2 Peter 2:1 and the Atonement. |
1But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction." - 2 Peter 2:1 [ESV]
There are many good articles written with regards to the interpretation of this verse.
There is a real and present danger, in any passage of scripture, to wag the dog of the verse by the tail of your theology, and being well aware of my own understanding of the atonement, I must guard myself (when coming to this verse) from trying to marry it back to my theology regardless of what it "plainly says".
I put "plainly says" in quotes like that because it is common practice for anyone who wants to make a point to suggest that the point is rather obvious, and that it is only obscured by one's presuppositions - we therefore say something is plain, when what we usually mean is that since we believe it means such and such, and we believe that a simple reading of it will always produce that interpretation, the only reason you don't see it is because you want it to say something else.
This verse isn't all that "plain" nor is it all that simple. There is a lot of ambiguity in it, and when we see ambiguity, it is our nature to fill in the blanks with what we think should go there. I am reminded of various optical illusions where this happens - we see colors that arn't there, or dots etc., because our mind is filling in the gaps for us. We are wired, I believe, to do the same thing when it comes to ambiguity - we fill in the cracks with whatever putty is at hand, and whether the putty at hand leans to the left or to the right, as it were, so our "plain and simple" reading will reflect that.
Which is my way of noting up front that many come to a firm conviction with regards to what this verse means without identifying or quantifying/weighing any of the ambiguities in it.
The links given above spell out how the word translated as "Master" here is only ever used to describe God the Father anywhere else in scripture. The word translated as "bought" here does not, and cannot mean "paid for but did not take ownership of". Likewise, When Peter calls to mind the false prophets of the OT, we can look to the OT to find what Peter is talking about, and most agree the passage in Deuteronomy 32:6 is what Peter is referencing - and if so, it stands to reason that if Peter is reasoning from an OT passage, the thrust of that passage is likely the current upon which this present verse is floating - meaning that there is more to consider here than how it reads in the English.
Now, the question that everyone asks of this verse is this: Is Peter, in discussing something entirely different, tangentially endorsing an unlimited atonement - that is, even though Peter is not talking about the atonement, is he assuming that Christ died (atoned) for everyone? Are we right, or is it proper to infer from Peter's language that He believed (and therefore taught and assumed this general knowledge from his readers) that Jesus died for every person who ever lived.
Let's be succinct here. The verse doesn't say that Jesus died for every person who ever lived, but it certainly can be read in a way that suggests that, and we must be fair here, no matter what we believe - it isn't a stretch to read the verse that way.
You may have noticed that I highlighted in red three things when I presented the verse above: the people, false prophets, and them.
One way to "plainly" read this verse is to say, the false prophets will arise from amongst the people and will introduce destructive heresies to the people, even denying the Master who bought the false prophets.
Another way to read this verse is to say, the false prophets will arise from amongst the people and will introduce destructive heresies to the people, even denying the Master who bought the people.
The first interpretation has the false prophets introducing the people (Christians) to destructive heresies then noting that one such heresy would be to deny the Master who bought even the false prophets.
The second interpretation has the false prophets introducing the people (Christians) to destructive heresies such as teaching the people to deny the God who bought them (the people).
I honestly think the second is more obvious than the first.
There are godly people who see it the other way, and would refute my understanding with grace and far more who would refute it without grace. Both camps appeal to verses that inform their opinion, and I don't suggest that this is going to change any one's decided opinion. It was just my meditation this morning, and I will continue to examine it.
I don't believe for a second that when the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies on the day of Atonement, he was offering atonement for the whole world. I think the names of the tribes of Israel carved into the epaulets on his shoulders, and again the dozen stones on his breast piece give testimony as to who was being born into the place of atonement - and it was not the Gentiles - it was not the whole world, only Israel was being remembered there - only Israel was being atoned - and I think this is the picture we see elsewhere. Noah's ark wasn't built big enough to hold everyone on the earth, it was designed beforehand to hold just as many as were actually going to be on it. There is no provision made on the cross for those who will not be on it in Christ.
I don't believe that God is trying to save everyone.
Let me briefly qualify that. When Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, I don't believe it was God's purpose to try and save everyone, for were that the case, then God failed, since not everyone looked to what God raised up for their salvation. Rather I think the purpose was to raise up something by which the faithful would be saved; i.e. God's intent was to save all of the faithful from the serpent.
Anyway, the point is not to get into a grand "I am right, you are wrong" kind of atonement argument - for those abound elsewhere, and you are free to grind your axes elsewhere. The point was to just air out some of my thoughts and perhaps in doing so help others who struggle (or ought to struggle) with this verse.Labels: the atonement. |
|
posted by Daniel @
6:55 AM
4 comment(s)
|
|
|
|
|
|
