Bishop Mike Lowry: Heading Towards the Cross – The Offense of Substitutionary Atonement

on April 3, 2014

The following guest post is from Bishop Mike Lowry.  Bishop Lowry was elected to the United Methodist episcopacy in 2008, and since then has presided over the Central Texas Conference.   This post is republished with permission.

 

I readily confess that one of my favorite more contemporary Christian hymns/songs is “In Christ Alone” (written in 2001).  Its emphasis on the centrality of Christ and trusting the Lord rarely fails to move me to a deeper conviction and engage me in a stronger commitment.  It is one of those songs that feeds my soul.  Even typing the words, the great, first verse anchors my being and brings me before the Lord in peace.


“In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.”

The second verse moves into an affirmation of the incarnation. “Christ alone, Who took on flesh, Fullness of God in helpless babe!” Yet, from there it plunges into claims of atonement that are often an offense. 

“This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev’ry sin on Him was laid –“

The third verse embraces the resurrection in full-throated glory and the fourth verse moves the listener to the heights of discipleship in sanctified commitment.  Yet the last half of the second verse remains as an in-your-face declaration of substitutionary atonement.

In my last blog, “Heading Towards the Cross: The Workings of the Cross – Atonement” I noted the variety of metaphors which speak to the issue of how the cross “works” or how we are atoned – if you will, “at-oned” with God in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. I made no claims that my list was exhaustive (the list was largely, though not exclusively, taken from the writing of Scot McKnight in his book A Community Called Atonement). I emphasized how the earliest Christians refused to settle for a single metaphor or image understanding of atonement and salvation.  Through a refusal to settle for a single metaphor and an equal refusal to jettison any one biblical image under the inspired guidance of the Holy Spirit, those earliest Christians led us to a great and uncomfortable truth.  We wish to pick the image we like and slide quickly by the rest. Such is a mistake of biblical proportions.

In particular this conflict can be noted around issues relating to substitutionary atonement.  Substitutionary atonement is the notion (metaphor or image) that Jesus did something we could not do for ourselves.  He paid the price for our sin.  In short form it goes something like this.  A righteous, just, and holy God cannot simply ignore the disasters and evil consequence of sin.  The price of sin must be paid.  Christ, the one sinless human being (fully human and fully divine!), on the cross paid the price that just and righteous God required. God’s wrath is not against humans but against sin.  It is the logical consequence of love’s full embrace.  To demand that God’s wrath towards sin be ignored is effectively to live in a delusion of sin’s effect on human life and living.  By way of illustration of sin’s power we simply need to point to the civil war waging in Syria this very day.  Or, should we chose something closer to home, we can easily note the rising homelessness in the world’s most prosperous nation (including right here in Fort Worth!).  These are the real world consequences of sin and they cannot be ignored or papered over. 

Yet notions of a wrathful God make us, especially those of the old mainline (now sideline) – shrink back in unfeigned disgust.  We recoil at the very idea of God’s wrath needing to be satisfied.  It makes God look vengeful and needless cruel. (Years ago I heard someone refer to it as “divine child abuse.”  In a recent article Dr. Bill Bouknight recalled that “back in 1993 at the infamous Re-Imagining Conference, a Union Seminary professor said, ‘We don’t need to hear about somebody hanging on a cross, and blood dripping, and all that stuff.’  And when those words were spoken, the interdenominational audience exploded into applause.  Obviously, the message of the cross is still as offensive as St. Paul found it to be—‘a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles’ (I Cor. 1:23).”  He went on to note that “The official position of the UMC is clearly stated in Article XX of the Articles of Religion: ‘The offering of Christ, once made, is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction but that alone’ (Bill Bouknight, The Atonement Controversy).”  Furthermore, scriptural references are too numerous to be ignored.  God has done what was impossible for the Law, since it was weak because of selfishness. God condemned sin in the body by sending his own Son to deal with sin in the same body as humans, who are controlled by sin. He did this so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us” (Romans 8:3, CEB).  “…he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (I John 2:2, NRSV).  “People are destined to die once and then face judgment. In the same way, Christ was also offered once to take on himself the sins of many people. He will appear a second time, not to take away sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:27-28).  “You are worthy to take the scroll and open its seals, because you were slain, and by your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe, language, people, and nation” (Revelation 5:9, CEB). The list could go on but the reader can get the drift.

Whether we like it or not, substitutionary atonement cannot be ignore.  H. Richard Niebuhr’s great quote will preach at lent!  A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross” (H. Richard Niebuhr from The Kingdom of God in America).  At the same time it is important, vitally important, that we do not boil our whole understanding of salvation down to substitutionary atonement.  What the first Christians refused to do, so should we refuse to do also.  There is room and application needed for all of the various understandings (theories/metaphors/images) of atonement.  We need to embrace the whole of the gospel not just part of it.

The offense of substitutionary atonement comes for much of our age because it, substitutionary atonement, takes sin so seriously.  This is a truth we need to recover not only in our preaching and teaching but in our lives and confession.  “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (I John 1:8-10).  We suffer from a surfeit of cheap grace.  A grace that costs little and means less.  Paul had it right, “we preach Christ crucified, which is a scandal to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. But to those who are called—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom” (I Corinthians 1:23-24).

The song, In Christ Alone, has it right, “Here in the death of Christ I live” (verse 2, last line).

  1. Comment by Steve on April 3, 2014 at 9:53 am

    Thank you Bishop Lowry for a clear, Scriptural apologetic. As we consider with seriousness the depth and reality of sin, we can also, with joy, embrace the call to holiness of heart and life empowered by the Spirit of the Risen Christ. “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” ( 2 Cor. 5:21. NIV) This powerful truth, rooted in orthodox, Biblical Christianity, is the core of our call as God’s people. Thank you for leading faithfully.

  2. Comment by Renfro on April 4, 2014 at 3:53 pm

    The problem with penal substitution is that it mislocates the central problem of sin as God’s wrath. The truth is that even if God never lifted a finger to punish sin, sin itself would still destroy sinners. To deny that is to deny the seriousness of sin. I am not arguing that God does not actively punish sin, clearly He does, I am arguing that God’s wrath was not the reason Jesus died on the cross. Even if God did not respond to sin in wrath, Jesus would still need to die on the cross and rise from the dead to rescue us from sin.

    So why does Jesus need to die on the cross and rise from the dead? I think it is a matter of justice, but penal substitution advocates have focused on the wrong priority of justice. In the Bible, justice requires both retribution for the guilty (that the sinner’s own sin return upon the sinner’s own head) but also restitution for the innocent, that innocent parties receive reparations for damages they have suffered. If we construct our atonement logic on the principle of restitution rather than retribution, we get a model that better represents what is going on in the Scriptures: Justice requires restitution for damages done to innocent parties. Humans have totally and severely destroyed themselves by their own sin (God is not the victim of our sin. In the case of sin against God, the offense is to the destruction of the offender, like punching a brick wall). God desires to enact restitution for humanity’s self-destruction, but humans are not innocent, they are guilty, so how can a just God enact restitution for guilty sinners? Answer: God becomes a human in the person of Jesus Christ and suffers all of sin’s destruction and the hands of all humanity on the cross. Jesus therefore merits restitution for all of sin’s destruction, for he alone has suffered it as an innocent party. This restitution manifests in his resurrection, when “God raised our Great Shepherd from the dead through the blood of the eternal covenant (Heb 13:20).” So the correct response to the question “Why did Jesus die?” is: in order for all suffering and death to be repaired by God, all suffering and death had to be endured by a perfectly innocent and righteous person (for only innocent persons have the right of restitution for wrongs suffered) and only Jesus qualifies as that perfectly righteous person.

    Divine Justice is therefore satisfied in the Resurrection as the reversal and reparation of all the sin that Jesus unjustly suffered on the cross. Jesus dies under the unjust judgment of Humans, and is raised by the just judgment of God. Jesus’ reward, or inheritance, of the covenantal blessings applies to the rest of Humanity if by the power of the Holy Spirit we participate in His death (through remorse) and participate in His resurrection (through repentance). So the gospel is not that “God substituted Himself to satisfy His own wrath,” which is not Biblical terminology. The gospel is exactly what Paul says it is: “the good news that God has fulfilled His promises to our children in that He raised Jesus up from the dead (Acts 13:30).” The gospel is that God’s covenantal promises to restore the world from Adam’s curse (the subject of the Old Testament) are fulfilled in Jesus’ resurrection (the subject of the New Testament).

  3. Comment by Geary on April 11, 2014 at 3:52 pm

    How many lawyers were sacrificed in the writing of this piece by Renfro?

  4. Comment by Episcopius on May 20, 2014 at 11:25 am

    Amen to that! Thank you.

  5. Comment by rex on May 20, 2014 at 9:39 pm

    He used I Corinthians 1:23-24 but it “begs the question” first if Penal Substitution is really Biblical etc.

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