I’ll never forget the presbytery meeting where we examined an incoming minister. Along with other subjects, he subject of the Atonement was discussed. After the examination, a fellow minister told me, “I don’t believe God ever sent anyone to die for the sins of anyone else. That belief is primitive, barbaric, and unbiblical!” This minister is far from alone in the Presbyterian Church. It is not uncommon to hear colleagues caricature the Atonement as the ultimate in child abuse.
It’s surprising how many students come out of seminary without being able to articulate a coherent doctrine of the Atonement, even a heretical one. Even the moral influence theory, which I consider to be inadequate in itself, would be better than no theory at all. When asked, “What did Jesus’ death have to do, if anything, with the forgiveness of our sins?”, the church deserves a decent answer from those who wish to proclaim the Gospel. What else is the Gospel, if it is not in some way connected to the Cross and what it meant?
I took an entire course on the Atonement while working on my M.Div., taught by the late Dr. Roger Nicole. We saw that there were at least six forms of Biblical language to describe the work of Christ on the cross, including reconciliation, propitiation, sacrifice, courtroom, payment of a ransom, and victory over the powers of evil.
The most important lesson Dr. Nicole taught us was that all other theories of the Atonement depend on Anselm’s penal substitution theory for their thrust. For instance, the moral influence theory holds that Jesus’ death did not actually take away sin, but simply inspires us to be better people because of Jesus’ heroic example. One obvious problem here is that none of us can be saved by being better people. But aside from that problem is the problem, How can the cross be a moral influence on us, unless Jesus was truly bearing the penalty for our sins?
Dr. Nicole used the image of a firefighter who rushes into a burning building. If the person dies in the attempt to save a fire victim inside the building, we call that person a hero, and their death truly serves as a moral influence on us. But if a person rushes into a burning building knowing that the building is empty, and dies for no good reason whatever, we call their death a senseless tragedy, not a positive moral influence.
Without the truth articulated by Anselm (which was believed many centuries before Anselm put it into words), such is the case with the cross of Jesus. If Jesus was not truly bearing the penalty for our sins, the cross becomes a stupid, needless travesty of justice. There was no principle of truth or justice that required him to stand his ground. He knew how to disappear without a trace. Why not flee to India? Why not bypass the cross? Can’t the world be saved by simply learning to be better people? Isn’t there some other way?
Jesus throws himself flat on the ground at Gethsemane and pleads with God to do exactly that: to save the world some other way, “if it be possible.” Take this horrible prospect of suffering away! Let people be saved through being good, or through some other religion. Or just sweep sin under the rug and pretend that it doesn’t exist. After all, you’re God! You can do whatever you want, right? Must I endure the ultimate torture if there’s any other way around it?
If there were any other way for people to be put right with God, other than the cross, wouldn’t God have done it? If any other religion in the world offered a substitute way that could rescue anyone from the guilt and penalty of sin, the cross would have been entirely unnecessary. I am convinced that there was no other way. Jesus didn’t die just to give us another smorgasbord option for how to reach God.
The early creeds say virtually nothing about the Atonement or penal substitution, in contrast to the great detail they go into about Christology. Why? Because the Atonement was not in dispute. It was a huge underlying assumption. The patristic writers may have spoken only victory language and not the language of substitution, but they never dispute the language of substitution, and their use of victory language is rendered unintelligible if the underlying assumption of substitution is taken away.
In Cur Deus Homo?, Anselm spelled out what our entire Nicene-Chalcedonian Christology was predicated upon: the principle that only Someone who was fully God and fully human could satisfy the penalty of human sin for an entire world. Every other belief about what Jesus did for us depends on that belief for its meaning. In this light, we can see why it was so important to Athanasius and his followers to affirm that Jesus was both fully God and fully human. His qualifications to save us from our sin depended entirely on whether the complete Nicene formula was true.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 that it is “of first importance” that “Christ died for our sins.” Whatever language we find most meaningful to describe what happened that day on the cross, it all depends on whether God Incarnate was truly and voluntarily suffering the penalty of sin that we deserved. Whatever we consider to be part of the Christian Good News, this Good News must be central and non-negotiable, for the Reformed tradition and for any other tradition that wishes to call itself Christian.
TOM HOBSON of Belleville, Ill., a PC(USA) pastor for 28 years, is currently serving at First Church in Herrin, Ill and as adjunct professor at Morthland College, West Frankfort, Ill.
