OPEN THEISM'S ATTACK ON THE ATONEMENT

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

by
John F. MacArthur

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: The Master's Seminary Journal Vol. 12, No. 1, Spring 2001

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TMSJ 12/1 (Spring 2001) 3-13
OPEN THEISM'S ATTACK
ON THE ATONEMENT'*

John MacArthur
President and Professor of Pastoral Ministries

Open theism arose in evangelicalism over a decade ago when evangelicals posited a God to whom one can easily relate and who is manageable in place of a God who punishes sinners for their sin. This they did by proposing a model of Christ's atonement that was not substitutionary. To do so they adopted the model of the 16th-century Socinian heresy, which taught that God could forgive without the payment of a ransom. The biblical doctrine, however, is that Christ's atonement was substitutionary, a teaching that was not immediately defined in the early church, but which Anselm stated clearly during the 16th century. Open theists on the other hand tend to vacillate between the inadequate positions of Abelard and Grotius in their views of the atonement. Because of their distorted views of the atonement, open theists do not belong in the ranks of evangelicalism.

* * * * *

More than a decade ago a controversial article in Christianity Today heralded the rise of open theism. The article, "Evangelical Megashift," was written by Robert Brow, a prominent Canadian theologian. Brow described a radical change looming on the evangelical horizon—a "megashift" toward "new-model" thinking, away from classical theism (which Brow labeled "old-model" theology).1 What the article outlined was the very movement that today is known as the "open" view of God, or "open theism."
Although Brow himself is a vocal advocate of open theism, his 1990 article neither championed nor condemned the megashift. In it, Brow sought merely to describe how the new theology was radically changing the evangelical concept of God by proposing new explanations for biblical concepts such as divine wrath, God's righteousness, judgment, the atonement-and just about every aspect of evangelical theology.

Major Views Of The Atonement

The atonement of Christ is the work He did in his life and death to earn our salvation. If we are to understand salvations then it is important that we understand the atonement.
Though it was not necessary that God save people, he has chosen to save some. There are not several different ways for people to be saved, nor has salvation been earned any other way than the way God has declared it. As we seek to understand salvation we must seek to understand Christ’s atoning work on the cross. However, throughout Church history many theories have arisen as to the precise nature of how the atonement works. There are also many theories on the work and nature of the Godhead and mans response. The new Testament speaks of the cross in a rich variety of ways, and most of the views of the atonement deal with one aspect of it.

The first view is sacrifice. This is the idea that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross is a sacrifice, which proceeded according to the typology of the Old Testament sacrificial system. In the Old Testament there were several classes of sacrifices. Central to this whole system was the shedding of the blood of a ritually clean substitute. These sacrifices were made for the people to cleanse them from their sins in most cases. The death of Jesus was a sacrifice for sin without which salvation was impossible, but in view of which salvation was inevitable. Heb 13:15-16 (possible connection between sacrificial language related to the cross and Christian life.)

In the case of the sacrifice Christ is both the victim and the priest. Jesus is the high priest and he is the lamb slain (victim). Human life requires an act of gratitude in view of Christ’s death, a sacrifice of praise to Him. This sacrifice was done objectively in that it was done without us, without our help and resistant of our opposition. To pay the penalty of death that we deserved because of our sin, Christ died as a sacrifice for us. “He has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb 9:26)

The second view is victory. In 1931 Sweedish Theologian Gustav Aulen wrote the book called christus victor, in which he sought to argue that the dominant understanding of the cross of Christ in the New Testament is that of Christ as one who wins victory. This is called the “dramatic view”, “victory view”, “classic view.” Under this understanding of atonement Christ is doing battle on the cross to defeat sin, death, hell and the devil. This is about Christ rescuing us from sin, death, hell and the devil as he takes victory over them. Special emphasis is given to Christ’s work, which is what Aulen describes as “dramatic.” This view is also Objective in that Christ’s victory over sin, death, hell, and satan is done apart from us, and yet it effects us directly.

The third view is satisfaction – An Italian archbishop of Canterbury named Anselm (1033-1109) was deeply dissatisfied with some of the views of the ransom theory (which believes that Jesus' life was paid as a ransom to the devil). Whatever power the devil exercises should be seen as illegitimate and he rejected the notion that God deceived the devil in the process of redeeming sinners (With the ransom theory some believed that Jesus tricked the devil, or decived him into killing Jesus in order to save sinners). God does not violate his own character to save humanity. He also claimed that the Ransom Theory gives the devil too much power. Anselm gave the answer instead that Jesus’ life was paid as a ransom not to the devil, but to God. He wrote a book called (Cur Deus Homo?) “why is God man.” In this book he seeks to show why both the incarnation and the death of the incarnate one are necessary for forgiveness.

There are 5 points to his argument
1. God created humanity in the state of original righteousness. His goal was to bring man to a higher blessedness.

2. Original righteousness depends upon obedience but disobedience is what occurred.

3. Since God’s purpose for humanity cannot be frustrated, the situation must be remedied but without violating God’s righteous character. Must be some satisfaction made to God’s violated righteousness. God cannot overlook what happened, there has to be some satisfaction to God’s violated righteousness.

4. Humanity cannot provide the satisfaction. We cannot do what is sufficient or necessary.

5. A God-Man can provide that satisfaction.

Anselm saw sin as dishonoring the majesty of God and he took a very serious
approach to sin itself. Appropriate satisfaction must be offered, and only a man who is God and Man can do this. Anselm, who lived in a feudal society, saw sin as dishonor to God. God's nature is such that He cannot overlook dishonor; thus a satisfaction is needed. Since sinful humankind is unable to make sufficient satisfaction, God became human to do it on humanity's behalf. Jesus is then a payment not to Satan but to God.

Instead of God owing to the devil, Anselm’s thrust was that man owed something to God. He saw sin as not rendering to God what is His due, namely the submission of one’s entire will to His, Hence to sin is to dishonor Him. However, man is incapable of ever repaying that which is owed. No one can make the satisfaction but God himself.
Once again this view is seen as Objective in that it doesn’t need our help or abilities, not is it dependant upon us, God requires a payment and receives that payment regardless of our actions or abilities.

The fourth view is the Moral Example or The Moral Influence theory. This is a subjective view of the atonement. This view puts the emphasis on the Love of Christ, and how he demonstrates that love. We have it on the authority of God that we are to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts and minds and souls. Abelard emphasized Christ as our example, “as christ did, so we should do”, viewing the christian life as the imatatio christi (imitate Christ). This focuses on the effect that Christ has on our lives, and on what we do.

The essence of the Moral Influence theory is that Christ’s Atoning work is directed to leading man to repentance and faith by revealing the true nature of God. This view being subjective, emphasizes the importance of the effect of christ’s cross on the sinner.

This view is generally attributed to Abelard, who emphasized the love of God, and is sometimes called the moral influence theory, or exemplarism. When we look at the cross we see the greatness of the divine love. This delivers us from fear and kindles in us an answering love. We respond to love with love and no longer live in selfishness and sin. Other ways of putting it include the view that the sight of the selfless Christ dying for sinners moves us to repentance and faith. If God will do all that for us, we say, then we ought not to continue in sin. So we repent and turn from it and are saved by becoming better people. The thrust in all this is on personal experience. The atonement, seen in this way, has no effect outside the believer. It is real in the person's experience and nowhere else.

It should be said that there is truth in this theory. Taken by itself it is inadequate, but it is not untrue. It is important that we respond to the love of Christ seen on the cross, that we recognize the compelling force of his example.
Peter Abelard of Brittany insisted that it is the love of God which avails. This view has no objective effect – it does not pay a penalty or win a victory other than symbolically. Rather the death of Christ shows us the greatness of God’s love and moves us to love in return and by extension, our fellow man.

Another view of the atonement is the Ransom Theory. The image of Christs death as a ransom. Origen had a part in dreaming this one up. The word ransom suggestions liberation, payment, and payee. The death of Christ is understood as a ransom payment for sinners. Payment to whom? “The payment could not be to God cause God was not holding sinners in captivity for a ransom, so the payment had to be to the devil.” – Origen. This suggests that God has to meet the legitimate demands of the devil. Greagory the Great elaborated on this view by insisting that the devil had gained rights over mankind, and God was obliged to respect these rights. Jesus hanging on the cross was like bait on the hook for the devil, and in so doing he gave up his own claim for the souls of sinful men. It’s based on 1 Peter 3:18-22, Christ descending to hell. This view holds that the devil has rights and God became a deceiver to trick the devil.

Penal Substitution is another idea of atonement. The Reformers agreed with Anselm that sin is a very serious matter, but they saw it as a breaking of God's law rather than as an insult to God's honor. The moral law, they held, is not to be taken lightly. "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23), and it is this that is the problem for sinful man. They took seriously the scriptural teachings about the wrath of God and those that referred to the curse under which sinners lay. It seemed clear to them that the essence of Christ's saving work consisted in his taking the sinner's place. In our stead Christ endured the death that is the wages of sin. He bore the curse that we sinners should have borne (Gal. 3:13). The Reformers did not hesitate to speak of Christ as having borne our punishment or as having appeased the wrath of God in our place.

The Protestant Reformers developed this doctrine by replacing God's honor with His justice and by speaking not only of Christ's passive obedience (death) but his active obedience as well (his fulfilling the law). Simply put, God requires that humankind obey an immutable law in a life of perfect, perpetual obedience. The purpose of the Mosaic law, as it was taught, was to prove humanity's inability to live up to these requirements. By perfectly keeping the law, Jesus earned salvation. By suffering our punishment in our place, Jesus extends this salvation to us.

A modern evangelical view is the penal-substitution theory which states that Christ bore in our place the full penalty of sin that was due to mankind. He suffered in man's place and His death was vicarious, totally for others (Pecota, 1994, p. 342).

This view takes seriously the Scriptural depictions of God's holiness and righteousness, finding expression in His judicial wrath. It takes seriously the Biblical description of man's depravity and inability to save oneself. It takes literally the statements that Christ died in man's place (Exodus 13:1-16; Leviticus 16:20-22; Isaiah 53:4-12; Mark 10:45; John 3:17; Galatians 3:13 among others).

The governmental theory is another view that was conceived by Hugo Grotius, a 17th century Dutch jurist, statesman and theologian. He viewed God as a lawgiver who both enacted
and sustained law in the universe. In fact, law is the result of God's will, and He is free to alter or abrogate it (Pecota, 1994, p. 341).

As God's law states "the soul that sins shall die" strict justice requires the eternal death of sinners. Simply forgiving could not uphold the law. The death of Christ, then, was a public example of the depth of sin and the lengths to which God would go to uphold the moral order of the universe. The effects of His death do not directly bear on us as Christ did not die in our place, but rather on our behalf. The focus was not saving sinners but upholding the law.
This view fails to recognise the substitutionary motif in Christ's death as revealed in Matthew 20:28, 26:28; John 10:14-15; II Corinthians 5:21 and Ephesians 5:25. Further, Pecota (1994, p. 341) states the "theory fails to explain the reason for choosing a sinless person to demonstrate God's desire to uphold the law. Why not put to death the worst of all sinners? Why Christ and not Barabbas?". Finally, this theory does not take into account the depravity of mankind - like Abelard, Grotius assumes a mere example will be sufficient to enable man to perform a law-abiding way of living.

All the above views, in their own way, recognize that the atonement is immeasurable and profound. There is nothing that we can compare it to because there isn’t much like it at all. Each view draws attention to an important aspect of our salvation and we shouldn’t declare them as false, and yet we must also realize that each of these views contains some flaws. We are small minded compared the vast knowledge of God and His creation and the atonement is a much larger concept than we can grasp ourselves. We really shouldn’t expect that we could ever explain the atonement to the fullest degree. “Even when we put them all together, we will no more than begin to comprehend a little of the vastness of God's saving deed.”

Quote:

---

so let's continue with a question...

---

Thank you. No. I'm so fatigued with that technique I no longer care about the answers.

I'm done.

I tried sending it to you via PM, but was told I couldn't. It was online for a year, but it isn't right now.

What do you suggest?

Maybe that helps some readers who don't understand..my rant and campaign against
NFDMTTS

Hi Ed, re: PMs -- I have to clean out my PM box. I'll do that later today & get back to you, OK?
Thanks.
N.

JimBob, after some of the speakers I've heard who do NOT give NFDMTTS I think I can understand exactly what you are talking about. Let me illustrate this interesting contrast.

There is a church I sometimes attend that would make dyed-in-the-wool hardcore conservative SDAs blanche. They have a praise band (a loud one, and a quite talented one too -- very tight, good job with the music overall, with a 15 year old on one keyboard and a 30-something on the other, and all ages in between and some older, singing and playing other instruments). The kids -- and the parents -- run around in bluejeans half the time there. The teen girls have SHORT skirts and LONG LONG legs. Most of the congregation is teenagers and their parents. Jewelry is common though not overblown.

The speakers there are some of the best I've heard in ages -- and few if any of them are SDA. They preach scripture, taking good chunks of it and expositing upon it, doing verbal diagrams of its components, bringing out priceless lessons, etc. One is genuinely FED there spiritually on GOOD FOOD -- whether one likes the music and the "view" -- or not.

There's another church I visit sometimes that does it all "right". Their music is high church music (very beautiful too). Members are dressed up -- VERY dressed up -- the proverbial Sunday best (or rather Sabbath best). There are 3 pastors there, and my piercing gets an odd glance or two. Very few wear jewelry. The service is very "orthodox SDA" if you know what I mean (stand up, sing hymn, now offertory, now special music, now children's story, another hymn ... etc.) and the sermon ... all 20-30 minutes of it ... is often what I think you mean by NFDMTTS. One or two verses of scripture isolated with tons and tons of padding, fluff and anecdotal illustrations. True, sometimes there's some nourishment there, a good lesson or two -- I don't think I've ever gotten NOTHING from a sermon -- but no way does this compare to the LIVING WORD dynamically preached at that little "way too casual" church full of bluejeaned parents and short-skirted teenagers.

I know which one feeds the hungry. By the way, the casual one has potluck every week, too. So you can get fed in all senses.

Just my experience; others' may vary.

I'll send it through when I can.