Present doctrine of atonement fallacies

[Nic Samojluk]

The insulted party who is "angry with the wicked...." Ps 7:11 KJV, whose anger/wrath "is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,.." Rom 1:18 NIV

I see this as a matter of emphasis. Do you prefer to place the emphasis on how angry and wrathful is God, or how deeply hurt is he in response to our rejection of his infinite love?

[Nic Samojluk]

Originally Posted By: Gerry Cabalo

Beautiful, but there's something missing here as I see it. Sinner taken back just because he says, "I'm sorry?" Furthermore, even AFTER he says, "I'm sorry," he is still MISSING THE MARK! AND NO PENALTIES!!! That invalidates the law, not uphold it. That results in anarchy! If I were the devil, I would scream, "FOUL!!!"

no.

sinner taken back because he has been changed.

i cant let an unrepentant murderer into my home, but i can let a repentant murderer into my home...i dont have to kill him or someone else to do so.

True indeed. Once the former murderer is no longer a murderer, there is no need to execute him, nor the need to kill a totally innocent bystander.

[Gerr]

Originally Posted By: Gerry

Beautiful, but there's something missing here as I see it. Sinner taken back just because he says, "I'm sorry?" Furthermore, even AFTER he says, "I'm sorry," he is still MISSING THE MARK! AND NO PENALTIES!!! That invalidates the law, not uphold it. That results in anarchy! If I were the devil, I would scream, "FOUL!!!"

True. Any way you try to solve the sin problem there is something which will be invalidated. Demanding the penalty after forgiveness has been granted invalidates the true meaning of forgiveness. We need to make a choice: Do we prefer that the Law be invalidated or that true forgiveness be invalidated.

Do I understand you to mean that forgiveness is the remission of debt is without cost? Perhaps you are overlooking the fact that forgiveness does not mean cancellation of debt without cost at all, the forgiver BEARS THE COST himself!!!

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This dilemma suggests that no matter which explanation for the atonement we choose, we will encounter a serious problem. This is why Ellen White did take advantage of all theories of the atonement. Notice the following statement she made:

That's why we can't zero in on one concept and say "this is it." See my post above on Rom 3:24-25.

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Sin blinds our eyes to the value we have in the sight of a Holy God, and it prevents us from understanding the suffering we inflict on him when we rebel against his rule.

Not only that, it blinds us to the true nature of sin and how odious sin is in the sight of a holy God.

[pnattmbtc]

But notice how Paul syncretized, as I have pointed out in a previous post, four different concepts of what the Cross means/meant.

[Nic Samojluk]

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no.

sinner taken back because he has been changed.

So the change is what saves him? The change is what satisfies the demands of the broken law?

What saves the sinner is God's love for the sinner. You seem to place the main emphasis on the broken law. God's main concern is more on the broken relationship. The true remedy for a broken relationship is love and forgiveness.

[Gerr]

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True indeed. Once the former murderer is no longer a murderer, there is no need to execute him, nor the need to kill a totally innocent bystander.

So then, what you are saying to is that Christ's death was totally unncessary, and therefore we had/have no need of Him!!!

[Nic Samojluk]

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God is a just judge, And God is angry with the wicked every day. Ps 7:11 NKJ

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth - Rom 1:18 ESV

What do you do to to quiet anger/wrath?

You should probably keep on reading. When you have a disobedient child that is old enough to make up their own mind, what is the loving thing to do? Let them go their own way, even if it leads to destruction. That is what the wrath of God is.

God is the cure to sin, and by refusing that cure the inevitable result is death. He can't force it on us.

It is very important to understand Gods wrath, just like Jesus on the cross suffered from it, "why have You forsaken me"...

If God is love then according to Paul He keeps no record of wrong doing...

Yes, it is better to stress how deep is God hurt because we are rejecting his love than emphasizing his anger and wrath.

[pnattmbtc]

Do I understand you to mean that forgiveness is the remission of debt is without cost? Perhaps you are overlooking the fact that forgiveness does not mean cancellation of debt without cost at all, the forgiver BEARS THE COST himself!!!

[Gerr]

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Paid *for* man (as explained).

I KNOW who was paid FOR, the question is - TO WHOM was the payment made?

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The difference is what has been being explained, and quoted.

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Understanding the character of God, knowing His goodness, Satan chose to follow his own selfish, independent will. This choice was final. There was no more that God could do to save him. But man was deceived; his mind was darkened by Satan's sophistry. The height and depth of the love of God he did not know. For him there was hope in a knowledge of God's love. By beholding His character he might be drawn back to God. (DA 762)

This has been quoted several times. Is this not clear? If it's not, I can explain it, but it seems quite clear to me.

Not infrequently, something has to be repeated over & over before the truth sinks in!!! Thanks!!!

[Gerr]

Sin not only kills, it causes disorder in God's orderly universe in which everything runs on some kind of law.

[pnattmbtc]

Paid *for* man (as explained).

I KNOW who was paid FOR, the question is - TO WHOM was the payment made?

I addressed this with the fireman analogy. To whom was the price the fireman paid?

[pnattmbtc]

Sin not only kills, it causes disorder in God's orderly universe in which everything runs on some kind of law.

The law describes reality. It doesn't create reality.

If there were no law, it would be just as true that sin causes misery, suffering and death.

People would still die, without there being a law, because sin is based on the principle of selfishness. Selfishness causes people to separate themselves from God, who alone is the source of life. Law, or no law, sin causes death. The inevitable result of sin is death.

Death does not come about as the result of an arbitrary penalty being enforced, but as the natural result of a deadly act. It's akin to taking poison, as opposed to being executed for an offense.

The law is a means to an end, to help us see the truth. The truth is what sin does to us, and our need of a Savior. But these truths would be just as true without the law.

[Gerr]

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If God is love then according to Paul He keeps no record of wrong doing...

Then why the books? And the IJ?

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Yes, it is better to stress how deep is God hurt because we are rejecting his love than emphasizing his anger and wrath.

Mercy will always trump justice. But we need to understand His wrath so that we can better understand the depth of His love. You won't know how valuable a person is until you know the price paid.

[pnattmbtc]

Not infrequently, something has to be repeated over & over before the truth sinks in!!! Thanks!!!

Yes, you're right.

Especially when something involves a change in the way one thinks. I wrestled with this thing for years. It really doesn't make sense for me to expect others to get it quickly.

Have you heard of Piaget? If so, these discussions remind me of the work he did. If you're not familiar with his work, I'll explain (it's pretty interesting).

[Gerr]

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The law describes reality. It doesn't create reality.

If there were no law, it would be just as true that sin causes misery, suffering and death.

That would be impossible. As Paul says, no law, no sin.

[Gerr]

No, I don't know Piaget. I am not as widely-read as you.

[Nic Samojluk]

God in His great mercy bore long with Lucifer. He was not immediately degraded from his exalted station when he first indulged the spirit of discontent, nor even when he began to present his false claims before the loyal angels. Long was he retained in heaven. Again and again he was offered pardon on condition of repentance and submission. (GC 495)

This is without Christ's having died, nor having to die. If Lucifer had simply repented, he would have been forgiven.

[Lutz13]

He had sinned. The point is that God can forgive sin without Christ's having to die to enable Him to do so.

Amen. You made great points in that whole post so amen to all.

For what it is worth, here is how I have come to view what happened.

Satan being the beloved angel who actually taught the other angels and was looked up to. If someone in that high of a rank started speaking lies they would believe him. So if he started saying "God will kill you if you do not follow him" they would question God.

If God were to simply say, "that isn't true, I wouldn't do that!" Do you think they would just believe Him? Probably not, so the only thing He could really do was to present evidence. The cross wasn't just for us, but for the universe. It "destroyed the works of the devil", his work was the lies he spread throughout the universe.

God was simply showing that it is sin that destroys, and not Him. This was made clear at the cross, and showed Satan to be a liar.

All sins can be forgiven, but the problem is we can reach a point where we won't be able to acknowledge that we have a problem. Gods only choice at that point is to let us go. Which is "the wrath of God".

The angels above and all the universe have been watching the controversy play out. They have seen the evidence, and the scriptures were written so that we too could see the evidence and come to our own conclusions.

[pnattmbtc]

Nic:If God is love then according to Paul He keeps no record of wrong doing...

G:Then why the books? And the IJ?

[karl]

Our sin is removed from us as far as the east is from the west. East and West start where each person stands, but we are separated from our sin by going in the opposite direction from the one we were headed as sinners.

[pnattmbtc]

No, I don't know Piaget. I am not as widely-read as you.

I'm probably older.

Anyway, Piaget was a child psychologist who designed some interesting experiments. During his time, the common idea was that child were basically like miniature adults. Piaget disagreed with this idea. His idea was that children thought very differently than adults, but that as one matures, one forgets how one used to think. To prove this he designed a series of experiments.

One of the experiments has the observer showing two clumps of clay that have the same shape and the same mass, and weighing them in from of the children, showing them that they weigh the same. He then, in their presence and sight, changes the shape of one of the clumps of clay, and asks them which clump would weigh more. Children that have learned the principle that changing the shape of an object doesn't affect how much it weighs would correctly answer that they would still weigh the same. Children that hadn't learned the principle would answer according to the shape it had (just like we would, if we didn't see the preliminaries).

The observers then did a second experiment, which was to explain the principle to the children who didn't know it, and then repeat the experiment, but this time they secretly took away a bit of clay from one of the clumps, so now they didn't weigh the same. The children that knew the principle looked for the missing clay, correctly accusing the guy of having secretly taken away a bit of the clay. The children that hadn't understood the principle before, but simply had it explained to them, were confused.

They hadn't internalized the idea.

As my thinking has evolved on the atonement idea, these experiments of Piaget have come to mind.

A change of paradigm is a really tricky thing to deal with. I think this was one of Christ's biggest obstacles. I think this is what He had in mind when He said that new wine could fit in old wine skins.

[pnattmbtc]

Satan being the beloved angel who actually taught the other angels and was looked up to. If someone in that high of a rank started speaking lies they would believe him. So if he started saying "God will kill you if you do not follow him" they would question God.

If God were to simply say, "that isn't true, I wouldn't do that!" Do you think they would just believe Him? Probably not, so the only thing He could really do was to present evidence. The cross wasn't just for us, but for the universe. It "destroyed the works of the devil", his work was the lies he spread throughout the universe.

God was simply showing that it is sin that destroys, and not Him. This was made clear at the cross, and showed Satan to be a liar.

All sins can be forgiven, but the problem is we can reach a point where we won't be able to acknowledge that we have a problem. Gods only choice at that point is to let us go. Which is "the wrath of God".

The angels above and all the universe have been watching the controversy play out. They have seen the evidence, and the scriptures were written so that we too could see the evidence and come to our own conclusions.

[fccool]

I've sort of abandoned this discussion for a while, but reading through the progression since then, I do see the benefit of letting certain ideas sink in.

We tend to discuss doctrinal dogmas in context of "proof-texts", but I find it impossible to do when taken in light of the entire Biblical narrative. It's quite easy to take a couple proof-texts and string them into a church doctrine. It's not so easy to justify it in light of the entire Biblical narrative.

When I read Acts, and subsequently the NT, I find it very odd that people don't see the same practice of systematic doctrine and hierarchy that we see being practiced today with set religious liturgies and canonized tradition that loosely based on our interpretation of certain matter, and then our unwillingness to be proven wrong.

A church that is not willing to re-view of reconsider it's views on certain doctrinal matters is in fact a church that is unwilling to change even if truth walks through its doors. So, rather than take the objective position, the modern Christianity is highly subjective and follows the traditional interpretation of its leadership.

Hence, our idea of "church" progressed from a congregation of believers, to the idea of the building where the congregation takes place... and where child would be sinning by merely running through it. Thus we teach the idea of "holy buildings" and "holy things", instead of teaching the idea of "holy lives"...

The Etymology of holy is from hālig ... meaning: uninjured, sound, healthy, entire, complete.

ecclesia - called out ones

qodesh, hagios - denotes SEPARATION... into good. It really drives me mad when we begin to super-spiritualize our language and thus confuse everything. We tend to throw the Holy on the side of the "sacred"... which denoted being worthy of spiritual devotion and respect, but does not carry the underlying idea of separation.

Likewise, when we speak of atonement, we automatically assumed a penal substitution... thus to atone automatically carries a substitution context, and is used incorrectly, forgetting the original meaning and taking on a rather confusing underlying meaning.

[pnattmbtc]

We tend to discuss doctrinal dogmas in context of "proof-texts", but I find it impossible to do when taken in light of the entire Biblical narrative. It's quite easy to take a couple proof-texts and string them into a church doctrine. It's not so easy to justify it in light of the entire Biblical narrative.

When I read Acts, and subsequently the NT, I find it very odd that people don't see the same practice of systematic doctrine and hierarchy that we see being practiced today...

This is an excellent point. Richard B. Hays and Timothy Luke Johnson have discussed this principle. Hays wrote a book called "The Faith of Jesus," and talks about the importance of the narrative.

We tend to look at things in terms of proof texts, as you said. Hays' point is that Paul wrote in terms of a narrative. The important thing was the narrative of Jesus Christ. The Good News was not simply a text here or there one could grab, but the account of Jesus Christ. I'm a bit rusty on some of the details. I'll have to take another look, but he basically made the same point you're making here.

[fccool]

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Satan being the beloved angel who actually taught the other angels and was looked up to. If someone in that high of a rank started speaking lies they would believe him. So if he started saying "God will kill you if you do not follow him" they would question God.

If God were to simply say, "that isn't true, I wouldn't do that!" Do you think they would just believe Him? Probably not, so the only thing He could really do was to present evidence. The cross wasn't just for us, but for the universe. It "destroyed the works of the devil", his work was the lies he spread throughout the universe.

It's not quite as simple as that. This is precisely the kind of reasoning that we resort to when we converse with Atheists, but this is the kind of reasoning that we shoot ourselves in the foot while portraying God's respect for free will... catch 22.

Example, if you see a child walking in direction of a stove and willingly trying to touch it... the child does not have a knowledge or experience of the stove, but it looks red and interesting, and the curiosity takes over... would you as adult just sit there and watch, and then make it a valuable lesson from it at child's expense? I would not let my cat do that... not even talking about human being.

Likewise, if someone would believe that cyanide had healing properties and starts pouring it into glass, ... if you had power to do so... would you restrain that person from drinking it, while providing a full explanation of the consequences?

It's one thing to let someone willingly commit suicide (which most of us would not do)... it's another thing to let people unknowingly go though death as a lesson for someone else. There's no lesson in death for those who are dead .

Coming back to the story of Job... Satan indeed was right to a certain degree. When put through extreme pressure and confused by his friends, Job cracked. Job's obedience was in a sense constrained to his understanding of God's goodness. It was not based on trust that no matter how bad things look, it's eventually for the better.

So, who did Job suffer for and what? Was it to prove Satan wrong? Was it to prove God right? I would argue that neither. Job's suffering was to demonstrate the greatness of God and His plan. It was not to demo the righteousness of Job, or wickedness of Satan. The whole point to the story is that certain things we will not know until the end... or ever... but we still have to trust based on certain evidence of God's goodness. The lesson was for Job. It was not for Satan. And the lesson had to do with questioning the judgment of all-knowing God.

There are many "Job-like" scenarios in modern world today, and to chalk it up to God's demonstration to Satan the wickedness of his ways would be very naive point that misses the complexity of God's justice and patience.

I always ask people who put that view forward... if this is the case, then why did God wipe out most of human and animal population with flood, and still permitted fallen angels to remain in their fallen state? Why not wipe them out along with the fallen humans?

What we don't realize is there's a purpose for evil, which is point to God and his justice. The entire history of this universe is a big cosmic school textbook that we have to learn in order to understand God's nature, and likewise willingly conform to it.

There's a reason why the tree was titled "knowledge of good and evil". This event in essence was meant to happen sooner or later, and it also typifies the human growth from childhood into adolescence. As children we are given certain explanations without underlying understanding. I.E.

- don't drink alcohol

- why not, it's just a liquid?

- it will kill you and cause harm to other

- what? Then why is it sold?

- Just don't, trust me

That's why all birth process stops in New Heaven and New Earth... because we as human race reach the spiritual maturity.

So, in essence, the experience of evil (by directly doing it, or indirectly suffering from it) gets us in contrast to understand goodness of God. The lesson is for us, thus the suffering and sin eventually play out a role that in the end does benefit us as a race... no matter how sick it may seem.