21 September 2005
Another question
So, am I totally missing it or does Scripture really NEVER say that Christ *reconciled God* to us? I've just been over the passages using reconcile in the NT and it appears to me that in every blasted one of them it is confessed that Christ's death has reconciled US to God and NOT that it was what reconciled God to us! Again, it appears that in the Scriptural witness, although we may have been HIS enemies, HE was never ours! Thoughts?
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17 comments:
Pardon the talking to myself. But IF so, then what becomes of statements like this of AC III: "He did this to reconcile the Father to us"???
You know I've always looked at Romans 5:10 in completely the opposite way. But you're right. Hmmmm. I remember growing up hearing my pastor say, *We were born dead and enemies of God*. It's amazing how, *God's enemies* par Romans 5:10 can be turned into, *enemies of God*.
In my opinion, saying we are enemies of God, has disastrous effects. It teaches christians to look upon God as angry, forever needing to be appeased. It's that same scenario classically associated with Luther. Except, we Lutherans have Jesus to appease the Father, while catholics have works. (I'm exaggerating of course...I realize catholics have Jesus). But the root of the problem is never really fixed. Very sad.
(Thanks for pointing this out)
Exactly, Cheryl! Exactly. What a glorious grace it opens up to us. I feel like a kid in a candy shop. The more passages I look at, the more I see that I'd been getting it backwards for years. Reading the verses in reverse and not even noticing.
Either way, the effect is the same, right? I mean -- it's good to know that God has graciously sought after us in our rebellion all along; that He has never turned His back on us or consigned us to the eternal damnation we deserve. But when a man makes a just God His enemy, he effectively makes himself an enemy of that just God.
Still, I do think it's comforting that God's disposition toward us remains loving. That is, it seems to me, the very heart of the Gospel. It's the point at which non-Lutheran confessions diverge from the Gospel most dangerously: requiring our disposition to change toward God, before His disposition will change toward us. God's alien work of wrath is Law, and must never be dragged into the Church's proclamation of the Gospel.
Good thoughts, David.
I guess, backing up to Cheryl's point, the difficulty arises when the problem of salvation is how to turn off God's anger. The RC answer was that he turns the spigot a bit and we turn the spigot a bit and together we get that sucker stopped. In some Lutheran's thinking, Jesus comes into our flesh to turn that spigot off all by himself. But when you realize that the problem of salvation isn't some conflict in God (between his justice and his love or whatever), but OUR turning away from that Love that He has constantly dished out, what changes in our thinking?
I think you are right that at the heart of Lutheranism is the recognition: God is for me! I think the mistake that gets made too often is that God is for me *on account of what Christ did for me.* That is inverted: God is for you and that is WHY Christ did what He did for you. The cross did not CHANGE God's disposition towards you, but manifested that disposition!
In short, He didn't come to appease any wrath of the Father, but to vanquish the enemies of the human race: sin, death, and hell!
This is not to deny the reality of the wrath of God. It exists and is real, but I think it is directed specifically at what is destroying the creatures He loves. What happens when a person HOLDS ONTO that which is destroying them? Well, duh, you say, they are destroyed. Right?
Thoughts?
One more thought that came to me as I wrote to a good friend:
Jesus on the Cross IS the wrath of God directed against the enemies of the human race: sin, death, and hell. He is going after them hammer and tongs, but the heavenly hammer and tongs are forgiveness and love that overcome these enemies of the human race and win the hearts of men back to God.
Chrysostom on 2 Cor 5...
Seest thou how he has extolled the thing by introducing Christ thus in the form of a suppliant; yea rather not Christ only, but even the Father? For what he says is this: 'The Father sent the Son to beseech, and to be His Ambassador unto mankind. When then He was slain and gone, we succeeded to the embassy; and in His stead and the Father's we beseech you. So greatly doth He prize mankind that He gave up even the Son, and that knowing He would be slain, and made us Apostles for your sakes; so that he said with reason, "All things are for your sakes." (2 Cor. iv. 15.) "We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ," that is, instead of Christ; for we have succeeded to His functions.' But if this appears to thee a great thing, hear also what follows wherein he shows that they do this not in His stead only, but also in stead of the Father. For therefore he also added, "As though God were entreating by us." 'For not by the Son Himself only doth He beseech, but also by us who have succeeded to the office of the Son. Think not therefore,' he says, 'that by us you are entreated; Christ Himself, the Father Himself of Christ, beseeches you by us. What can come up to this excess [of goodness]? He was outraged who had conferred innumerable benefits; having been outraged, He not only exacted not justice, but even gave His son that we might be reconciled. They that received Him were not reconciled, but even slew Him. Again, He sent other ambassadors to beseech, and though these are sent, it is Himself that entreats. And what doth He entreat? "Be ye reconciled unto God." And he said not, 'Reconcile God to yourselves; for it is not He that beareth enmity, but ye; for God never beareth enmity. Urging moreover his cause, like an ambassador on his mission, he says, Vet. 21. "For Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our account."
'I say nothing of what has gone before, that ye have outraged Him, Him that had done you no wrong, Him that had done you good, that He exacted not justice, that He is first to beseech, though first outraged; let none of these things be set down at present. Ought ye not in justice to be reconciled for this one thing only that He hath done to you now?' And what hath He done? "Him that knew no sin He made to be sin, for you." For had He aChieved nothing but done only this, think how great a thing it were to give His Son for those that had outraged Him. But now He hath both well achieved mighty things, and besides, hath suffered Him that did no wrong to be punished for those who had done wrong. But he did not say this: but mentioned that which is far greater than this. What then is this? "Him that knew no sin," he says, Him that was righteousness itself, "He made sin," that is suffered as a sinner to be condemned, as one cursed to die. "For cursed is he that hangeth on a tree." (Gal. iii. 13.) For to die thus was far greater than to die; and this he also elsewhere implying, saith, "Becoming obedient unto death, yea the death of the cross." (Phil. ii. 8.) For this thing carried with it not only punishment, but also disgrace. Reflect therefore how great things He bestowed on thee. For a great thing indeed it were for even a sinner to die for any one whatever; but when He who undergoes this both is righteous and dieth for sinners; and not dieth only, but even as one cursed; and not as cursed [dieth] only, but thereby freely bestoweth upon us those great goods which we never looked for; (for he says, that "we might become the righteousness of God in Him;") what words, what thought shall be adequate to realize these things? 'For the righteous,' saith he, 'He made a sinner; that He might make the sinners righteous.' Yea rather, he said not even so, but what was greater far; for the word he employed is not the habit, but the quality itself. For he said not "made" [Him] a sinner, but "sin;" not, 'Him that had not sinned' only, but "that had not even known sin; that we" also "might become," he did not say 'righteous,' but, "righteousness," and, "the righteousness of God." For this is [the righteousness] "of God" when we are justified not by works, (in which case it Were necessary that not a spot even should be found,) but by grace, in which case all sin is done away. And this at the same time that it suffers us not to be lifted up, (seeing the whole is the free gift of God,) teaches us also the greatness of that which is given. For that which was before was a righteousness of the Law and of works, but this is "the righteousness of God."
Deb says: changing the suject slightly. This is why several years ago I began calling the "Parable of the Prodigal Son" the "Parable of the Loving Father". Because isn't that really whats its about??? He *loved* us (all of us - the prodigal son and the older, judging son too.). I was just rewatching a documentary of the Hermitage and they showed Rembrandt's brilliant painting by that name. Its so very beautiful and depicts the return to our loving Father so beautifully. You can almost hear the Prodigal son's sigh of relief.
Amen, Deb! One of the struggles for those who push vicarious satisfaction as THE one and only way to speak "Gospel" bang their heads when they come to that Parable. Where is the appeasing of the Father's wrath??? THERE IS NO FATHER'S WRATH in that parable to appease. Only a Father's welcome and love.
Also, check out the translations of "A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth."
Gerhardt wrote: "Das Lämmlein ist der grosse Freund / und Heiland meiner Seelen / Den, den hat Gott zum Sündenfeind / uns Sühner wollen wahlen." Vs. 2
TLH renders this: "This Lamb is Christ, the soul's great friend, the Lamb of God our Savior, Him God the Father chose to send *to win for us God's favor.*"
???
LBW offers this translation: "This Lamb is Christ, our greatest friend, the Lamb of God, our Savior, the One, His only Son, God sent to win us rebels over."
Sehr interresant, nicht wahr?
Pastor Weedon,
First let me agree with you when you say that fundamentally the cross was the effect of God's love for us, rather than the cause for God's love for us.
But God beheld my wretched state
Before the world's foundation.
And, mindful of His mercies great,
He planned my soul's salvation.
A father's heart He turned to me,
Sought my redemption fervently.
He gave His dearest Treasure.
He spoke to His beloved Son:
'Tis time to have compassion.
Then go, bright Jewel of My crown,
And bring to man salvation;
From sin and sorrow set him free.
Slay bitter death for him that he
May live with Thee forever.
But, at the same time isn't it also proper to say that because of/on account of the cross we have the forgiveness of sins? "[W]ithout the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins." Do we have (yet another) both/and, rather than either/or situation?
I think I agree with you when you say that "He didn't come to appease any wrath of the Father," but isn't it also correct to say that if it were not for the cross, that we would have suffered that very same wrath?
Something about God's wrath doesn't seem accounted for. An aside: What bothers me are the following sort of statements from the Orthodox, which I see very frequently: "We have to be careful when dealing with those phrases that say 'God got angry...' etc. in the Bible. We know that in reality, God doesn't get 'angry.' It's an anthropomorphism." So what, God is a stoic? Jesus throwing out the moneychangers was just a metaphor and didn't really happen? Isn't love then an anthropomorphism? This seems to trivialize all the bits about wrath and judgment in the Bible. It sounds Marcionistic to me. (Sounds; not is, sounds.)
Don't the Scriptures somewhere talk about God becoming the enemy of His friends' enemies?
When you say: "[God's wrath] is directed specifically at what is destroying the creatures He loves. What happens when a person HOLDS ONTO that which is destroying them?" are you saying that when individual people face the wrath of God that they are basically collateral damage? That his wrath isn't directed at them personally? I don't know what to think about that.
Your point about AC III is a good one, and worth pondering.
Hi Mark!
Good thoughts, all of them.
I have wondered too about whether or not love isn't every bit as anthropomorphic as wrath, but there is an important difference. Nowhere are we told that God IS wrath, but we are told that God IS love.
We are told that He is a consuming fire. And it was the linking of that image to God that I think suggested to many Orthodox fathers and writers that the fire of hell is literally the presence of the God who is love by those who hate and do not want this presence to exist.
I wouldn't say that the wrath is impersonal. Remember the difference between predicate nominative and predicate adjective? That man is my father vs. The car is blue. I think that when a person literally identifies himself with his sin, then he's moved from that sin being an adjective to being a noun. It describes not something in him, but himself. The obvious one that comes to mind is the person who says: I am gay. They mean that now as a description of WHO they are.
So when the love of God burns up that sin, they experience it very much as a burning up of who they are.
Just speculating here, but wondering if it makes any sense?
I am also reminded of the passage in *Christ our Life* by St. Nicholas Cabasilas where he speaks of the experience of those who have no faculties formed to enjoy the blessed land being miserable if they were brought into it. It always reminded me of Lewis's last Narnia books and Lucy trying desperately to show the Dwarfs that they were in a beautiful and wondrous land, but they were blind and deaf to it. Just could NOT experience it. I wonder if Lewis hijacked the idea from Cabasilas...
Large Catechism, First Commandment:
32] Learn, therefore, from these words how angry God is with those who trust in anything but Him, and again, how good and gracious He is to those who trust and believe in Him alone with the whole heart; so that His anger does not cease until the fourth generation, while, on the other hand, His blessing and goodness extend to many thousands
Psalm 5:5
Thou hatest all workers of iniquity.
"what becomes of statements like this of AC III: 'He did this to reconcile the Father to us'???"
Such statements use 'reconcile' in the improper/wider sense of bringing God and Man together, whereas the proper/narrow sense you are advancing is, basically, 'changing one to bring him close to the other'; that sense is proper with Man as the referent, wheras with the former, either God or Man could properly be the referent.
FWIW
Yes, I do think that is the best and most charitable interpretation of the words, and that is also how I taught them to my elders when we studied them a few weeks ago. I told them whatever else the word reconciliation means in AC III it does not mean that the Father had enmity toward the race of men. You didn't sign your name, but I assume you are Fr. Ludwig? If not, he made the same point earlier in L-O Dialog. The danger of interpreting it in the proper sense is that it leaves the Father depicted as opposed to us and the Son as pitying us, and the Father only pitying us because the Son "bore the wrath."
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that though you deny the cross as changing God’s attitude toward sinful humanity, you still see it as bringing about an objective change of status for humanity, namely the defeat of humanity’s foes: sin, death, devil, (also the law?).
But whose law is it that shows us to be sinners and has subjected man to death and the devil? It is God’s law. And what is the law if not His revealed, righteous will? And against sinners the law has only wrath (Rom. 4:15). So if it is against God’s just will that Christ on the cross fights and is victorious, why not confess that He fights also against God’s wrath?
But if you don’t want to say that Christ suffers the wrath of God on the cross, but that he suffers death as a penalty or a consequence, one must ask: Who is it that cruelly decreed such a horrible penalty? The Creator Himself stands behind the created order. The problem of God’s wrath against sin is not solved by saying that His death was a natural consequence.
Just so you know, those who hold to vicarious satisfaction (Anselm, Aquinas, Lutheranism) have held to nearly all the other theories of the atonement: Christus victor, moral influence, example. (But not as a ransom to the devil.) It’s got room for it. But what you are espousing is a rejection of the vicarious satisfaction.
The recurrent theme of the modern theologians (e.g. Raymund Schwager, J. Denny Weaver) and even the 17th century Socinians is to deny the wrath of God against sin. (And can sin really be reified and separated from the sinner? With Augustine, shouldn’t we confess that sin is not a “thing” but “in a thing”?)
Of course God has loved us from the beginning of the world and sent His Son to save us by His death and resurrection. But none of the classic advocates of the vicarious satisfaction who would deny this! God is both the reconciler and the reconciled.
There’s this tension between God’s love on the one hand and his truthfulness / justice / wrath against sin on the other. No one denies the former, but many deny the latter. Man’s main predicament is not just the law, death, and devil, but Him who allows these to do their bitter work.
Perhaps what some dislike is to speak of God’s wrath, thinking of it as an arbitrary rage. It’s good that we not think of God’s wrath that way, but precisely as the righteous requirements of the law (His righteous will).
Does the cross change God’s mind? You have said no, but I think it’s important that we affirm this, though not as something coming from the outside. God is not “changed.” Yet sin introduces a conflict between God’s righteous will (call it God’s wrath against sin, if you will, though it’s the same as His love of what is right) and His gracious will. Athanasius “On the Incarnation,” Anselm, “Why God Became Man,” and many others speak about the death or suffering of Christ as bringing about the resolution of that horrible conflict. The cross satisfies and pacifies this conflict. Thus, in a certain way, the atonement does change God’s mind, though it is God Himself who brings about the Incarnation and cross so that His mind will be changed.
Athanasius is an interesting example of this, since he has essentially the same modus operandi as Anselm. God set forth his law, by which the man who sins must die. With the entry of sin, there is a divine dilemma between God’s philanthropy and His truth. The incarnation and especially the death of Christ took place precisely to resolve this tension within the heart of God. Athanasius is hesitant to speak of God’s personal wrath against sin/sinners, but He makes clear that the dilemma is one between God’s love and God’s truth (the penalty that God Himself instituted at the creation), and this is the exact same dilemma as Anselm sets forth.
We must beware of taking the true belief that God loved us before the foundation of the world, and then denying the opposite, that God was justly wrathful against us for our sins. God’s righteous law (which is simply an expression of God’s righteous will) must be fulfilled. God’s mercy consists precisely in the fact that Christ fulfilled it. To say that Christ satisfied the law by his active and passive obedience, and to say that God’s righteous will required His active and passive obedience (that is, obedience and suffering) are the same thing.
Scripture does speak of the wrath of God against sin:
Eph. 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
Eph. 5:6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
And Christ endured this wrath in our place:
Isa. 53:4. Yet we did esteem Him smitten by God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.
Isa. 53:10 And YHWH desired to crush Him . . . the desire of YHWH was successful in His hand.
The fact that Christ endured the Father’s wrath (paradoxical as it is), should be sufficiently demonstrated also by His dereliction cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46).
The Church’s hymnody speaks to this same issue. When we sing “Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice,” (TLH 387), let us not deny the other truth which our hymnody sets forth:
“My burden in Thy Passion / Lord, Thou hast borne for me / For it was my transgression / Which bro’t this woe on Thee. / I cast me down before Thee; / Wrath were my rightful lot. / Have mercy, I implore Thee; / Redeemer, spurn me not! (TLH 172:4)
“Yet as the Law must be fulfilled/ Or we must die despairing, / Christ came and hath God’s anger stilled, / Our human nature sharing. / He hath for us the Law obeyed / And thus the Father’s vengeance stayed / Which over us impended.” (TLH 377:5)
In summary, it is important to hold both to the wrath of God (His righteous will and law as applied to sinners) and to His gracious will (that from the foundation of the world, He prepared a salvation for us). Rather than denying one or the other, why not hold to both?
One other Bible passage to show that God's wrath was indeed turned against Christ: "Tu vero ruppulisti et reiecisti, iratus es contra Christum tuum." Ps. 89:39 (Nova Vulgata).
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