Dizerner
Well-known member
It is the natural mind that rejects God's Law, and it is the fallen desires that reject God's values. So the natural mind and fallen desires throw up all kinds of shallow objections if God himself actually pays the full price of sin's punishment for us. But if you gut the Cross of its true meaning, you are left with something less than real Christianity, and something different than the real Jesus, and something less than the real Gospel.
We see in the atonement, the dividing line between all other religions, because God himself makes up the difference in righteousness as an act of grace, instead of either man working his way to heaven, or a promiscuous and compromising God with no regard to holiness. In the true atonement, we have God reconciling the world unto himself, by God himself taking the punishment for the sins against God's holiness—the Lamb being slain was purchasing men for God with blood, with Christ suffering for sins, with the life-force of Christ's agony, Jesus suffering the spiritual death we all deserved from sin.
This is not something I desire and rejoice in, any more than passionately defending eternal conscious torment, even though I would personally prefer there be no hell, as it is so terrifying and heavy a thought to consider, and against my natural inclinations of humanistic centered priorities. I defend these things because I fear God, and recognize I must fight in me every sinful inclination that opposes the throne and authority of God.
Answer to main OBJECTIONS:
1. This means Jesus is not the "sinless lamb" anymore.
Answer: That is like saying once the priest stabs the lamb to kill it, then it's not "unblemished" anymore. The sacrifice was to be sinless UPON PRESENTATION, not remain unchanged.
2. This means disharmony in the Trinity.
It is not disharmony if all wills are in agreement upon the action.
3. This means a disruption of the Trinity.
It is not a disruption if the ontological unity is maintained, as such, they were not separated from each other existentially, only relationally.
4. This means God can't run the universe anymore.
Death is not "ceasing to exist," but a change in ontos (mode of being), and spiritual death is relationally experiencing the negative aspects of God. God experiencing a negative relation to himself does not entail the loss of his attributes.
5. Physical death is the only price of sin.
This is just not Biblical. Else everyone pays their debt upon death. There is a second death.
6. But Jesus was a sinless person so he could physically die for us.
God did not tell Adam, "in the day you eat of it, you will die if you are sinless." The wages of sin is death, so sinlessness prohibits dying.
7. This method of atonement is unfair.
God does not have a standard external to him he obeys—his own worth is the standard, so he has the right to set what rules value him. God does not violate justice, so Jesus has to experience exactly what a sinner would—the wrath of God.
8. But sinners are in hell forever and Jesus was temporary.
An infinite being can experience in finite time, what a finite being can experience in infinite time. There is no possible logic against this.
9. This view is blasphemous because it makes God evil and a sinner.
This is a wrong definition of blasphemy—God is self-defining, meaning he tells us who he is and what he can do. "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" If God so desires he has the ability to absorb sin into himself, he stills maintain his authority and power, because it is voluntary. And because Christ does not STAY sin, but only temporarily BEARS sin, there is no tarnish to his worthiness. "Sin offering" is a lame attempt to water down the word in Corinthians, when even in the OT the offering was simply called "sin" (same word) for the very purpose of reflecting how closely sin was transferred, symbolized by laying hands on the animal, which was burned after to symbolize wrath.
10. If Jesus ontologically bears our sin, then we should be sinlessly perfect with his life.
No, it does not require sinless perfection or performance to be justified, because the manifestation of Christ does not have to be INSTANTANEOUS. "It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that we shall be LIKE HIM." So that potential is not required to be instantaneous in this fallen world.
11. This makes God unloving, and God is not anger, he is love.
God was both merciful and wrath in nature from eternity, but had no means to express them. God has always had the attribute of being wrathful towards sin, even when no sin existed. To uphold the holiness of God and fulfil his Law, sin must be punished, or justice is violated.
12. God is immutable and has aseity, he cannot ontologically change.
This is a mistaken definition that limits God's ability. Because God is self-defining, only God can tell us what he is capable of. God can ontologically change without sacrificing his self-sufficiency or his self-defined character. His Word tells us he does. We should not sacrifice the more plain meaning of the Word to fit human reasoning and philosophy.
We see in the atonement, the dividing line between all other religions, because God himself makes up the difference in righteousness as an act of grace, instead of either man working his way to heaven, or a promiscuous and compromising God with no regard to holiness. In the true atonement, we have God reconciling the world unto himself, by God himself taking the punishment for the sins against God's holiness—the Lamb being slain was purchasing men for God with blood, with Christ suffering for sins, with the life-force of Christ's agony, Jesus suffering the spiritual death we all deserved from sin.
This is not something I desire and rejoice in, any more than passionately defending eternal conscious torment, even though I would personally prefer there be no hell, as it is so terrifying and heavy a thought to consider, and against my natural inclinations of humanistic centered priorities. I defend these things because I fear God, and recognize I must fight in me every sinful inclination that opposes the throne and authority of God.
Answer to main OBJECTIONS:
1. This means Jesus is not the "sinless lamb" anymore.
Answer: That is like saying once the priest stabs the lamb to kill it, then it's not "unblemished" anymore. The sacrifice was to be sinless UPON PRESENTATION, not remain unchanged.
2. This means disharmony in the Trinity.
It is not disharmony if all wills are in agreement upon the action.
3. This means a disruption of the Trinity.
It is not a disruption if the ontological unity is maintained, as such, they were not separated from each other existentially, only relationally.
4. This means God can't run the universe anymore.
Death is not "ceasing to exist," but a change in ontos (mode of being), and spiritual death is relationally experiencing the negative aspects of God. God experiencing a negative relation to himself does not entail the loss of his attributes.
5. Physical death is the only price of sin.
This is just not Biblical. Else everyone pays their debt upon death. There is a second death.
6. But Jesus was a sinless person so he could physically die for us.
God did not tell Adam, "in the day you eat of it, you will die if you are sinless." The wages of sin is death, so sinlessness prohibits dying.
7. This method of atonement is unfair.
God does not have a standard external to him he obeys—his own worth is the standard, so he has the right to set what rules value him. God does not violate justice, so Jesus has to experience exactly what a sinner would—the wrath of God.
8. But sinners are in hell forever and Jesus was temporary.
An infinite being can experience in finite time, what a finite being can experience in infinite time. There is no possible logic against this.
9. This view is blasphemous because it makes God evil and a sinner.
This is a wrong definition of blasphemy—God is self-defining, meaning he tells us who he is and what he can do. "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" If God so desires he has the ability to absorb sin into himself, he stills maintain his authority and power, because it is voluntary. And because Christ does not STAY sin, but only temporarily BEARS sin, there is no tarnish to his worthiness. "Sin offering" is a lame attempt to water down the word in Corinthians, when even in the OT the offering was simply called "sin" (same word) for the very purpose of reflecting how closely sin was transferred, symbolized by laying hands on the animal, which was burned after to symbolize wrath.
10. If Jesus ontologically bears our sin, then we should be sinlessly perfect with his life.
No, it does not require sinless perfection or performance to be justified, because the manifestation of Christ does not have to be INSTANTANEOUS. "It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that we shall be LIKE HIM." So that potential is not required to be instantaneous in this fallen world.
11. This makes God unloving, and God is not anger, he is love.
God was both merciful and wrath in nature from eternity, but had no means to express them. God has always had the attribute of being wrathful towards sin, even when no sin existed. To uphold the holiness of God and fulfil his Law, sin must be punished, or justice is violated.
12. God is immutable and has aseity, he cannot ontologically change.
This is a mistaken definition that limits God's ability. Because God is self-defining, only God can tell us what he is capable of. God can ontologically change without sacrificing his self-sufficiency or his self-defined character. His Word tells us he does. We should not sacrifice the more plain meaning of the Word to fit human reasoning and philosophy.