Correct, Ransom theory is definitely not PSA theory.
Appeasement of a Monster God?
- Thread starter Fitzpatrick
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civic
Well-known member
Amen
The early church Fathers held to ransom, moral influence and recapitulation
civic
Well-known member
Correct nothing penal for many centuries later
Yep, Anselm's satisfaction theory had to come around 1100 a.d. as a sort of forerunner of PSA
civic
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Ditto
Pancho Frijoles
Well-known member
If God had sent Esther to the world to preach the only way to man’s salvation, and PSA was the only way to be saved, we would expect Esther to have preached PSA.
So it is absolutely natural and logical to expect Jesus to make of PSA the center of his preaching, if PSA is essential.
Furthermore, if Jesus gave sermons specifically on the topic of forgiveness and salvation several times, it would be more than logical to expect PSA be taught CLEARLY and REPEATEDLY.
In regard to Psalm 51, it is more than logical to expect that the longest ever text on forgiveness in the Hebrew Bible, revealed by the man who had been promised the appearance of the Messiah from his descent, should put PSA at the center.
PSA, though, is absent from Psalm 51. So, either believing in PSA is wrong, or irrelevant to salvation.
Progressive revelation does not imply that God hides for millennia a thing that is ESSENTIAL for man’s salvation.
It means that God deepens the understanding, changes language, images, metaphors, secondary laws, rituals, social organization, forms, ways, emphasis.
The understanding of King David may have been more limited than the understanding of Paul or your understanding. But King David, Paul and you are saved on the very same grounds: God’s grace, extended to those who reach out to Him with contrite heart, willing to change their ways.
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civic
Well-known member
Yes mercy , grace, forgiveness, love, reconciliation, substitution, ransom , Passover is what we see taught throughout scripture regarding atonement , nothing penal, nothing about “ justice “ being served via atonement. It’s a mid evil model and how they taught justice/ penal law and invented those ideas from their culture and imposed them into scripture.
Pancho Frijoles
Well-known member
I do think that the Bible resorts to a penal language.
@Dizerner is honest and sincere in taking those verses and thinking PSA is taught in the Bible.
I just think he fails to understand that such language illustrates only ONE of the analogies the Bible uses to speak about the unfathomable extent of the mission of Jesus.
By the same token, the language of paying a ransom clearly exists in the Bible, but it is another analogy.
If taken literally, we could criticize the theory of ransom as we criticize the theory of PSA.
Both are useful models to approach a subject that is well beyond our understanding: the Love of God, manifested through the Love of Jesus for all of us.
That’s why I think that Jesus is much more interested in our commitment to follow Him, than in our theoretical models to explain his mission.
Pancho Frijoles
Well-known member
One of the ways to understand Jesus mission, that non-Christians like me feel more connected with, is his mission as a Messenger.
It goes like this
Of course… it is supported by Jesus Himself!
“For this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” (John 18:37)
There are more verses, as many as those for the PSA and ransom models.
It goes like this
- God sent Jesus with a Message about how to be saved (forgiven, reconciled, transformed to a new person).
- Jesus knew that delivering his Message would cost his life.
- Yet, Jesus went ahead and delivered his Message. He sacrificed so that we could get the Message.
- His Message is not only what He said, but how He lived: his own person, his example.
- So, every time we look at the cross, we are inspired to repent and crucify the old man to live a new life.
Of course… it is supported by Jesus Himself!
“For this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” (John 18:37)
There are more verses, as many as those for the PSA and ransom models.
civic
Well-known member
PSA only has 2 verses. One in Isaiah 53 that is used and one in psalm 22. Nothing at all that hints at it in the NT.
Jesus was not solely deity. Jesus was the God man, both God and man in one body. It was the flesh, the humanity, that bore the sacrifice, as God cannot die. This is the reason why God cried out "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!" When Jesus, the man, bore all the sin of the world on that cross, God could not look upon Him. The fellowship and communion shared between the human and divine spirit in Jesus was severed by the sin, as God cannot be tainted or touched by sin. When Jesus died, His Spirit was made alive, that is, the fellowship lost was restored.
The key thing to understand is that Jesus faced God's wrath (however that appears or is considered) willingly. God didn't throw Jesus on a cross, tie Him down, and beat Him mercilessly. Jesus voluntarily laid aside His position, was made flesh, and faced God's wrath on the cross. (Again, the focus is not God's wrath, but it must not be simply discounted.) God (trinity right?) did this willingly, sacrificing Himself.
Jesus was both God and man, hence the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus asked God to allow the cup of wrath (God's wrath) to pass from Him if the Father willed it, but not His (Jesus) will, but the Father's will be done. Jesus accepted whatever was coming. He was beaten, had a crown of thorns pressed down into his skull (these were not tiny, itty bitty thorns), flogged up to the point of death, a robe placed on His back and torn off, etc. All while the Father watched. If the arguments againsit PSA are true, why did the Father just sit back and watch? As Jesus cries out, why doesn't the Father answer, but instead turn His back? And, something everyone here keeps forgetting. Jesus signed up for it. It isn't a problem if the person involved agrees to it. If you tell someone to rob your house it isn't technically a robbery anymore. You told them to do it.
God's wrath was not aimed at the Son but at the sin the Son bore. As such, He became the object of the wrath, the sacrifice bearing all the sin. However, as soon as Jesus was done, fellowship was restored.
The other thign to understand is while PSA is true, it isn't to be understood as all there is. It is but an aspect of the atonement, and in this case the heart. However, many of the other beliefs of the atonement are true because they are also aspects. Why is God satisfied (satisfaction theory)? PSA. Why Christus Victor? PSA. The only theory that should not be considered due to conotations is ransom theory. Jesus was not doing anything for Satan. Don't give any ground to Satan.
Do note that I believe satisfaction and PSA walk hand in hand, but that PSA brings in the suffering that Jesus went through in paying the price for sin. I do not believe the wrath needs a spot light, just understand that when reading scripture, it was present in some form. It may just stop at what the Romans and Jews did to Him prior to the crucifixion and while He was on the cross. I see the forsaking as the side effect of sin, where the Father cannot have anything to do with sin, so turns His back on His Son (figuratively speaking) while His Son bore the sin. (The humanity, the flesh bore the sin, while the deity sanctified the sacrifice as the Great High Priest.)
The following verses note the difficulty of God forsaking Jesus
Psalm 22:24 (LEB) — 24 because he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and has not hid his face from him; but he listened to him when he cried for help.
2 Corinthians 5:19 (LEB) — 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
Hebrews 5:7 (LEB) — 7 who in the days of his flesh offered up both prayers and supplications, with loud crying and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard as a result of his reverence.
It is inconsistent to hold a view of the trinity and believe God could forsake God
Are you a dualist? Perhaps a nestorian? God forsake God? You do understand that Jesus was 100% human right? He was also 100% God. Two natures in one body. It was Jesus the man crying out on the cross. God cannot bear sin, He can have nothing to do with sin. However, the flesh can and did bear the sin. The human nature and divine nature of Christ were in perfect communion.
Do you really think Satan believed he had a chance at tempting God Himself? Satan was tempting the humanity of Christ. Notice how the last temptation really hit home. Jesus could avoid all the pain and suffering to come, could gain the whole world, if he just worshiped Satan. That very thing that had Him sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, Satan used as the strongest bait he had to get Jesus, the human nature of Jesus, to tap out and sin. There is a little more to the whole story. It should add more to the whole God the Father elevating Jesus. It is the Word become flesh, God and man in one body.
Why would Jesus need to be reverent in order for His crying to be heard? There were two inside one body. The human nature, the flesh, the sacrifice, and the divine, the High Priest that sanctified the sacrifice. The sacrifice of atonement must be sanctified by a high priest. In this case, God's Son was the sacrifice and the Great High Priest sanctified the sacrifice.
While bearing our sin, the human nature was cut off from fellowship with a God who can have nothing to do with sin. This is what Jesus knew He would face when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, as well as the rest of the torture.
God did not forsake God. The fellowship between the human and divine natures was severed due to the sin borne by the human nature. Or would you say God can bear sin? The one whom no human can stand in front of without burning to a crisp, not because they are human, but because of sin can bear sin?
I see the biggest difference between satisfaction and PSA is that PSA puts A LOT more on Jesus suffering. His taking what we would face onto Himself. God's wrath. I do believe, however, that there is sometimes too much emphasis placed on something we may never be able to truly understand. It happened. We may not understand exactly the form it took, but it happened. I look at it like when Jesus asked the Jews, for which of the works He had done did they seek to kill Him. They said it wasn't for His works, but what He said in claiming equality with God. For calling Himself the Son of God was to make Himself equal with God. They could not accept that. Jesus didn't say that isn't what He was saying. He basically said, if you can't accept/believe what He said about Himself, believe the works of the Father that He is doing. In believing in the works, one is tacitly accepting that Jesus is God, without having to directly face it. For, if Jesus was lying in His statements, He would be incapable of doing the works of the Father, who would be against the one blaspheming His name by claiming to be God. However, Jesus had no issue doing the works of the Father, because He truly is God. So accept the works that He does of the Father, and you accept that He and the Father are one, He in the Father, and the Father in Him... you are tacitly accepting that Jesus is God. This tells me that an outright belief in the trinity is not a requirement, but believing what Jesus did of the Father is an acceptable substitute to Jesus. In the same way, you may have difficulty understanding/believing Jesus faced God's wrath on the cross. You don't have to outright believe it, just accept that it may be beyond your ability to fully understand yet somehow it happened. It isn't a requirement to understanding that what Jesus did was a substitution, even if you don't fully get/understand the particulars. I don't try to know what it all means, I just understand that is what happened. My focus is on what He accomplished at the cross, not all the particulars.
Imagine, wrath (rage, fury) inside the Godhead, hard to believe.
Isaiah 53 and the different translations.
I compiled a text file with 3 translations of Isaiah 53 for easy verse by verse comparison.
1. ESV 2011 - modern translation.
2. Septuagint or LXX, 285–247 BC the version used by the early church.
3. Hebrew Bible, 8th/7th centuries BCE – 2nd/1st centuries BCE.
Unfortunately the forum can't handle a proper display of the text file and so I put it on my website.
As you can see there are major differences between the ESV and the Septuagint, the version used by the early church fathers. While on the other hand the Hebrew Bible is more in sync with the ESV. I still have to check if the translation from Hebrew to English is correct with an old Jewish Orthodox friend, but for the moment this will do.
For now just notice the major difference in translation of verse 10.
Code:
ESV Septuagint
Isa 53:10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush | 10 The Lord also is pleased to purge him from his |
him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an | stroke. If ye can give an offering for sin, your |
offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he | soul shall see a long-lived seed: |
shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall | |
prosper in his hand. | |How can there be such differences ?
Nope
Nope
Nestorius “denied the real union between the divine and the human natures in Christ … (and) virtually held to two natures and two persons.” Nestorius taught that while Christ suffered in His humanity, His deity was uninvolved (which was also the view of John of Damascus). The teaching was a denial of a real incarnation; instead of affirming Christ as God-man, He was viewed as two persons, God and man, with no union between them. Nestorius believed that because Mary was only the source of Jesus’ humanity, He must be two distinct persons.
You do realize it was the deity of Christ in sacrifice that gives the sacrifice its great value
Did you actually address these?
2 Corinthians 5:19 (LEB) — 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
If God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, how could he forsake Christ?
Psalm 22:24 (LEB) — 24 because he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and has not hid his face from him; but he listened to him when he cried for help.
This states he did not
Hebrews 5:7 (LEB) — 7 who in the days of his flesh offered up both prayers and supplications, with loud crying and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard as a result of his reverence.
As does this
I repeat
It is inconsistent to hold a view of the trinity and believe God could forsake God
civic
Well-known member
Thats the bottom line.
Johann
Well-known member
Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls - Isaiah 53
Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls Translation page
dssenglishbible.com
J.
It would be contrary to the Christian view of the trinity if wrath was directed toward one member of the trinity by another.
