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Righteousness by Faith 2
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Ron Corson
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Mar 17, 2005 22:06 PST
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Here is an article I wrote because of a conversation with the author of
the spectrum commentary for last week. The Cross and Justification
http://www.spectrummagazine.org/church/ss/050307travis.html
Justification By Faith…No hiding
From God
By Ron Corson
Recently I was asked to read an article whose primary emphasis was the
subject of Justification by Faith. The reason it was brought to my
attention was because the author had come to understand that I had a
problem with the substitutionary view of the Atonement. At first glance
someone may not understand how the two are related. But in fact they are
very closely related, in fact the doctrine of substitutionary Atonement
has very greatly changed the face of Christianity since it inception as
Anselm’s Satisfaction Theory of the Atonement in the 1100’s. Not only
has it changed the view of Christianity it has changed the way
Christians view God.
I often use the following quote from the early 1900’s to illustrate the
change in Christian philosophy introduced by the Satisfaction and
Substitutionary Theories:
"In many of the popular sermons and hymns of the last two centuries
Christ is set forth as mediator between an angry God and the condemned
sinner, pleading with God for mercy, at the same time receiving the
divine wrath into his own bosom and thus averting from the sinner the
consequences of his sin." (The New Schaff-Herzog Religious Encyclopedia,
vol. 7 page 270)
In many ways the popular idea of Justification by Faith has also been
modified by the Substitutionary theory. The Westminster Shorter
Catechism describes justification by faith as: "Justification is an act
of God's free grace, whereby he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us
as righteous in his sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed
to us, and received by faith alone" (Q 33)
The idea as presented since the reformation is that Justification is a
legal act whereby the sinner is declared by God to be righteous by the
imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Imputation is not a word often
seen outside of Theology anymore but the basic meaning is to “credit to
a person or cause”, to “attribute” something to someone else. In the
popular definition of Justification by Faith (often termed Righteousness
by Faith in Adventist circles) there are two aspects of Christ’s work
applied to our justification. Christ satisfied all the demands of God’s
justice against sinners on the cross where Christ took the penalty due
those who sinned. Christ also lived the perfect life of obedience and
then Christ attributes that righteousness to us.
Central to the concept of this Justification by Faith is the idea of
punishment for sin. God demanded Justice in this view as R.C. Sproul
writes:
"The atonement is vicarious because it is accomplished via imputation.
Christ is the sin-bearer for his people, the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) who
takes away (expiates) our sin and satisfies (propitiates) the demands of
God's justice. The cross displays both God's justice (in that he truly
punishes sin) and his grace (because he punishes sin by providing a
substitute for us)" (Faith Alone, p. 104).
It may be that this type of view is related to the concept of justice as
known in the middle ages in Europe, where justice was seen more as
punishment rather then the more Oriental view which sees justice as a
return to harmony. This leads to a view that says God can’t freely
forgive because the offense is so great that sin must be punished. This
however is not a Biblical view, God has instructed that we must forgive,
naturally forgiveness is not punishment, forgiveness disregards the
hurts of the past while punishment inflicts hurt in order to force a
change in behavior or to simply retaliate against the person to be
punished. To punish a substitute would violate nearly every known human
law but it also goes against God’s own instructions. (Exodus 23:7)
The Substitutionary theory also demands that God punish sin in the
person of Jesus Christ. Something the Bible does not say. It does not
tell us that Jesus suffered a punishment of God or paid a penalty for
sin. Those ideas are usually read into the Bible by those who have
already accepted the Substitutionary theory as truth. Clearly Christ
paid a price for His actions, but as the Bible says we were bought with
a price (1 Corinthians 6:20). But that was not paid to God or the Devil,
it is the cost of God becoming a man and submitting to men ending in his
death. The price paid was by God to man, in order to reconcile man back
to God.
In the Reformation’s view of Justification by Faith Christ lived the
perfect life and was subjected to the divine punishment for our sins
thus God forgives us and we are now covered by Christ’s righteousness.
What does it mean when they say that Jesus was our “sin bearer”? Again
the Substitutionary theory provides us with its own language. By sin
bearer they mean sins were placed upon Christ who was then punished for
those sins so that they could be forgiven. But that is not the New
Testament meaning of how Christ bore our sins. What it does say is that
He suffered by the sins of others inflicted upon him and He forgave and
took away our sins.
When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he
suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who
judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that
we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have
been healed. (1 Peter 2:22-4 NIV)
…so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and
he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to
those who are waiting for him. (Heb 9:28 NIV)
The sins were those inflicted by a rebellious and self centered people.
That is really the attitude that is sin. Sin is not something apart from
the thinking individual. It is not something that can be moved here or
there, it is the attitude of man that leads him to cause the hurt that
we all see around us, ultimately caused by the broken relationship with
our God. The Bible several places mentions dying to sin as mentioned
above. But it usually combines that with living for God or
righteousness. The implication is pretty clear the end of one way of
life, sin, takes us to the new way of life, righteousness, through the
change in allegiance that reconciliation to God brings in our lives.
John the Baptist declared:
"Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29
NIV)
It does not matter which sacrificial lamb is referred to here. Whether
it is the Passover lamb that symbolized protection from destruction, or
the scapegoat (in Jewish language lamb can also mean goat) who
symbolically carried the sins of the camp out into the desert where they
were remembered no more. Or any of the other Jewish sacrificial animals.
The point is that here is the sacrifice (the offering) of God who
forgives us and changes us. The Old Testament is filled with the idea of
forgiveness, but it is never more clearly demonstrated then by Jesus on
the cross saying forgive them. (Luke 23:34) Jesus the perfect man was
tortured and killed, treated as if He were the worst of sinners. Yet He
did not ask that they be punished, He freely offered them forgiveness,
this is how God takes away our sins. Not by punishment of the innocent
but through forgiveness, no longer counting man’s sins against them. (2
Corinthians 5:19) Jesus is not the substitute being punished by God for
man’s sins, but the demonstration of the power, love and forgiveness of
God that leads us to repentance and reconciliation (Romans 2:4)
We know that no one is righteous besides God (Romans 3:10), we know that
no one is made righteous by keeping the law (Romans 3:20). So how is it,
that God can say we are justified/righteous? The Substitutionary view is
that God does some clever bookkeeping. The righteousness of God revealed
in Christ is attributed to us and when God looks at his account book He
sees not us but Christ. The reason I used “righteousness of God revealed
in Christ” is because the Bible never uses the expression “righteousness
of Christ”. Since as John chapter 1 tells us Christ is God, the very
“Logos” became flesh and dwelt among us, there is no difference between
Christ and God. In fact in Christ the full divinity of God is revealed
(Colossians 1:19). But is this really what we want to say about God,
that He does not really see who we are but sees only Himself? If God is
our friend, a friend who is closer then a brother (Proverbs 18:24, John
15:15), how can we be content to hide from Him? Because of the
Substitutionary view of the Atonement we view Christ as our friend but
we have trouble seeing God as our friend. But in reality our Advocate is
with the Father, and God is for us not against us (Jeremiah 29:11; Job
16:19; 1 John 2:1; Romans 8:31)
Well before anyone on earth knew of the mission of the coming Messiah,
God had declared his friends to be righteous. They were declared
righteous by their faith in God the same way all are justified.
(Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 10:38; Hebrews 11).
It is the faith in God that makes man righteous. Those who believe what
God has said, those who trust God. It is the restored relationship built
upon the trust in God, because those who trust in God have been
reconciled to God and God no longer counts their sins against them (2
Corinthians 5:17-18). The love of God compels us to come to Him, the
love that we see in Christ as He revealed to us God through His life,
death and resurrection (2 Corinthians 5:14-17) Because of the one who
died for us not as a substitute but as God revealing His very nature we
no longer have to live for ourselves but for the one who died to
reconcile us back to Him. Many often look at the paradox in the verse
that says:
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might
become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV)
Ignoring the verses just before it which tell of His love compelling us
to be reconciled. As the one who died for all so that all can live for
the one who died and rose again. Their old lives gone and the new
creation here and living now for God. The sinless one tortured and
murdered as a sinner, a curse on a cross, so that we can become right
with God, reconciled and righteous by our faith in our God. But it was
not God who treated Christ as a sinner, it was not God who killed Jesus,
it was man in his rebellion who killed the author of life (Acts 3:15).
All this God knew well before it was to happen, even the worst sin man
could do does not stop God from revealing His glory, His power, His love
and His forgiveness.
So what about obedience? Obedience is the product of growing in our
relationship with God. We begin by following God’s most basic command:
And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus
Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his
commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he
lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. (1 John 3:23-25 NIV)
It is the fruit of our relationship that reveals to others our life in
God. But as human beings we are sin scarred and incompetent to fully
live the life we desire to live as Paul declares in Romans Chapter 7.
But our failures do not cause us to be cast aside as our God is not done
with us. He is able to complete the good work started in us and He will
not let us be snatched from His hand(Phil 1:6; John 10:28). His love has
reconciled us to Him and His mind is acting upon our minds (Philippians
2:5). Trust of God leads to the restoration of our relationship to God
and ultimately to the healing of our minds and bodies and that is God’s
goal. All this revealed to us by Christ (Hebrews 1:2).
The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!"
Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the
free gift of the water of life. (Revelation 22:17 NIV)
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