The Cross and Punishment

I don't know how many of you read Mark Dever's cover article "Nothing But The Blood" in the May edition of Christianity Today(http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/005/9.29.html). In it Dever makes the case that the atonement at its center and focus is Christ dying for us as a sacrificial, penal substitute. I enjoyed the article and appreciate the sentiment with which Dever writes...particularly in response to those who would want to diminish this theme. However, the article did raise some questions that I've been asking recently -

How Necessary is Penal Satisfaction?

As a result of the college group's recent series "why the cross" I've been doing some thinking about the atonement. This has raised some fresh questions about what exactly scripture teaches regarding the penal aspect (satisfaction of God's wrath) of Christ's vicarious death. When we speak of Christ dying "for us" we usually are speaking of 3 things: Christ as 1.) a sacrifice; 2.) a substitute and 3.) penal satisfaction. While much reformed teaching has heartily affirmed all 3 some have raised questions as to how the current formulation (i.e. Charles Hodge)view of #3 flows from scripture. Is there a necessary condition of wrath which God must release and is Christ therefore a necessary "target"? Schmiechen (who Dever criticizes as seeing current penal substitution as inadequate) says that the idea of the penal nature of the atonement as a "necessary condition" of wrath moves above and beyond what scripture teaches. Many in the reformed camp (buying Hodge's formulation) will say that Christ HAD to die to expiate the wrath of God. Again, is there really such a necessity? After reading Schmiechen's argument and talking to Steve Porter (who did his MA thesis on atonement theory at Oxford) the question has become more valid in my mind. Why not see (as Augustine said) the death of Christ as a "fitting" act by which God shows the gravity of sin and depth of his disgust? If we say that God's perfect justice necessitates Christ's punishment to alleviate the Father's wrath then it raises other problems. For example, why not also say God's perfect mercy would "necessitate" God's work of redemption? Though many are not eager to say God had to send Christ as an act of mercy for God to be God they do speak of his justice as necessarily being actualized in someone's death (either yours or Christ's).

So here's where I'm at right now...though I believe Christ taking the wrath of God is fitting, I do not see scripture teaching it as a necessary condition to expiate God's wrath. [Note: it might be the case (as Steve has argued) that God in some sense has an obligation to do what is fitting and therefore a functional necessity exists.] However, this moves us away from the necessity of expiating God's wrath which inevitably hangs on assumptions outside the text (e.g. buying certain distributive theories of justice, assuming "absolute justice" means absolute actualization, etc.). The text is quite silent on these matters. (My fear is such quests for necessity might actually serve to remove some elements of the mystery of the cross at the cost of supplying the rationality of necessary conditions.)

The Focus of the Atonement:

In addition, Mark Dever criticizes people like Schmiechen and Placher who say that the death of Christ is about more (though not less) than penal substitution. In his own words,"...when we give attention and authority to all parts of the New Testament canon, substitution becomes the center and focus of the Bible's witness to the meaning of Christ's death." I hesitate to affirm this view. This is not so much because I believe it is not a major theme, as much as I believe no theological category adequately deserves the title of "the center and focus" of Christ's death. I would rather see the substitutionary atonement as a dominant theme among others in the unfolding story of God's work. How these themes relate vary in the same way that themes of other narratives vary. In the case of Christ's death and resurrection a variety of central and sub-themes find their climax in a variety of ways and in varying relationships with each other. This moves us out of quantifying bible verses and into the realm of understanding echoing voices reiterating through narrative. As we study the narrative various themes emerge in varying degrees. In one part of the story we see that Christ is the sacrificial lamb who takes away the sin of the world. Again we see he is the suffering servant who takes up Israel's call in Israel's stead to do what Israel failed to do. And yet again we see he is the seed that falls into the ground and then in his resurrection bears the fruit of new creation. So again, while sacrifice and substitution are central themes they do not appear to me as the theme around which every other theme is to be defined. Am I wrong on this?

CASH VALUE: It appears that it is precisely because evangelicals have been so afraid of losing the significance of Christ's substitutionary, sacrificial death for us that they have diminished the voice of other themes or even seen these themes as being at odds with sacrificial, substitutionary atonement. In addition, the more canonical our approach to scripture the more robust nature of the death of Christ unfolds. (e.g. It is possible to read Christ's words at the last supper within the framework of deliverance, covenant, curse, etc. - rather than simply "broken for you" via sacrificial themes) Christ IS our Sacrificial Lamb. Christ IS our Substitute. Christ's death DOES correspond with God's anger. But Christ's death is doing more...it is renewing creation, liberating captives, giving victor over sin and death. It is the beginning of the great reconciliation of a fractured world. And it is within a canonical approach that the variety of themes resist being reduced and we are less likely to pull one thread out among a tapestry of saving power.