Aspects of Atonement: What Did Jesus' Death on the Tree Accomplish?

[dacristoy]

I'm inclined to agree. The point seems to be that we are to think of Christ's sacrifice as an expiation for sins. Jesus does not die in order to propitiate the wrath of God, but to expiate sins. This seems especially clear throughout First John.

The soul that sinnith, it shall die. This is the decree of God...
Christ paid that penalty through his death for all of us. Ergo we were ransomed by the death of Christ to appease the righteousness and holiness of this decree issued by God...

14.Matthew 20:28
Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
Matthew 20:27-29 (in Context) Matthew 20 (Whole Chapter) Other Translations

15.Mark 10:45
For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
Mark 10:44-46 (in Context) Mark 10 (Whole Chapter) Other Translations

16.1 Timothy 2:6
Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
1 Timothy 2:5-7 (in Context) 1 Timothy 2 (Whole Chapter) Other Translations

To whom did he give himself as a ransom for many...

[Paprika]

Besides the exodus, the cross is the climax of the kingdom of God/heaven and Messiah narrative strands in the gospels - because it is at the cross the Jesus is publicly proclaimed King. One could almost say that at the cross He was paradoxically enthroned.

[hedrick]

The soul that sinnith, it shall die. This is the decree of God...
Christ paid that penalty through his death for all of us. Ergo we were ransomed by the death of Christ to appease the righteousness and holiness of this decree issued by God...

Just to be clear: the point of this passage is not that anyone who sins in any way will die unless someone else dies for them. Ezek 18 is

* about unrepentant people, as vs 21 makes clear; to be saved one only has to repent
* a repudiation of the idea that children take on responsibility for their parents' sins

If anything, taken literally, it would be a rejection of the idea of transferring responsibility to anyone else.

[dacristoy]

Just to be clear: the point of this passage is not that anyone who sins in any way will die unless someone else dies for them. Ezek 18 is

* about unrepentant people, as vs 21 makes clear; to be saved one only has to repent
* a repudiation of the idea that children take on responsibility for their parents' sins

If anything, taken literally, it would be a rejection of the idea of transferring responsibility to anyone else.

I have to agree with you here. my point is still valid, wrong scripture chosen for support... Huummmm, now where is that drawing board?

[The Remonstrant]

Why did you choose to use RSV for this quotation? Your usual preference is ESV, which uses "propitiation" for hilasmon-group words not only in 1 John 2:10 [sic] and 4:4 [sic], but most tellingly in Hebrews 2:17, which describes the OT sacrificial system as involving "propitiation for the sins of the people." If 1 John were as clear on "expiation, not propitiation" as you suggest, then we wouldn't see so many Bible translations (not only ESV, but also KJV, ASV, NKJV, HCSB, NASB, Young's, Douay-Rheims, etc.) using "propitiation" here, would we? (Interestingly, though the 1599 Geneva Bible uses "redemption" or "reconciliation" in these passages, its footnote for Romans 3 leaves no guess as to the sense meant: "Christ is he, which suffered punishment for our sins, and in whom we have remission of them.") Doesn't it beg the question of whether 1 John teaches propitiation or not, when you choose to quote only the one translation (one considered dubious among evangelicals due to its origins in the liberal mainline) that uses "expiation" rather than the several that use "propitiation," especially when your preferred translation uses "propitiation"? At the very least, transparency demands that you acknowledge the controversy over the translation of hilasmon-group words before citing a translation that leans toward a minority position. The issue will not be decided by the translation of that single word, but by the general question of whether the Bible depicts sin as something that generates wrath in God, thus requiring propitiation in the first place.

English Translations of 1 John 2:2 and 4:10: Expiation, Propitiation, or Atoning Sacrifice

I had originally thought of including a footnote in my post above where I briefly address the translation issue, but decided not to. My intent was not to hide the evidence. I knew this would come up and I would almost certainly have to address it at some point anyway.

You are correct that numerous (i.e., the majority) of conservative formal equivalence English translations of the Bible render hilasmos/hilasmon "propitiation" in 1 John 2:2 and 4:10, as in the English Standard Version:

He is the propitiation [hilasmos] for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (2:2)

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation [hilasmon] for our sins. (4:10)

On the other hand, the various English dynamic equivalence translations of the Bible almost invariably interpret hilasmos neutrally, as in the New Revised Standard Version:

. . . he is the atoning sacrifice [hilasmos] for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (2:2)

In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice [hilasmon] for our sins. (4:10)

And, as I quoted above, the Revised Standard Version prefers "expiation" to "propitiation" (or even the rather neutral "atoning sacrifice"):

. . . he is the expiation [hilasmos] for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (2:2)

In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation [hilasmon] for our sins. (4:10)

You are correct that the RSV stands in the minority in opting for "expiation" instead of "propitiation" or "atoning sacrifice".²


Notes

¹ All emphases to translations added.

² While choosing to render hilasmos/hilasmon as "propitiation" in 1 John 2:2 and 4:10, the translation committee of the Lexham English Bible were at least honest enough to have included "expiation" and "atoning sacrifice" in the LEB's margin notes as possible alternative renderings of the term. Many conservative English translations fail to note any alternatives to "propitiation" in these texts (e.g., ESV, HCSB, NASB, NKJV). I find this absence especially negligible in the recent Holman Christian Standard Bible, which is easily one of the most heavily footnoted English translations currently available on the market. Why did the HCSB translation committee omit any mention of the controversy from the Holman Bible's margins or its bullet notes? There appears to be a real bias on the part of the various evangelical, conservative translation committees in favoring "propitiation" over alternate renderings. "Propitiation" would, of course, seem to better comport with a theory of penal substitution than simply "expiation".

[The Remonstrant]

RBerman:

There is more to respond to, of course, but I wanted to get that out of the way first.

[Paprika]

I have to agree with you here. my point is still valid, wrong scripture chosen for support... Huummmm, now where is that drawing board?

Hebrews: "Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins."

[The Remonstrant]

It is my official position that Hydrox are superior to Oreos.

Now, that is a false teaching.

How did I miss this post?



Yes, I quite like dry humor myself.

[hedrick]

Hebrews: "Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins."

[Paprika]

hedrick: My bad, I had taken dacristoy to be arguing for substitution instead of penal substitution.

[hedrick]

hedrick: My bad, I had taken dacristoy to be arguing for substitution instead of penal substitution.

It's possible that I overreacted, but his position seems to be "Christ paid that penalty through his death for all of us. Ergo we were ransomed by the death of Christ to appease the righteousness and holiness of this decree issued by God..." I object to any concept that the goal of the atonement is to appease God.

[dacristoy]

Hebrews 9: 11 But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;
12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

To "whom" is scripturally specified, but the why and for what is not... Why...

This passage neatly summarizes the Gospel of Jesus Christ: that he died for our sins and rose again from the dead. True faith in Jesus means believing in his life, death, and resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15:2-5 (NIV)
2 By this gospel you are saved,(A) if you hold firmly(B) to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received(C) I passed on to you(D) as of first importance[a]: that Christ died for our sins(E) according to the Scriptures,(F) 4 that he was buried,(G) that he was raised(H) on the third day(I) according to the Scriptures,(J) 5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b](K) and then to the Twelve.(L)

[hedrick]

To "whom" is scripturally specified, but the why and for what is not... Why...

That's the reason for the discussion. Christ dying for sins is all over the place. What's not so clear is how his death deals with them. I've given some suggestions, based primarily on Jesus' words and Rom 9, but I don't think you'll find most of the theories of the atonement, particularly not penal satisfaction,.

The quotation from Heb 9:14 is interesting, but I'm not sure quite how you understand it. All offerings are ultimately to God, whether sin offerings, covenant sacrifices, or even fellowship offerings. Indeed our whole lives should be an offering to God. (Rom 12:1) One of the biggest problems in this area is that people stitch together sentences from all over Scripture into ideas that none of the authors were thinking of.

[dacristoy]

That's the reason for the discussion. Christ dying for sins is all over the place. What's not so clear is how his death deals with them. I've given some suggestions, but I don't think you'll find most of the theories of the atonement, particularly not penal satisfaction, based primarily on Jesus' words and Rom 9.

The quotation from Heb 9:14 is interesting, but I'm not sure quite how you understand it. All offerings are ultimately to God, whether sin offerings, covenant sacrifices, or even fellowship offerings. One of the biggest problems in this area is that people stitch together sentences from all over Scripture into ideas that none of the authors were thinking of.

I use to be sure as to how I understood it, not as positive as I was before. More study before I reply...
May God Bless...

[hedrick]

I use to be sure as to how I understood it, not as positive as I was before. More study before I reply...
May God Bless...

One of the things that surprises me is that Reformed theology fixated on penal substitution. Calvin himself used many images of the atonement. In the chapter in the Institutes he primarily used Rom 9. He said that Christ' obedience became ours through our faith in Christ. So how did penal substitution come to be the mandatory Reformed understanding?

My theory is that it was at least in part a response to the modernist crisis of the late 19th / early 20th Cent. It led conservatives to defend what was being attacked so strongly that it came to take on a role that it hadn't before.

Take a look at a reasonable presentation on theories of the atonement. Wikipedia has a good introduction, then separate articles on the major views. You'll find a variety of models, often coexisting with each other. But penal substitution is relatively late.

But to me the critical question is what the goal of the atonement is. Is it, as in Hebrews, to purify us, or is it to appease God? There's lots of talk about ransom, atonement, etc. But I have been unable to find anyplace in Scripture where it says that God can't forgive us without punishment.

The difficulty is that certain understandings have become so ingrained that we read words, and they call in associations that aren't explicitly there. Hence phrases about Jesus dying for our sins, being the lamb of God or our ransom, all of which are neutral in terms of specific models of the atonement, get cited as if they meant our favorite theory. I've participated in many of these discussions, and so far the only passages I've found that really talk about how the atonement works suggest that its goal is to regenerate us. Rom 6, Jesus words, and Heb 9 -10 speak of that in different ways.

I find it particularly odd that few classical treatments of the atonement seem to pick up on both Jesus and Heb 9 saying that Jesus' death was a covenant sacrifice. Indeed one particularly conservative Reformed author argued with me that there was no such thing in the OT as a covenant sacrifice and thus Jesus quotation of Ex 24:8 (also in Heb 9:20) can't possibly refer to Moses' covenant sacrifice. (You'll find covenant sacrifices also associated with establishment of the covenants with Noah and Abraham.)

That understanding that Jesus' death (and resurrection) purifies us fits perfectly into Reformed theology, since Calvin's ordo salutis starts with God deciding to save us, grafting us into Christ, and regenerating us through that union with him. Faith, justification and sanctification are a result.