Mark Horne

So, because I obviously have a deep need to procrastinate (I don’t even know what I’m procrastinating about, but I must be procrastination.  That is the only possible explanation), I meandsurfed over here and am now quite horrified at how much confusion can be mixed up on one place.

Of course, there is a lot to agree with too, but that only makes the essay all the more confusing.  His comment on Romans 8.3 that jumped out at me:

The phrase “for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” I interpret as being made a sin offering and made satisfaction for sin.

So basically when a passage support substitutionary atonement, we re-write the passage.  Here is Romans 8.3 in the ESV and notice the portion I highlight:

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

And here it is in the NASB, notice again what I highlight.

For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh

Our Roman Catholic champion had read somewhere that something in Romans 8.3 meant that Jesus was made as a sin offering.  Since he already “knew” that sacrifices were not about substitutionary atonement (if he had inserted “only,” “merely,” and maybe even “mainly” he would have been more correct but he would have lost his polemic), he felt he could simply take the entire passage and summarily draft it to his side.

But the two words “concerning sin,” which scholars believe are shorthand for “as a sin offering” (thus the NASB) are not the only two words in the passage.  In the judicial execution of Jesus God passed judicial condemnation on sin.  This should have been an opportunity for our friend to reconsider his position, but that wasn’t the point of the essay.

Which brings us to what is included about Romans 3.24-25:

and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

The writer deal with this passage as best he can, and truly does a better than with Romans 8.3.  He never mentions this passage.  He never mentions the word “propitiation” in an essay that is supposed to refute the substitutionary atonement.

God has wrath on sin.  His righteousness is in question because of his forbearance of sins that have been committed and that he has passed over (Exodus 12?).  What happened to vindicate God’s righteousness in not punishing these sins?  It was that Jesus was displayed publicly as a propitiation, an appeasement of God’s wrath.

As the (aptly named) N. T. Wright has written in defending the use of the word “propitiation” in English translations in Romans 4:

The idea of punishment as part of atonement is itself deeply controversial; horrified rejection of the mere suggestion has led on the part of some to an unwillingness to discern any reference to Isaiah 40-55 in Paul. But it is exactly that idea that Paul states, clearly and unambiguously, in Romans 8:3, when he says that God ‘condemned sin in the flesh’—i.e. the flesh of Jesus. Dealing with wrath or punishment is propitiation; with sin, expiation. You propitiate a person who is angry, you expiate a sin, crime (N. T. Wright, The Letter to the Romans, 475-476).

In fact, I’ll end this post with another quotation from one of Wright’s popular works, and ask readers whether something simple and straightforward is suffering unnecessary complications in order to be made problematic.

It was, first and foremost, a Passover meal. Luke has told us all along that Jesus was going to Jerusalem to “accomplish his Exodus” (9.31). he has come to do for Israel and the whole world what God did through Moses and Aaron in the first Exodus. When the powers of evil that were enslaving God’s people were at their worst, God acted to judge Egypt and save Israel. And the sign and means of both judgment and rescue was the Passover: the angel of death struck down the firstborn of all Egypt, but spared Israel as the firstborn of God, “passing over” their houses because of the blood of the lamb on the doorposts (Exodus 12). Now the judgment that had hung over Israel and Jerusalem, the judgment Jesus had spoken of so often, was to be meted out; and Jesus would deliver his people by taking its force upon himself. His own death would enable his people to escape…Luke describe the event in such a way that we can hardly miss the point. Barabbas is guilty of some of the crimes of which Jesus, though innocent, is charged: stirring up the people, leading a rebellion… Jesus ends up dying the death appropriate for the violent rebel. He predicted he would be “reckoned with the lawless” (22.37), and it has happened all too soon… [T]his is in fact the climax of the whole gospel. This is the point for which Luke has been preparing us all along. All sinners, all rebels, all the human race are invited to see themselves in the figure of Barabbas; and, as we do so, we discover in this story that Jesus comes to take our place, under condemnation for sins and wickedness great and small. In the strange justice of God, which overrules the unjust “justice” of Rome and every human system, God’s mercy reaches out where human mercy could not, not only sharing, but in this case substituting for, the sinner’s fate (Luke22.1-3; 23.13-26; Luke for Everyone, 262, 279, 280; emphasis added).

If this be blasphemy, make the most of it.  Athanasius was accused of entangling God’s nature in human muck.  Fearing to allow the Son of God to join us under the wrath of God strikes me as the same false fastidiousness about keeping God pure and undefiled.  He never sinned but he never worried about getting dirty, and he’s not flattered when we take it upon ourselves to try to clean him up.

I’d rather worship than cringe.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 10:35 am and is filed under Bible & Theology, Romans, Wright and FV FAQ. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.