Vi. Reconciliation And Substitution
V. THE NEW TESTAMENT CONCEPT OF RECONCILIATION
Such is the evidence upon which we must base our doctrine, and the conclusions which have in fact been drawn from it are diverse. On the one hand many insist that the Scriptures which speak of God as reconciling man to Himself are the significant ones, and that reconciliation takes place when man recognizes his sinfulness and the greatness of God’s love. On the other hand there are those who insist upon the objective nature of the atonement, and stress the demands of the holiness of God, of the righteousness of God, and who refuse to dismiss from the consideration of this subject the passages which speak, for example, of the wrath of God.
Perhaps none have argued more fervently for the former position than Dr. J. Oman. He is insistent that God does not need to be reconciled to us. ‘To be reconciled is to be forgiven, and to be forgiven is to be reconciled, yet Christ’s whole manifestation of the Father depends on putting reconciliation first in our thoughts. We are not reconciled when, upon conditions, God has forgiven us, but we are forgiven when we know that He is waiting to be gracious. No word of religious insight says we need to beseech God to be reconciled to us.’458 The same writer puts emphasis upon reconciliation as a factor in life here and now, as reconciliation to one’s lot. ‘As enmity against God is primarily enmity against the lives He has appointed for us, because we insist on using them for other ends than His, so reconciliation to God is primarily reconciliation to our lives by seeking in them only His ends. Its immediate significance is reconciliation to the discipline He appoints and the duty He demands. It is thus, in the first place at least, concerned with this life, not another, being the promise of sitting in the heavenly places amid the tumult of the present hour and not of sitting in a remote heaven in a passionless eternity.‘459 He defines reconciliation: ‘Reconciliation to God may be defined as a recognition of God’s gracious relation to us through blessedness in our use of the world, our dealings with our fellow-men and our loyalty to His Kingdom.’460
We admire the learning and sincerity with which Dr. Oman argues his case, and agree that his contention that God’s grace is primary in the manner of reconciliation is essentially right. But when full allowance has been made for all this we must beg leave to doubt whether justice is being done to all the scriptural teaching on the subject, and in particular to that aspect of reconciliation which connects it with the death of the Son of God. On Dr. Oman’s view it is hard to see why Christ need have died at all, for all that is necessary is ‘a recognition of God’s gracious relation to us’. But the Scripture seems insistent that on Calvary something was done which has effects quite outside man. In other words all those passages which indicate an objective atonement cry out for explanation, and on the view we are considering they find none.461 In the last resort everything depends upon the situation we conceive to result as a consequence of man’s sin. If all that sin means is that man has wandered away from God, but that he may one day wander back again with nothing to consider other than his own situation and desires, then such views as the one we have been considering are adequate. But if man has come under condemnation so that the sentence of God is against him, then more is required than repentance if man’s rightful relationship to God is to be restored. If God’s attitude to sin is expressed in condemnation then God’s attitude is involved in reconciliation, for reconciliation cannot come about independently of that condemnation.462
Our next point might be introduced by a quotation from James Denney, who makes it clear that reconciliation of the type we have been advocating does not carry with it the rider that it was won in the face of God’s opposition. Rather, it comes from Him and is entirely due to His desire to bless us. Denney says: ‘He is not reconciled in the sense that something is won from Him for us against His will, but in the sense that His will to bless us is realised, as it was not before, on the basis of what Christ has done, and of our appropriation of it.‘463 James S. Stewart notices this statement and comments: ‘But is this not using the language of reconciliation in two distinct meanings? Surely what happens on God’s side is so essentially different from what happens on man’s side that to apply the one term to both can only cause confusion.‘464 To me it seems that, paradoxically, there is truth in both these statements. Denney’s statement seems to be correct, for as we have endeavoured to make clear in the foregoing sections, reconciliation in the Scripture depends on more than man’s response to God’s gracious invitation. Reconciliation matters to God as well as to man, and, as Denney says, ‘His will to bless us is realised, as it was not before’.
Nevertheless one must sympathize with Stewart’s difficulty, and it is possible that it brings to a head much of the objection to such a view of reconciliation as that advocated by Denney. Denney does not say that reconciliation means the same thing to God as it does to man, and this would probably be admitted to be the truth by most who hold views similar to his. Certainly I am of the opinion that the change which takes place in man is not the same as the change in God. There are unworthy elements in man’s most perfect action which are absent from anything that God does; and in any case the situations are different. Man has departed from God by his sin, and erected the barrier which separates the two. The fault for the estrangement lies wholly on man’s side. Thus, if reconciliation is to take place, there must be a complete change of attitude on man’s past. He must repent of his sin and turn away from it. This has no parallel from God’s side.
Moreover, reconciliation as man sees it comes about from outside. But this is not the case with God. God was reconciling the world to Himself. We cannot say that God was reconciled by any third party. Rather He must be thought of as reconciling Himself. Even to say that Christ reconciled God does not give us the true picture, for it suggests a disharmony in the Godhead and also raises a doubt as to the constancy of God’s love. But we must insist that God’s love for us remained unchanged throughout the process of reconciliation. P. T. Forsyth draws a distinction between ‘a change of feeling and a change of treatment’, and he goes on to say, ‘God’s feeling toward us never needed to be changed. But God’s treatment of us, God’s practical relation to us - that had to change’.465 The distinction is important. God’s love never varied. But the atonement wrought by Christ means that men are no longer treated as enemies (as their sin deserves), but as friends. God has reconciled Himself.
Thus we may speak of God as being reconciled. It may be necessary, indeed it is necessary, to use the term carefully, when we apply it to God. But then does not this happen with all our language? We must face the position that whenever we talk about God we must do so in language devised to describe man, and accordingly there must always be a certain reserve. This applies to reconciliation as well as to other terms. When we say that God is reconciled to man, this does not mean that, with various imperfections, He completely alters His attitude to man. Rather it is our groping way of expressing the conviction that, though He reacts in the strongest possible way against sin in every shape and form so that man comes under His condemnation, yet when reconciliation is effected, when peace is made between man and God, then that condemnation is removed. God now looks on man no longer as the object of His holy and righteous wrath, but as the object of His love and His blessing.
We must not overlook the fact that the relationship between God and man is a mutual affair. Some write as though man were the only factor affecting the position. After they have said ‘God is love’ there is no longer need to pay attention to the Deity, and all their attention is focused upon what man does.466 Reconciliation becomes then the change in man’s attitude to God and that is all. But as A. E. Garvie says: ‘When it is said that man is reconciled to God, and not God to man, what is ignored is that the relation of God and man is mutual, and involves a moral reciprocity. We may once for all dismiss as contemptible the current caricatures of evangelical theology that it represents God as implacable and vindictive, when it simply insists that moral perfection cannot be indifferent to moral differences in man, and must condemn sin even as it approves righteousness. This condemnation must be conveyed to and approved by the conscience of the forgiven in the very act of forgiveness.‘467 It is impossible to bow God out of His universe, and to maintain that He is indifferent to the moral condition of His people. His love is consistent and does not alter; but we cannot reason from that that the expression of that love is always the same. Love may be likened to a flame. Without changing its essential nature it may give warmth and light, or it may sear and burn. All that sinful men can see of a holy God is that aspect that we call the wrath of God. But when the Son of God Himself has dealt with that wrath, then men may know the warmth of His love. We do not impugn the consistency of God, but we insist that the relation between God and man is a mutual one, and that this must be borne in mind in understanding the biblical doctrine of reconciliation.468
A further point is that no true reconciliation can take place unless the cause of the estrangement is truly faced and dealt with. If it is ignored or glossed over, then a species of uneasy truce may result, but there can be no real restoration of fellowship, no true reconciliation. As Dr. H. Maldwyn Hughes says: ‘there can be no reconciliation between persons by ignoring the deep-seated ground of offence. This must be eradicated and destroyed if the reconciliation is to be complete and lasting. If God and man are to be reconciled, it cannot be by the simple expedient of ignoring sin, but only by overcoming it.‘469 It is the consistent teaching of Scripture that man could not overcome the cause of the enmity. The barrier which the sin of man had erected the wit of man could not find means to remove. But in the death of Him whom God ‘made sin’ for man the cause of the enmity was squarely faced and removed. Therefore a complete reconciliation results, so that man turns to God in repentance and trust, and God looks on man with favour and not in wrath.
We maintain, therefore, that there is no good reason for rejecting the conclusion to which the biblical evidence points, namely, that reconciliation includes what we must call a change on the part of God as well as on the part of man, since the wrath of God is no longer directed towards man. We may well sum up the position in the words of D. W. Simon: ‘Taking the Pauline language in its natural sense, there is no evading the recognition of three points - first , that a change - call it by any name that may be liked - was brought about in the relation of God to man as well as in that of man to God; secondly, that this change was due to the intervention of Christ; and, thirdly, that God Himself was the originator of what may be anthropomorphically termed the plan or method, by which the change in Himself and in man was brought about and justified.‘470
VI. RECONCILIATION AND SUBSTITUTION
Throughout this discussion substitution has been very much in the background, for the very good reason that reconciliation has in itself no very close connection with substitution. Reconciliation has to do with the bringing about of harmonious relations where these did not exist before, and the metaphor directs attention to an estrangement and to the overcoming of that estrangement. The metaphor in itself is concerned only with these things.
But in the particular manner in which the estrangement is overcome it is possible that substitution may occur. In the particular case of the atonement the root cause of the estrangement is man’s sin; so long as that sin is there, harmony with God is impossible. Accordingly reconciliation proceeds by doing away with sin, and the method of doing this was by the atoning death of Christ. Whatever may be the case with other acts of reconciliation, Scripture is clear that the reconciliation between God and man could be brought about only by the death of the Son of God. Accordingly we may discern asubstitutionary element, for as Büchsel says, ‘The reconciliation comes into existence through the death of Jesus (Rom. 5: 10), which here obviously not only benefits us, (being) a revelation of the love of God (Rom. 5 : 8), but is a substitution for us (2 Cor. 5 : 20, 14f.).’471