The Necessity of the Atonement
called punishments in a general and rather loose sense of the word.
They are not limited to the guilty parties and are by no means always commensurate with the transgressions. The Bible speaks of men, however, as being by nature under condemnation and as "children of wrath," and speaks of God as a "God that will by no means clear the guilty."
The Necessity of the Atonement The necessity of the atonement in early history.
NOW the question arises, whether the atonement was necessary or might have been dispensed with entirely. Was it a necessary prerequisite for the work of reconciliation and redemption, or could
God have redeemed man irrespective of any real atonement? On this point there has been considerable difference of opinion since the days of Anselm. This Church Father himself stressed the absolute necessity of the atonement, and based it primarily on the honor of God, though not entirely without taking God's justice into consideration also. His great opponent, Abelard, on the other hand, asserted that God could have granted pardon irrespective of any punishment for sin. Several later Scholastics shared the views of Anselm, but presented them with less consistency. Thomas Aquinas in a certain sense denied the absolute necessity of the atonement, but regarded this method of redemption as the best means to give expression at once to both the mercy and the righteousness of God.
Duns Scotus went far beyond St. Thomas in his negations. He held that, just as the work of redemption in general was not necessary but contingent, the atonement too was simply dependent on the arbitrary will of God. There is nothing in the nature of God that calls for atonement.
The Reformers on the necessity of the atonement.
Respecting the opinion of the Reformers on this matter there is considerable difference of opinion. Ritschl says that they made it their aim to deduce the absolute unavoidable necessity of Christ's satisfaction from that moral order of the universe, which is solidaire with the essential will of God." Dr. Orr follows Ritschl on this point in his Progress of Dogma, p. 237. But this assertion, which might apply to the great Protestant theologians of the seventeenth century, is too sweeping, if not incorrect, with respect to the Reformers, though it may seem to be warranted by some of their statements.
Principal Franks appears to be closer to the truth, when he says that Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin all avoided the Anselmian doctrine of the absolute necessity of the atonement and ascribed to it only a relative or hypothetical necessity based on the sovereign free will of God or, in other words, on the divine decree. This opinion is shared by Seeberg, Mozley, Stevens, Mackintosh, Bavinck, and others. This appears more clearly, however, in the works of Calvin than in those of Luther. It is frequently said that the influence of Duns Scotus on the Reformers appears at this point; but it would not be correct to assume that they conceived of the will of God as an arbitrary will, independent of His moral character. They repudiated the idea that the will of God was determined by anything outside of Himself, but at the same time regarded it as acting, by virtue of an inner necessity, in harmony with His whole inner Being and with all His attributes.
Confer especially Warfield's notes in his Calvin and Calvinism, pp.
155, 156.
But while the Reformers contended only for a "hypothetical necessity," as Turretin calls it, a necessity based on the divine decree, they regarded the method of reconciliation by atonement as the most suitable way, since it safeguards the justice and holiness of God. The great Lutheran and Reformed theologians of the seventeenth century did not hesitate to maintain the absolute necessity of the atonement and to ground it in the very Being of God. They regarded the law which man transgressed, not as a mere positive commandment dependent on the will of God, but as the immutable expression of the essential will of God; and conceived of God's punitive justice, not as
an accidental, but as an essential quality of God by which He is constrained to inflict due punishment on evil-doers. Both Socinus and Grotius denied that there was anything in the nature of God which made the atonement necessary, while the Arminians were not entirely agreed on this point. The advocates of the so-called Moral
Influence and Mystical Theories of the atonement deny the fact of an objective atonement, and therefore also by implication deny its necessity. With them atonement becomes merely at-one-ment or reconciliation effected by changing the moral condition of the sinner.
Many feel that the stupendous fact that Christ died guarantees the moral necessity of what He undertook to do, but refuse to speak of legal necessity, or of "an antecedent necessity for suffering, leading up to a subsequent display of mercy."
Reformed theology on the necessity of the atonement.
While there are some Reformed theologians, such as Zanchius and Twisse, who follow Calvin in ascribing to the atonement only a hypothetical necessity, resulting from the divine decree to pardon on no other condition, Reformed theology in general shows a decided preference for the other view. It regards the atonement as absolutely necessary, and grounds it particularly in the justice of God, that moral perfection of the divine Being, in virtue of which He necessarily maintains His holiness over against sin and the sinner and inflicts due punishment on transgressors. This is also the position of our Confessional Standards, Heidelberg Catechism,
Question 40; and Canons of Dort II, Art. 1. It would seem to be the clear teaching of Scripture that God, in virtue of his divine righteousness and holiness, which can brook no sin and certainly cannot simply overlook defiance to His infinite majesty, must needs visit sin with punishment. Habakkuk addresses God with the following words: "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and that canst not look on perverseness," Hab. 1:13. God hates sin with a divine hatred; His whole Being reacts against it, Ps. 5:4–6; Nah. 1:2;
Rom. 1:18. Paul argues in Rom. 3:25, 26 that it was necessary that Christ should be offered as an atoning sacrifice for sin, in order that
God might be just while justifying the sinner. The important thing was that the justice of God should be maintained. This clearly points to the fact that the necessity of the atonement follows from the divine nature. Moreover, it would seem to find an additional proof in the greatness of the sacrifice that was brought. God gave His only begotten Son for the sin of the world. Says Dr. Hodge: "This sacrifice would be most painfully irrelevant if it were anything short of absolutely necessary in relation to the end designed to be attained— that is, unless it be indeed the only possible means to the salvation of sinful men. God surely would not have made His Son a wanton sacrifice to a point of bare will." Atonement, p. 237. It is also worthy of notice that, according to the argument of Paul in Gal. 3:21, Christ would not have been sacrificed, if the law could have given life.
"Nothing is easier," says Brunner, "than to caricature the statements of the Bible and of Christianity about the penal sufferings of Christ in such a way that behind these 'theories' we seem to perceive the figure of some bloodthirsty Oriental monarch, or of some primitive Eastern divinity, with his whims and caprices. But in reality the absolute sovereignty of God is the presupposition of this revelation, and, wherever the idea of a 'democratic God' is entertained, there will be no intelligent understanding of the meaning of the Cross." The Mediator, p. 470.
Denial of this necessity involves a denial of the punitive justice of God.
They who deny the necessity of a penal substitutionary atonement, by implication also disown the strict punitive justice of God, in virtue of which He must necessarily punish sin. At a comparatively early stage in the history of doctrine they already felt the need of attacking or re-interpreting the usual conception of the justice of God. Socinus denied the existence of an inherent punitive justice in God and regarded it as a mere effect of God's will. Grotius affirmed its presence in God indeed, but denied that it necessarily calls for adequate penal satisfaction. The will of God, guided by wisdom, may intervene between the attribute of justice and its effects. The
Arminians share this opinion. And in our day the opponents of the doctrine of penal satisfaction virtually take the same position, though they usually state it in a different way. It is very common among them to assume that love is the central and all-controlling perfection of God, and that His justice must be interpreted through His love. In other words, His love determines the measure in which He exercises justice. This is but another way of denying the inherent character and absoluteness of the justice of God. It makes the justice of God contingent on the divine love, and therefore on the divine will.
Support for this view is sought in the scriptural statement that "God is love." But that this assertion does not mean that God is essentially only love is quite evident from the fact that the Bible also says, "God is light" and "our God is a consuming fire." Moreover, God could not be love in the absolute and true sense of the word, if He were not also just. His love would be like that of Eli for his wicked sons, and this love stands condemned on the pages of Holy Writ.
Objections to this necessity; God inferior to man.
A couple of objections call for brief consideration here. It is sometimes said that, according to this view of the atonement, God is really inferior to good men. These can and often do love and freely forgive those who wrong them, but God, on this view, cannot exercise love to the sinner before receiving satisfaction. But this objection fails to discern that God cannot simply be compared to a private individual, who can without injustice forget about his personal grievances. He is the Judge of all the earth, who in that capacity must maintain the law and exercise strict justice. A judge cannot simply ignore the law and acquit the culprit that is brought before him. No matter how generous he may be as a private individual, he must see to it that the law takes its course. Moreover, this objection also fails to take note of the fact that, when man had fallen in sin, it was neither metaphysically nor morally necessary that God should open up a way by which the sinner could escape from utter ruin. He was not constrained to devise and to put into execution a way of redemption. With perfect justice He could have left man to his self-
chosen doom. He was under no obligation to save a single one. And the ground for His determination to redeem a goodly number of the fallen human race, and in them the race itself, can only be found in His own good pleasure. This love to the sinner was not awakened by any consideration of satisfaction, but was entirely sovereign and free.
Scripture teaches us that they who are saved owe their salvation in the last analysis to the good pleasure of God. The Mediator Himself was a gift of the Father's love, a gift which naturally could not be contingent on the atonement. Moreover, God Himself wrought the atonement in Jesus Christ. It may be called a gift of God to man. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life," John 3:16. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins," 1
John 4:9, 10. "Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present evil world, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever," Gal. 1:4, 5. "In whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we should be to the praise of His glory," Eph.
1:11, 12.
Schism in the trinitarian life.
The first objection frequently goes hand in hand with a second which finds expression in the following words of David Smith: "It (the penal theory of satisfaction) places a gulf between God and Christ, representing God as the stern Judge who insisted on the execution of justice, and Christ as the pitiful Savior who interposed and satisfied
His legal demand and appeased His righteous wrath. They are not one either in their attitudes toward sinners or in the parts which they play. God is propitiated, Christ propitiates; God inflicts the punishment, Christ suffers it; God exacts the debt, Christ pays it."
The Atonement in the Light of History and the Modern Spirit, p. 106.