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God's justice includes more than penal justice for violation of His law but requires the very thing that Justice is grounded upon - His righteousness! The life of Christ is as essential to the atonement as his death and one without the other invalidates the atonement altogether. The lamb MUST BE without spot and blemish and MUST die or no atonement is possible as the Law cannot be satisfied merely by one aspect and neither can any sinner be justified by one aspect.

 

The incarnation is NOT THE ATONEMENT. It provides the framework to make the atonement possible but it is NOT THE ATONEMENT. It makes the atonement possible but it is NOT THE ATONEMENT! The atonement/reconciliation is what Christ must provide to satsify both aspects of God's Justice. He must satisfy the penal demands of the Law or the "wages of sins" but he also must as equally satifsy the righteousness demanded by the law - without spot or blemish - sinlessness.

So, in the sense of making the atonement possible the incarnation is "the key" to the atonement but in regard to what the atonement IS the incarnation is not the key - the key is satisfaction of both the righteous demands and penal demands of the law in behalf of sinners.

 

I perfectly and clearly qualified that statement and you know it. The incarnation is worthless without the full satisfaction of both the righteous and penal demands of the law.

Another false distortion of my view. There are two essentials of the atonement not merely one. The full satisfaction of the righteous demands of God's law focus upon his HOLINESS not his wrath. The full penal satisfaction of God's law focus upon his JUSTICE and both are essential to His own RIGHTEOUSNESS as there can be no righteousness without both HOLINESS and JUSTICE.

However, you view sacrifices one for the other and presents a skewed view of God's "love" which also cannot exist apart from true HOLINESS and JUSTICE as it becomes only a SLOPPY AGAPE.

 

I don't see how. Maybe you would like me to have put it this way.

I didn't put it that way. Paul did. Take it up with him. Still I don't see how you arrived at your view. All I did was quote Paul. But the difference may be that since you approach scripture with your view already in mind it must read that way to you unfortunately.

 

It is true that a term may have many shades of meaning and so only the context in which it is used can really be the determinate factor. So I don't have to deny the particular shade of meaning you choose to emphasize. All I have to do is demonstrate from the context your choice is wrong and it is.

It is wrong for several contextual factors.


1. The nature of justification as explained in Romans 4;5-8 completely repudiates your choice of meaning. Biblical justification is complete satisfaction of "righteousness" as well as what is essential for "remission of sins" (penal satisfaction) as one without the other is no justification at all.

2. The one being justified by faith is the "ungodly" not the "godly" as your salvation theory demands.

3. The justificaiton is a completed action confined within "circumcision" rather than overflowing as an incompleted action inclusive of "circumcision."

4. The justification is a PERFECT TENSE kind of justification (Rom. 5:1-2) rather than a PRESENT TENSE kind of justification and thus a completed action that continues as a completed action instead as continuing as an incompleted action.

5. The illustration in Romans 4:18-21 is not designed to define justification as a kind of action but rather it is defined to define the nature of faith exclusive of anything and everything a person could contribute to be justified (v. 21).

 

Romans chapters 1 through chapter 15 give a systematic presentation of the "salvation" in its entirety. However, Romans 3:24-5:2 deals with ONE ASPECT of salvation called Justification. To confuse the individual aspects with each other or with the whole of salvation is a serious exegetical error which you are guilty. That is precisely why you do not understand the difference IN SALVATION of justification versus regeneration or justification versus sanctification or regeration versus adoption because you confuse different aspects IN SALVATION with each other or with the WHOLE of Salvation.

 

Come on stop playing games! You know very well I am not talking about Paul's wording but your interpretation of his wording. It is your interpretation that is impossible and I spelled out exactly why it is impossible which you ignored.

 

I agree with this

I find it funny you would say this as you repudiate the incarnation in the work of the atonement. You also show your view fault in its emphasis particularily

in that SIN must demand of God. Ridiculous. Let me place the difficulties with your view. If God the Father was pouring out His wrath on the Second Person of the Trinity, then God was divided against Himself, God the Father hating His own Word against the scriptures teaching that they are one. Or that the Father guilty of the greatest evil of all time (pouring out the punishment for all sin on an innocent man, knowing that he is innocent), or if Christ were truly guilty and deserved all that punishment, then His suffering would be of no benefit to us. Or that God needs to pay of sin or the devil. All three don't work. What does work is joining himself to humanity becoming the second Adam taking in all the righteousness by obedience to the law and in purity and satisfying the debt to Justice. God is motivated by love not the need to beat up on something.

I'm glad you identified the origin of my view. But I don't see how you come to your conclusion regarding it.

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There you go again turning the bible into a dictionary. Which it isn't. Suffice it to say both the incarnation and God's divine character with regard to love both play a part in the atonement which you repudiate holding God to be unjust in his actions.

No, I don't believe God is an impetuous child which must beat something to death in order for him to give us his love which penal substitution holds.

 

Explian further because at this point all you have is vicarious punishment as the whole work for atonement.

Again you repudiate the incarnation's involvment in atonement do you want me to show you your quote?

Then he could atone for humanity or be the second Adam. They are, as I've said, inseperable.

No argument here.

 

It is a key aspect to the atonement. Unfortunately you view voids the fact that

 

You will have to do a better job then of expressing your view and how it is you don't see atonement as God needing to beat someone to death to forgive you of your sins and that it doesn't start or isn't initiated by God's wrath or anger.

 

First why don't you try putting it into context? Paul is clearly speaking about the primacy of faith over the law or the works of the law contrasting being counted as righteous before circumcision in Genesis 15, and uses David's Blessing as an supporting example showing that a man is blessed who doesn't work to get forgiven but is accounted forgiven. You Keep trying to make the example of David the primary thrust of what Paul is talking about but its about faith. And you keep ignoring it.

 

I do not deny the necessity of the incarnation as a prerequiste for the possibility of atonement. I only deny the incarnation IS the atonement or INCLUSIVE in the atonement. The incarnation provides the appropriate body for sacrifice but it does not provide the righteous life to satisfy the righteousness demanded by the law nor does it satisfy the penal demands required by the law and it is therein those two aspects that constitute reconciliation/atonment and thus justification of sinners.

What? Are you denying that sin has not penal consequences demanded by God's Justice? Yes, God demands that sin be punished and that is the demand of His law - the wages of sin is death -spiritual, phyiscal and eternal.

He is pouring out his wrath on what the incarnation provided as a sacrifice (Heb. 10:5-9) or upon the SECOND ADAM - which is DEATH. The Second Person of the Trinity cannot suffer death in any form whatsoever and that is why the incarnation so that the humanity which is capable of suffering death could suffer and die.

I am only denying that deity is humanity or humanity is deity and the necessity of the incarnation to make atonement possible as it was not possible for the Second Person of the Trinity in regard to deity.

The deity and humanity of Christ must be differianted as they are not "one" in regard to SAMENESS but that is the assumption your argument is based upon. It is God the Father that put the Son to death and the Scripture makes that clear:

Isa. 53:10 ¶ Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied:

Here is the crux of our disagreement and the real evil of your theory. He acted on the cross as the Second Adam by passive obedience whereby the obedience of "one" shall many be made righteous. This is stated in direct contrast to Adam and by "one man's disobedience" many were made sinners and many be dead. Therefore, in that representative capacity he was "made to be sin" "FOR US" in our place as our sins were imputed to him just as the sins of the peopel had been imputed to the goat by a symbolic act of imputation - laying on of hands.

Another straw man argument! He deserved that punishment in his capacity of an ordained REPRESENTATIVE "for us" in the place of sinners and thus God poured out his wrath JUSTLY as Christ REPRESENTED sinners on the cross who did indeed deserve the wrath of God.

All three are mere straw men arguments that avoid the real position I take. He acted as the Second Adam both in his active and passive obedience as a substitutionary representative for his people.

 

What don't you understand about Holiness and Justice? You think God approves or condemns sin? If he condemns it, do you think it is without consequences!

What is amazing is that you cannot accept the obvious and that is sin has penal consquences under God's Government and Laws.

 

From the outset (Romans 3:24-26) the subject is justification - "being justified freely by his grace". From the outside of Romans 4 where Abraham is introduced it is justification that is the subject (Rom. 4:1). Faith versus works are introduced as the contrasting means through which that subject is obtained. So the subject is not faith but justification. Faith as a means to obtain justification is clarified by contrast and by further explanation. The contrast is works while the explanation is how faith obtains justification through imputation rather than impartation as you suggest.

So it is you that is failing to regard the context.

No such primacy is even hinted at. Instead faith is directly contrasted with works to the exclusion of works "without" works. He says this over and over again and you fail to see it! No primacy but pure contrast and exclusion of works.

Again, justification is the primary subject and the example of David provides the content of justification that makes justification namely justification. There is no such thing as justification in the sight of God without righteousness provided and sins remitted. That is what makes any man "blessed" in God's sight or justified.

As long as you separate the scripture from your explanations you can spin it with ease. However, if we stick to the scriptures and the development and the terms used , then your explanation is exposed for what it is - perversion of the text as your interpretation attempts it to make Paul say completely opposite of what He actually says.

 

First, glad to make your acquaintance.

Second, Baptists do not believe in "sacraments" as the very term is ultimately derived from the Greek word "musterion" translated "mystery" and is NEVER used in the scriptures to describe baptism or the Lord's Supper but is taken from the Latin translation "sacramentus" which again is in the Latin Bible is NEVER used to describe them either.

Third, the theological usage of the term "sacrament" demands that justifying grace is received through baptism and the Lord's Supper as well as other "ordinances" (commands) of God which is rejected by Paul in Romans 4:11.

Fourth, since Baptists do not believe saving grace, regeneration, justification is received in connection with external rites but is received in connection with faith in the gospel, then we reject sacramentalism altogether and identify it for what the Bible calls it "another gospel" or justification by works.

 

That is a damnable lie. Christus Victor does no such thing. You are either woefully ignorant of what Christus Victor teaches, or you are deliberately lying. And I know it's the latter.

All you can ever do is to throw out the charge of heresy. That's all you've got.