Modern Man’s Struggle with Reformed Theology
July 22, 2009
Atonement Versus Innocence
Now, this church is used to
hearing atonement words. We’ll talk
more about it in just a little bit.
But we are used to a minister from the pulpit and layman from the pulpit talking
about the precious blood of Christ.
That our sins are covered by his blood.
We hear that kind of verbiage.
We are thankful, Lord, for your sacrifice – we hear that.
I guess I just want you to understand that that isn’t common in every
church. Hearing that verbiage is
fairly unusual in today’s world. If
you go on vacation, go to the biggest church in town and hear what they preach
about. Don’t go to a PCA church—go
to another church and just hear what is going on out there and see what is
happening and see what you can pick up on – what’s happening.
Now, even in the Christian faith, where there is disagreement about this
whole thing called, “Limited Atonement” – historically, that has been part of
Calvinism, the Reformed Faith, and I really am as normal as I’ve been doing, I’m
not going to debate and try to prove the limited atonement to y’all, but I am
going to try to state it just a little bit and give a little bit of Scriptural
reference for it. But having done
that, I then want to say what that doctrine does to most people in the world
today. Keep our little graph in
mind. The atheists and agnostics
over here – 10% of our society, 5% of these other religions, 85% say some
affiliation to Christianity; perhaps 1% being Reformed over here.
But this big population in here is heavily influenced by Arminian
theology. Heavily influenced.
But we are over here. What
struggle do these folks have with us?
That’s what we are trying to look at and trying to understand, a little
bit.
Limited design of the atonement, what
Morton Smith told me to say, God designed it to be limited and any event is
rather critical. Now the point I am
going to make is, most people in the world today, don’t like the whole word
“atonement” whether it is limited or not.
They don’t like the concept of the atonement.
It’s offensive. We’ll come
back to that. The atonement, Burns
Brown – you may not have heard that name, but my time in California, I got to
know him a little bit, he quoted one time to say, “the atonement is the center
of gravity in Christian life and thought because it is the center of gravity in
the New Testament. The concept of Christ
paying the penalty for sin. The
word atonement is only used one time in the New Testament – Romans 5:11.
As a matter of fact, if you use the ESV, you don’t have it translated
“atonement,” you have another word in there, “reconciled.”
But that’s what the word is – it means “reconciled.”
The Hebrew word means, “to cover” – the sacrifice covers, the covering of
the offense so that the one who was hurt doesn’t see the offense and it has been
paid for, hence it’s come to mean sort of “forgiveness” or “reconciliation,”
hence the translation. Now, our
sins are covered, we talk about, by the blood of Christ.
That’s our theology. That’s
what we believe.
Some of you have heard the name, B.B.
Warfield. I hope you have. He’s an
old Presbyterian worthy, back when
I love Martin Luther.
By the way, if we could bring Calvin and Luther down into the world
today, I think Luther would be a good old Southern boy because he would tell it
just like it was in his words, his way.
May I give you a quote from Luther?
He’s talking about Christ right now. He’s talking about Christ.
“The righteous and innocent man (Christ) must tremble and fear as a poor, damned
sinner, and in his gentle, innocent heart, feel God’s wrath and judgment against
sin, taste for us, eternal death and damnation, and in some, suffer all what a
damned sinner has earned and suffer eternally.”
That’s sort of telling it like it is, isn’t it?
That’s Luther. Now this is
Calvin:
“Christ took upon himself and suffered the punishment which by the righteous
judgment of God, impended over all sinners and by this expiation, the Father has
been satisfied and His wrath appeased.”
That sort of sounds like a seminary professor, doesn’t it?
The other one sounds like the camp meeting preacher.
But both of them are saying pretty much the same thing.
Christ had to suffer, bleed, die, for sin to be taken care of and
removed. That means that sin is a
very, very important issue. It is
not passé. Now, we are forgiven,
yes we are. We are covered in the
blood of Christ. Now, Reformation
history and boy, I am making quantum leaps here, okay, so forgive me, okay?
The sort of liberal movement came in.
You’ve heard of the name, Schleiermacher?
He said, basically, that Jesus redeemed the members of this community by
arousing within them a “God-consciousness” which is the counterpart of his own.
Now what does that mean? I
don’t know. But Christ became more
of our model. Then we get down –
and I am making quantum leaps here again – to Karl Barth.
You’ve probably heard that name one time or another.
Barth says that the conversion of us all to God, the realization of the
true humanity – that’s what the incarnation is all about.
Well, in talking you’ve got this process of taking it and not being a
historical thing necessarily, but having it be a spiritual – he opens the door
for universalism. And you know,
it’s possible that we just all are saved.
I repeat to you one of my
personal experiences while a
student at Columbia Theological Seminary.
There was no RTS, there was no Covenant.
We went to the best we could find.
We went to
Okay, ransomed, satisfaction,
all the way from that concept of the ancient fathers to Universalism – the
atonement – oh, it’s stretched out there, isn’t it?
We have all of these different options. And then the question of the
limited design of the atonement.
And this is the dividing line between the Arminianists and the Calvinists and we
are not even going to into that – did Christ die for all men equally and alike
or do we state that Christ died for the elect only?
I have to repeat myself and say that the thing that I learned and
believed – Christ’s death was sufficient for the salvation of the world, but his
death was efficient for the salvation of the elect.
That’s the old way of saying it.
Okay, now just some scripture, okay?
And this is the verse that causes, perhaps, confusion to people about the
atonement and universalism, etc.
“For God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son.”
You know John 3:16, don’t you?
Well, he died for the world, didn’t he?
Well, the slight problem is that the Pharisees used that same word,
“world,” when they said, “Behold, the world is gone after him” in John 12:19.
Well, hmm. So the Arminian
says that the world is those that God really looks forward and is going to
receive him and so he made them elect and so Christ died for them.
The Calvinist says “no” – it’s a Sovereign act of God, pure grace,
unmerited, total depravity, unconditional election, and that atonement is for
those, his people. Now, right now –
I’m not trying to debate that. I’m
just trying to give you some Scripture here.
“If God be for us, who can be
against us? He that spared not his
own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him, also freely
give us all things? Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God’s elect?”
Ahh…different verses.
John 10 is a chapter that you
can read if you want to get some of the flow of this limited atonement.
He doesn’t necessarily believe
that there needs to be an atonement at all.
As a matter of fact, the atonement, with its emphasis on blood, death,
sacrifice, satisfaction, is offensive to many people.
The concept of the limited atonement is primarily talked about at
meetings that PCA-type preachers go to.
You don’t find many articles in the newspaper about limited atonement.
You just don’t hear that.
And frankly, I don’t think you gonna…in my lifetime anyway.
As a matter of fact, to hold to the five points of Calvinism, is to be
held up almost for ridicule in today’s world.
Now, I want to do something
that you may think is weird. I want
to give you a parallel. The
atonement is the way that something bad is taken care of.
Christ died to cover that sin.
The closest parallel that we have in our society is the question of
capital punishment. What do we do
when someone does something so bad that society says they have lost the right to
live. That “sin” – the word we use
- that “offense” (word others might use), has to be punished or satisfied by the
killing or the shedding of blood of that person.
It is a parallel to the theology position of the atonement.
Now, bear with me here. The
ACLU, I’m reading some statements that they have made, now, against the death
penalty.
Statement Number One: “Capitol
punishment is cruel and unusual. It is a
relic of the earliest days of penology, when slavery, branding, and other
corporal punishments were common place.
Like those other barbaric practices, executions have no place in a
civilized society.”
Now, indulge me. Let me take
execution, capital punishment out, and let’s put atonement in.
The atonement is cruel and unusual.
It is a relic of the earliest days of theology, when slavery, branding,
and other corporal punishments were common place.
Like those other barbaric practices, the concept of atonement for sin,
has no place in a civilized society.
I think that fits. We don’t
talk about sin much in our world today.
Your blessed to be in a church where sin is talked about, but I’m telling
you, Joel Olsteen has made the statement that he doesn’t talk about sin.
He talks about things that will comfort people and sin doesn’t.
Now, the next statement the ACLU says:
“Opposition to the death part of penalty, does not arise from misplaced sympathy
for convicted murderers. On the
contrary, murder demonstrates a lack of respect for human life.
For this very reason, murder is abhorrent and any policy of
state-authorized killings is immoral.”
Now, let’s do our little substitution.
Opposition to the atonement does not arise from misplaced sympathy of
convicted sinners. On the contrary,
sinning demonstrates a lack of respect for human life.
For this very reason, sinning is abhorrent.
Any policy of state-authorized killing, any theology which teaches there
must be atonement for sin, is immoral.
Now whether you agree me if it fits or not, it’s interesting, isn’t it?
There is a little parallel going on here.
Capitol punishment involves due process of law.
It’s imposition is arbitrary and irrevocable.
It forever deprives the individual of benefits of new evidence, of a new
law that might warrant the reversal of a conviction, or the setting aside of a
death sentence. Now let’s put a
word in there. The atonement,
denies due process of law. It’s
imposition is arbitrary and irrevocable.
It forever deprives an individual of benefits of new evidence or new law
that might warrant the reversal of a conviction or the setting aside of hell.
For instance, you do realize that our
laws have changed significantly in areas such as abortion.
There were times when people would have been put into prison for
performing an abortion. For
homosexuality. It was perceived as
a sin against God. A violation of
the Sabbath. Where have all the
blue laws gone? Oh, I grew up with
the blue laws. I am familiar with
them. Some of y’all don’t know what
that’s about. But us old folk do
know. The Bible in public places.
The Bible in public places was a common understanding.
That whole concept of right and wrong – well, it’s no longer against the
law. The law has changed, but you
see, if you believe in the concept of the atonement, that Christ had to die to
cover your sins, well what have we redefined sins?
Then we don’t have to worry about hell, do we?
As a matter of fact, if we redefine sin, we don’t have to worry about
hell. And if we are all going to go
to Heaven, voila! We’ve got it!
We can do what we wish and not have to worry about that.
We’ve had a lot of funerals this week.
I’ve never been to a funeral where I’ve heard the preacher or the person
presiding get up and say, “Well, old Joe is in hell now.”
Well, he lived his life.
This is what he wanted, so he is there.
I wish we could hear from him so that we could tell him what it’s like.
We don’t say that. The place
where universalism is most fervently believed, tends to be at the funeral
service. We don’t talk about hell.
We don’t talk about sin.
Okay. I’m about through with this
section, okay.
Execution gives society the
unmistakable message that human life no longer deserves respect when it is
useful to take it and that homicide is legitimate when being justified by
pragmatic concerns. Wait a minute,
human life no longer deserves respect.
Human life, then, is the primary question – no, it’s not.
The primary question is God’s glory, adherence to His Word – they take
precedent over human life. The
Christians who walked into the arena to be eaten by the lions could have stood
up and said, “Wait a minute, this is a violation of human life – but they
didn’t. They walked into the arena,
by and large, singing hymns, glorifying God, in the midst of the loss of life.
I’ve got more of these, but I’m gonna – well, let’s look at one little
statement. “A decent and humane
society does not deliberately kill human beings.”
Well, God does. If you mean
by “killing,” the sending to hell.
You’ve got to think about that, got to think about that.
If there is no life after death, then these arguments gain some clout.
However, humans are all sinners, all deserving death, but they who accept
Christ have his blood as a covering for their sin.
Now, there’s another book that
I happened to read once upon a time, by a guy named Hugo Bedau –
Major Points Against the Death Penalty –
he says, “it is unfair to kill somebody.
Constitutional due process as well as elementary justice requires that
the judicial functions of trial and sentencing be conducted with fundamental
fairness.” And he says, “that’s not
a fair thing to do.” Well, if
capital punishment is unfair, why is ultimate punishment then, not fair?
Well, I think that ultimate punishment is fair.
It is God’s definition of what is going to happen.
Inevitability of error. If
you take someone’s life, if you believe in the death penalty, then sooner or
later, you are going to make a mistake and the wrong guy is going to be
executed. But what if you believe
in the Sovereignty of God? What if
you believe that his honor and glory is what life is all about?
It’s not about how long I live and my quality of life.
Some of the most meaningful lives ever lived have been cut very, very
short. The greatest lives are not
necessarily the ones who live the longest.
It’s not how long you live, it’s how you live.
He says it is barbarian to believe in this process of the death penalty.
Well, I can understand that.
Is hell barbaric, then? If you read
the passages about fire and brimstone, I can understand that.
Is hell barbaric, then? If
you read the passages about fire and brimstone and a burning lake of fire and
you read about all of that—it’s fairly barbaric.
But that’s what God says is going to happen to the person who doesn’t
claim the blood of Christ. Now, if
you believe that there’s a God – He has given us His word, there is a Heaven,
there is a hell, there is such a thing as sin, there is such a thing as
election, and there is such a thing as atonement. Well, that makes sense,
doesn’t it. But if you believe that
man is the highest level of development of an organism on this earth, that
individuals can choose – there is no such thing as arbitrary Truth, if you
believe that now is all that we have, so live for now, if all are responsible
then none are responsible, if you believe we are evolving, if you believe the
rights of all, and that we are basically innocent people, then we have a problem
here.
Marquis de Lafayette (1830)
made this statement, “I shall ask for the abolition of the punishment of death
until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me.”
Well, I can understand what he is saying.
Human beings are fallible.
We make mistakes. But God doesn’t.
God rules and overrules.
Supreme Court Justice, Arthur Goldberg wrote, “The deliberate, institutionalized
taking of human life by the state is the greatest conceivable degradation to the
dignity of the human personality.”
That’s sort of interesting, isn’t it? I agree with him, if you let me
change one word – the deliberate institutionalized taking of human life…no…the
greatest degradation to the human personality is sin.
Sin is. Not the taking of
human life.
There’s another little
statement written by a professor of human life at the
Now the church – I’ve got to
read this one to you. I don’t mean
to pick on anybody, but the group within the church that sort of has taken the
lead against the death penalty, and I happen to believe against the atonement,
too. Episcopalians – a bishop out
in
Atonement became a barbarian concept
when blood is required for sin.
Human dignity and rights are seen as violated if atonement is looked at all.
Now, atonement for sin, which requires a blood sacrifice is perceived by
many to be unfair and barbaric and is not warranted by human behavior.
Hence, mainstream Christianity.
Old school, mainstream, major denomination churches are losing members
right and left and one reason they are is, as the country music says, and by the
way, Derek’s not here—I was going to educate him about Johnny Cash since he
mentioned him in church Sunday night.
He was a very devout Christian man.
And Willy Nelson once said about Johnny Cash, “The Lord may have saved
his soul, but he sure didn’t help his music career any.”
Well, He did help his career ultimately.
He really did. So I’ve got
to educate Derek on that one. But
back to the deal here.
Atonement for sin, which requires a blood sacrifice is unfair and barbaric, so
some people say, especially these old line churches that are main-stream, that
don’t hold or believe in an atonement theory, like we do.
Okay. But, may I read you
just two verses?
Hebrews
9:22b – “And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.”
Galatians 1:3 and 5, “Our Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins, that he
might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and
our Father, to whom be glory forever and ever, Amen.”
The atonement is very important. I
told you last time, in terms of today’s world, the concept of election – that’s
a “no, no.” The atonement is
down from it. The fact that God
arbitrarily choosing some and not choosing others is not fair.
But the fact that he wants to cover sin with blood is barbaric.
And to be hidden in antiquity.
Not to the Christian. Not to
the Bible-believing Christian. Not
to the Christian who wishes to live a life to honor God in Jesus Christ, who
wishes to be saved by the blood of Christ.
Not to the Christian who wants to be God’s person.
Now, as we live in the world today, you are going to find that if you try
to talk about certain things, it won’t be very attractive.
People won’t really come in.
But, if you want to do a series on suffering and depression, people will want to
come to that. If you will just
preach to me about how I can feel better, I will come.
But if you are going to tell me about blood and sacrifice and
requirements, I don’t want that. So, our modern man hears this little sliver of
people over here talking about this stuff and says, “I think I will go to that
Joel Olsteen Sunday morning service in my house.”
I think Joel Olsteen has reached many people for the Lord, by the way.
God uses people like that. I
really believe that He does. I am
saying that point blank. But our
task is to be as close to Scripture and as close to what God wants for us as we
possibly can.
Let’s pray…
Heavenly Father, this is not easy.
It’s not easy to think about. It’s
not easy to get an illustration that makes the point. It’s hard to do it, as a
matter of fact. I pray though, that
each person here, will desire to honor you and to serve you and will want to
think through not because I’ve said it, but Lord if it’s Your will, if it’s Your
Word, if it’s Your way, then we want it.
I pray that in Your graciousness and goodness, you will be with each
person here, and that you will allow us to think your thoughts, to study Your
Word, to think theologically, to be people who wish to study God, who wish to
know You and Your way. Encourage
us, we pray in Christ’s name, Amen.
Let’s stand.
And now may grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, rest and abide up in you, both now and forever more.
Singing of the Doxology.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him all creatures here below.
Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen.
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