Jean -
I once had a discussion on the issue of Christ's substitutionary death (atonement) for our sins with a Christian brother. I would be interested in your view on the discussion.
My friend looked at our sin and guilt before God analogous to case law. That because of Christ's death, it was "just as though we had not sinned". His view was that our sins were erased and stricken from our record. I was more of the opinion, using the same case law analogy, that we were declared guilty before God's judgement throne yet the penalty of our sin was paid by Christ.
There is a minor difference between these two schools of thought since they both have similar results but I do think the difference is significant enough to argue. What say you?
I think a better legal illustration would be that our convictions for our sins have been expunged from the record. The record reflects no existence of our past sins.
Good question.
I would count myself in agreement with you -although I typically do not always care for the use of analogies -such as in an analogy to "case law". That gets too technical -especially considered the vast majority of Christians are not schooled in law.
That being said, I think the "rank and file" Christian -whether Arminian or Calvinist- would undoubtedly confess that Christ did indeed receive the punishment that was due to that "rank and file" Christian.
Why not? It certainly is Biblical. The Scriptures explicitly tell us that Christ was the "propitiation". It was either topcat54 or stop_killing_unborn_babies who emphasized that aspect just a few days ago.
Sadly, the doctrine of the Atonement and Justification are not discussed as they should be around here. The Arminians just aren't interested. Perhaps that is due to the fact that learned Arminians simply cannot make up their minds as to what it actually means. They do speak with a unified voice, however, in denying the Penal Atonement Theory. One Arminian is on record as saying Christ did a "something". Another is on record as saying that Christ "suffered" for us so that God can "believe in us" once again.
But I digress.
I have said often that we must have a correct Doctrine of God as a foundation for our Soteriological discussions.
The Arminians start with Free-Will and thus, understandably, some Arminians flirt with and even end up embracing "Open Theism". xzins himself once flirted with that very heresy just a couple of years ago on this thread. He has since rejected it. And one of the other FRminians can now be counted as a full fledged Open Theist -although he rarely posts here anymore.
It should not come as a suprise, then, that Calvin starts out with the "Doctrine of God" in his Institutes.
Summed up, if we understand that God is a perfectly JUST God, we know that our sins needs to be accounted for. It simply cannot be "taken off the books". Punishment must be given, or God is not actually perfectly JUST.
Since God is perfectly JUST and requires recompence for our sin, and since we are sinful human beings -even guilty of Adams sin as the Doctrine of "Orignal Sin" professes- we need a perfect sacrifice -the "unblemished Lamb"- to take our place.
Thus, Christ's atonement actually received the punishment that was due me and he fully paid for my sin.
Hand-in-hand with the Atonement is the Doctrine of Justification. We are made Holy and deemed Righteous because of Christ's active and passive obedience to the Law that has been imputed (credited) to us.
Arminianism, with its denial of Imputation, has at heart made Christ simply "suffer". Apparently, this "suffering" was enough such that God simply "imparts" (gives) man forgiveness and "imparts" man righteousness. It is not on account of Christ that we are forgiven and righteousness.
Less known, actually, is the Arminian position of the "new law" which states that we now must "accept" Jesus in order to fulfill the new law and account for our own righteousness. Wierd stuff!
Jean