When Athanasius thought the character of the Son was being impugned by the Arians, he stood strongly against it in his proclamation of the pure gospel, even at the risk of his own life. Eighteen centuries later, the character of the Father is being impugned by the presentation of a caricature of God, showing Him as an angry judge whose human-type-rage had to be appeased (and still does) or else He would come against us and destroy us. The character of the Son is being impugned by diminishing His finished work in suggesting that what He did has absolutely no eternal meaning unless we say so through a sinner’s prayer or a confirmation or baptism or other salvific sacrament that we’ve given more authority than the shed blood of Jesus Himself. The character of the Holy Spirit is being impugned by diminishing His communion with humanity and assigning him insulting roles ranging to everything from a silent partner to the court jester among the Trinity. Where are those who will stand?
(The paragraph above is an excerpt from what I plan to teach next week at the Grace Walk Leadership Summit in Ontario (Canada) Click here for more information: http://www.gracewalkcanada.org/ )
This is not a gotcha question at all, Steve, but are you saying sin didn't need to be punished, that the wages of sin is not death?
ReplyDeleteI love you. Thank you for your courageous preaching. =)
ReplyDeleteMurray - good question. "The wages of sin is death," but it is sin that kills, not God. The Father's heart has never been to punish people but He did deal with sin at the cross so that we would be delivered from its punishment/penalty. The view that sin is a "legal infraction" that needed to be punished is the "penal substitution theory" of the atonement and is the view I held for all my life until 6-7 years ago when I learned it is only one view of the atonement and not (in my opinion) the one that most closely fits the teaching of Scripture or our Father's heart.
ReplyDeleteI've recorded a teaching called, "Living In Heaven's Embrace" in which I teach extensively on the subject. If you're interested in it, you can find it here: http://gracewalkresources.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=560
Shadowspring - thank you! :)
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