Archive for the ‘The Distinction Between Pecuniary and Penal Satisfaction’ Category

Woods:

4. Did Christ pay the debt of sinners? In the Scriptures, and in common discourse, the punishment which sinners deserve is figuratively represented as a debt. “Forgive us our debts;” that is, remit the punishment of our offences. The figure is intelligible and striking. As those who are in debt are held to pay a sum of money to their creditor; so sinners are held to suffer the penalty of the law which they have violated. As the creditor can demand payment of his debtors; so the Lawgiver and Judge can require sinners to suffer merited punishment. Accordingly, when they suffer that punishment, they are represented as paying their debt to God, or to divine justice. But the punishment of penitent sinners is remitted. That is, the same figure of speech being retained, their debt is forgiven. And it is forgiven through the vicarious sufferings of Christ. He paid what God accepted, in lieu of the debt which they owed. From a regard to what he paid, God forgives their debt. Thus he virtually paid their debt. He did that which was accepted in the place of it, that which answered the same purposes, and which secured their forgiveness.

But in regard to this kind of language, which is so frequent in the Scriptures and in religious discourse, we must remember that the language is more or less figurative; and then we must determine the sense of the figure, and the extent of the analogy implied, by the nature of the subject, and by all the instructions which the Scriptures give concerning it. Proceeding in this manner, as we do in all other instances of figurative language, we shall easily avoid the difficulties and mistakes which have been occasioned by carrying the analogy implied in the metaphor to an unwarrantable length. Many of the circumstances which belong to a literal debt or an obligation to pay money, do not belong to a sinner’s obligation to suffer punishment. This obligation is of a moral nature; it arises from the moral conduct of him who is to suffer; it pertains to a moral law and administration, and is directed to moral ends. Who can suppose that a debt of this kind, that is, an obligation to suffer punishment for the violation of a moral law, is attended throughout with the same circumstances with a pecuniary debt? When a man’s pecuniary debt is paid, or when that is done which his creditor accepts in lieu of it, he is no longer liable to be called upon for payment, and it would be unjust and oppressive in his creditor to require payment. But this is not true in regard to the atonement, which does, in a certain sense, pay the debt of sinners. Their ill desert is neither taken away nor diminished. Nor would it be any injustice to them, if God should inflict punishment. This all believers acknowledge and feel. The atonement gives them no personal claim to salvation. They cannot demand it as what is due to them on the ground of justice. They cannot say, they should be treated unjustly, or as they do not deserve, if they should not be saved. The atonement was never designed to put sinners in this condition, and to make salvation a matter of debt to them. God provided the propitiation–that he might be just while he justifies believers; not that he might be obliged in justice to save them, but that he might graciously save them, might save them contrary to their personal desert, and yet do it consistently with the honor of his justice. The death of Christ prepared the way for believing sinners to be pardoned and saved by grace. It was never intended to prepare the way for any to be saved without faith, nor even for believers to be saved in any other way than by the abounding of divine grace.

Thus while I maintain the propriety of freely using the Scripture phraseology which represents our exposure to punishment as a debt, and the propriety also of speaking of Christ as paying or discharging this debt by suffering in our stead, and thus procuring our forgiveness; I maintain that both these representations are metaphorical, and are to be understood with such qualifications as the nature of the subject requires, and that the neglect of these necessary qualifications would lead us, as it has led others, into very pernicious errors.

Leonard Woods, “Lectures,” in The Works of Leonard Woods, (Boston: John P. Jewett & Company, 1851), 2: 474-476.  [Italics original and underlining mine.]

Griffin:

What bearing these sentiments have on the limitation of the atonement, will still more distinctly appear by the following quotations. “That there is as truly a federal relation between Christ and the members of his mystical body, the Church, [the elect antecedent to their faith,] as there was between Adam and his natural descendants, the Scriptures abundantly manifest: and it is this federal relation which laid the foundation for the imputation of their sins to Christ.–But according to the sentiments opposed,–no such relation ever existed; there was no real imputation of sin to Christ, nor any proper punishment inflicted on him for it: consequently the penal sanction of the law, with reference to those who, are saved, has never been endured. For were these important facts admitted, it is easy to perceive that redemption must of necessity be limited; because no one could righteously perish for whose sins plenary satisfaction had been made to divine justice.” “They insist that what Christ paid for our redemption was not the same with what is in the obligation, and that therefore his dolorous sufferings were not a proper payment of our debt; and consequently a proper and full satisfaction for our sins could not arise from his death to the law and justice of God. For were this satisfaction conceded, they see at once that the delinquents for whom it was made must inevitably be saved.”1

This whole system goes upon the principle that the atonement was a legal transaction, partaking of a commercial nature, as if money had been paid for the redemption of so many captives and no more, or for the discharge of the debt of so many imprisoned bankrupts and no more; in which Wise, as all can see, the ransomed captives or exonerated debtors would have a legal claim to a discharge. To make out a parallel case in a transaction where no money was paid, it is necessary to establish a personal identity, (for I can call it by no other name,) between the Representative and the represented, which they denominate a legal oneness, (the justice of which depended on his previous consent,) and to make him legally guilty by imputation, and legally and justly adjudged to punishment in the room of those whom he represented, and, to make him suffer a literal and legal punishment, the same in kind and degree that the law had threatened to that particular number. In this way law and justice were literally satisfied and could demand no more; and those whose debt was thus discharged can claim of law and justice a release, and cannot legally or justly be punished again, but have a righteousness legally their own by imputation, and which legally and justly entitles them to justification; and yet not a legal claim to justification in their own persons, but in their Surety; they virtually possessing two persons, one demanding of the law condemnation, the other demanding of the law justification: and all this not depending on their faith; for one of the blessings to which, (though unconscious of it,) they have this legal claim, is the gift of faith. The result is, that Christ was a Surety, Sponsor, or Representative for none but those who will be saved, and could not justly suffer, for any, whose sins were not thus finally taken from them and laid upon him.

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Fuller:

LETTER II

ON IMPUTATION.

Jan. 8, 1803.

My DEAR Brother, While Mr. B[ooth] refuses to give any explanation of his conduct, there can be no intercourse between me and him. I have no objection to give the most explicit answers in my power to the questions on Imputation and Substitution. I shall therefore address them to you ; and you are at liberty to show them to whom you please.

To impute1 signifies, in general, to charge, reckon, or place to account, according lo the different objects to which it is applied. This word, like many others, has a proper and a figurative meaning.

First: It is applied to the charging, reckoning, or placing to the account of persons and things THAT WHICH PROPERLY BELONGS TO THEM. This, of course, is its proper meaning. In this sense the word is used in the following passages:–”Eli thought that she (Hannah) had been drunken.”–”Hanan and Mattaniah, the treasurers, were counted faithful.”–”Let a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.”–”Let such a one think this, that such as we are in word by letters, when we are absent, such will we be also in deed, when we are present.”–”I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.”2

Reckoning or accounting, here, is no other than forming an estimate of persons and things, according to what they are, or appear to be. To impute sin, in this sense, is to charge guilt upon the guilty in a judicial way, with a view to his being punished for it. Thus Shimei besought David that his iniquity might not be imputed to him. Thus the man is pronounced blessed to whom the Lord imputes not iniquity: and thus Paul prayed that the sin of those who deserted him might not be laid to their charge.3

In this sense, the term is ordinarily used in common life. To impute treason or any other crime to a man is the same thing as charging him with having committed it, and with a view to his being punished.

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Fuller:

LETTER III.

ON SUBSTITUTION.

Jan. 12, 1803.

My dear Brother, Whether Christ laid down his life as a substitute for sinners, was never a question with me. All my hope rests upon it; and the sum of my delight in preaching the gospel consists in it. If I know any thing of myself, I can say of Christ crucified for us, as was said of Jerusalem: “If I forget thee, let my right hand forget: if I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!”

I have always considered the denial of this truth as being of the essence of Socinianism Mr. B[ooth] professes, “in his juvenile years, never to have hoped for salvation but through a vicarious sacrifice.” But, if he allow himself to have believed this doctrine when he was an Arminian, it is rather singular that I, who am not an Arminian, as he himself acknowledges, should be charged with denying it. I could not have imagined that any person whose hope of acceptance with God rests not on any goodness in himself, but entirely on the righteousness of Christ, would have been accounted to disown his substitution. But, perhaps, Mr. B. considers “a real and proper imputation of our sins to Christ,” by which he seems to mean their being literally transferred to him, as essential to this doctrine; and, if so, I acknowledge I do not at present believe it.

For Christ to die as a substitute, if I understand the term, is the same thing as his dying for us, or in our stead, or that we should not die.

The only subject on which I ought to have been here interrogated is, “The persons for whom Christ was a substitute; whether the elect only, or mankind in general.” On this question I will be as explicit as I am able.

Were I asked concerning the gospel, when it is introduced into a country. For whom was it sent? I should answer, if I had respect only to the revealed will of God, and so perhaps would Mr. B., It is sent for men, not as elect, or as non-elect, but as sinners. It is written and preached, “that they might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing they might have life through his name.” But, if I had respect to the secret will or appointment of God as to its application, I should say. If the divine conduct in this instance accord with what it has been in other instances, he hath visited that country “to take out of it a people for his name.”

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30
Jul

Douglas Kennard on the Non-Pecuniary Nature of Petrine Redemption

   Posted by: CalvinandCalvinism

Kennard:

THE MEANING OF PETRINE REDEMPTION

The basic concept of redemption is the exchanging of ownership, often by paying a price. Peter expresses this thought with two words. First, lytroo means “to set free, redeem or rescue” and often includes paying a ransom.1 The second word, agorazo, emphasizes the market imagery of purchasing goods.2 In such an exchange the goods are set free from the seller, usually to be possessed by the purchaser.

Redemption is applied to people when they are freed from a previous owner. For example, both Greek words for redemption are used to describe the purchasing of slaves. Such redemption may result in enslavement to a new owner or in the slave’s being set free.3 Furthermore these words express the idea of ransom, wherein a conqueror may free prisoners by defeating their master in battle.4 The above examples of human redemption involve the one redeemed exchanging allegiance to the previous dominating power for allegiance to the one accomplishing the redemption. The redemption of people, however, does not require the one redeemed to have a new owner. The person may simply be set free.

The purchase price of the redemption Peter talks about was the death of Christ. For example, Peter heard Jesus say that his purpose in coming was to give his life as a ransom for many (Matt 20:28; Mark 10:45). Such an idea is substitutionary in nature: Jesus died in the place of others.5 Peter develops this theme by first designating what the price of redemption was not and then identifying what it was (1 Pet 1:18-19). For example, the price was not perishable (phthartois), that which is subject to corruption or destruction.6 Additionally, silver and gold are mentioned as dross compared to the extreme value (time) of the actual price paid. In contrast the actual price is the precious blood of Christ. The imagery of the blood refers to Christ’s death, not to Bengelian effusion (draining Christ dry in order to obtain his blood as the imperishable material substance of value).7 Peter and others in his presence use the concept of the blood of Christ as a reference to Christ’s death (Acts 1:19; 5:28), which is further indicated by the context that develops that Christ rose from the dead (1 Pet 1:21). Thus Christ’s death is characterized by a simile: Christ’s blood shed was like that of the sacrificial lamb–that is, the lamb was unblemished and spotless, indicating the required purity of the sacrifice. Therefore Jesus Christ is a pure sacrifice who died for the redemption of mankind.

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