This was one of my capstone papers for graduation.
Doctrine of Atonement Paper
For our final week together in Christian Theology I, we turned our focus to the doctrine of atonement. As I said in my discussion post, there is no Christianity without the Cross. Jesus's sacrifice is the most fundamental aspect of our religion. Therefore, we must understand what atonement means and how it affects us. For this exercise, we turned to a variety of interpretations and meanings. I selected substitutionary atonement to explore and explain, which I hope to do well in the coming paragraphs. Let us now turn to unravel this doctrine.
Substitutionary atonement refers to the doctrine of Jesus taking our punishment in our place (Williams 2013). Instead of letting us face the well-deserved wrath of God, Jesus bore it all. By saying the word out loud, you can hear the shared root words with "substitute." Our selected theory, which many sources also call penal substitutionary atonement, means that Jesus died as a substitute for sinners. This thought is not ground-breaking. It seems like a relatively fundamental theology. However, if everyone accepted this theory as the only possibility, and without dispute, we would not have much to talk about today.
However, not all agree. Substitutionary Atonement has come under fire in recent years, even from evangelicals. Many theologians have turned from this long-accepted theory in favor of Christus Victor. In that view, Jesus died and rose victoriously, breaking the bonds of sin and freeing innocent humanity from this broken world. Christus Victor teaches that we humans did not deserve to die for our iniquities; we merely needed a rescuer to save us from the sinful world. Proponents of Christus Victor or other views criticize Substitutionary Atonement for being too harsh, and for making Jesus out to be a sacrifice, a recipient of the punishment we deserved. The fiercest critics declare that a loving God would never dole out death as a punishment (Higgs 2016). But are these points the Biblical truth?
1 Peter 3:18 tells us that Jesus died for our sins. Elsewhere, in Romans, we read that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory—"all," meaning everyone who ever lived, from Adam and Eve to the babies born today. "The wages of sin is death," Romans also tells us in chapter six, verse 23 (KJV). If all have sinned, and the wages of that sinning is death, then all are deserving of the grave. Now, I do not believe babies are capable of sinning, so let's say that wrongdoing begins in toddlerhood when children become defiant. That is when every person begins to sin. However, I also believe in accountability. In her 2016 article, "A Thoroughly Biblical Argument Against Penal Substitutionary Atonement," writer Emma Higgs vehemently argues against the doctrine on the basis that it says children are guilty and deserve death. "So a young boy is born into a war zone, experiences a life full of fear and pain, and drowns at three years old when the boat carrying him to safety sinks. Death for him doesn't bring relief, but eternal conscious torment in a lake of fire" (Higgs, 2016, 13).
I daresay no one believes in God's special love for children, all the children of this broken world, more than I do. I rejected Calvinism as a belief system on that exact basis because believing in predestination requires thinking that some babies and children go to hell. If I felt the way Higgs does, I would reject Substitutionary Atonement. However, I do not find her argument solid because there is an age of accountability. I am generous with my theory and believe the "grace period" extends through the teenage years, but nearly all Christians adhere to the idea of some age, except for the most dogmatic who believe only children of believers find grace, and only in infancy (Wellum 2018). I think those people make a grave mistake by limiting God's love and mercy. The little boy in Higg's example indeed would find Jesus's arms waiting for him the moment he died. Jesus died for that little boy's wrongdoing, and all of heaven would be his.
I wish I could tell Higgs that she is looking at her argument from all the wrong angles. Substitutionary Atonement shows the deep, overflowing love of God, a God who loved us too much to let us die for our sins. He died for us instead! It was the creator of the skies and heavens and unexplored ocean depths who hung on that cross and bled. Without Substitutionary Atonement, we put God in a box. We believe in Christus Victor--a God so lenient that he does not hold us accountable for how we destroyed this earth--or we believe in a God so harsh he sends Syria's children to hell when the bombs fall on them. Substitutionary Atonement tells us the Biblical truth--God is nothing but just and nothing but loving. He had to punish sin, but he loved us so much, he took the punishment for us. He was our whipping boy. Does that not make you want to shout his praise?
Holding on to the theory of Substitutionary Atonement should affect us as disciples of Jesus by making us realize the depth of his love. Only in this theory did God love us enough not only to wipe away our sins but die a gruesome and crushing death. Jesus could have come to earth at any time and any place. He did not have to arrive at the time of the Romans and their insane style of execution. But Jesus did because of his adoration of us. Only Substitutionary Atonement displays the full breadth of God's love and shows us how magnificent he is, how worthy of our hearts and praise he is.
In conclusion, I argue that Substitutionary Atonement is the only Biblical way of correctly interpreting salvation. As I stated above, the Bible makes it clear that we have sinned and deserve death. But "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8, NIV). God took the punishment we deserve. Jesus died so that we never will. He died so that all the children of the world are safe. He died so that anyone who ever lived can choose to believe in him and enter his kingdom. What a glorious God he is.
References
Galli, M. (2018, January 11). It Doesn't Get Any More Personal. Retrieved from
atonement-it-doesnt-get-more-personal.html
Higgs, E. (2016, April 27). A Thoroughly Biblical Argument Against Penal Substitutionary
Atonement. Retrieved from horoughly-biblical-argument-against-penal-substitutionary-atonement/
Oden, T.C. (2009). Classic Christianity. New York, New York: Harper Collins
Wellum, S. (2018, October 1). Does the Bible Teach an Age of Accountability? Retrieved from
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/does-the-bible-teach-an-age-of-accountability/ Williams, J. (2013, February 19). Penal Substitutionary Atonement. Retrieved from
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/penal-substitutionary-atonement.
