The less well known polar opposite of legalism is antinomianism, the idea that no rules whatsoever apply and we may do whatever we please. After all we live by grace, not by law (Romans 6:14), so we can even do evil that good may come, right? Some who knew Paul’s teaching accused him of exactly that, so, like legalism, antinomianism is also of New Testament vintage.

Does biblical moral law have any relationship to sanctification? If so, what? This question was debated during the Reformation between Lutherans and the Reformed. They agreed that the law has a condemning function and that it serves to point us to Christ, but they differed over what was called the third use, its application to the Christian life after justification. Lutherans generally said it doesn’t apply; Calvinists generally held that it does.

St. Augustine gave a rather famous summary of Christian ethics: Love God and do as you please. Some have heard echoes of that in modern situational ethics, which focuses on always doing the loving thing. Modern ethicists, however, empty “love” of all meaning and usually apply it only horizontally, not as a response to God. But even in Augustine’s sense, how would I know whether I am really loving God? Calvinists would assert that law functions to give a structure to sanctification, keeping me from self-deception at exactly this point. If I live in violation of the law of God, then I have no justification for saying that I love him and that doing what I please pleases him.

Law is not ignored in sanctification, as in antinomianism, but it also is not the sum and substance of sanctification as in legalism. Think of it in relation to civil law today. Such law is prohibitive or negative in nature; it forbids me to kill, maim, defraud, libel, etc., other people. If I love my neighbor, I will obviously fulfill those requirements and I don’t have to fear the cops or the judge, but my focus is much higher than just the minimal negative requirements law imposes on me. I will act for their positive good. However, if I say that I love my neighbors while I’m beating up or cheating everyone in sight, the law gives the lie to my claim. In sanctification, biblical moral law functions in much the same way.
Phil Meade, Kevin Farmer, Dana Arledge, Will Uminn

God reconnects people to himself through the doctrine of reconciliation. The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.” Sin separated man from God, just as Eagle was separated from Columbia. But what brought man back to God was not the power of rockets. It was the power of God accomplished through Christ Jesus.

As the Apollo astronauts were safely brought back home via their “reconciled” spacecrafts, so those in Christ are brought safely to God through Jesus. The Bible teaches us in Colossians 1:22-23 “But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation– if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.” The effects of sin are nullified through God’s reconciliation of man to himself.

But the doctrine of reconciliation not only reconnects man to God, it also is the avenue through which man reconnects to man. It is because we have been forgiven by God that we are to forgive others; as Ephesians 4:32 tells us to “be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” As God holds nothing against those who have been reconciled to him through Christ, we are to do everything we can to be reconcile to others because of that same Christ.

Dana Arledge, Phil Meade, Will Uminn, Kevin Farmer

Because God is holy, that disobedience produced in him a real anger or wrath, a concept mentioned over 500 times in the Old Testament, less frequently in the NT, although there is the well known verse in Romans 1, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness . . .” That wrath epitomizes the broken relationship that sin produced and could be only partially remediated by the pre-Christian sacrifices common to the ancient world, and prescribed in the OT, wherein sin was symbolically transferred to an animal.

The gathering body of Messianic promises in the OT culminated finally in the coming of Christ. The point of his life was to succeed in every facet where Adam failed, and then to die. In that death he suffered the complete penalty for our sin. The Father made him to be sin for us and in so doing allowed him to experience the desperate alienation of our condition as he forsook him there and death took him. The curse of sin on him was made plain as he hung on a tree fulfilling Deuteronomy 21:23.

There isn’t really any question when one looks fairly at the Bible that there is a penal aspect to the death of Christ. The penalty for our sin was imposed on him. There is no imputation, no justification without this. There is, however, some dispute over what actually happens relative to the Father. The controversy revolves around two words—expiation and propitiation. Expiation essentially refers to the death of Christ canceling sin. It certainly does that, but with this word it is understood to be an impersonal, sometimes mechanical process, based partly on old pagan attempts to bribe vindictive gods to get what was wanted. It seems to be almost like the idea of karma in Eastern thought. Propitiation, on the other hand, emphasizes the personal dimension of the work of Christ. The real wrath that God has toward sin must be averted or turned away or satisfied. The four major texts referring to propitiation in the NT (Romans 3:25; Hebrews 2:17; and 1 John 2:2; 4:10) all carry the idea that the death of Christ intervenes against that wrath and removes it from us. This is not mechanical, but personal. As death was personally imposed on Adam by God at the point of disobedience, so at the point of Christ’s obedience, the penalty is personally dealt with. It is personal at its imposition and personal at its removal. In that death righteousness and peace finally kiss (Psalm 85:10).

None of us fully understand what happened in the death of Christ. It’s not the way we would draw it up. The language of the NT seems to strain to carry the depth of meaning. But we may be glad for words like “propitiation”; they tell us that our impossible condition as the objects of God’s infinite, terrible wrath no longer obtains. Let the party begin!

Phil Meade, Kevin Farmer, Dana Arledge, Will Uminn

Historically there are many theories of the atonement that have been rejected by orthodox Christianity but have shaped the course of the Church. One of the earliest views of atonement, held by many early church fathers including Origen, is the Ransom Theory in which Christ is a ransom paid to Satan to free the souls of man from his power. A second theory is St. Anselm’s Commercial Theory. In this theory sin is seen as an offense to God’s honor. Homage must be paid to satisfy that honor. Since Christ is sinless his death is seen as giving infinite honor to God and thus could be transferred to the believer who lives a devoted life. Later Thomas Aquinas developed this into the concept of the infinite merit of Christ that could be earned by man. The Moral-influence Theory developed by Peter Abelard (1079-1142) states that Christ died as an example of God’s love to soften the hearts of man causing them to repent. Sin did not need to be paid for but simply repented from. A similar theory is the Governmental Theory, where Christ’s death is an example of God’s justice and hatred for sin. It does not pay a penalty for sin but shows what sin deserves and allows God to then justify man based on his faith, works, love and devotion to the Father. All of these versions fail to satisfy the demands of scripture.

The doctrine of atonement has many beautiful facets of truth. One of these truths is the concept of redemption. To redeem is to purchase, to free from captivity by means of payment. We, who are captive to sin and death, bound to depravity through the curse of original sin need to be freed. In Romans, Paul argues that what the Law could not do, Christ does for us. This is a victorious act of Christ in which we like Hosea’s wife are destitute, ungrateful prostitutes unable to free ourselves from a lifestyle that is self-perpetuating. But Christ comes and secures for us a release from our old master and gives us freedom and life. This redemption is effectual and complete. It not only removes us from bondage but also transforms us into a beautiful bride. It is a demonstration of both God’s love for his people and his love for his own glory. What other God demands justice for the trespass as well as the provision for that payment? As Romans says, “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:25-26, NIV)

Kevin Farmer, Phil Meade, Dana Arledge

In the wake of man’s fall into sin, resulting in his alienation from God, the Bible tells us that God came looking for him. This throws into sharp relief some of God’s attributes that we have looked at previously only in a general way. His holiness produces in him a genuine anger at what we have become. His love motivates him to act on our behalf; his mercy inclines him to take pity on our pathetic state; his grace makes him act without charging anything to our account, which we could not pay anyway. Thus far, most theologians would be in general agreement.

When it comes to how these things work out, some major and highly contentious divisions begin to appear. The easiest way to summarize them is to ask whether the adjective “sovereign” can be connected to grace. Those who make the connection generally have a strong theology of sin and hold that salvation is all of God. Man contributes nothing; he is passive. Even his ability to respond in faith is by grant from God. Hence election is understood as God’s choice of who will be saved apart from anything actual or potential in those he chooses to save—no goodness, no merit, no foreseen faith, nothing. Election as an idea is placed in the doctrine of God. Conversely, others find the connection of “sovereign” and “grace” unworthy of God, making him arbitrarily decide who is saved and who is lost, and unnecessary, since they hold that man is not a stick or a stone and so has a will that is determinative. He can decide whether to respond to God. Election in this scheme is usually placed in soteriology.

The other side of the coin in soteriology, already alluded to, is human ability. Can man commend himself to God and if so, to what extent? Put another way, how much, and what, was lost at the fall? This question is traceable back to the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius in the 5^th century; it was rehashed as a major bone of contention between Protestants and Roman Catholics during the Reformation in the 16^th.

In short, is salvation to be understood as divine monergism, God working alone, or synergism, God working with man to some degree, however small? All three authors of these articles assert a basically Reformation, Augustinian, Calvinistic, monergistic understanding of soteriology, though we differ on some questions.

The most famous verse in the Bible, often misunderstood, tells us that God loved the world in this way (“so” meaning manner, not extent), that he gave his only unique Son. Orthodoxy insists that the death of that Son reconciles those who are saved to God. But how exactly? We will divide the question into two parts, first what does the death of Christ do in itself? That is objective soteriology. Second, how is that death applied to individual sinners so as to save them and with what effects? That is subjective soteriology.

Phil Meade, Dana Arledge, Kevin Farmer