Death Is the Penalty

I’ve been reading From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective, a book the publisher’s blurb calls “the first comprehensive resource on definite atonement.” It’s certainly the most reading I’ve done specifically on the doctrine of definite atonement. 

Here’s a quote from Carl Trueman’s chapter, Atonement and the Covenant of Redemption: John Owen on the Nature of Christ’s Satisfaction, on a point we all need to be reminded of once in a while, because it’s easy to slip back into thinking (wrongly!) of the payment made on our behalf as a kind of commercial transaction—a bit of suffering for each sin, (you know, so much for me, so much for you, on and on, with more for each sinner forgiven, printed out on something like a million mile long till tape) all added together into a “heap of suffering” required to mark “paid in full” on the invoice. 

[I]n Of the Death of Christ, [John] Owen makes the point that the penalty required for sin was death. This is an important point: there is a danger when thinking of Christ’s atonement in terms of satisfaction for debt that one can be led astray into thinking in crudely quantitative terms: sin has accumulated x amount of debt; so the penalty is to be paid in terms of x, where x is analogous to money or property. That is not the model with which Owen is operating: the penalty is not quantitative in such a way; rather, it is perhaps better described as qualitative. It is not that Christ has to pile up a heap of suffering to match the offense human beings have given to God; it is that he has to die. Death is the penalty.  … Jesus Christ dies and thus pays precisely the same penalty that is required of a sinner (p. 211).

I’m almost halfway through this book. While it takes a little work to read, it is more accessible than I expected. If you’re interested in the doctrine of definite atonement, consider putting it on your reading list.

Theological Term of the Week

Flood, the
God’s judgment on humankind for its moral depravity and sinfulness by means of an historical flood which wiped out the entire population of the world except for Noah and his family, as recorded in chapters 6-8 of Genesis; also called the Great Flood, the Great Deluge, or the biblical flood. 

• From scripture:

Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thingthat I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. (Genesis 7:1-5, ESV)

And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. (Genesis 7:7, ESV)

The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days. (Genesis 7:17-24, ESV)

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Theology for Everyday Life

We are entirely dependent on God’s self-revelation to know anything about Him, and anything beyond what He chooses to reveal remains His secret (Deut. 29:29). We can only ever know what God discloses to us, and if He had not spoken, we could not know Him at all.  

I’ve written the first post, God Has Spoken, for a series on Theology for Everyday Life at the True Woman blog.