tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21212024.post2756948318202198029..comments2024-03-10T10:40:32.319-07:00Comments on Pyromaniacs: AtonementPhil Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00649092052031518426noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21212024.post-2718426788451988152012-04-09T03:43:13.745-07:002012-04-09T03:43:13.745-07:00"Remember, that God loved thee from before th..."Remember, that God loved thee from before the foundation of the world. Does not this strengthen thy love? Ah! what a bracing air is that air of eternity? When I fly into it for a moment, and think of the great doctrine of election—of<br /><br />"That vast unmeasured love,<br />Which from the days of old,<br />Did all the chosen seed embrace,<br />like sheep within the fold."<br /><br />It makes the tears run down one's cheeks to think that we should have an interest in that decree and council of the Almighty Three, when every one that should be blood-bought had its name inscribed in God'a eternal book. Come, soul, I bid thee now exercise thy wings a little, and see if this does not make thee love God. He thought of thee before thou hadst a being. When as yet the sun and the moon were not,—when the sun, the moon, and the stars slept in the mind of God, like unborn forests in an acorn cup, when the old sea was not yet born, long ere this infant world lay in its swaddling bands of mist, then God had inscribed thy name upon the heart and upon the hands of Christ indelibly, to remain for ever. And does not this make thee love God? Is not this sweet exercise for thy love? For here it is my text comes in, giving, as it were, the last charge in this sweet battle of love, a charge that sweeps everything before it. "We love God, because he first loved us," seeing that he loved us before time began, and when in eternity he dwelt alone."-CH Spurgeondonsandshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03665794015011057098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21212024.post-19126998702604731582012-04-08T21:21:18.988-07:002012-04-08T21:21:18.988-07:00@Donsands,
I'm not denying the penal substitu...@Donsands,<br /><br />I'm not denying the penal substitution theory; I'm suggesting that this ought not be understood as the primary frame of reference when considering the multi-valent reality of the atonement. I am also noting what framing the atonement through a PSA alone does to the nature/person of God. I'd like to see you respond to that. <br /><br />Charles Spurgeon is certainly wrong on what he has written---the parts I highlighted---as is the classic theistic view of God (substance metaphysics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics); which places a series of wedges between God's activity, such that there is competition between one mode of God against the other (as I noted already). <br /><br />The better way to think of God is to do so through a metaphysic that is truly Christian, Triune, and Personal. This way God's life of love because the ground of being that shapes everything else that he does (grace). Take your relationship to your wife (presuming you're married) as an analogy; you might become upset with her, disappointed, happy or sad towards her (for various reasons)---but all of these actions (attitudes) towards her matter because they are held within the context of love that relates her to you (and vice versa). She doesn't split your attitudes or actions towards her up into nice and neat categories, add all of those up, and say this is you; no, she understands that you act toward her from your grounding disposition of love for her. That's what I am saying about God's relation to us; he first loved us that we might love him, and this is the context in which he acts towards us (his creation Rom 8).Bobby Growhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06831009618873548948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21212024.post-77272630377438798832012-04-08T19:33:50.332-07:002012-04-08T19:33:50.332-07:00"So that Jesus in the Incarnation and Atoneme..."So that Jesus in the Incarnation and Atonement becomes nothing more than the instrument or Divine debit card.."<br /><br />Jesus did pay my debt, and He took it all upon His sinless soul and body.<br />What a Savior and Friend he is to all who trust Him, and love Him.<br /><br />"Because the sinless Savior died<br />My sinful soul is counted free.<br />For God the just is satisfied<br />To look on Him and pardon me."<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEM5fOHqs90donsandshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03665794015011057098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21212024.post-32643247351130065092012-04-07T20:25:17.133-07:002012-04-07T20:25:17.133-07:00"... Has someone buoyed you up with the thoug...<i>"... Has someone buoyed you up with the thought of the infinite goodness of God, I would remind you of his infinite holiness. . . ."</i> <br /><br />Here is a classic example of how a classic usage of Divine Simplicity can run awry; wherein the modes of God's attributes are played off against each other as if there is a schism in God's actions towards his creation (and I think without proper nuance thus implicating God's being ... even though Divine Simplicity is intended to thwart my concern). Anyway, unlike Spurgeon's usage of this, I think a proper Christian Trinitarian construing of God's life is one that grounds all of God's activity from his interpenetrating life of self-giveness one for the other [subject-in-being distinction] (the Father, Son and Holy Spirit all living in koinonial 'fellowship' one with the other ... it is this kind of life that shapes His holiness [or which is His holiness], His justice, His mercy, His creating etc.). If this is the case we never conclude what Spurgeon has about God's holiness somehow working against or trumping God's goodness; these aren't competing realities. God's life is loving grace to begin with; meaning, God's wrath and justice must be understood to only come within his very life; which again is love, full of grace and truth. Spurgeon is wrong on this point.<br /><br /><i>"... No debt due to God is remitted unless it be paid. It must either be paid by the transgressor in the infinite, miseries of hell, or else it must be paid for him by a substitute. There must be a price for the ransom, and evidently, according to the text, that price must be a soul, a life. . . ."</i><br /><br /><br />Here we have, even for the Baptist, Spurgeon, the lingering effects of Covenant Theology; such that (to be crude), the atonement is framed in a purely forensic and monetary mode. So that Jesus in the Incarnation and Atonement becomes nothing more than the instrument or <i>Divine debit card</i> by which God purchases the elect for himself; allowing him at that point (once the demands and the conditions of the Law have been met) to love his brand new people, but not until these conditions have been met. Jesus then becomes subordinated and abstracted from God's life, placing a rupture between God in eternity and Jesus in creation-time; Jesus becomes who he is dictated to become by creation itself.Bobby Growhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06831009618873548948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21212024.post-44518198046096899302012-04-07T20:23:03.687-07:002012-04-07T20:23:03.687-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Bobby Growhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06831009618873548948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21212024.post-14348314415857243782012-04-07T11:42:51.027-07:002012-04-07T11:42:51.027-07:00Excellent indeed. I think this sentence drives it ...Excellent indeed. I think this sentence drives it home:<br /><br /><i>"Well may justice be content since it has received more from the Surety than it could have ever exacted from the assured."</i><br /><br />Romans 3: 25-26.mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00944721261850361610noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21212024.post-92105151924134737922012-04-07T11:31:12.390-07:002012-04-07T11:31:12.390-07:00Excellent words of truth for the child of our Lord...Excellent words of truth for the child of our Lord. Thanks.donsandshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03665794015011057098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21212024.post-91315446261861922092012-04-06T22:05:13.763-07:002012-04-06T22:05:13.763-07:00Yawn? If a solid exposition of Christ's atoni...Yawn? If a solid exposition of Christ's atoning sacrifice can put you to sleep, maybe you ought to examine yourself whether you are in the faith.Ex N1hil0https://www.blogger.com/profile/10729592755892052779noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21212024.post-16577273158186762662012-04-06T20:25:32.251-07:002012-04-06T20:25:32.251-07:00Poor Charles, like other Anabaptists, says what ol...Poor Charles, like other Anabaptists, says what old school Anglicans said much better than Charles, before and after. Yawn.Reformationhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06818168068978748081noreply@blogger.com