All Comments for: Your Atonement Is Too Small | Christianity Today

Free Newsletters:

RSS Feeds |

Audio |

Twitter

Home > 2008 > May

Christianity Today, May, 2008 |

Your Atonement Is Too Small

Why having more clubs in our theological golf bags helps us to better finish the course.

David Neff | posted 5/20/2008 09:27AM

...

Here's how the metaphor works. Each "theory" of the Atonement is, like a particular golf club, better suited to some situations than others. Ministering the gospel is like playing a round of golf. ...

[Reader Reviews]

Average User Rating:

Rate and Comment on this article

Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 comments.

Page: 1

Show All

no doubt

Posted: May 26, 2008 7:24 AM

those who doubt that the Father would give his only Son to satisfy his wrath are in denial that their and everyone elses sin is serious and that God's wrath is fully correct, fully just. That means that rightly God should take out his wrath on you! Severely! and out on me! Severely. We all have trespassed; we all have stolen from God and walked on his holy property without permission. How have you done this, you ask? You trample holy things because you feel self-righteous and justified by your own strength that God owes you his loyalty. How wrong you are! So instead of taking out his anger at you he has severely chastised his son so that the pain of one person is suffcient. That is very very kind of God to do this and very kind of Jesus to willingly submit himself for the sake of love to cover you and my horrible sin. Of these things there is no doubt!

Dayo Adeola

Posted: May 25, 2008 6:10 AM

Good work. My respose is to libereco's posted comments - If you overemphasise just one aspect of God's nature, which is love you will misunderstand God. God is as much a God of Love as he is a God of wrath, he is also a God of justice who is the highest authority but is so principled as to bind Himself with His words that is why He probably won't forgive without sacrifice. We do not have a God that has three different faces like a Greek god, He is one and the same person: He can love, He can get angry, He can demand justice and He is absolute. None of His attributes outweigh the other. I cannot convincingly tell you from the scriptures that God is more of love that He is of wrath and justice. Scot McKnight is right that the sacrifice of Jesus does not bifurcate the God of love from the God of wrath.

Jeff K

Posted: May 23, 2008 5:00 AM


Okay.. where do I find this book?! I have wept over the distortions of God present in the way that "Penal Substitution" has usually been presented, but I have also known that the sense of real rescue in Jesus' choice for the Cross is indispensable to Christian wholeness. What I have longed for it seems McKnight has systematized. Thank You God!

Ephrem Hagos

Posted: May 22, 2008 12:35 AM


With little or no firsthand knowledge of the Son (as prescribed) and even less of the Father and the Holy Spirit, no wonder our atonement is too small to be sure about!

John H. Guthrie

Posted: May 21, 2008 5:58 PM

Enjoyed the article. I am glad to see that other theories of the Atonement are being recognized as legitimate even in a Reformed-centered magazine such as CT. However, I must take exception to Mr. Neff's use of John Wesley's Aldersgate quote. Wesley was speaking of his own salvation experience, which is indeed a personal experience for us all since we are saved alone and we are judged alone, although being saved is not the whole of the Gospel. Wesley only spoke of his Aldersgate experience a dozen times in his life. His views on salvation, the Atonement, and the role of each person of the Trinity are much broader than the over individualistic focus that is implied by an otherwise excellent article.

Dave	Posted: May 21, 2008 11:34 AM

The penal substitution model for the atonement, while powerful in its post reformation form, is only one of many biblical models for salvation. McKnight illustrates with a second Adam christology, which is also powerful, but probably more so in a non-Western context. Jesus' statement that we must be born again introduces yet another model. The early church saw salvation as a case of being held captive and being ransomed, or redeemed. The citizenship, or kingdom, model, should be a rebuke to those of us who see Christ mono-culturally and baptize American cultural practices and understandings.

Roger - Australia

Posted: May 21, 2008 2:24 AM

Having recently read efforts by people such as J. Denny Weaver and Scott Chalke to put forward alternative theories of atonement such as 'Narrative Christus Victor' and various other 'non-violent atonements', the words that most common came to mind as I read their works were 'Vacuous', 'Empty rhetoric', 'Heavily padded with literary fluff' and 'socialist anachronisms'. Sorry, I tried, but found trying to get something solid out of these writers was like trying to bottle fog.

The G

Posted: May 20, 2008 5:30 PM


Nothing here. Move on.

libereco

Posted: May 20, 2008 4:26 PM


If God is God, He cannot be bound by a legal requirement that a Son must be sacrificed to satisfy... to satisfy what, in the end ? If God is Love, he cannot inflict the death penalty on His own Son for any reason. God is Great enough to forgive without sacrifice. The death of Jesus is the result of the action of men, not the action of God.

Dr.bill

Posted: May 20, 2008 4:05 PM

Affirmative; a very positive contribution to a cold, harsh perspective. Evangelicals, while scouring the Book of Revelation for Iraq, for example, might pause and ponder 7:17, "for the Lamb in the midst of the throne..." God himself redeemed us. That verse would go a long way to rescue certain theologies from splitting Jesus from his Father; and enable us to see how great is the Father's love for his creation. "...sent not...to condemn...." Then some sufferers would be less inclined to try to understand why God makes them suffer; what God is trying to tell them. We are rescued from the devil- not the Father. (faithswork.blogspot.com)

Joel W Wright

Posted: May 20, 2008 3:42 PM

The gain this "broader perspective" of the Atonement, perhaps we should return to the very words of Jesus. The "At - one - ment" is the bringing of God and humanity together, a breaking down of the wall of separation and death. In John 12:24 Jesus describes His death in terms of life, even biological rather than legal or forensic. As a seed in the ground must die to itself, it breaks itself open and becomes "at - one" with the earth -- imbuing and engaging "earth" with the DNA of new life. As in the Passover (Ex. 12) the Lamb dies as strength for the journey / bread of life (Jn. 6). As in human reproduction, Christ is as the Seed from God (Jn 1:1-18). The "Atonement" jump starts new life for the whole of the Cosmos -- new bodies, new Earth, new heavens, new relation (Rev. 21, 22). The veil was torn in Christ's death (Mt. 27:51) as more than a sign we have access to God -- God now comes out to us and transform us as a new living Temple of God (At. 1:8, 9; 2:1-42; I Cor. 3:16).

nathan

Posted: May 20, 2008 12:43 PM


Great Book! Finally, a balanced, comprehensive view that enriches Atonement rather than making it a political foil for various evangelical communities to dominate each other. What a joy.

Page: 1

E-mail this page

Write CT

Print this article

Post a comment