Message 3 - By Keith Surface
“Someone Must Pay!”
Tracing
an Erroneous View of God and the Gospel
Introduction
This message deals with a prominent, yet
erroneous view of Jesus’ atoning death that presents it as a payment offered to
God in order to satisfy a debt owed by man. This thought fills the messages and
songs we hear and sing as we gather in our places of worship. But where did it
come from? More importantly, is it the truth of the Gospel? Although this
article is negative in tone, it is not intended to be an attack on certain men
or religious movements. However, there are times that we are compelled by the
Holy Ghost to point out the erroneous nature of doctrines that are so widely
accepted as unquestionable truth that the doctrines themselves prevent the
worshiper from being able to see or comprehend the simplicity of the gospel.
Simple
Forgiveness
Matthew
18:21-35
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my
brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto
him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but,
Until seventy times seven. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a
certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun
to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. But
forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his
wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant
therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me,
and I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that servant was moved with
compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. But the same servant went
out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: and
he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou
owest. And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying,
Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not: but went and
cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. So when his fellowservants
saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all
that was done. Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O
thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me:
Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had
pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till
he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father
do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother
their trespasses.
The passage above expresses the biblical
message of simple forgiveness. The story is of a servant who owed his
master a great debt. When the indebted servant begged for more time to pay, the
master instead forgave the great debt owed to him without any requirement of
payment. The servant who had been forgiven the great debt then demanded
payment from a fellow servant who owed him a small sum. It is important to
notice that the master (who represents God) required no payment at all, where
it was the wicked servant who demanded that if payment was not made, there must
be punishment. Forgiveness extended to the penitent without demand for
payment is the correct portrait of God’s dealing with mankind. This is not to
say that forgiveness is universally given without any requirements from God,
but rather that God has never desired or had pleasure in payment or punishment.
His desire has always been that a person would simply turn away from their sins
and back to Him. We must remember that God is not a man and does not need for
anyone to prove their repentance to Him. He already knows the condition and
intent of their heart.
Why
should iniquity be your ruin?
A few decades ago I began to hear of those
who taught that many of God’s people were under “generational curses”. These
teachings were based upon God’s words to Israel where He speaks of Himself as “...visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the
fourth generation of them that hate me” (Exodus 20:5).
From this passage it was taught that Christian people could still be under
“curses” brought upon them by their ancestors. Many times I have been
approached by people concerned about these so called generational curses. I
would simply ask them, “Do you hate God? They would say, “No!” I would
then reply, “Those curses are for those who hate God. They are not for you.” I
would also ask, “Are you born again?” They would reply, “Yes”. I would
then reply, “Then God is your Father. You have no curses passed down from your
Father.” Israel had a similar misunderstanding of God’s dealings so God
spoke through Ezekiel to “straighten out” the issue.
Ezekiel
18:20-32
The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not
bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of
the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the
wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath
committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he
shall surely live, he shall not die.
All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he
hath done he shall live. Have I any
pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways,
and live? But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness,
and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the
wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall
not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that
he hath sinned, in them shall he die. Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not
equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not my way equal? are not your ways
unequal? When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and
committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done
shall he die. Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that
he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. Because he
considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath committed, he shall
surely live, he shall not die. Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the
Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways
unequal? Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to
his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent,
and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your
ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have
transgressed; and make you a new
heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him
that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.
In the passages above God lays out His way of dealing with
sinful man. He says, “The soul that sinneth shall die.” But then,
speaking of the man who turns from his sin, He says, “he
shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath
committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him”. It is here that God lets it be known that He has no desire to
administer punishment, saying, “Have I any pleasure
at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should
return from his ways, and live?” Punishment
was not needed or required if the sinner would simply turn from his sins. God
was in truth offering an escape from punishment for He says, “Repent,
and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your
ruin.” It is at this point that we see what God is truly seeking
in the people when He says,
“Cast away from you all your transgressions,
whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for
why will ye die”. Sin is a heart problem. Only when the heart
and spirit of a person is made new will they truly be able to turn from
iniquity. This is the same new heart and new spirit that David sought from God
when he cried, “Create in me a clean
heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalms 51:10). This
new heart is the promise given in the redemption. Punishment or payment was
never God’s desire. He simply wanted the people to turn from their sins and
return unto Him. For those who did so, forgiveness was freely given. Yet this
turning from iniquity would only happen in truth when their heart was made new.
This is why Peter said, “God, having raised
up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from
his iniquities” (Acts
3:26). Jesus’ died on the cross to change man and in doing so
turn him from his iniquities. Calvary was never about paying a debt; it was
about freeing men from the power and presence of sin.
The
Demand for Punishment
Somewhere around the third century this
precept of simple forgiveness began to be supplanted with the idea of divine
judicial punishment. Beginning with the early penance systems, the thought took
hold that punishment was part of a purifying process that God demanded be
fulfilled upon the penitent convert. Whether in a place called “purgatory” or in
this present life, the doctrines of punishment for the believer pushed aside
the truth of simple forgiveness. As the penance system took hold in the church,
self-inflicted punishment became a way to escape the greater so called temporal
punishments of God. Penance is supposed to be a clergy recommended
self-inflicted “displeasure” that is equal to the pleasure that was obtained
when a sin was committed. This “displeasure” was supposedly to satisfy divine
justice and also serve as a deterrent for future sin. The hidden truth of this
system is that it gave the church control over the conscience of the people.
The people now not only looked to the church for instruction, but also for
punishment and forgiveness. Lost in this system is the glorious truth
that cleansing from sin is accomplished through the regenerating power of the
shed blood of Jesus Christ alone. No longer did the deterrent for sin come from
a believer’s clean heart and good conscience before God, but from the
displeasure of penance based satisfaction.
The
Satisfaction View of Atonement
The satisfaction view of atonement was
first fully formulated as an atonement theory by Anselm of Canterbury
(1033-1109), a medieval philosopher and theologian, and later codified
in doctrine by the Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274). This
theory of atonement is rooted in the teachings of penance. Penance set
forth the error that God demands satisfaction for the sins of man. This
requirement of satisfaction in the penance system became the basis for the
belief that the death of Jesus on the cross was to satisfy a great debt of
dishonor to God caused by the sins of man. This debt had to be paid
before redemption would be offered to mankind.
Out of the penance system evolved the
system of indulgences. This offered the penitent sinner the means of reducing
or eliminating a debt of punishment due in purgatory or even temporal
punishment during his life on earth. While a penance must equal the pleasure
that was brought by sin, an indulgence may be obtained with less because it
allows the penitent to draw on the merit of others. It is taught that this is
achieved through a reallocation of payment from what is called “the treasury of
merit” of Christ and the Saints to the account of the one for whom the indulgence
is obtained. In this belief, every good work of Jesus and the Saints that was
more than they owed personally to God accumulates in this heavenly treasury of
merit. It is taught that the “church” can allocate this surplus to believers so
they may lessen or eliminate the punishment due to them for their sins. This
thought of the reallocation of “superabundance of merit” is incorporated into
the satisfaction theory of Atonement. The theory is that Christ, through His
perfect act of obedience, honored God above and beyond what was due from Him,
and this surplus merit is now reallocated as satisfaction to the account of
humanity. Thus the sinners’ debt to God is paid through transference of
Christ’s merit. Anslem’s satisfaction theory of atonement was a landmark change
in how the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was viewed. Until then it was
widely accepted that the Apostles presented Calvary as a great deliverance from
sin and Satan. But with the entrance of the satisfaction view, Calvary began to
be presented as payment for sins rather than deliverance from sin itself.
It came to be accepted that the death of Jesus was to satisfy an offended God’s
demand for payment.
Penal
Substitution
The Satisfaction View of Atonement was
taken a step further by the reformer John Calvin (1509 – 1564). His
“penal substitution” doctrine presented the sufferings of Christ as punishment
for the sins of mankind. Calvin taught the atonement in the strict sense
of offence and punishment. In his penal substitution view, the justice of
God demanded that punishment be administered upon the sinner. In order to
save the believer, Christ suffered the punishment for the sinner and the merit
of this penal satisfaction was accounted to those he suffered for. This is
considered to be substitutionary by theologians but it is still in essence a
reallocation of merit because one’s sins are credited as being paid for by the
sufferings of another. Based upon this reallocation of Christ’s merit, the
sinner escapes punishment and obtains forgiveness of sins and eternal
life. The Anselm thought of satisfaction and reallocation of merit is an
integral part of this theory. Although Calvin rejected penance, his teaching of
penal substitution did not discard Anslem’s underpinnings of penance and reallocation
of merit. It only reframed it in a different legal environment.
The major difference between these views is
that one presented the sufferings of Christ as satisfying a debt of divine
honor and the other presented Christ’s sufferings as satisfying divine wrath.
Both are based upon the fallacy that says God demands satisfaction. Jesus twice
spoke to the Pharisees saying, “…I will have mercy and not sacrifice…” (Matthew 9:13). It
was never a payment that satisfied God, but rather a change in the heart and
actions of the individual. Ask yourself; Why would God, who had always in times
past forgiven sins when men repented, one day decide not to forgive sins unless
His Son would die the horrible death of the cross? Would that not have made
Jesus’ sufferings to be in vain?
Reallocation
of Merit
When I speak of the reallocation of merit I
am referring to the doctrines that present redemption to be a result of Jesus’
merit being accounted to the believer, rather than a actual work redemption accomplishes
in the believer. An example would be the teaching that God accounts to us the
righteousness of Christ, rather than that Christ’s work on the cross actually
worked righteousness in the believer. One says the righteousness of Christ is
accounted to us, while another believes it is the honor of Christ, and still
another says it is the payment of sin’s penalty, yet these all rely on
transference of merit in the eyes of God. This thought that Jesus’ “merit”
and/or “righteousness” is accounted to the believer is so widely accepted that
it would seem heretical to some to deny that it is so. But since no scripture
can be found as a basis for such a belief, I will say plainly that it is not
so. Some mistakenly take Paul’s words in the fourth chapter of Romans as
implying that the righteousness of Christ is accounted to the believer. But the
message in Romans four is that God accounts a man’s own faith as an acceptable
righteous virtue even as He did with Abraham. Nowhere does the scripture tell
us that Jesus’ righteousness or merit is accounted to the believer. This
indulgence based thought only serves to blind the minds of believers to the
reality of the true work of redemption. Consider what I say: “If a man is
trapped in a burning building and a second man gives his own life to save the
first man, the second man would surely merit great honor. Yet the first man was
not saved by the second man’s merit, but by his actions.” Does Christ
have great merit? Absolutely, more than words can express! But it was His
actions that saved us, not the merit of His actions. All the great and moving
theology that tells us how that Christ’ righteousness, honor, or sufferings are
accounted to us is based on myth and conjecture. The Apostles never presented
the gospel in such a way. The message the Apostles declared was that the work
of Jesus Christ at Calvary accomplished a real redemptive work in the believer.
Consider what the Apostles actually say:
The cross destroyed the old man of Sin to
free us from bondage to sin. “Knowing
this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be
destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” (Romans 6:6).
Jesus delivered us from bondage to the
world. “Who gave himself for our sins, that he might
deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our
Father:…” (Galatians 1:4).
Jesus’ death destroyed Satan and his power. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh
and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death
he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;…” (Hebrews
2:14).
Jesus delivered us from the power of
darkness. “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and
hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:…” (Colossians 1:13).
Jesus’ death made us to be dead unto sin. “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the
tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose
stripes ye were healed” (I Peter 2:24).
Jesus sanctified us with His blood. “Wherefore
Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered
without the gate” (Hebrews
13:12).
These and many other verses tell of the great
delivering power that was wrought in the believer because of Calvary. We must
see how different this is from the transference of merit doctrine. Nowhere is
there a single verse that tells us that any merit of Jesus or His sufferings is
accounted to the believer.
Unlimited
Indulgence
The early reformation was fueled by the
abuses of the Catholic clergy, especially the selling of indulgences. A
so-called “contribution” to the church could secure a “free pardon” from
temporal punishment for one’s self or a loved one. This pardon was based on the
reallocation of merit from what was called the heavenly treasury.
Although the whole indulgence system is unscriptural at best and blatant
profiteering at worst, yet at least these were limited indulgences. That is,
they applied only to the sins for which they were obtained. As the
reformation took hold, many different doctrines of atonement began to emerge
based on the thought of the reallocation of Christ’s merit. From Calvin’s penal
substitution doctrine to the view that Jesus’ righteous nature is accounted to
the believer, the reallocation of Christ satisfaction and merit became central
to much protestant theology. The result in many cases was a doctrine that did
not do away with indulgences but simply made them free and unlimited.
Many accepted the idea that Christ’s merit and/or righteousness was accounted
to them, therefore they believed that they had obtained an unlimited pardon. No
sin or amount of sin could ever be more than the superabundant merit of Christ.
No sin would be punished because all punishment was paid by Christ, and no
offence could separate one from God because Christ had honored Him so much more
than we could ever dishonor Him. With many it became just as Jude had warned;
the grace of God had been turned unto lasciviousness.
The following argument was made against
Calvin’s penal substitution atonement by Michael Servetus who in 1553
was apprehended while attending one of John Calvin’s services and was burned at
the stake by the Geneva ruling council on charges of heresy for denying the
Trinity and being against infant baptism. Calvin defended these horrible
executions with the words below. If I did not know that John Calvin wrote this,
I might have believed that a radical Islamist penned it.
“Whoever shall maintain that wrong is done
to heretics and blasphemers in punishing them makes himself an accomplice in
their crime and guilty as they are. There is no question here of man’s
authority; it is God who speaks, and clear it is what law he will have kept in
the church, even to the end of the world. Wherefore does he demand of us a so
extreme severity, if not to show us that due honor is not paid him, so long as
we set not his service above every human consideration, so that we spare not
kin, nor blood of any, and forget all humanity when the matter is to combat for
His glory.” John Calvin
Was Servetus a heretic? Perhaps, but
I know very little about him. Were the actions of the Geneva Council and the
words of Calvin in defense of the execution more heretical. A thousand times
more so! It is no less evil for one to kill a heretic and think he does God a
service than it is for one to kill a saint and think the same. How could
someone who claimed to know Jesus support such an action? The answer is simple.
He firmly believed that God’s justice demanded that SOMEONE MUST PAY!
I leave you with the words of the accused
heretic Michael Servetus concerning Calvin’s doctrine of penal
substitution. My comments are in italics.
1: Giving pardon does not square with
taking satisfaction. To
administer punishment for an offence and then pardon the offender is a farce
and a contradiction. Punishment and pardon do not go together.
2: There is nothing that conforms with
justice about punishing the innocent and letting the guilty go free. If an innocent man offered to go to
prison so that a rapist could be released, no one would accept that as just.
How then could punishing the sinless Son of God be payment for the sins of the
wicked? What justice could be satisfied with such an act?
3: The temporary death of one is not a
substitute for the eternal death of many. If the sinner’s punishment was eternal damnation, how did
three days in the grave satisfy the demands of justice?
4: Perfect substitutionary satisfaction would
confer on its beneficiaries an unlimited permission to sin. It is evident that multitudes have
followed penal substitution to this conclusion. If all of sin’s debt has been
paid (as is claimed), then there can be no future punishment for the believer
who continues in sin. Paul spoke of those who would believe a lie and be
damned. Such is the case of those who continue in sin and believe their
penalty has been paid.
CONCLUSION
The satisfaction views of atonement are both
erroneous and dangerous. They are erroneous because they are not supported by
scripture. They are dangerous because people trust in a payment that was never
required, and reject the need for a redemption that will free them from their
sin. We do well to heed the words spoken by John the Baptist: “Behold the Lamb of God which takes
away the sin of the world.”
Message 3 - By Keith Surface - “Someone
Must Pay!”
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