New Studies in Biblical Theology

How Atonement Brings Shalom

Graham Cole, D. A. Carson, Carson, D. A. Carson

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780830871780
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Christliche Theologie

What does God intend for his broken creation? In this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume, Graham A. Cole seeks to answer this question by setting the atoning work of the cross in the broad framework of God's grand plan to restore the created order, and places the story of Jesus, his cross and empty tomb within it. Since we have become paradoxically the glory and garbage of the universe, our great need is peace with God and not just with God, but also with one another. Atonement brings shalom by defeating the enemies of peace, overcoming both the barriers to reconciliation and to the restoration of creation through the sacrifice of Christ. The "peace dividend" that atonement brings ranges from the forgiveness of sins for the individual to adoption into the family of God.Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.

Chapter One

The righteous God of holy love

We start where Scripture does – with God. And the God revealed in Scripture is the righteous God of holy love. However, I live in a largely profane society, so understanding holiness does not come easily to me. I do not see temples on street corners and animals being led to sacrifice. I do not see thousands washing themselves in the Chicago River to become pure. (Given that river’s history such would be an act of faith beyond compare!) Yet without an understanding of divine holiness the God of biblical presentation is problematical (to say the least) for many moderns in his acts of judgment. Moreover, the cross of Christ seems immoral as the linchpin of the divine plan of salvation. How could God be in Christ reconciling the world to himself in such a violent event? Likewise, the idea of divine righteousness does not immediately resonate with modern sensibilities. As R. T. France observes, ‘Of all the uninviting words of an old fashioned religious jargon, “righteousness” is one of the worst. If it means anything at all to the average man, it expresses a stuffy legalism, prim and unattractive, or at best it is a Victorian synonym for good deeds.’1 In fact, if I hear the term ‘righteous’ used in secular contexts, more often than not it has to do with describing someone pejoratively as ‘self-righteous’. That is to say, conceited in their own sense of personal goodness in contrast to others.

The idea of a loving God comes more easily. This is not a new phenomenon. Lactantius (c. 250–325) dealt with it in the early church period. In his On the Anger of God he writes:

But now we will argue against those who, falling from the second step, entertain wrong sentiments respecting the Supreme God. For some say that He neither does a kindness to any one, nor becomes angry, but in security and quietness enjoys the advantages of His own immortality. Others, indeed, take away anger, but leave to God kindness; for they think that a nature excelling in the greatest virtue, while it ought not to be malevolent, ought also to be benevolent. Thus all the philosophers are agreed on the subject of anger, but are at variance respecting kindness.2

Lactantius sweepingly asserts that the philosophers of the day would never ascribe anger to God. However, there were some prepared to predicate kindness of God. More recently, Catherine the Great of the eighteenth century supposedly said, ‘Ah, God is good; he’s bound to forgive us; that’s his job.’3 Not a hint of judgment here.

The sentimentalizing of God gives comfort to many, especially in the face of death. Such a God is sure to welcome us, or our loved ones, into the divine presence. This God is good for one’s self-image. Such a mono-attributed God may be a darling to some of the affluent who live in a stable social order. But to the persecuted, to those who live on the underside of the exercise of power in a society, to those who know what injustice is, this God is no comfort at all. African-American theologian, Rufus Burrow, Jr., rightly decries ‘the tendency to speak of God’s attributes in monopolar terms. That is, to claim that God is only one thing, e.g., love, and nothing else.’4 He argues powerfully for the recovery of the fully orbed biblical presentation of the God who is both love and light:

My claim is that the idea of divine love needs the truth in divine wrath as much as the latter needs the tenderness and care of God’s compassion. As polar opposites we cannot know the fuller meaning of either without the other. A God who only loves but is not affected by violations of the divine image of God in persons and therefore will not condemn such violations may be deemed too soft and sentimental to respond realistically to much of the excruciating unearned suffering that Afrikan [sic.] Americans and other persons of color are forced to endure nearly every moment of their lives. And yet a God who is essentially wrath and anger would not be worth the time of day, and most assuredly would not be worthy of worship.5

Burrow rightly points out the problem with reductionism of the left (a God only of love) and reductionism of the right (a God only of wrath).

In biblical terms, we are created to be worshippers. Yahweh created an entire people with that great end in mind:

the people I formed for myself

that they may proclaim my praise.

(Isa. 43:21)

According to Jesus, the Father is seeking worshippers who do so in spirit and in truth (John 4:23). The eternal gospel of the book of Revelation is ‘Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water’ (Rev. 14:7). There is no higher pursuit than the worship of the living God. Indeed, we become like the God or gods we adore and serve for good or ill. All hangs upon the nature of the God or gods we follow. How then we construe God’s character is of utmost importance. If we serve the living God of biblical revelation, then we shall image him. If we follow idols, we shall image them. A. W. Tozer saw this clearly:

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us . . . The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God . . . Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God.6

Tozer stood on solid exegetical ground for his view. The psalmist says of the worship of idols in Psalm 115:8:

Those who make them will be like them,

and so will all who trust in them.

(Ps. 115:8)

And in the New Testament, if by the Spirit we contemplate (katoptrizō, ‘looking at as in a mirror’) Christ we shall be transformed into his likeness from one degree of glory to the next (2 Cor. 3:18).7

In his argument for the necessity for atonement, Anselm famously says to Boso, ‘You have not yet considered what a heavy weight sin is.’8 To which may be added, ‘You have not yet considered who God is as scripturally revealed.’ Both considerations are vital to the doctrine of the atonement and to exploring its logic rather than what picture of God and ourselves will make us feel better in our own skins. Hence in this chapter we attend to the character of God, and in the following two, respectively, consider what we have become with the irruption of sin in creation and the problem it creates.

The divine perfections: a righteous holy love

The triune God of Scriptural revelation has perfections.9 In other words God has a nature. Understanding that nature is crucial for understanding the course of the atonement. Karl Barth argues suggestively that love is the basic definition of who God is: ‘God is the One who loves.’10 He maintains, ‘All our further insights about who and what God is must revolve round this mystery – the mystery of His loving. In a certain sense they can only be repetitions and amplifications of the one statement that “God loves.”’11 In fact, Karl Barth argues for two kinds of divine perfection: the perfections of divine freedom (unity and omnipresence, constancy and omnipotence, eternity and glory) and the perfections of divine loving (grace and holiness, mercy and righteousness, patience and wisdom).12 Such dichotomizing for the sake of theological discussion is common.13 Other theologians write of the natural and moral attributes of God; still others of his incommunicable attributes. In Barth’s case it is clear though that the divine loving is the controlling idea. The Barthian dichotomy is highly suggestive, but perfections of divine loving are too specific and thus too restrictive. Is holiness, for example, a perfection of divine loving? Not in any obvious sense.

Each of the persons of the Trinity, however, is righteous, holy and loving, and always has been. The Barthian view is too narrow in making ‘God is the One who loves’ the basic definition of God.14 Take how Jesus construes the Father as a case in point. According to John’s Gospel, Jesus prayed in the garden to his ‘Holy Father’ (John 17:11) and to his ‘Righteous Father’ (John 17:25).15 Although Jesus does not address the Father in this context as ‘Loving Father’, the references to the Father’s love for the Son in the same prayer are indicative of the Father’s loving character (John 17:23–26). Righteousness, holiness (understood in moral terms) and love are relational values. That God is a trinity helps us understand why righteousness, holiness and love have always been true of the Persons of the Godhead in their communion. It would be so much harder to see the sense in ascribing such perfections to an undifferentiated monad before there was a creation to which to relate.

Let us now explore each of these perfections in turn because they are particularly relevant to our understanding of the need and nature of the divine atoning project. Divine righteousness and holiness inform the need for atonement. Divine love provides it, as I hope that this and subsequent chapters establish.

Divine righteousness

To say ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Titles in this series
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Series preface
• Author’s preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The righteous God of holy love
• 2 The glory and garbage of the universe
• 3 The great need: peace with God, with one another and for the cosmos
• 4 Foundations and foreshadowings
• 5 The faithful Son
• 6 The death and vindication of the faithful Son
• 7 The ‘peace dividend’
• 8 Life between the cross and the coming
• 9 The grand purpose: glory
• 10 Conclusion
• Appendix: Questioning the cross: debates, considerations and suggestions
• Bibliography
• Index of authors
• Index of Scripture references
• Index of subjects
• Notes
• Praise for God the Peacemaker
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright