Catholic and Reformed Conceptions of the Atonement
Apr 1st, 2010 | By Bryan Cross | Category: Blog PostsAs we enter into the three most sacred days of the liturgical year, when Christ entered into His Passion and death, it may be helpful to consider the difference between the Reformed and Catholic conceptions of Christ’s Passion and Atonement.
Crucifixion
Duccio di Buoninsegna (1308-11)
Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena
The Reformed conception of the Atonement is that in Christ’s Passion and death, God the Father poured out all of His wrath for the sins of the elect, on Christ the Son. In Christ’s Passion and death, Christ bore the punishment of the Father’s wrath that the elect deserved for their sins. In the Reformed conception, this is what it means to bear the curse, to bear the Father’s wrath for sin. In Reformed thought, at Christ’s Passion and death, God the Father transferred all the sins (past, present, and future) of all the elect onto His Son. Then God the Father hated, cursed and damned His Son, who was evil in the Father’s sight on account of all the sins of the elect being concentrated in the Son. (R.C. Sproul says that here.) In doing so, God the Father punished Christ for all the sins of the elect of all time. Because the sins of the elect are now paid for, through Christ’s having already been punished for them, the elect can never be punished for any sin they might ever commit, because every sin they might ever commit has already been punished. For that reason Reformed theology is required to maintain that Christ died only for the elect. Otherwise, if Christ died for everyone, this would entail universal salvation, since it would entail that all the sins of all people, have already been punished, and therefore cannot be punished again.
The Catholic conception of Christ’s Passion and Atonement is that Christ offered Himself up in self-sacrificial love to the Father, obedient even unto death, for the sins of all men. The Father was never angry with Christ. Nor did the Father pour out His wrath on the Son. The Passion is Christ’s greatest act of love, the greatest revelation of the heart of God, and the glory of Christ.1 So when Christ was on the cross, God the Father was not pouring out His wrath on His Son; in Christ’s act of self-sacrifice in loving obedience to the Father, Christ was most lovable in the eyes of the Father. Rather, in Christ’s Passion we humans poured out our enmity with God on Christ, by what we did to Him in His body and soul. And He freely chose to let us do all this to Him. Deeper still, even our present sins contributed to His suffering, because He, in solidarity with us, grieved over all the sins of the world, not just the sins of the elect. Hence, St. Francis of Assisi said, “Nor did demons crucify Him; it is you who have crucified Him and crucify Him still, when you delight in your vices and sins.”2 The Passion is a revelation of the love of God, not the wrath of God. The fundamental difference can be depicted simply in the following drawing:
One problem with the Reformed conception is that it would either make the Father guilty of the greatest evil of all time (pouring out the punishment for all sin on an innocent man, knowing that he is innocent), or if Christ were truly guilty and deserved all that punishment, then His suffering would be of no benefit to us.
A second problem with the Reformed conception is the following dilemma. If God the Father was pouring out His wrath on the Second Person of the Trinity, then God was divided against Himself, God the Father hating His own Word. God could hate the Son only if the Son were another being, that is, if polytheism or Arianism were true. But if God loved the Son, then it must be another person (besides the Son) whom God was hating during Christ’s Passion. And hence that entails Nestorianism, i.e. that Christ was two persons, one divine and the other human. He loved the divine Son but hated the human Jesus. Hence the Reformed conception conflicts with the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. The Father and the Son cannot be at odds. If Christ loves men, then so does the Father. Or, if the Father has wrath for men, then so does Christ. And, if the Father has wrath for the Son, then the Son must have no less wrath for Himself.
St. Thomas Aquinas says:
Christ as God delivered Himself up to death by the same will and action as that by which the Father delivered Him up; but as man He gave Himself up by a will inspired of the Father. Consequently there is no contrariety in the Father delivering Him up and in Christ delivering Himself up. 3
There St. Thomas explains that there is no contrariety between the Father and the Son during Christ’s Passion, no loss of love from the Father to the Son or the Son to the Father. The Father wholly and entirely loved His Son during the entire Passion. By one and the same divine will and action, the Father allowed the Son to be crucified and the Son allowed Himself to be crucified.4
One question, from the Reformed point of view, is: How then were our sins paid for, if Christ was not punished by the Father? Christ made atonement for the sins of all men by offering to God a sacrifice of love that was more pleasing to the Father than the combined sins of all men of all time are displeasing to Him. Hence through the cross Christ merited grace for the salvation of all men. Those who refuse His grace do not do so because Christ did not die for them or did not win sufficient grace for them on the cross, but because of their own free choice.
A second question, from the Reformed point of view, is this: St. Paul tells us, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us–for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a true.”5 How should we understand the curse, if God the Father is not pouring out His wrath on His Son? St. Augustine explains clearly in his reply to Faustus, that what it means that Christ was cursed is that Christ suffered death.6 Christ took our sin in the sense that He willing bore its consequence, namely, death, because death is the consequence of sin and its curse. Death is not natural. But Christ took the likeness of sinful man in that He subjected Himself to death, even death on a cross for our sake.
A third question, from the Reformed point of view, is this: How then should we understand Isaiah 53? What does it mean that:
Surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows: and we have thought him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. .. And the Lord was pleased to bruise him in infirmity: if he shall lay down his life for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed, and the will of the Lord shall be prosperous in his hand. Because his soul hath laboured, he shall see and be filled: by his knowledge shall this my just servant justify many, and he shall bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53;4-6, 10-11)
This means that Christ carried in His body the sufferings that sin has brought into the world, and that Christ suffered in His soul over all the sins of the world, and their offense against God. He bore our iniquities not in the sense that God punished Him for what we did, but in the sense that He grieved over them all, in solidarity with us. That is what it means that the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He suffered the consequences of sin (i.e. suffering, grief, death), by entering into solidarity with us, entering into our fallen world, and allowing Himself to suffer in it with us, for us, even by our hands.
If one watches the film The Passion of the Christ from the point of view of the Catholic conception of the atonement, the experience is very different from watching it from the point of view of the Reformed conception of the atonement. The film is available online, in 12 parts of ten minutes each; below is the first part. Try watching it from the Catholic point of view of the atonement.
- This is why Christ retained His five wounds in His resurrected body. And this is why Catholics show Christ on the cross, in the crucifex, because this is Christ’s glory. We, with St. Paul, glory in Christ crucified. (1 Cor 1:23-24) [↩]
- CCC 598 [↩]
- See ST III Q.47 a.3 ad 2 [↩]
- For a fuller explanation of what Christ did for us through His Passion, according to St Thomas Aquinas, see “Aquinas and Trent 6.” [↩]
- Gal 3:13 [↩]
- Contra Faustus, XIV. [↩]
Bryan,
I think the Reformed concept of the atonement refers not only to Christ’s Passion and death, but also his descent into hell, which they believe to be Gehenna. Calvin explains what he believes to be the necessity of this punitive suffering in his Institutes, book II, ch. 16 (esp. sec. 10 and 12).
Peace in Christ,
Tom
Bryan,
Listening to that Sproul audio sent chills down my spine thinking “I used to believe that” and by “that” I mean when Sproul said, “God damned His Son”!!! I look back on that and recognize that that is such an impoverished view of the atonement and the love of God.
I discussed this issue with a Reformed friend once and we had to back up to examine our presuppositions. We found that we disagreed on the atonement because we disagreed on the immutability of God. I know some affirm both divine immutability and penal substitution but the more consistent theologians, I believe, affirm one or the other.
Still there are some (modern) Catholic theologians that both deny immutability and affirm penal substitution (e.g. von Balthasar). At least they are being consistent, although I believe they are wrong in this non-traditional belief.
Bryan,
Your discussion of Aquinas and the movie clip made me think of a section in Eleonore Stump’ book on Aquinas. In the section on Aquinas’s view of the atonement (pp. 427-454), she explains the difference between a “penal” view of the atonement and a “substitutionary” view of the atonement. She takes Thomas’s view to be the latter, and defends it on philosophic grounds.
Near the end of her chapter, though, she argues that Luther/Calvin may have been on to something that Aquinas missed. She argues that Jesus’ cry from the cross and his intense suffering the garden give support to the Reformation view that, in some sense, the actual sins of all people are transferred to Christ:
In what follows, she tries to incorporate (1) the Reformed idea that Jesus, in some sense, bore the actually sins of all with (2) Aquinas’s understanding of the stain on the soul:
I’m curious about how you’d respond to Stump’s claims here.
Perhaps this is why Protestants have a bare cross. To look on a scene of pure sin is too much for us so the bare cross becomes more of a symbol of the resurection in a way. (my Lutheran Mother has always taught me the cross is bare to show the resurrection, so as not to focus on Christ’s death in our place) As if we are actually looking away from the crucifixion in shame even when looking right at the cross.
The cross seen as crucifix has more meaning then if seen as an act of love. One can look on that painful scene and see the most loving act ever. A human free from sin saying to us “my life for yours” rather than full of our sin. It upsets me I have never even heard this conception of the Atonement before.
Thank you Bryan.
Ryan,
Prof. Stump wrote that while still a Protestant. (I know because I helped prepare all the chapters; I was her office assistant at the time.) She became Catholic shortly after. A very good Thomistic explanation of Christ’s suffering and the nature of the desolation He experienced can be found here in Prof. Feingold’s talk.
David, “It upsets me I have never even heard this conception of the Atonement before. ” I hear you. We all have said the same thing.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Bryan,
A clarifying question. You wrote, “Hence through the cross Christ merited grace for the salvation of all men. Those who refuse His grace do not do so because Christ did not die for them or did not win sufficient grace for them on the cross, but because of their own free choice.”
Do you think Christ merited efficient grace for all or only some?
Bryan,
I asked the right guy! I didn’t know Prof. Stump had converted. How recently was that? It always seemed odd to me that she was both a Protestant and a staunch defender of St. Thomas.
It seems that it’s hard to be a great admirer of St. Thomas and remain Protestant. (Perhaps, that’s one reason the early reformers disliked him so much.) He’s kind of like a magnet that slowly pulls you into the fullness of the church. I’m feeling the force of that magnetic myself. Truth has a kind of invisible power to it.
Hello Perry,
Your question presupposes that I believe there is such a thing. The Church has not said that there is such a thing, in the sense in which you probably mean it. The Church has taught that Christ merited sufficient grace for all, and that God gives sufficient grace to all to achieve salvation. Taking this thread down the “efficient grace” question would be to take it off-track.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Ryan,
It was about five or six years ago.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
wow. thank you so much for this explanation. can you tell me how, if it does, the Catholic view differs from the Orthodox concept of atonement?
Have you ever read J.P. Hoding’s version of penal substitution? His version seems to avoid a lot of the normal pitfalls in Protestant understanding, though it does involve Jesus taking our punishment.
http://www.tektonics.org/af/atonedefense.html
http://www.tektonics.org/uz/2muchshame.html
He sees sin, hell, and the atonement through the lense of the honor/shame society. Basically, sin robs God of the honor that we owe to Him as Lord of the universe. In response, God should have dishonored us equally. Because we inherently deserve less honor than God, our being dishonored can never equal the honor we robbed of God (resulting in eternal hell).
Jesus, according to Holding, suffered that dishonor in our place. Because he, being God, deserves more honor than all of us, those hours of dishonor on the cross were able to pay the honor penalty we owed.
I’m just curious how this interacts with other theories of the atonement, especially the Catholic one. Although I kind of understand the Catholic view, I get confused when I read statements by Scott Hahn and his students that seem to point to some kind of “covenant penal substitution”. Case in point, see comment 68 in Taylor Marshall’s article.
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/09/john-calvins-worst-heresy-that-christ-suffered-in-hell/
Even Andrew Preslar indicated that a “carefully nuanced PSA” may have a place in Catholic theology. I wonder of Hahn’s or Holding’s (or both?) views of atonement could be reconciled/integrated with the explanation by Bryan Cross in this article.
Sorry for the muddled nature of this comment, but I wanted to hear all your thoughts on these issues.
I must say that I’ve never understood why people get so exercised about atonement theory. I’ve heard various theories; each has something to contribute, but each is one-sided by itself. I believe simply what the Catholic Church teaches as de fide. Here’s what I get from that.
Jesus atoned for our sins by sacrificing himself. He sacrificed himself by bearing in his person the consequences of our sins. That was globally efficacious because, as the innocent King of creation, he didn’t have to do it but did it anyway, thus making present his gratuitous and humanly inexplicable love. Indeed, his self-sacrifice suffused the human condition itself with the infinite, unmerited love that motivated the sacrifice. The Resurrection showed that divine love to be stronger than the physical and spiritual death that are the consequences of sin. The Lord did battle for us, his lost children, and won the victory over death by letting sinners, representing us all, torture and execute him as a serious public nuisance. The exquisite irony of that picture, which made it opaque to Satan, is far more telling for me than a merely juridical metaphor.
I know that a lot of people lately have debated the question whether Jesus was truly “damned” on the Cross and/or his descent ad infernum. The question strikes me as wanting a distinction. We cannot say that Jesus actually was damned; for several reasons, it is logically impossible for God to damn God. But I think Hans Urs von Balthasar was right to argue, in effect, that Jesus experienced what it is like to be damned. That would explain a number of things. But I leave the explanation to others who worry about this topic more than I do.
.
Bryan
I don’t agree with your interpretation of the Isaiah passage. It says nothing about Christ grieving over sin in “solidarity” with us. Instead it says he was wounded, bruised, and chastised. And it directly says that God bruised him, that God laid our iniquities on him. There seems to be a lot more than mere “solidarity” going on here. There seems to be a link between our iniquities being laid on him and the bruising and chastisement being described.
Why else the cross? Nothing you say about Jesus suffering “the consequences of sin (i.e. suffering, grief, death), by entering into solidarity with us, entering into our fallen world, and allowing Himself to suffer in it with us, for us, even by our hands”, requires the cross. Just living as a human on this earth Jesus experienced everything you mention above.
Dear Mike,
Your summary is beautiful, but I think in terms of simplicity and punch it doesn’t hold a candle to the summary provided in Sayers’ wonderful catechism:
Q.: What is meant by the Atonement?
A.: God wanted to damn everybody, but His vindictive sadism was sated by the crucifixion of His own Son, who was quite innocent, and, therefore, a particularly attractive victim. He now only damns people who don’t follow Christ or who never heard of Him.
Neal
Rana,
Good question. The atonement is an event that is manifold in its nature. And so we find that the notions of redemption, ransom, victory, sacrifice, satisfaction, example, and substitute are all used to describe and explain it. And from a Catholic point of view, all those aspects are present in what Christ did. The Orthodox tradition tends not to emphasize the legal aspect; the focus is on Christ as Victor, vanquishing sin, death and Satan, so that we would be united with God. See Bishop Kallistos Ware’s book How We Are Saved: The Understanding of Salvation in the Orthodox Tradition. In it he lays out the different theories of the atonement, and explains how the Orthodox tradition conceives it.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Stephen, (re: #12)
I haven’t read Holding’s material, so I can’t say anything about it.
Regarding your second question, what I said in the post above, and what Andrew said in the link you included, are fully compatible. Christ really is our substitute. He really did bear the curse, by bearing in His body the suffering and dissolution of death, and by bearing in His spirit the desolation that is the absence of spiritual consolation. By taking these upon Himself, freely, in self-sacrificial love, Christ offered something more pleasing to the Father than all our sins are displeasing. And in that way Christ merited for us the grace by which our sins are forgiven, we are restored to friendship with God, and we are saved from the punishment of hell. So Christ bears the curse, and in doing so participates in our punishment (i.e. the punishment of the curse), so that we can participate in His divine life, and avoid the ultimate punishment (i.e. eternal separation from God, in hell). In that (carefully qualified) sense, Christ’s atonement was one of penal substitution. But it was not one in which the Father imputed all our sins to Christ, and then poured out all His wrath for that sin, on Christ. The Father never hated the Son or hated any sin in the Son, because the Son was always sinless, and God the Father always sees the Son as the Son really is, sinless. Christ took on all human sin not by becoming intrinsically guilty (and thus deserving of punishment), or by imputation (and thus being falsely accused by an omniscient Being), but by (1) allowing Himself to suffer the effects of the curse, and (2) by seeing all the sin of all men for what it is in all its evil, and in solidarity with us (as one sharing our nature), with the grief of contrition freely and lovingly offering Himself as a perfect sacrifice for it.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Thanks Michael,
Let me add something as a point of clarification and qualification. To be damned is to be without hope, and without charity. It is to know that one is eternally separated from God, with no hope, not even the possibility of there being hope. That is utter despair. To be damned is to hate God, and to hate His justice. To be damned is to hate oneself with never-ending hatred that knows itself to be never-ending. But Christ endured the cross for the joy set before Him; He always retained hope and charity. He did not despair (that would have been a mortal sin). Nor did He hate God. Thus He never hated Himself. Nor did He ever lose sanctifying grace; otherwise His human will would have been against His divine will. So, for these reasons, if we say that He experienced what it is like to be damned, we must include some very important qualifications. He experienced the external loss of divine protection, and the interior loss of spiritual consolation. The damned also experience that, so in those two respects Christ experienced what it is like to be damned. But Christ didn’t experience the despair, self-loathing, hatred for God and deprivation of grace that the damned experience. So in those respects Christ didn’t experience what it is like to be damned.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Steve (re: #14),
Of course the word ‘solidarity’ is not used in Isaiah 53. But that doesn’t entail that Christ grieved either over His own sins, or in separation from us. Isaiah says, “Surely our griefs He Himself bore.” (Is 53:4) He bore them because they became His griefs, and they became His griefs because He entered into solidarity with us at the incarnation. He bore these griefs His whole life. This is why Isaiah says that He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” (Is 53:3)
God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) laid our iniquities on the Son [in His human nature] in the manner in which I described in comment #17. In His human nature, with His human intellect, He saw all the sins of all men, and how evil they are, and how they offend God who deserves all our love and obedience. That’s the sense in which these iniquities fell on Him, not in the sense that He became guilty in Himself, or guilty in the eyes of the Trinity. They were laid on Him in the sense that He saw all the sins of His brothers and sisters in His human family, and as the great high priest of all mankind, He, in solidarity with us, grieving over these sins of His human family, offered Himself to the Father as the perfect sacrifice for all these sins.
Of course there is a link. Human suffering and death are the result of iniquity. In His Passion Christ is freely bearing the curse of suffering and death to offer Himself as a perfect sacrifice to the Father for the iniquities that have been laid upon Him.
God could have forgiven all human sin, without the cross, and without the incarnation. But it was fitting that Christ become man, and die for us, even on a cross. Regarding the necessity of the incarnation St. Thomas writes,
Then in Question 46, St. Thomas asks whether it was necessary for Christ to suffer in order for man to be delivered, and he answers:
So according to St. Thomas, the necessity of Christ’s suffering was one of fittingness for attaining the end, that we might be saved through Him, that He might be glorified, and that Scripture might be fulfilled. The necessity was not absolute, as though God couldn’t have forgiven us without the cross.
The cross is fitting because the greater the sacrifice, the greater the love. And by His obedience unto death, even death upon a cross, Christ gave a far greater gift of love to the Father, and most perfectly demonstrated to us our sinfulness and His infinite love for us.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Bryan:
Yes indeed. The claim that Jesus experience “what it’s like” to be damned requires further distinctions, which you have made. I just didn’t feel like making them myself. ;)
Best,
Mike
I’ve never understood how Jesus could be said to have received the full punishment for our sin (as some Protestant theories put it), because that would mean that Jesus should be in Hell forever, no?
This is a *VERY* important topic to bring up this time of year.
For those who don’t know, I had a debate on Penal Substitution where I show it thoroughly unbiblical and address the major Protestant Bible prooftexts in my opening essay:
http://sites.google.com/site/catholicdefense/psdebate
Here is a list of easily verifiable quotes from leading Protestant theologians (including Calvin and Luther) stating very clearly they hold that Jesus was effectively damned:
http://catholicnick.blogspot.com/2009/04/was-jesus-damned-in-your-place.html
My husband & I are attending an Anglican (AMiA) church while we try to sort out what we believe and where we belong. We’ve been Reformed since 2001. This site started my inquiry into Catholicism when a convert friend linked here this past Reformation Day, and it’s been an enormous help for me. Thank you for that. I’d appreciate your prayers as I continue studying and as my husband starts studying (soon, I hope).
That said, the minister this morning said that Christ experienced the complete withdrawal of God’s love on the cross, which is the reason for the darkness (God the Father had turned His back) and for Jesus’ cry asking why the Father had forsaken Him.
What is the Catholic explanation for those issues (darkness & cries re: being forsaken)?
Thanks for any insight.
Jeff,
The claim is that the punishment Christ received in hell was infinite because it was against an infinite divine Person. Therefore (according to this idea) Christ did not need to spend eternity in hell to pay the penalty for our sins; three days in hell were sufficient. But then even the suffering that Christ endured at His circumcision was sufficient to pay the penalty for all sins of all mankind, since that suffering was an “infinite suffering” by being the suffering of an infinite divine Person. So, this idea nullifies the reason for Christ “suffering in hell” and for His enduring the cross. If His circumcision was an infinite punishment because it was against an infinite Person, then He could have said “It is finished” on the eighth day of His life on earth, since the infinite price had already been paid. The cross and suffering in hell are thereby made superfluous.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Bryan or whoever else might be able to comment on this:
At the Easter vigil the reading about Abraham being called by God to sacrifice Isaac made me think of this article. How can this foreshadow God giving up his only son if the theory of penal substitution is correct? Nobody was being punished for anything. The sacrifice was all about whether Abraham was willing to give up something of “infinite” value to him. This seems to fit with other examples of sacrifice from the Old Testament (I’m thinking particularly of Cain and Abel) where a sacrifice is an offering to God of something of value, not God pouring out wrath on something (how could God pour out wrath on a vegetable offering?). Moving from there to the New Testament, it makes sense of how we can say that our lives are now a living sacrifice, i.e. an offering to God. Is this correct?
On the other hand, I have seen Reformed/Protestant proponents of the penal substitution theory claim that it corresponds to the “scapegoat” in the Old Testament upon whom the sins of the people were supposedly transferred and then the goat was killed. Could you say anything about that?
It might be helpful to supplement this article with something about what a “sacrifice” is and trace the theme of sacrifice throughout scripture.
Lawwife,
Thanks for your comment, and your question. All three of the [synoptic] Gospel writers refer to the darkness that fell over the whole land from the sixth hour (i.e. noon) until the ninth hour (i.e. 3 pm). (Cf. Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33, and Luke 23:44.) But so far as I know, none of the Church Fathers interpret this as an indication that God the Father ‘turned His back’ on the Son. This was a sign to those who had called “crucify him, crucify him,” just as darkness was one of the plagues of Egypt before the Passover, a sign that they were opposing God, and that they should repent. This was creation groaning over what was being done to its Creator.
As for the meaning of Christ’s cry “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” we should not understand that as meaning that the Son (in His divine nature) was cut off from the Trinity or separated from the perfect happiness of the divine life. But in His human nature He experienced what it is like to be handed over to His enemies and to suffer and die. In those respects He was forsaken. Likewise, in His human nature he experienced the absence of spiritual consolation, and in that respect too He was forsaken, even though He (in His human nature) did not cease to behold the Father. He spoke these words as man, that is, according to His human nature. But the Father never ceased to love Him, nor did the Father’s love for the Son ever diminish in the least. Everything the Son experienced on the cross, He Himself willed to experience, including these ways of being forsaken in His human nature. I recommend listening to the talk at this link.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
It is interesting to note that when Jesus died the curtain of the Temple was torn in two, which could, in some sense manifest that God was mourning the death of His Son and not damning Him, or turning His back from Him and cursing Him.
Psalm 22:1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?
22:24 For God has not despised or disdained
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.
This shows how badly people have misread “My God, My God,” not only ignoring 22:1B, but 22:24 and Ps 22 as a whole.
David,
The Abraham example is quite appropriate and very powerful in this discussion. You are correct, the sacrifice had nothing to do with sin, nor was anyone being punished. In fact, Protestants say James 2:21 teaches Abraham was ‘vindicated’ (rather than increased in justification) at the sacrifice of Isaac, meaning Abraham was already justified – and Protestants insist the justified can never be subject to the type of punishment pen-sub requires, thus it would be impossible for God to have based this on a pen-sub model!
David: Moving from there to the New Testament, it makes sense of how we can say that our lives are now a living sacrifice, i.e. an offering to God. Is this correct?
Nick: Yes! It is very correct! In fact 1 John 3:16 says something interesting,
“This is how we know what love is:
Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.
And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”
Notice the parallelism here, Jesus “laid down his life for us” and in turn (as good Christians) we are called to “lay down our life for others.” This directly contradicts P-Sub! If Jesus died “for” us in a P-Sub sense, then Christians could never die “for” others. Any way that phrases this in terms of transfer-of-punishment will have to apply to the last clause, which causes obvious problems.
David: On the other hand, I have seen Reformed/Protestant proponents of the penal substitution theory claim that it corresponds to the “scapegoat” in the Old Testament upon whom the sins of the people were supposedly transferred and then the goat was killed. Could you say anything about that?
Nick: Yes. One huge detail which most people fail to see is that the scapegoat was never killed, it was released in the desert! If that’s not the most incompatible notion with P-Sub, I don’t know what is. Some might argue the implication was that the goat was being sent off to die in the desert, but the text never goes into such details, thus it’s unwarranted. The point that it was to be kept alive contradicts P-Sub.
David: It might be helpful to supplement this article with something about what a “sacrifice” is and trace the theme of sacrifice throughout scripture.
Nick: A worthy task. Just off the top of my head: Abel wasn’t engaging in P-Sub (Heb 11:4!!), nor was Noah after getting off the ark (Gen 8:20f), Abraham and Isaac, the Passover Lamb had nothing to do with Psub (Ex 11:4-7). Also, just as important, is how the term “atone” is used in the Bible. I know of nowhere where “atone” is used in a Psub sense, and in fact I see plenty of evidence it is used in an anti-Psub sense: Gen 32.16-20; Numbers 25:1-13 (Psalm 106:30-31); Deuteronomy 9:16-21 (Ex 32:30, Psalm 106:19-23); Numbers 16:42-49; Proverbs 16:6 and 16:14.
Wow, Nick, thanks. I appreciate that. Sometimes I feel so MISLED, even if it’s not been intentional, by Protestant/Reformed teaching.
Thank you for the explanation, Bryan. Often I feel while reading Catholic thoughts on the Bible that the Scripture is totally opening up for me for the first time, as if it’s been partially hidden up until now. That’s really an amazing experience b/c I grew up the daughter of an independent, fundamentalist Baptist pastor and attended a Christian school from K-12 (and then graduated from a college that began in the Wesleyan Holiness tradition and still has multiple Bible/theology courses required for a degree). I’m trying to listen, though it’s a little complicated with a toddler to care for! :)
PULeese, do not equate Luther and Calvin. They are birds of a different feather.
And to David Meyer – no matter what your mother said, before about 1940, surely before 1914, many if not most, most Lutheran churches had crucifixes. I know two of the three churches I have serves have them and the third was not organized until 1945.
Via @TGC. Thanks for the investment of your time and thoughts on this discussion. Brief question for you (assuming I have not misread your position): Why assume God’s love and God’s punishment are mutually exclusive?
Hello Chris, (re: #32)
Welcome to Called To Communion. Nothing in my post presupposes that God’s love and God’s punishment are mutually exclusive. When God punishes a person for sin, He does not cease to love the person being punished, but He does not love that person’s sin. And it is precisely because of the person’s sin that he is punished. Also, God disciplines those He loves, to bring them to repentance, and even to lead them away from temptation. So in either punishment or discipline, God continues to love the recipient. But in both punishment and discipline, God does not love the person’s sin.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Bryan Cross (Re: #17)
Thank you for your posts on this site. As a Reformed Christian believer thinking through some of the issues addressed here, your posts have been particularly helpful and engaging.
In #17, you said, “…In that (carefully qualified) sense, Christ’s atonement was one of penal substitution. But it was not one in which the Father imputed all our sins to Christ, and then poured out all His wrath for that sin, on Christ. The Father never hated the Son or hated any sin in the Son, because the Son was always sinless, and God the Father always sees the Son as the Son really is, sinless.”
How does this explanation square with 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”?
Thanks,
Bryan Meyers
Bryan Meyers (re: #34)
Welcome to Called To Communion. See comment #29 in the Does the Bible Teach Sola Fide? post. If that doesn’t answer your question, then please write me back.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
As I read this article and thought about the reformed view, a question came to my mind. I am not sure if my thinking is correct, but it would seem that the punishment deserved for our sin is an eternity in hell. If “Christ bore the punishment of the Father’s wrath that the elect deserved for their sins” would He not need to suffer this punishment as well? God is just and it would seem that Christ would if the reformed view were correct. Is my thinking logical, or am I way off?
Question #2
Would OT accounts of God withholding his wrath on people because of intercession by individuals he is pleased with (i.e. Moses) relate to the atonement in any way? It
I think I am answering my own question as I research the reformed view of the atonement and how they deal with the eternal punishment of Hell. Calvin suggests that Christ basically suffered an equivalent of an eternity of Hell during His passion. I know that is over simplified, but am I on the right track?
Brian, here is Taylor Marshall’s post on John Calvin’s doctrine that Christ suffered in Hell. Also see Bryan Cross on the Catholic perspective, The Harrowing of Hell
For some reason my html tag didn’t work right. Oh well, you get the idea. The short answer is that yes, you’re on the right track.
Thanks Tim. This site has been a real blessing for me. I only wish I had a bigger brain in order to contribute to the great discussions here. Also, thank you to all the Protestants who visit and dialogue with the folks here at CTC.
Today, in his post titled About the Atonement,” Baptist theologian Roger Olson writes the following:
Affirming that Christ suffered and that the Father did not suffer, is not driving a wedge between the Father and the Son; it is affirming that Christ has two natures (i.e. divine and human), that the Father does not have a human nature (i.e. did not become incarnate), and that Christ suffered only in His human nature, not in His divine nature. The assumption that if Christ suffers, the Father must suffer, entails the heresy of modalism, i.e. that the Father and the Son are the same Person. (In addition, the notion that the Father suffered makes God into a mere creature, being passible and having potency, and capable of losing or gaining happiness. It also therefore makes Christ into a mere creature.)
But what is notable about Roger’s post is what I continue to find among Protestant theologians — namely, a seeming unawareness of any other conception of substitutionary atonement than that of the Father pouring out His divine wrath and everlasting punishment for our sins, on the Son in His suffering and death. But in fact, when the Church Fathers speak of Christ being our sacrificial substitute and bearing our sins, they are speaking not of God the Father pouring out His wrath for our sins, on Christ. They are speaking rather of Christ bearing the curse of suffering and [physical] death, that curse described in Genesis 3 (see, for example, what St. Augustine says here.), and they are speaking of Christ offering Himself up to the Father as both a perfect high priest and a perfect victim, a perfect sacrifice of love, a gift of greater love than the injustice of all our sins. This is the conception of the atonement St. Anselm and St. Thomas later expounded and developed, and which I have described in the post above. It contrasts very distinctly with the Protestant notion epitomized below by R.C. Sproul. At 6’45″ in this video, Sproul says that God the Father says to the Son on the cross, “God damn you.”
Sproul seems to interpret Christ bearing the curse as God the Father hating (lit. damning) the Son, and pouring out His wrath for our sin on the Son, who receives upon Himself the Father’s wrath equivalent to everlasting punishment in hell, for our sins. But that’s not how St. Augustine or St. Thomas understood the curse. That would either make the Father the perpetrator of the greatest evil of all time, i.e. pouring out the punishment for all human sin (or at least that of the elect) on an innocent man, knowing that he is innocent (see this video), or if Christ were really guilty and deserved all that punishment, then Christ’s suffering would be of no benefit to us.
Some Protestants think that God pouring out His wrath and punishment for all human sin on an innocent man, knowing that he is innocent, is fine, so long as that man volunteered to suffer it. Roger Olson seems to think that as well. But what makes it unjust to punish an innocent man for another’s crime is not just that the innocent man doesn’t wish to be punished, or didn’t volunteer to be punished, but that he is innocent. When, at the end of Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities Sydney Carton secretly takes Darnay’s place on the way to the guillotine, this is not an unjust act on Carton’s part. But if the judge were knowingly to execute an innocent man, for the crimes of another, that would be an unjust act on the part of the judge.
The reason why punishing an innocent person (knowing that he is innocent) for the crimes of another is unjust, whether or not the person wills that he be punished, is that giving to someone more good than he is due, is compatible with justice because justice does not restrict mercy. But, giving to someone less good (or more evil) than he is due is not compatible with justice. Justice is asymmetrical in that respect. For this reason, punishing an innocent person, knowing that he is innocent, is unjust, whether or not the person volunteers to be punished. That is why the Protestant conception of the Father pouring out His wrath for our sins on Christ makes God the Father unjust to Christ, whereas the satisfaction conception of the atonement does not, because while justice prohibits punishing an innocent person, it does not prohibit receiving a substitutionary gift that makes reparation for the debt owed by another.
This is why St. Thomas uses the language of St. Paul in speaking of the Father “delivering up” Christ, as when St. Paul wrote,”but delivered him up for us all.” (Romans 8:32) St. Thomas writes:
God the Father did not pour out His wrath on His Son; rather, according to His plan He delivered Christ over to the Jews and Romans (i.e. permitted Christ to be arrested and flogged and crucified), and they freely poured out their wrath on Christ. There was no contrariety between the Father and the Son during the Passion, no loss of love from the Father to the Son or the Son to the Father. The Father wholly and entirely loved His Son during the entire Passion. By one and the same divine will and action, the Father allowed the Son to be crucified and the Son allowed Himself to be crucified. (See Summa Theologica III Q.47 a.3) (For an explanation of “My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken me?”, see comment #26 above.)
Otherwise, if the Father had wrath for men while the Son had love for men, this either (1) conflicts with the doctrine of the Trinity, in making the Father and the Son be at odds with each other [i.e. "drives a wedge"]; if Christ loves men, then so does the Father, or if the Father has wrath for men, then so does Christ, which doesn’t fit with “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,” or (2) it conflicts with the doctrine of the incarnation, in making the Son’s divine will to be that of divine wrath directed toward His own human nature, and either (2a) the Son’s human will contradicting His divine will, by loving His human nature while the divine will hates His human nature, or (2b) the Son’s human will being in perfect conformity with the divine will, and in His enraged human will pouring out wrath on His own human nature and wanting to punish it and kill it, like Phinehas in Numbers 25:7, but toward His own flesh.
This theological mess will continue, so long as the sacrificial and substitutionary language of Scripture and the Fathers is misconstrued as meaning that Christ steps voluntarily into the blind stream of divine wrath so that we don’t receive it. We need to remember and recover the original conception of substitutionary atonement, which long preceded the Protestant Christ-takes-the-divine-wrath version.
Thanks Bryan! Patripassionism is my favorite heresy. It fits in well with what we are learning in my Trinitarian Theology class, but this stuff is so deep that I can’t put it into words as well as you do here. This comment is making me look forward to writing my paper on “The Trinity in the Paschal Mystery,” in which I’ll get to delve into Von Balthasar’s, “Mysterium Paschale.” If you have any other sources to recommend on the subject, please let me know.
This should be its own post. I hope it doesn’t get buried before some of the protestant commenters have an opportunity to respond.
Clarification if it wasn’t obvious… We aren’t being taught Patripassionism in my theology class. We are being taught about patripassionism in my class. It is the information in this post that fits in well with what we are learning. :)
Bryan,
What if I bumped into you at Blockbuster, and they weren’t letting you rent A Man For All Seasons because you owed $5.00 in late fees and you haven’t got the money on you. Being the generous man that I am, I step and say to the clerk, “Here, I’ll take care of it” and hand her a fiver. Now your slate is clean because you someone else has voluntarily paid your debt (and the clerk obviously knows about it).
Are you saying that she would be unjust to take my money?
Deacon Bryan, (re: #42/43)
Thanks, I’m glad you aren’t being taught patripassionism [as true]. :-) A good book on this general subject is Thomas Weinandy’s Does God Suffer?.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Jason, (re: #44)
It wouldn’t be unjust for her to receive a gift from you to pay my debt, because in receiving a gift from you she wouldn’t be doing anything unjust to you. That scenario is analogous to the satisfaction theology developed by St. Anselm and St. Thomas. But if she reached under the counter, and pulled out a taser, and tasered you 1 full minute for each dollar I owed, that would be unjust on her part, even if you [in your great benevolence] volunteered to let it be done to you.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Well, unless you were trying to rent The Big Lebowski, there’s no way I’d volunteer to be tasered for you….
Kidding aside, I guess I don’t see the difference. What if DVDs actually cost 5 taser-shots to rent? If you didn’t have the ability to endure that and I stepped in and paid the price, what’s the problem? It sounds like you’re just objecting to the nature of the payment (i.e., punishment) and not to the idea that payment is being made in a substitutionary way.
Jason, (re: #47)
Paying, per se, is not unjust. Nor is paying someone’s debt. But, not all forms of payment are just. Consider payments in the form of sexual services, or payment in the form of requiring the harvesting of your children’s eyes. So, yes, the injustice I’m pointing to in the Christ-takes-the-divine-wrath conception of the atonement is not that Christ is acting as our substitute in making reparation to God on our behalf, but that God knowingly pours out His punishment [wrath equivalent to eternal damnation in hell] for our sins on His innocent Son.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Just a thought, but could it be that the difference between positive payment (what seems the Catholic atonement) and punishement (Protestant atonement) has to do with the nature of sin? Heres what I mean: When I sin (by not returning The Seven Samurai to blockbuster on time) that sin can’t be undone. Punishing me for it really does not change the manager of blockbusters desire for his $5. Taser me all day long, he might chuckle, but he is still out his $5. Taser someone else in my place, still no $5. But if he recieves his $5 from me, you, ANYONE, he will be satiated. He really does not care where it comes from, as long as someone has the ability to pay, he will receive the $5.
With this in mind, Christ merely receiving punishment meant for us does not do justice to the dire situation of Adams sons. What is needed is a “payment” of perfect love to the Father (which only Christ can provide) that overshadows my sin in His eyes.
Am I on the right track?
That is a description of an act of charity, an act of mercy. This action would be meritorious if this action was unselfishly motivated out of a grace enabled love of God and man. And the only reason such an action could be meritorious, is because it is united with the atoning sacrifice of the Cross, the supreme act of supernatural charity and mercy. God the Father would be pleased with your act of mercy, just as he is well pleased with all the actions of his only begotten Son.
OK, that helps be understand your view, Bryan. It is not substitution you object to, but a substitutionary payment that takes the form of receiving undue wrath.
Couple questions, though: (1) Would you say that Jesus’ death quenched God’s wrath, even if for different reasons than Protestants say this? (2) How is it not a subtle rationalism to say what would and what would not count as injustice on God’s part? I thought the way it worked was that we derive our understanding of justice from what God is and does, rather than deriving it first and then subjecting him to it.
Isaiah writes. “The Lord was pleased to crush him.” Which I have always understood within the protestant framework of expiation. I was wondering if someone could comment on that verse from a Catholic perspective of the Father receiving the Son’s sacrifice by not actively pouring wrath on him. Thanks.
Jason, (re: #51)
To answer that question, we should first clarify exactly what we mean by “God’s wrath.” (See what I wrote in the section titled “Does God hate sinners?“) When we humans speak of wrath, based on our experience of ourselves and other humans, we are referring to a movement in our sensible appetite. (cf. ST I q. 81 a.3) But there is no movement or change in God. The Church has infallibly taught (at the Fourth Lateran Council and at Vatican I) that God is immutable. So wrath predicated of God should not be conceived as a movement of passion or emotion in God. St. Thomas raises an objection to divine immutability, based on passages of Scripture which seem to speak of God drawing near to us. “Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8). In his reply to this objection, St. Thomas explains:
That we can offend God the Father by our sin does not mean that our sin in any way changes Him, or elicits any emotion or sensation in Him. It means rather that our sin changes us in relation to God, such that we cannot be united to Him, but are separated from communion with Him. So, to answer your question, the gift of love Christ (in His human nature) gave to the Father through His obedience unto death, “quenched God’s wrath” in the sense that it made a way through justice for us to draw near to the Father, through union with Christ. Man (mankind), by sin, stood in a relation of infinite debt to God, because of our sin against God, by which we failed to give to God the love and obedience and honor that is due to Him. Christ, however, gave to God a superabundant gift by which mankind no longer stands in that relation of debt. Yet, if we (as individuals) refuse this gift, we remain separated from God eternally, and in that sense remain under the wrath of God.
Justice is something we know as a first principle. Our grasp of it can be improved, but we cannot logically derive it from prior premises. The whole of the natural law is based on justice: giving to each his due. It is not that the proposition “give to each his due” is divinely implanted in our minds before birth. Rather, we grasp with our intellect (and this is helped by proper parental training) that by their nature and relation, beings are due certain goods from others and from ourselves, and that it is good to give them their due. This is the concept to which the mother appeals when she tells the two-year old, “You need to share with your brother.” And if the brother isn’t shared with, he starts crying, for the very reason that [distributive] justice isn’t being done. How often concerning our siblings did we as children say to our parents in that whiny voice, “That’s not fair?” We did this before we’d even cracked a Bible.
When Abraham was interceding with God for Sodom and Gomorrah, he said the following, “Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” (Gen 18:25) He didn’t say, “Well, if you are going to do it, then that will set the standard for what justice is, and so there’s no point in my appealing to justice, in my request that you not slay the righteous with the wicked.” Instead, using what he already knew about justice, he knew that God cannot possibly act unjustly. Otherwise, it would be meaningless to say that God is just. That would be saying merely, “God does whatever He does.” So this avoids two errors: divine voluntarism, and rationalism. It avoids divine voluntarism, because justice is eternal and immutable, the eternal law of God, a Ratio in God, as St. Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. i, 6). But for that same reason it avoids rationalism, because that eternal law is the standard of justice. Yet, man is not ignorant of that eternal law until through supernatural revelation we learn of divine actions that then give us a concept of justice. Every rational creature (including Abraham) knows this eternal law not as it is in itself, but by participation, through having been endowed with reason by which we have been made in the image of the Divine Logos. Hence St. Thomas says:
So, we know, in the same way that Abraham knew justice, that it would be unjust to punish [i.e. impose the full retribution for evil actions] an innocent man for all the sins of all men (or of all the elect). Otherwise justice would be injustice, which would mean that there is no justice, but only power and cowering submission.
(David, I hope this comment also helps answer your question as well.)
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Hello Todd, (re: #52)
I addressed that passage of Isaiah toward the end of the post, and then in more detail in comment #19 (see also comment #17).
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Here are two articles that address some recent concerns brought up in this thread.
1) This first article does something almost unheard of: it’s a simple lexical look at the Hebrew word for atonement. This catches PSub advocates and many others totally off guard, because the results are blatantly anti-Psub; the concept of PSub was absolutely foreign to the Hebrew Scripture’s and mindset, and this is abundantly clear by just examing how Scripture itself uses and defines the term “atonement”!
2) This second article shows how the Patriarch Job must be the “suffering servant” of Isaiah 53 if the Psub approach is taken.
I also was reminded of two other intercession passages that don’t get much mention but are quite powerful: Jeremiah 15:1 and 18:20
The story of Christ and His Bride, which is the Story of the redemption of Man, is the greatest Love Story that the cosmos has ever been witness to. And, because Man is made in the Image of God, love stories come natural to Man by his nature, since God is above all else Love.
Now, consider that if Christ died for the Church, His Bride, in the sense of dying in Her stead, then She must have been guilty of something for which She was Herself deserving of death — i.e., Jesus stepped in and paid the penalty that was justly due to the Bride. Yet all men, who by their nature know what is a true and beautiful love story, know that a love story is hardly beautiful if it involves a bride who is truly guilty of some heinous offense meriting death.
And so it is plain that it cannot be that Christ died for a guilty Bride, for this would be a terrible love story. Surely it cannot be that the Love Story of Christ and the Church is an imperfect, almost unconscionable, love story.
No troubadour would sing a ballad of a great knight’s love for a wanton and wicked lady. No bard would pen a poem to honor two lovers, a great man whose love is perfect and his vile, shameful lady who is deserving of death. These ideas are despicable to the deepest heart of love in Man. The deepest heart of Man knows that Christ’s Bride must have been — and must still be — a most lovely and innocent thing if She is to be worthy of Him, and if Theirs is to be the perfect Love Story.
Therefore Christ’s death for the Church cannot be for Her in the sense of dying in Her stead to make satisfaction for Her awful crime.
Surely Christ died in an act of perfect and infinite love for His Bride. In this way, He earned Her love by proving His love for Her. Truly Christ was the first and most perfect Knight of Christendom. The great test of every knight is the test of the measure of his love. Is he willing to give up his life for his beloved? If so, then he is worthy of her love. If not, then he is no knight.
Christ did not die to pay off the jailer to have His Beloved released from Her just condemnation. No, Christ died to earn Her pure and innocent love and to receive Her as His just reward. The Father gave the Son the Bride because the Father saw that the Son had proved Himself worthy of Her. He earned Her perfect love through a perfect act of love. Christ indeed bought Her for a great price, but this price was paid in love to Her loving Father, not as a ransom to Her seething executioner.
Jeff:
I was going to click the “Like” button, but then I remembered this isn’t Facebook. Good job!
Best,
Mike
Jeff,
Ah! I like the story too. I might throw in (explicitly) something to the effect that the Bride, in her former days, was wanton and prone to adultery (OT prophets concerning Irsael, some of which is poetry!), but that in her abject exile and estrangement, the knight rescued and not only purified and restored her, but elevated her and sanctified her by love for all time thenceforward, by virtue of his daring quest (NT apostles concerning the Church). I mean, the knight dies for a reason, to rescue his lady from something. I think that your story-line and rich themes can pretty much accommodate that bit.
Andrew
That story also has the potential to make the blessed virgin fit into the salvation story. At the cross there was no church yet. But there needed to be a most lovely and innocent woman there to represent the church. God made it so.
OK so I was just re-reading this article and I had a question. For those of you who don’t know I am a member of a PCA church and very involved. I have been wrestling with understanding and possibly converting to Catholicism because it is starting to make WAY too much sense to me, so forgive me for randomly popping in on old articles to ask questions (btw, Dr. Liccione, your guest contributions and remarks in the comboxes have been most enlightening). So for the question:
In this article you said that we are to understand the atonement in that Christ was “obedient unto death,” and that “in Christ’s act of self-sacrifice in loving obedience to the Father, Christ was most loveable in the eyes of the Father.” My question is, what exactly was the Father requiring of the Son in which He was being obedient? And does this in any way violate Christ’s offering up of himself (that He was being asked to do something by the Father)?
Shalom,
Aaron G.
Aaron G., (re: #60)
Thanks for your comment and questions. St. Thomas provides an answer to your first question in Summa Theologica III Q.47 a.2. Regarding your second question, no, this does not violate Christ’s offering up of Himself; His obedience to the Father was at the same time an act of love for the Father. (See the reply to the third objection of that same article.) (See also CCC 609.)
Christ’s whole life on earth, every act He did in His human will, from His free choice to love God at the moment of His conception, until His ascension into Heaven, was what was required of Him by the Father. As He said, “from Myself I do nothing, but I speak these things just as the Father taught Me.” [ἀπ' ἐμαυτοῦ ποιῶ οὐδέν, ἀλλὰ καθὼς ἐδίδαξέν με ὁ πατὴρ ταῦτα λαλῶ.] (John 8:28) He lived a life of perfect obedience to the Father. This is why every aspect of His life on earth is a revelation of the Father:
And later in the Catechism:
In short, that Christ’s whole life was a life of obedience to His Father’s commands is fully compatible with Christ’s freely fulfilling these commands out of love for His Father.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan