This eight-part series introduces the new perspective of Realistic Substitution, which unties the knots and answers the questions that previous theories could not. It is the ancient Realistic view of Adam further developed and applied to Christ.
Leon Morris, in The Cross in the New Testament, was not optimistic regarding the possibility of a “full and final theory of atonement:”
…Our survey of the doctrine throughout the New Testament has uncovered a bewildering variety of ways of looking at Christ’s work. Redemption, for example, is a figure derived from the slave market or the freeing of prisoners of war. It has to do with setting the captive free on payment of the price. Justification is a legal metaphor. It interprets salvation through the law court and sees it as a verdict of acquittal. Reconciliation refers to the making up after a quarrel, the doing away of a state of hostilities. Propitiation has to do with anger. It reminds us of the wrath of God exercised towards every evil thing and also of the fact that Christ has removed that wrath. How are these figures to be gathered together under one theory? It cannot be done. […The] mind of man is not able to comprehend all the various facets of New Testament teaching on the atonement simultaneously. […The] fact is that it is too great in extent and too complex in character for us to comprehend it all in one theory…[47]
This eight-part series introduces the new perspective of Realistic Substitution, which unties the knots and answers the questions that previous theories could not. It is the ancient Realistic view of Adam further developed and applied to Christ.
Traducianism is the belief that the immaterial nature (the spirit or soul) is propagated from one or both parents. Creationism is the only Christian alternative, the belief that the spirit is created out of nothing.
While one may hold an implicitly realistic view without affirming traducianism, (preferring to leave it to mystery), it is inescapably implied. A participative union implies common being in singularity of origin, and a propagation of individuals out of that common being. It is my contention that the biblical case for traducianism is strong, and it should not be avoided, as it sheds light on the Adam-Christ parallel. While no explanation of traducianism is without mystery, neither is the creationist view without equal mystery, since it is as difficult a problem to view God creating morally corrupt souls out of nothing as it is to view Him creating them out of the parents.
This eight-part series introduces the new perspective of Realistic Substitution, which unties the knots and answers the questions that previous theories could not. It is the ancient Realistic view of Adam further developed and applied to Christ.
The parallel between Adam and Christ is striking, as evident in Rom. 5:12-21. Inadequacies in our understanding of how Adam’s sin ruined us may impede our understanding of how Christ saves us. But, if we find new depth in our view of Adam, we may find new depth in our understanding of the cross.
We’re all born sinners, spiritually dead, mortal, subject to the pains and evils of this world. But, why? How can God hold us responsible for what some man did six thousand years ago? Why didn’t we get the same chance he did, starting life in a perfect world with an unfallen nature? You may say that life isn’t fair, but even that fact is a consequence of Adam’s sin alone. Evangelicals (Baptists included) have generally answered these questions in one of two ways.
What you will find below is neither an argument for the Calvinist view nor one for the Traditionalist view of atonement. Both ends of the spectrum have been asking the wrong questions, and the best perspective transcends that old debate. By emphasizing that Christ stood in our place, the debate has perpetually turned on the question of whose place Christ stood in—all or only some? But what has been missed by such an emphasis is that Christ stands in us—and until He stands within a sinner through the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, nothing that He did is considered to have been in that sinner’s place. Christ’s death was not an immediate transaction of atonement regarding the sins of those for whom His death was intended to atone, but is instead a universally suitable, one-for-one substitution that must be applied through spiritual union with Him by faith. Continue reading “Toward Theological Reconciliation: Atonement”→
The forgotten Realist 