Atontement: Was it "necessary" for God to die?

[dizerner]

was it necessary to satisfy some divine decree or law of nature or other reason? Or was it merely His good pleasure to do so?

You use the word "or," but couldn't both these things be equally true?

[darinhouston]

was it necessary to satisfy some divine decree or law of nature or other reason? Or was it merely His good pleasure to do so?

You use the word "or," but couldn't both these things be equally true?

I don't see how. (note the use of "merely"). By "merely" I meant to imply the converse, that it wasn't "also" to satisfy such a law or other reason.


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[robbyyoung]

Lol! I think you missed the point.


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Robby Young
U.S. Army Retired

[dizerner]

was it necessary to satisfy some divine decree or law of nature or other reason? Or was it merely His good pleasure to do so?

You use the word "or," but couldn't both these things be equally true?

I don't see how. (note the use of "merely"). By "merely" I meant to imply the converse, that it wasn't "also" to satisfy such a law or other reason.


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Yes, I did notice the merely, but I think you are sneaking in the assumption that it can't be both into your question.

[willowtree]

was it necessary to satisfy some divine decree or law of nature or other reason? Or was it merely His good pleasure to do so?

I think a good case can be made for it being a law of nature...

Situation. If your son stole $500 out of your wallet, what would have to happen before you felt that justice had been served? Bearing in mind that you would immediately be $500 poorer, it is clear that justice is not simply a matter of working things out with your son (remorse, repentance, restitution, etc), but understanding the violation you felt on discovering the event - shame and loss of trust in the family and home. What has to happen on your side of the event to bring a restoration of a trusting relationship with your son?

In order for your son to realize the significance of what he has done, and to work through repentance, he must also see the violence it has done to you and the whole family relationship.

The obvious question which follows is - how can a God who is described as being all-powerful, all-knowing, all loving and perfectly holy, even feel such violation and shame? He has no need of money, that is not the issue. His loving can surely overlook misdemeanors and deal with the shame. His knowledge takes away the element of surprise as to who was the offender. His holiness tends to elevate him above such paltry behaviours.

The most practical solution, to me, is that God visits mankind as a human, and gives his life, not just for your boy's theft, but representative also of all who have brought shame and have violated his holy purpose. It is in this sacrifice that man sees not only his own sins atoned for, but can see that God's own sense of justice is resolved. Reconciliation is a two way street.

It is a pity that we pronounce atonement as 'a-tone-ment' when we would make much more sense if we pronounced it as 'at-one-ment'.

All of this to say that this sense of justice seems to me to be a natural law of our world.

Graeme

[dwilkins]

My answer focuses on different parts of the equation than the typical themes in atonement, but answers the question if the incarnate Christ had to die. The answer is yes. The first reason is that he had to demonstrate maximum faithfulness to God in order for his faithfulness to establish the precedent that could save us. It was the faithfulness of Christ that does so, so we can now be saved by him. Second, he could not assume his role of high priest on earth because there are already earthly high priests according to their own order. He is the high priest of the true temple in heaven, and had to die in order to go there to assume his role as a different order of priest (which makes an earthly millennial temple with Christ as head priest on earth impossible, BTW). Third, tightly connected to the last point, you can't be resurrected without having died. Therefore, he needed to die in order to be transformed and to demonstrate the power of God and his ability to save. Fourth, in order to establish the New Covenant blood had to be shed, and you can't activate a will without the death of the one writing it. For these two interconnected reasons he had to die. Fifth, he had to die in order to make the Old Covenant obsolete. Just like a marriage, someone has to die in order for the other party in the marriage to remarry without being an adulterer. Christ did so, releasing the Jews under the Law from their relationship to the Old Covenant, and making a way for them to sign on to another Covenant without spiritually cheating on God.

Whether the sacrifice was a penal substitution or not, these other elements have to be taken into account.

Doug

[jaydam]

Hebrews 2:14-15 says: 14 Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
15 and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.

Evidently Christ had to die to conquer the devil, therefore, he had to die.

Consider: in dying, he then atoned for sin, not through death, but through obedience to what needed to happen.

Was the death atoning, or was the obedience to death atoning?

This would go to the whole faithfulness of Christ issue.

*Edited this post to better state my proposition.

[darinhouston]

You use the word "or," but couldn't both these things be equally true?

I don't see how. (note the use of "merely"). By "merely" I meant to imply the converse, that it wasn't "also" to satisfy such a law or other reason.

Yes, I did notice the merely, but I think you are sneaking in the assumption that it can't be both into your question.

Hmmm. no sneaking intended -- I assume that either event would be consistent with His good pleasure.

[darinhouston]

Man, this must indeed simply be a terrible and unsupportable doctrine since no one has posited a Scriptural argument for it. It's a pretty common refrain in evangelism, and so there must be some Scriptural basis for it. Paidion at least acknowledged he wasn't addressing the original topic in his interesting and enlightening post, but it was also non-supportive to the traditional view I'm positing.

Willowtree at least attempted to answer the question, he just failed to present an argument based on Scripture. I've heard the philosophical answer many times (regarding the infinity of God, the infinite harm requiring an infinite payment, only God can die an infinite death, and so on...). That's not compelling to me, and had it not been for Dante or Anselm we might not believe it today.

To be clear, I'm seeking any Scriptural evidence, prooftext or not, to suggest not only that someone had to die, not only that the Son of Man did do so (or even had to be the one to do so) to accomplish the atonement for mankind's transgressions against God, but that it was God Himself that had to die.

This is frequently a secondary or supporting argument to the Trinity, and I think it's an unfounded one since it isn't an agreed premise. But, my question is not really a Trinitarian one about the nature of Jesus -- it is a more fundamental one than that. Hebrews compares/contrasts one man's sin (Adam) with one man's obedience/death (Jesus) - I don't see any of the "infinite harm, infinite payment" language in Scripture. In fact, when I read Hebrews 9, for example, I am pondering a possibility that the focus there is not on who had to die and how great the sacrifice must be, but that the sacrifice must be made directly to God in the heavenly holy of holies instead of the inferior earthly holy of holies. To do so, someone must be able to die without sin to enter that holy of holies and serve as the high priest to offer the sacrifice to God. This didn't have to be God Himself -- how can He present to Himself His own sacrifice? To be a sacrifice offered to God, it seems logical that it must be the sacrifice "of another" or it's not a sacrifice to be received by God -- just one to be made by Him (which could no doubt have been done many ways). The problem is that no one on earth qualified to do this because they weren't without sin and couldn't enter the ultimate holy of holies. God provided such a qualified man by begetting a Son on earth with His own holiness untainted by and unrelated to and unaccountable for Adam's sin. By offering this His own Son and by His own Son laying down His life on earth voluntarily, He accomplished both. How beautiful that the same even that permitted this to happen served as the sacrifice itself. There are many mysteries and layered meanings here. But, I think when we focus on the traditions we hold we lost the power and beauty of some of these realities.

So, I repeat my question... are there any Scriptural bases to suggest that man's sin is such a transgression that God Himself had to be the sacrifice? Not that a sacrifice was necessary, and not that Jesus had to die, but that the one to suffer and die MUST of necessity have been God Himself.

[jaydam]

I have been doing a my own study on the atonement, and it seems Hebrew 9:23-28 and the surrounding context is the closest scripture I can think of that might touch on your actual question.

Obviously you'll have to decide for yourself, depending on what you take the passage to mean:

23 Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; 25 not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another—26 He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.