This little passage from the City of God very helpfully clarifies something I was trying to say a week or so ago: that Jesus is not punished by God on the cross, though he pays the penalty for sin:
...the good and true Mediator has shown that it is sin which is evil, not the substance or nature of flesh, since that substance could be assumed, with a human soul, and preserved free from sin, and could be laid aside in death, and changed into something better by resurrection. He has shown that death itself, although it is the punishment for sin (a punishment which he paid for us, though being himself without sin), is not to be aovided by sinning but rather, if occasion offers, to be endured for the cause of right. For it is just because he died, and his death was not the penalty of sin, that he was able by dying to pay the price of our sins. X.24
And, to boot, a more positive role for the body than Augustine is often given credit for.
18 comments:
Funny. My Google reader says that you posted something called "Stinky Stuff: who wrote it" but it doesn't show up in you blog... anyways, If you did post iut, I have to say that the quote smells of NT Wright.
Now regarding God-Father not punishing Jesus: How are to understand the cross in relation to Genesis 22? God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, which Abraham was prepared to do.
In Biblical-theological terms, wasn't Abraham spared from sacrificing Isaac because God himself provided the sacrifice, - ultimately in His OWN Son?
Yes, I got cowardly about being seen to endorse NTW. So, I deleted it. Gutsy move, huh?
In Genesis 22 there isn't any punishing of anyone, is there? The sacrifice isn't punitive either way. BUT also, God provides is the point. The Son certainly is offered and offers himself as a sacrifice...
First: thanks for your blog.
Second: In case you haven't checked these out:
In Procession Before the World by Robin Darling Young
For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemann
be peace
curtis
Thanks for those Curtis. I have seen (not read) the first - a reminder to get into it. Thanks again.
The Schmemann looks good too.
"But if we will come to the atonement, not venturing in out own darkness to predetermine anything as to its nature, but expecting light to shine upon our spirits from it, even the light of eternal light; if we will suffer it to inform us by its own light why we needed it, and what its true value is to us, the punishment of sin will fall into its proper place as testifying to the existence of an evil greater than itself, even, sin; from which greater evil it is the direct object of the atonement to deliver us - deliverance from punishment being but a secondary result."
John McLeod Campbell, The Nature of Atonement, 163-164.
So I suppose here McLeod Campbell is saying that we are delivered from SIN primarily and so Christ endures SIN and as he endures SIN therefore he does not endure PUNISHMENT. The idea comes through in Anselm and Aquinas too. Punishment occurs when sin has not been overcome. Christ overcomes sin and therefore is NOT punished.
Thanks Jon: I spend hours pouring over McLeod Campbell in seminary, and emerged none the wiser: some of the worst theological prose ever written, up there with John Owen!
Jesus bears the penalty, pays the price, but isn't punished per se, no.
1.- Ahh, don't be ashamed! Although I understand. I've gotten wierd reaction from people when I actually admit to liking alot (not all) of Wright's stuff. I remain unconvinced by some of the more controversial points of the NPP and I think he overemphasizes some of the socio-political aspects of the Gospel, but his Jesus stuff is just great (especially the Resurrection - New Creation).
2.- So wait, you'd be willing to concede that God inflicts harm nd death on Jesus, but not punishment? Death is what Abraham was going to inflict on his son, after all. And the angel of death kills the first borns in egypt. Don't these anticipate Christ's death?
"some of the worst theological prose ever written, up there with John Owen!"
Seems like you're taking martyrdom too seriously! That's pretty much enough to get you killed in either England and Scotland!
Well, the bit that's missing is the willingness of the Son to make himself a sacrifice for sin... that seems to me to solve a whole bunch of conceptual difficulties.
Putting up a quote means endorsing someone? Wow, I guess I'm in trouble then...
Augustine has lots of great things to say about the body. And lots of disasterous things. He said a lot.
5 million words...
Well actually I am very pro-Augie at present. He got a bad wrap from Gunton, but when you go East and see what they got - well, we wuz lucky.
And, in this case, putting up a cheeky quote from NTW showing that he isn't a medieval Catholic was only going to add to the impression that I am a theological gadfly.
"was only going to add to the impression that I am a theological gadfly."
Oh, so you're saying you're NOT?
*wink wink - nudge nudge*
Athanasius wrote about the "divine dilemma" and its resolution in Christ in De Incarnatione ("On the Incarnation"/St. Vladimir's Seminary Press). I read this book last semester and continue to refer to it for perspective on issues like the one debated here.
(Break it to me gently... do we like him?)
Oh yes. Can't not like Athie.
phew...
A theological gadfly. There are worse things to be.
a theological piranha?
There tendency to just be annoying is something to grow out of, right?
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