By Lewis Sperry Chafer
The Savior
Theories False and True of the Value of Christ’s Death
III. Theories in General.
4. The Rectoral or Governmental Theory.
In entering upon an analysis of the rectoral or governmental theory it is acknowledged that it is different, indeed, from those theories already mentioned, it being the one and only theory which recognizes the need of an objective work of Christ with respect to God. Other theories seek no more than the remission of human sin, without regard for the deeper moral issues which arise when it is asserted a holy God forgives sin apart from any penalty for the sin. There are but two theories—that of satisfaction and the rectoral or governmental—which can claim the attention of sincere men who respect the holy character of God and the revelation He has given. Thus, and for this reason, these two interpretations are placed over against each other in every worthy treatment of this great theme. It will likewise be necessary to hold these two systems in close comparison throughout this discussion.
The history of the rectoral or governmental theory has been traced above. There it was pointed out that, as a natural interpretation of the Scriptures, the church from its beginning held the doctrine of divine Satisfaction through the death of Christ, and, though the doctrine of Satisfaction was systematized by Anselm in the eleventh century, the doctrine was held in general, as much as any truth obtained, throughout the Christian era. In the sixteenth century attacks were made upon the doctrine of Satisfaction by the Socinians which were rationalistic and against the very Scripture upon which the doctrine rests. These Scriptures were misinterpreted and rejected in the interest of human reason. It was then that Hugo Grotius, a jurist of Holland and a man of colossal intellect, undertook to devise a scheme of interpretation which would preserve some semblance of an objective value in Christ’s death and yet avoid much of the rational criticism then being launched against the doctrine of satisfaction. Though men have departed to some extent from the Grotian philosophy, the essential features of his theory remain as he propounded them. This theory has been the refuge of Arminians, it is largely the belief of the theologians of Continental Europe, and has been the accepted doctrine held by the independents of Great Britain and New England. In the latter region, this theory has been defended by such men as Joseph Bellamy, Samuel Hopkins, John Smalley, Stephen West, Jonathan Edwards, Jr., Horace Bushnell, and Edwards A. Park. The last-named stated that this theory was “the traditional orthodox doctrine.” Nevertheless, the doctrine of Satisfaction has been, and is, held by all Calvinists and is that which appears in all the worthy creeds of the church.
These two systems of interpretation agree that the death of Christ and the shedding of His blood play a large part in the salvation of men. The doctrine of Satisfaction embodies the conception of Christ’s death that it was a penal substitution which had the objective purpose of providing a just and righteous ground for God to remit the sins of those for whom Christ died. The equity, it is declared, is perfect since the Substitute bore the penalty. This is expressed in the words, “that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom 3:26). The Rectoral or Governmental theory contends that in His death Christ provided a vicarious suffering, but that it was in no way a bearing of punishment. The advocates of this theory object to the doctrine of imputation in all its forms, especially that human sin was ever imputed to Christ or that the righteousness of God is ever imputed to those who believe. They declare that a true substitution must be absolute and thus, of necessity, it must automatically remit the penalty of these for whom Christ died. Therefore, it is asserted, that, since Christ died for all men and yet not all men are saved, the Satisfaction Theory fails. That there was a substitution of the most absolute character both as to merit and as to demerit, which does not become effective apart from a vital union with Christ—the result of saving faith—but does accrue to all who are in Christ, is rejected.
It is conceded that there are great difficulties which arise when finite minds attempt to reduce the divine mode of operation respecting the salvation of lost men—the greatest divine undertaking—to the limitations of a human theory. Believing that the death of Christ did provide an absolute satisfaction and was a complete substitution and to avoid the problem which is endangered by the fact that multitudes are not saved, a certain school of Calvinists have averred that Christ died only for the elect, or those who are saved. Some of the more extreme of this school contend that, in the case of the elect, saving faith is of minor importance since the death of Christ is automatically effective. The majority of Calvinists, however, recognize the obvious fact that even the elect are no more saved than the non-elect until they believe on Christ.
Judging from their voluminous writings, it is not easy for the advocates of the Rectoral or Governmental Theory to state precisely what they believe Christ accomplished by His death, and it is equally difficult to understand the exposition of the theory which they offer. To say, as they do, that Christ’s sufferings were sacrificial but not punitive is equal to saying that Christ answered by His death some divine necessity other than the penalty which sin incurs from divine holiness and divine government. It is asserted that the sin of man caused God to suffer and that that suffering fell on Christ, though the Father was in complete rapport with the Son in the hour of suffering. The sufferings are said to thus manifest divine compassion rather than penal judgment. When so estimated, it is declared, the sufferings are not lessened nor is their efficacy. By these sufferings of Christ, God reveals His holy hatred for sin, and, by an actual demonstration in the cross, He displays the distress which sin causes Him. This is allowed to pass as an objective value of Christ’s death Godward, and is as near to propitiation as the system is able to approach.
Since God is love and ever has been, there is no occasion for Him to be propitiated. Yet the Scripture declares that the unsaved are “children of wrath” (Eph 2:3), and that by His death Christ has rendered God propitious (1 John 2:2). In its objective value manward, or as it affects the sinner for whom He died, it can mean no more than a moral influence such as would arise in the mind of one who is impressed by the spectacle of divine sorrow for sin and compassion for the sinner. By so much, the death of Christ accomplishes no change in the estate of the sinner. This is as near to reconciliation as the theory may come; yet the Bible declares that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, and, by that death, so changed the estate of men that He is not now imputing their trespasses unto them (2 Cor 5:19). Similarly, considering the value of Christ’s death sinward, according to this theory God is safe, in a governmental sense, in forgiving the one who is rendered penitent by the recognition of the fact of Christ’s death and that is as near as the system may approach to a redemption. But Christ, according to His own declaration, gave His life “a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28; cf. Mark 10:45; 1 Tim 2:6). The theory is exhausted by its one claim that, on the rectoral or governmental side of the divine requirements, having by Christ’s death demonstrated the divine estimation of evil and by His sacrificial suffering displayed the divine compassion, God may with safety to His government pardon in a sovereign manner the sinner who, being influenced by the fact of Christ’s death, is penitent. Divine government is thought to be sufficiently protected in the maintenance of its holy standards if forgiveness as a divine generosity is extended to the penitent. Labored arguments have been presented to demonstrate that a forgiveness based on an expression of divine displeasure concerning sin—which expression is acceptod as a form of atonement for sin—is not a sovereign forgiveness, but is based on a worthy ground. Such arguments fail to carry any weight of conviction with those who oppose the theory.
From the above it may be concluded that Grotius, as those who follow him, distinguished between that which was governmental and that which is personal in God with respect to His judgment of sin. The theory proposes that God could not judge sin on a personal basis or as that which outrages His holiness since He is love; but He must judge sin on the ground of His rectoral or governmental relation to men. No penalty falls on a substitute and the penitent sinner is forgiven as an act of divine compassion. Baur published an estimation of the work of Grotius in Bibliotheca Sacra (Vol. IX), and a brief quotation bearing on this phase of the theory is given here: “The fundamental error of the Socinian view was found by Grotius to be this: that Socinus regarded God, in the work of redemption, as holding the place merely of a creditor, or master, whose simple will was a sufficient discharge from the existing obligation. But, as we have in the subject before us to deal with punishment and the remission of punishment, God cannot be looked upon as a creditor, or an injured party, since the act of inflicting punishment does not belong to an injured party as such. The right to punish is not one of the rights of an absolute master or of a creditor, these being merely personal in their character; it is the right of a ruler only. Hence God must be considered as a ruler, and the right to punish belongs to the ruler as such, since it exists, not for the punisher’s sake, but for the sake of the commonwealth, to maintain its order and to promote the public good” (p. 259).
From this brief analysis it will be seen that two major ideas are paramount in this theory as presented by its advocates, namely, penitence and forgiveness, and no other aspects of the value of Christ’s death are acknowledged and no other feature of the great work of God in the salvation of a soul is comprehended in this system. Should any question be raised as to the need of an amercement or penalty that would uphold the sanctity of the law, the fact that Christ suffered sacrificially is deemed sufficient to meet the requirement. Grotius was Arminian in his theology and his theory is well suited to a system of interpretation of the Scriptures which is satisfied with modified and partial truths.
As to the methods employed by these two systems, it may be observed that the doctrine of Satisfaction follows the obvious teachings of the Bible. It is the result of an unprejudiced induction of the Word of God bearing on the death of Christ. On the other hand, the defenders of the Grotian theory build a philosophy which is not drawn from Scripture, and, having declared their speculations and reasonings, undertake to demonstrate that, by various methods of interpretation, the Scriptures may be made to harmonize with the theory. It is significant that the church, being, in the main, subject to the Bible, has held the doctrine of Satisfaction throughout all her generations.
Of those who have expounded and defended the Rectoral or Governmental theory, none in the United States has given it more scholarly consideration than Dr. John Miley, the Arminian theologian. When stating his disagreement with the time-honored doctrine of Satisfaction, Dr. Miley objects (1) to the doctrine of substitution as generally held. It is his contention that neither the sin of man is imputable to Christ, nor the righteousness of God is imputable to man; and (2) if man’s sin is imputable to Christ, man needs no personal faith which appropriates forgiveness, since nothing could remain to be forgiven. These are the major arguments which Socinus advanced and these, in turn, have been presented by many of the Arminian school. The fallacy involved will be given due consideration in a later division of this thesis. It is due Dr. Miley that a part, at least, of his own defense of the Rectoral or Governmental theory shall be quoted here. Under the general division, Theory and necessity of atonement, he declares:
“(1). An Answer to the Real Necessity.—The redemptive mediation of Christ implies a necessity for it. There should be, and in scientific consistency must be, an accordance between a doctrine of atonement and the ground of its necessity. The moral theory finds in the ignorance and evil tendencies of man a need for higher moral truth and motive than reason affords; a need for all the higher truths and motives of the Gospel. There is such a need—very real and very urgent. And Christ has graciously supplied the help so needed. But we yet have no part of the necessity for an objective ground of forgiveness. Hence this scheme does not answer to the real necessity for an atonement. Did the necessity arise out of an absolute justice which must punish sin, the theory of satisfaction would be in accord with it, but without power to answer to its requirement, because such a necessity precludes substitutional atonement. We do find the real necessity in the interests of moral government—interests which concern the divine glory and authority, and the welfare of moral beings. Whatever will conserve these ends while opening the way of forgiveness answers to the real necessity in the case. Precisely this is done by the atonement which we maintain. In the requirement of the sacrifice of Christ as the only ground of forgiveness the standard of the divine estimate of sin is exalted, and merited penalty is rendered more certain respecting all who fail of forgiveness through redemptive grace. And these are the special moral forces whereby the divine law may restrain sin, protect rights, guard innocence, and secure the common welfare. Further, the doctrine we maintain not only gives to these salutary forces the highest moral potency, but also combines with them the yet higher force of the divine love as revealed in the marvelous means of our redemption. Thus, while the highest good of moral beings is secured, the divine glory receives its highest revelation. The doctrine has, therefore, not only the support derived from an answer to the real necessity for an atonement, but also the commendation of a vast increase in the moral forces of the divine government.
“(2). Grounded in the Deepest Necessity.—We are here in direct issues with the doctrine of satisfaction: for here its advocates make special claim in its favor, and urge special objections against ours. We already have the principles and facts which must decide the question. In their scheme, the necessity lies in an absolute obligation, of justice to punish sin, simply as such, and ultimately in a divine punitive disposition. But we have previously shown that there is no such necessity. We have maintained a punitive disposition in God; but we also find in him a compassion for the very sinners whom his justice so condemns. And we may as reasonably conclude that his disposition of clemency will find its satisfaction in a gratuitous forgiveness of all as that he will forgive any, except on the equivalent punishment of a substitute. Who can show that the punitive disposition is the stronger? We challenge the presentation of a fact in its expression that shall parallel the cross in expression of the disposition of mercy. And with no absolute necessity for the punishment of sin, it seems clear that but for the requirements of rectoral justice compassion would triumph over the disposition of a purely retributive justice. Hence this alleged absolute necessity for an atonement is really no necessity at all. What is the necessity in the governmental theory? It is such as arises in the rightful honor and authority of the divine Ruler, and in the rights and interests of moral beings under him. The free remission of sins without an atonement would be their surrender. Hence divine justice itself, still having all its punitive disposition, but infinitely more concerned for these rights and interests than in the mere retribution of sin, must interpose all its authority in bar of a mere administrative forgiveness. The divine holiness and goodness, infinitely concerned for these great ends, must equally bar a forgiveness in their surrender. The divine justice, holiness, and love must, therefore, combine in the imperative requirement of an atonement in Christ as the necessary ground of forgiveness. These facts ground it in the deepest necessity. The rectoral ends of moral government are a profounder imperative with justice itself than the retribution of sin, simply as such. One stands before the law in the demerit of crime. His demerit renders his punishment just, though not a necessity. But the protection of others, who would suffer wrong through his impunity, makes his punishment an obligation of judicial rectitude. The same principles are valid in the divine government. The demerit of sin imposes no obligation of punishment upon the divine Ruler; but the protection of rights and interests by means of merited penalty is a requirement of his judicial rectitude, except as that protection can be secured through some other means. It is true, therefore, that the rectoral atonement is grounded in the deepest necessity.
“(3). Rectoral Value of Penalty.—We have sufficiently distinguished between the purely retributive and the rectoral offices of penalty. The former respects simply the demerit of sin; the latter, the great ends to be attained through the ministry of justice and law. As the demerit of sin is the only thing justly punishable, the retributive element always conditions the rectoral office of justice; but the former is conceivable without the latter. Penal retribution may, therefore, be viewed as a distinct fact, and entirely in itself. As such, it is simply the punishment of sin because of its demerit, and without respect to any other reason or end. But as we rise to the contemplations of divine justice in its infinitely larger sphere, and yet not as an isolated attribute, but in its inseparable association with infinite holiness, and wisdom, and love, as attributes of the one divine Ruler over innumerable moral beings, we must think that his retribution of sin always has ulterior ends in the interests of his moral government. We therefore hold all divine punishment to have a strictly rectoral function. Punishment is the ultimate resource of all righteous government. Every good ruler will seek to secure obedience, and all other true ends of a wise and beneficent administration, through the highest and best means. Of no other is this so true as of the divine Ruler. On the failure of such means there is still the resource of punishment which shall put in subjection the harmful agency of the incorrigible. Thus rights and interests are protected. This protection is a proper rectoral value of penalty, but a value realized only in its execution. There is a rectoral value of penalty simply as an element of law. It has such value in a potency of influence upon human conduct. A little analysis will reveal its salutary forces. Penalty, in its own nature, and also through the moral ideas with which it is associated, makes its appeal to certain motivities in man. As it finds a response therein, so has it a governing influence, and a more salutary influence as the response is to the higher associated ideas. First of all, penalty, as an element of law, appeals to an instinctive fear. The intrinsic force of the appeal is determined by its severity and the certainty of its execution; but the actual influence is largely determined by the state of our subjective motivity. Some are seemingly quite insensible to the greatest severity and certainty of threatened penalty, while others are deeply moved thereby. Human conduct is, in fact, thus greatly influenced. This, however, is the lowest power of penalty as a motive; yet it is not without value. Far better is it that evil tendencies should be restrained, and outward conformity to law secured, through such fear than not at all. The chief rectoral value of penalty, simply as an element of law, is through the moral ideas which it conveys, and the response which it thus finds in the moral reason. As the soul answers to these ideas in the healthful activities of conscience and the profounder sense of obligation, so the governing force of penalty takes the higher form of moral excellence. As it becomes the clear utterance of justice itself in the declaration of rights in all their sacredness, and in the reprobation of crime in all its forms of injury or wrong, and depth of punitive desert, so it conveys the imperative lessons of duty, and rules through the profounder principles of moral obligation. Now rights are felt to be sacred, and duties are fulfilled because they are such, and not from fear of the penal consequences of their violation or neglect. The same facts have the fullest application to penalty as an element of the divine law. Here its higher rectoral value will be, and can only be, through the higher revelation of God in his moral attributes as ever active in all moral administration.
“(4). Rectoral Value of Atonement.—The sufferings of Christ, as a proper substitute for the punishment, must fulfill the office of penalty in the obligatory ends of moral government. The manner of fulfillment is determined by the nature of the service. As the salutary rectoral force of penalty, as an element of law, is specially through the moral ideas which it reveals, so the vicarious sufferings of Christ must reveal like moral ideas, and rule through them. Not else can they so take the place of penalty as, on its remission, to fulfill its high rectoral office. Hence the vicarious sufferings of Christ are an atonement for sin as they reveal God in his justice, holiness, and love; in his regard for his own honor and law; in his concern for the rights and interests of moral beings; in his reprobation of sin as intrinsically evil, and utterly hostile to his own rights and to the welfare of his subjects. Does the atonement in Christ reveal such truths? We answer, Yes. Nor do we need the impossible penal element of the theory of satisfaction for any part of this revelation. God reveals his profound regard for the sacredness of his law, and for the interests which it conserves, by what he does for their support and protection. In direct legislative and administrative forms he ordains his law, with declarations of its sacredness and authority; embodies in it the weightiest sanctions of reward and penalty; reprobates in severest terms all disregard of its requirements, and all violation of the rights and interests which it would protect; visits upon transgression the fearful penalties of his retributive justice, though always at the sacrifice of his compassion. The absence of such facts would evince an indifference to the great interests concerned; while their presence evinces, in the strongest manner possible to such facts, the divine regard for these interests. The facts, with the moral ideas which they embody, give weight and salutary governing power to the divine law. The omission of the penal element would, without a proper rectoral substitution, leave the law in utter weakness. Now let the sacrifice of Christ be substituted for the primary necessity of punishment, and as the sole ground of forgiveness. But we should distinctly note what it replaces in the divine law and wherein it may modify the divine administration. The law remains, with all its precepts and sanctions. Penalty is not annulled. There is no surrender of the divine honor and authority. Rights and interests are no less sacred, nor guarded in feebler terms. Sin has the same reprobation; penalty the same imminence and severity respecting all persistent impenitence and unbelief. The whole change in the divine economy is this—that on the sole ground of the vicarious sacrifice of Christ all who repent and believe may be forgiven and saved. This is the divine substitution for the primary necessity of punishment. While, therefore, all the other facts in the divine legislation and administration remain the same, and in unabated expression of truths of the highest rectoral force and value, this divine sacrifice in atonement for sin replaces the lesson of a primary necessity for punishment with its own higher revelation of the same salutary truths; rather, it adds its own higher lesson to that of penalty. As penalty remains in its place, remissible, indeed, on proper conditions, yet certain of execution in all cases of unrepented sin, and, therefore, often executed in fact, the penal sanction of law still proclaims all the rectoral truth which it may utter. Hence the sacrifice of Christ in atonement for sin, and in the declaration of the divine righteousness in forgiveness, is an additional and infinitely higher utterance of the most salutary moral truths. The cross is the highest revelation of all the truths which embody the best moral forces of the divine government. The atonement in Christ is so original and singular in many of its facts that it is the more difficult to find in human facts the analogies for its proper illustration. Yet there are facts not without service here. An eminent lecturer, in a recent discussion of the atonement, has given notoriety to a measure of Bronson Alcott in the government of his school. He substituted his own chastisement for the infliction of penalty upon his offending pupil, receiving the infliction at the hand of the offender. No one can rationally think such a substitution penal, or that the sin of the pupil was expiated by the stripes which the master suffered instead. The substitution answered simply for the disciplinary ends of penalty. Without reference either to the theory of Bronson Alcott or to the interpretation of Joseph Cook, we so state the case as most obvious in the philosophy of its own facts. Such office it might well fulfill. And we accept the report of the very salutary result, not only as certified by the most reliable authority, but also as intrinsically most credible. No one in the school, and to be ruled by its discipline, could henceforth think less gravely of any offense against its laws. No one could think either that the master regarded with lighter reprobation the evil of such offense, or that he was less resolved upon a rigid enforcement of obedience. All these ideas must have been intensified, and in a manner to give them the most healthful influence. The vicarious sacrifice of the master became a potent and most salutary moral element in the government maintained. Even the actual punishment of the offender could not have so secured obedience for the sake of its own obligation and excellence. We may also instance the case of Zaleucus, very familiar in discussions of atonement, though usually accompanied with such denials of analogy as would render it useless for illustration. It is useless on the theory of satisfaction, but valuable on a true theory. Zaleucus was lawgiver and ruler of the Locrians, a Grecian colony early founded in southern Italy. His laws were severe, and his administration rigid; yet both were well suited to the manners of the people. His own son was convicted of violating a law, the penalty of which was blindness. The case came to Zaleucus both as ruler and father. Hence there was a conflict in his soul. He would have been an unnatural father, and of such a character as to be unfit for a ruler, had he suffered no conflict of feeling. His people entreated his clemency for his son. But, as a statesman, he knew that the sympathy which prompted such entreaty could be but transient; that in the reaction he would suffer their accusation of partiality and injustice; that his laws would be dishonored and his authority broken. Still there was the conflict of soul. What should he do for the reconciliation of the ruler and the father? In this exigency he devised an atonement by the substitution of one of his own eyes for one of his son’s. This was a provision above law and retributive justice. Neither had any penalty for the ruler and father on account of the sin of the son. The substitution, therefore, was not penal. The vicarious suffering was not in any sense retributive. It could not be so. All the conditions of penal retribution were wanting. No one can rationally think that the sin of the son, or any part of it, was expiated by the suffering of the father in his stead. The transference of sin as a whole is unreasonable enough; but the idea of a division of it, a part being left with the actual sinner and punished in him, and the other part transferred to a substitute and punished in him, transcends all the capabilities of rational thought. The substitution, without being penal, did answer for the rectoral office of penalty. The ruler fully protected his own honor and authority. Law still voiced its behests and sanctions with unabated force. And the vicarious sacrifice of the ruler upon the altar of his parental compassion, and as well upon the altar of his administration, could but intensify all the ideas which might command for him honor and authority as a ruler, or give to his laws a salutary power over his people. This, therefore, is a true case of atonement through vicarious suffering, and in close analogy to the divine atonement. In neither case is the substitution for the retribution of sin, but in each for the sake of the rectoral ends of penalty, and thus constitutes the objective ground of its remissibility. We have, therefore, in this instance a clear and forceful illustration of the rectoral value of the atonement. But so far we have presented this value in its nature rather than in its measure. This will find its proper place in treating the sufficiency of the atonement.
“(5). Only Sufficient Atonement.—Nothing could be more fallacious than the objection that the governmental theory is in any sense acceptilational, or implicitly indifferent to the character of the substitute in atonement. In the inevitable logic of its deepest and most determining principles it excludes all inferior substitution and requires a divine sacrifice as the only sufficient atonement. Only such a substitution can give adequate expression to the great truths which may fulfill the rectoral office of penalty. The case of Zaleucus may illustrate this. Many other devices were also at his command. He, no doubt, had money, and might have essayed the purchase of impunity for his son by the distribution of large sums. In his absolute power he might have substituted the blindness of some inferior person. But what would have been the signification of rectoral value of any such measure? It could give no answer to the real necessity in the case, and must have been utterly silent respecting the great truths imperatively requiring affirmation in any adequate substitution. The sacrifice of one of his own eyes for one of his son’s did give the requisite affirmation, while nothing below it could. So in the substitution of Christ for us. No inferior being and no inferior sacrifice could answer, through the expression and affirmation of great rectoral truths, for the necessary ends of penalty. And, as we shall see in the proper place, no other theory can so fully interpret and appropriate all the facts in the sacrifice of Christ. It has a place and a need for every element of atoning value in his substitution.”[1]
Dr. R. W. Dale is the outstanding English exponent of the Rectoral or Governmental theory, though he draws much nearer the doctrine of satisfaction than Dr. Miley. Only the most careful study of Dr. Dale’s language will disclose the view which he evidently held. A brief portion of his writing is quoted here: “The Death of Christ may be described as an Expiation for sin, for it was a Divine act which renders the Punishment of sin unnecessary. It was a Vicarious Death. He died ‘for us,’ ‘for our sins,’ ‘in our stead.’ For the principle that we deserved to suffer was asserted in His sufferings, that it might not have to be asserted in ours. He was forsaken of God, that we might not have to be forsaken. He did not suffer that He might merely share with us the penalties of our sin, but that the penalties of our sin might be remitted. It was a Representative Death, the Death of One whom the elder theologians were accustomed to describe as the new Federal Head of the human race, or of the Church. The technical language of theologians obscured and even concealed the truth which it was intended to express. The Lord Jesus Christ is in very truth, by the original law of the universe, the Representative of mankind. It may be described as a Ransom—an act of God by which we are delivered or redeemed from the calamities which threatened us so long as we were exposed to the punishment of sin, and by which we are also delivered or redeemed from those moral and spiritual evils from which there was no escape except through the restoration to us of the life of God. It was a Satisfaction to the righteousness of God, in whatever sense the punishment of the guilty can be spoken of as a Satisfaction to the righteousness of God. It was a Sacrifice for sin—an acknowledgment, such as we could never have made for ourselves, of the greatness of our guilt; an actual submission on our behalf to the penalty of guilt, and a confession that our very life had been justly forfeited by our sins. It was a Propitiation for sin—a Propitiation originated and effected by God Himself, through which we are brought into such relations to God, that all moral reasons for withholding from us the remission of sins disappear. As an act of submission to the righteousness of the Law by which we were condemned, an act done in our name, and ultimately carrying our submission with it, it ‘has the property’—to quote the formal definition of a Propitiation given by one of our own theologians—’of disposing, including, or causing the judicial authority to admit the expiation; that is, to assent to it as a valid reason for pardoning the offender’ (Dr. Pye Smith). Or, to state what seems to me to be the complete truth, the Death of Christ was a Propitiation for the sins of men because it was a revelation of the righteousness of God on the ground of which He can remit the penalties of sin; because it was an act of submission to the justice of those penalties on behalf of mankind, an act in which our own submission was really and vitally included; and because it secured the destruction of sin in all who through faith are restored to union with Christ. It is, therefore, the supreme and irresistible argument by which we can now sustain our appeal to God’s infinite mercy to grant us forgiveness of sin and deliverance from the wrath to come.”[2]
As a summarization of this discussion of the Rectoral or Governmental theory, three indictments may be lodged against this system.
(a) It is a hypothesis which is based on human reason, which makes no avowed induction of the Scriptures on the theme which it essays to expound, but contends that the Scriptures, by special interpretation, can be made to harmonize with it.
(b) It attempts an impossible distinction between the sufferings of Christ as sacrificial in contrast to the sufferings of Christ as penal. The weakness of this distinction is well published in Dr. Miley’s two illustrations, quoted above—the teacher punished in place of the pupil, and Zaleucus who sacrificed his eye for the crime of his son. Of these, Dr. Miley asserts that they could not be penal. If he means that they rendered no satisfaction to God for sin as God saw it, none will contend with him; but within their own sphere as related to human laws and regulations each became a definite penal substitute which not only upheld the law that was involved, but gave, so far as human standards may require, a righteous discharge of the offender. One fallacy which dominates this theory lies hidden in the unrecognized distinction which exists between divine and human governments.
(c) It restricts the scope of the value of Christ’s death to the one issue of the forgiveness of the sins of the unsaved; the assumption being that fallen man—if, indeed, man be fallen at all—needs no more than the forgiveness of sin. The death of Christ unto the sin nature and the death of Christ as a ground for imputed righteousness are either neglected or rejected.
5. The Doctrine of Satisfaction.
As has been observed, the belief that Christ met the righteous demands of God against sin has been the belief of the church in all her history, and because of the fact that it is the plain testimony of the Word of God and the natural conclusion whenever an unprejudiced induction of the Bible teaching bearing on this theme is made. It remains, as it has been, the unquestioned belief of expositors, conservative preachers, and evangelists.
The doctrine of satisfaction falls into two general classifications or schools of interpretation—the absolute and the moderate. By the term absolute reference is made to a school of theologians who teach, with an emphasis upon the apparent reasonableness of the case, that if Christ rendered satisfaction to God for the sins of a person, that person is thereby constituted one of the elect and must, of necessity, be saved since the penalty no longer exists, having been perfectly borne by the Substitute. The moderate interpretation of Christ’s death contends that, on the authority of the Scriptures, Christ died for the whole cosmos world and that none are saved or immediately benefited by Christ’s death until they believe. Since this phase of the discussion respecting the value of Christ’s death occupies an entire section of this thesis, yet to be considered, it need not be pursued further in this connection. Under that division the various points of difference between the schools of thought of those who hold the doctrine of Satisfaction will be examined.
As in contrast to all other theories regarding the value of the death of Christ—including the Rectoral or Governmental, which entire group restricts the work of Christ to the one undertaking of providing a way by which the sinner may be forgiven, the doctrine of Satisfaction, because of its full accounting for all that the Bible affirms, recognizes and includes the typical foreshadowings of the Old Testament, and is as much concerned to be in accord with these as with the New Testament antitypical teachings; it sustains from the Word of God the actual substitution by Christ both in the field of disobedience which He bore ἀντί (in the room and stead of) the sinner, and in the field of obedience which He offered to God in behalf of those who are void of obedience; it incorporates the truth that Christ by His death ended the entire merit system for all who believe; it respects the peculiar and far-reaching doctrines of redemption, reconciliation, and propitiation; it gives unreserved consideration to the death of Christ in its relation to the sin nature and the personal sins which flow out of it; it accounts for those specific personal sins committed by Christians; it also advances into angelic realms and into heaven itself. Compared to all of this, a theory which cannot, by its limitations, expand beyond a gratuitous or sovereign forgiveness of the personal sins of those who are unsaved is less than a human gesture where naught but the mighty arm of the Infinite One can avail. Nor should it be overlooked that so-called theories are not only hopelessly inadequate but they dishonor God by assuming that He can disregard, if not insult, His own holiness by an attitude of leniency toward sin; and, as has been stated, if divine leniency for sin is once admitted, a principle is introduced which denies the Word of God and, if extended to all sin, would render the death of Christ foolishness.
In view of the fact that an exposition of Soteriology is elucidation of the doctrine of Satisfaction and that this entire treatise is grounded in that sublime reality, its more extended analysis is uncalled for here.
Dallas, Texas.
Notes
- SystematicTheology, Vol. II, pp. 176-184.
- The Atonement, pp. 432-434.
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