The Cross of Christ - Chapter 5

The Cross of Christ by John Stott is the current Challies' choice for his "Reading Classics Together" series. As I read through the book, I thought I'd share highlights from each chapter with you and include a link to Challies' full review. After having a taste, I hope you will want to spend time in this influential book yourself! 

 _____________________________________________________________

                                         "Satisfaction for Sin"

"We must certainly remain dissatisfied whenever the atonement is presented as a necessary satisfaction either of God's 'law' or of God's 'honor' in so far as these are objectified as existing in some way apart from him ... 'Satisfaction' is an appropriate word, providing we realize that it is he himself in his inner being who needs to be satisfied, and not something external to himself. Talk of law, honor, justice and the moral order is true only in so far as these are seen as expressions of God's own character. Atonement is a 'necessity' because it 'arises from within God himself.' [Ronald S. Wallace, Atoning Death]

To be sure, 'self-satisfaction' in fallen human beings is a particularly unpleasant phenomenon ... since we are tainted and twisted with selfishness. But there is no lack of self-control or humility in God, since he is perfect in all his thoughts and desires. To say that he must 'satisfy himself' means that he must be himself and act according to the perfection of his nature or 'name'. ... Negatively, he 'cannot disown himself' (2Tim.2:13); he cannot contradict himself; he 'never lies' (Titus 1:2, apseudēs, 'free from all deceit'), for the simple reason that 'it is impossible for God to lie' (Heb.6:18); he is never arbitrary, unpredictable or capricious; he says 'I will not ... be false to my faithfulness' (Ps.89:33). Positively, he is a 'faithful God who does no wrong' (Deut.32:4). That is, he is true to himself; he is always invariably himself. Scripture has several ways of drawing attention to God's self-consistency, and in particular of emphasizing that when he is obliged to judge sinners, he does it because he must, if he is to remain true to himself. 

The first example is the language of provocation. Yahweh is described (and indeed describes himself) as 'provoked' by Israel's idolatry to anger or jealousy or both. ... The exilic prophets, such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel, were constantly employing this vocabulary. They did not mean that Yahweh was irritated or exasperated, or that Israel's behavior had been so 'provocative' that his patience had run out. No, the language of provocation expresses the inevitable reaction of God's perfect nature to evil. It indicates that there is within God a holy intolerance of idolatry, immorality and injustice. Wherever these occur, they act as stimuli to trigger his response of anger or indignation. He is never provoked without reason. It is evil alone which provokes him, and necessarily so since God must be (and behave like) God.

Secondly, there is the language of burning. ... verbs which depict God's anger as a fire and speak of its 'kindling', 'burning', 'quenching' and 'consuming'. It is ... applied in the Old Testament to Yahweh, who 'burns with anger' whenever he sees his people disobeying his law and breaking his covenant. ... Never from caprice, however, always only in response to evil. Nor was his anger ever uncontrolled. Once kindled, it was not readily 'quenched'. Instead, when Yahweh's anger 'burned' against people, it 'consumed' them. That is to say, as fire leads to destruction, so Yahweh's anger leads to judgment. For Yahweh is 'a consuming fire'. The fire of his anger was 'quenched', and so 'subsided' or 'ceased', only when the judgment was complete, or when a radical regeneration had taken place, issuing in social justice. There is something in God's essential moral being which is 'provoked' by evil, and which is 'ignited' by it, proceeding to 'burn' until the evil is 'consumed'.

Thirdly, there is the language of satisfaction itself. The chief word is kalah... It means 'to be complete, at an end, finished, accomplished, spent'. It occurs in a variety of contexts in the OT, nearly always to indicate the 'end' of something, either because it has been destroyed, or because it has been finished in some other way. [Jesus on the cross "said, 'It is finished!' And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit." John 19:30] ... It is significant that the 'pouring out' and the 'spending' go together, for what is poured out cannot be gathered again, and what is spent is finished. (Lam.4:11) ... To sum up, God is 'provoked' to jealous anger over his people by their sins. Once kindled, his anger 'burns' and is not easily quenched. He 'unleashes' it, 'pours' it out, 'spends' it. This three-fold vocabulary vividly portrays God's judgment as arising from within him, out of his holy character, as wholly consonant with it, and therefore as inevitable. ...

[Fourthly, there is] the language of the Name, God always acts 'according to his name'... When God thus acts 'for the sake of his name', he is determining to be true to it. His concern is less for his reputation than for his consistency.

... the way God chooses to forgive sinners and reconcile them to himself must, first and foremost, be fully consistent with his own character. ... So then, the cross of Christ 'is the event in which God makes known his holiness and his love, simultaneously, in one event, in an absolute manner'. [Emil Brunner, The Mediator]  God is not at odds with himself, however much it may appear to us that he is. He is 'the God of peace', of inner tranquility not turmoil. True, we find it difficult to hold in our minds simultaneously the images of God as the Judge who must punish evil-doers and the Lover who must find a way to forgive them. Yet he is both, and at the same time. In the words of G.C. Berkouwer, 'in the cross of Christ God's justice and love are simultaneously revealed' [Work of Christ] ... One theologian who has struggled with this tension is P.T. Forsyth, who coined - or at least popularized - the expression 'the holy love of God'... 'Without a holy God there would be no problem of atonement. It is the holiness of God's love that necessitates the atoning cross.' [Cruciality of the Cross] This vision of God's holy love will deliver us from caricatures of him. We must picture him neither as an indulgent God who compromises his holiness in order to spare and spoil us, nor as a harsh, vindictive God who suppresses his love in order to crush and destroy us."

Beneath the cross of Jesus

   I fain would take my stand -

The shadow of a mighty rock

   Within a weary land ...

O safe and happy shelter!

   O refuge tried and sweet!

O trysting-place, where heaven's love

   And heaven's justice meet.

[Challies' review of Chapter 5]
[Selections: Chapter 1, Chapter 6]