Legalism's Persistence
By John Gavazzoni
If God had a body of flesh, blood and bones, we could say of Him, "there's not a legal bone in His body." Yet, law-orientation persists within the ranks of the professing/institutional church AND beyond, including many among those who make claim to have "come out from among them." There have been many occasions when I've met up with that essential enemy of the gospel of the grace of God, and it did again just a few days ago as of the date of this article. My, oh my, for goodness sake, will you look at that, grandma bring me my shotgun, those law-peddlers are at it again and they're comin' up the front porch steps.
Though recently I had backed off of the responsibility involved, as an administrator of a Facebook forum on the subject of universal salvation in Christ, there it was again when I... with fire in my belly... confronted the audacity of some granting, so to speak, a place at the table for the insidious doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, as if it could somehow have a place in understanding mankind's ultimate reconciliation to God in Christ. Some folks participating in the forum... that's what I call it... were shocked at how vehemently I came against such a theory, and the dialogue that followed indicated that a legal mindset was at the heart of those embracing the theory, or those who felt it ought to be granted at least a respectful hearing.
For some you of my advanced age, and maybe having been mentored within a similar branch of Protestant fundamentalism as I, you may remember it as the vicarious substitutionary theory of atonement, though its devotees would protest calling it a theory, and see it as integral to the gospel itself. It's the same theory. And by the way, it has little, if any, presence within ancient Roman Catholic theology, or that of Eastern Orthodoxy, and certainly not among the early Greek church fathers. It mostly came out of the Protestant Reformation. That aside, approaching it entirely as a biblical issue, I pointed out there's nothing of that notion in any of Paul's explanations of the benefits of the cross of Christ, nor in the Book of Acts accounts of apostolic gospel announcement... nowhere.
As the discussion weaved its way forward and the difference between the atonement being forensic-based (law-based), i.e., legal justification.... which amounts to God reckoning man to be righteous on the basis of "the merits of Jesus Christ" (Christ gained points with God for us by His suffering and death allowing God to legally IMPUTE righteousness to us)... that theory of atonement stood out very apparently in stark contrast to the truth of God, which is our Father MAKING us right with Himself by IMPARTING Himself into us in the Person of His Son and reckoning the faith of Christ at work in us as righteousness. This fundamentally amounts to atonement being Christ for us, instead of us, rather than Christ for us, WITH us. Finally, something of a breakthrough arrived especially on the part of the brother who thought I was being too personally confrontational in my posts. The breakthrough came by pointing out that what God had done for us in Christ, according to Paul, was totally a matter of Christ WITH us, rather than instead of us, pointing out that we have been crucified WITH Christ, buried WITH Him, raised WITH Him, ascended WITH Him, enthroned WITH Him, and glorified WITH Him, and all the WITH factor being WITH Him, IN Him.
Nothing in the New Testament is even suggestive of forensic-imputed righteousness. It's entirely an invention of systematic theology that seems to think that God could not relate to us as our Father until He settles matters between Him and us judicially (as our judge). It's the sick, sick, notion that God had to, as it were, get His pound of flesh from His Son before He could be forgiving toward us: The only sense I've ever been able to make of it is that since the worth of His Son is equal to, or greater than, the worth of all mankind, therefore, instead of having to send us all to hell as a requirement of His law-based righteousness, He could accept Jesus' suffering and death as an appeasement for Him being so egregiously offended by our sin, instead of us sending us to hell forever.
I have a compulsive propensity to get to the very most fundamental level of any theological issue. With that propensity, as the discussion(s) came near to the end, I realized, and made the point, that law... as a codified standard of right or wrong behavior... does not exist in God. God does as God is. It is God's nature that informs Him as to the right thing He should do. It would be beyond audacious to think of God having to consult even the purest code of behavior in order to determine how He should act in relationship with His family and creation.
Scripture says, "[He] works all things according to the counsel of His own will." No one counsels God. No one brings to bear upon Him some influence that even in the smallest way might determine any aspect of how He relates to us. God is love (noun), and all He does is love (verb). Whatever else we ascribe to God is an expression of that essence of Himself. So, it dawned upon me to make that final point: God's atoning act in Christ came out from within Him, no law attending, for any standard of what is right or wrong other than the right-essence of His Being, is alien to the Divine Nature.
