The Augustinian doctrine of original sin is legalistic because it presupposes a legalistic understanding of sin and death. According to the legalistic point of view, all sin is a transgression of the law, a crime, and death is always the punishment for those crimes. Death is always the result of or, in legalistic terms, the penalty of sin; death is the just reward of our sins. But the Augustinian doctrine of original sin is also legalistic because it assumes a legalistic understanding of salvation. Augustine used the doctrine of original sin to establish the need for salvation. Why does man need to be saved? Augustine answered that man needs to be saved because he is a sinner by nature. By this he meant that man is not able not to sin and not able to do meritorious good works because he has inherited a sinful nature from Adam. Man needs the grace of God to enable him not to sin and to do good works by which he can earn eternal life as a reward for his meritorious good works. The doctrine of original sin was Augustine's answer to Pelagius's assertion that man was able not to sin and able to do good works to earn eternal life by natural grace. Augustine said that man needs special grace because he lost the natural grace and is now, since the fall, a sinner by nature. Although man needs this special grace to enable him to do good works, men are still saved by good works. Augustine nowhere questions this legalistic conception of salvation. He like Pelagius assumes that salvation must be earned, but he said that since we are sinners by nature, we need God's special grace to enable us to do so. Salvation and the need for salvation are understood legalistically.
At the Reformation, the Protestant Reformers opposed the teaching of the Roman church which since the time of Augustine taught that by the grace of God which is infused into man at baptism and renewed by the sacraments a man is able to do good works to earn eternal life. The Reformers agreed with Augustine that man cannot earn eternal life because of his sinful nature but they rejected the idea that grace was something infused into a man to make it possible for him to earn eternal life. Grace, they said, is God's unmerited favor, and eternal life was a gift to be received by faith. But, they said, this eternal life was earned by the active obedience of Christ during his life on earth. This "merits of Christ" is imputed to the believer's account when he first believes in Christ. Thus salvation was for them still ultimately and fundamentally by meritorious works. It is true that they said that salvation was not by our works and that eternal life was a gift to be received by faith. But salvation was still by works -- not our works but the meritorious works of another, Jesus Christ. It was a vicarious salvation by works. This explanation, like Augustine's and the Roman church's, mixes grace and works, which Paul says cannot be done or grace will no longer be grace (Rom. 11:6). Salvation and the need for salvation were still understood legalistically.
Not only was salvation understood legalistically, but so also has the death of Christ. The legalistic misunderstanding of the death of Christ has its origin in the penitential system which was introduced into Christian theology by Tertullian (160?-230? A.D.). He had introduced the whole legalistic scheme of salvation with its idea of merit in reference to penance or repentance. God cannot disregard good deeds, he said.
"God, we may be sure, will not sanction the reprobation of good deeds,Although Tertullian teaches that God helps man perform good deeds, [2] in the strictest sense of the word man has to merit salvation. [3]
for they are His. Since He initiates and preserves them,
so also must He needs approve them; since He approves them,
so also must He reward them...
A good deed has God as its debtor and a bad deed, also,
because every judge settles a case on its merits.
Now since God presides as judge in order to exact and safeguard justice,
something so precious in His sight, and since it is for this
that He establishes every single precept of His moral law,
can it be doubted that, just as in all our actions,
so, too, in the case of repentance justice must be rendered to God?" [1]
"Faith is established in the Rule.Associated with the idea of merit was the idea of satisfaction.
There it has its law and it wins salvation by keeping the law." [4]
"What folly it is, what perversity,Penance is satisfaction, the payment of a temporal penalty to escape eternal loss. It is a compensatory work of satisfaction which propitiates God.
to practice an imperfect penitence
and then to expect a pardon for sin!
This is to stretch forth one's hand for merchandise
and not pay for the price. And the price
which the Lord has set on the purchase of pardon is this --
He offers impunity to be bought in exchange for penitence.
If, then, merchants first examine a coin,
which they have stipulated as their price,
to see that it be not dipped or plated or counterfeit,
do we not believe that the Lord, also,
pre-examines our penitence,
seeing that He is going to give us so great a reward,
to wit, life everlasting." [5]
"Herein [in some external act] we confess our sin to the Lord,Tertullian did not apply this term to the death of Christ, but after he had introduced the legalistic vocabulary and concepts into Christian theology, the way was prepared for their application to the death of Christ. Cyprian (200/210?-258 A.D.). the bishop of Carthage, in the third century was the first Christian writer to interpret Christ's death as a satisfaction. [6] He also began to apply the idea of merit to the work of Christ. Tertullian had already introduced the idea of merit; that is, associated with the performance of that which is commanded, the observance of the law, there was merit. Each man by his good works earns merit which may counterbalance the demerits of his evil or bad deeds. For most men this is all that is necessary. But some exceptional individuals may earn more merit than is necessary to balance the demerits of their evil acts. This overplus of merit may be earned by acts that are supererogatoria, that is, go beyond what is strictly obligatory. Tertullian considered such acts as fasting, voluntary celibacy, martyrdom, etc. as going beyond what was required and thus earning for the doers of them an excess of merit. Cyprian introduced the principle that this superfluous merit may be transferred from one person to another, and he began to apply this principle to the overplus of merit earned by the work of Christ as well as the saints and martyrs. Thus the way was prepared for the Anselmic theory of the atonement and the reformation theory of justification as the imputation of Christ's righteousness or merits earned by His active obedience to the believer's account.
not as though He were ignorant of it,
but because satisfaction receives its proper determination through confession,
confession gives birth to penitence and by penitence God is appeased." [5A]
Anselm (1033-1109 A.D.) in the eleventh century A.D. gave classic expression to the satisfaction view of Christ's death. Anselm interpreted the death of Christ as that by which the obligation of the broken law, the debt man owed, was paid. Anselm defines sin as failing to render to God His due. The law sets forth these obligations.
"He who does not render this honor which is due to God,That is, man must make satisfaction for his sin.
robs God of his own and dishonors him, and this is sin...
it will not suffice merely to restore what has been taken away,
but considering the contempt offered,
he ought to restore more than he took away." [7]
"Everyone who sins ought to pay back the honor of which he has robbed God;Anselm argues that man cannot make satisfaction for his own sins. For he already owes God complete obedience, and he has nothing left over to pay God for his sins. [8A] Also man cannot make satisfaction for his own sins because sin against an infinite God requires an infinite satisfaction. To the suggestion that human repentance can make satisfaction for sin against an infinite God, Anselm replies with those famous words, "You have not as yet estimated the great burden of sin." [9]
and this is satisfaction which every sinner owes to God." [8]
So Anselm sees the problem of the atonement.
"Man as a sinner owes God for his sin what he isSatisfaction can only be paid by God because the price paid to God for the sin of man is "something greater than all the universe besides God." [11] And since "it is necessary that he who can give God anything of his own... must be greater than all else but God himself," none but God can make this satisfaction. [12] But yet man must make the satisfaction for he is the one who has committed the sin and ought make the satisfaction. "No one but God can make the satisfaction, but no one but man should make it, since it is man who sinned." [13] Thus if man is to be saved, satisfaction must be made and it must be made by a God-man, one who is perfect God and perfect man.
unable to pay, and cannot be saved without payment." [10]
"For God will not do it, because he has no debt to pay;Anselm then proceeds to explain that the one who is to make satisfaction must be born of Adam, since it is Adam's race who has sinned. [15] The Son, through his voluntary death, obtained excess merit, requiring a reward from God.
and man will not do it, because he cannot.
Therefore, in order that the God-man may perform this,
it is necessary that the same being should be
perfect God and perfect man,
in order to make this atonement." [14]
"No man except this one ever gave to GodThis gift freely given by the Son deserves a reward from God. But since all things belonging to the Father were his, the Son having need of nothing, the reward can not be directly paid to the Son. Thus the reward is given in the form of salvation to those for whose sake the Son became man and suffered death. [17]
what he was not obliged to lose,
or paid a debt he did not owe.
But he freely offered to the Father
what there was no need of his ever losing,
and paid for sinners what he owed not for himself." [16]
"What is more proper than that,
when he beholds so many of them weighed down by so heavy a debt,...
he should remit the debt incurred by their sin,
and give them what their transgression had forfeited." [18]
In the incarnation and the death of the Son the mercy as well as the justice of God is shown. [19]
Anselm's theory of the death of Christ is clearly built on legalistic presuppositions; his whole theological structure is built on the penitential system. The key term in Anselm's concept of Christ's death is "satisfaction." [20] According to Anselm, the problem of the atonement is either satisfaction or punishment. A third alternative of God putting away sins by compassion alone, without payment or punishment, is unfitting and improper for God.
"To remit sin in this manner is nothing else than not to punish;To freely forgive without satisfaction or punishment is from the legalistic point of view impossible.
and since it is not right to cancel sin without compensation or punishment,
if it be not punished, then is it passed by undischarged...
It is not fitting for God to pass over anything in his kingdom undischarged...
It is, therefore, not proper for God thus to pass over sin unpunished." [21]
"Everyone knows that justice to man is regulated by law,Justice demands that God's honor be upheld.
so that, according to the requirements of law,
the measure of award is bestowed by God...
But if sin is neither paid for nor punished,
it is subject to no law... In justice, therefore,
if it is canceled by compassion alone,
is more free than justice, which seems very inconsistent." [22]
"If there is nothing greater or better than God,
there is nothing more just than supreme justice,
which maintains God's honor in the arrangement of things,
and which is nothing else but God himself...
Therefore God maintains nothing with more justice
than the honor of his own dignity." [23]
Therefore, sin which dishonors God must either receive satisfaction or be punished.
"Does it seem to you that he wholly preserve it,The free forgiveness of sins cannot be allowed, and the order of law and justice must not be broken by such an infringement. Moreover, if God freely forgave sins without satisfaction or punishment, it would mean that sin is not treated seriously and so would amount to moral laxity. Hence the payment of satisfaction is required as a safeguard of moral earnestness.
if he allows himself to be defrauded of it
as that he should neither receive satisfaction
nor punish the one defrauding him...
Therefore the honor taken away must be repaid,
or punishment must follow;
otherwise, either God will not be just to himself,
or he will be weak in respect to both parties;
and this is impious to think of." [24]
Calvin (1509-1564 A.D.) and Reformed theology modified this Anselmic satisfaction view of the atonement. They said that God's justice, not his honor, needs to be satisfied by Christ's death. This view is called the penal satisfaction theory of the atonement. Christ death paid the penalty of the sins of mankind and thus satisfied the justice of God.
After the reformation most Protestant theologians interpreted Christ's death and salvation from within a legalistic framework. Man needs salvation because he is guilty sinner. He is guilty not only of his own sins but also because of the sin of Adam. God appointed Adam to be the federal head or legal representative of the whole human race. [25] God then entered into a covenant with the whole human race through Adam as their legal representative. [26] This covenant is known as the Covenant of Works. According to the terms of this covenant God promised to bestow eternal life upon Adam and his descendants, the entire human race, if he, as federal head, obeyed God. On the other hand, God threatened the punishment of death, that is, condemnation and a sinful corrupt nature, upon the whole human race, if he, as their federal head, disobeyed. Now since Adam sinned, God reckons his descendants as guilty, under condemnation to eternal death. Adam's sin is imputed to each member of human race as their own guilt. [27] And because of this imputation of guilt, each member of the race has received by inheritance a sinful or corrupt nature. [28] This sinful nature, which is itself sin, leads invariably to acts of sin. And each man in addition to the racial guilt is also guilty for his own personal sins. Thus men carry a double burden of guilt, of both objective and subjective guilt and condemnation. This relation of Adam's sin to the rest of the human race is known in Christian theology as the federal headship theory to distinguish it from the natural headship theory of Augustine. [29] But in spite of the difference between them, these two theories lead to the same view of man's need for salvation. Man is a guilty sinner because of Adam's original sin and also because of his own personal sins which he commits because of an inherited sinful nature. Both theories view man's relation to God as a legal relation and sin as a violation of that relationship as well as intrinsic to human nature. They are both basically and essentially legalistic.
From this legalistic point of view, the need for salvation is understood as the need for someone to pay the penalty of man's sins so that man can go free and not have to be punished eternally. Being guilty, man needs somebody to pay the penalty of his sins. Christ's death on the cross is accordingly interpreted as a vicarious payment of the penalty; that is, Christ on the cross underwent the execution of the penalty of the broken law in the place of man. Christ, acting as a legal representative for the whole human race, bore the guilt and paid the penalty for the whole human race as their representative. [30] God thus entered into a New Covenant with the whole human race through Christ as their legal representative; this is a covenant of grace, whereby Christ would pay the penalty of their sins and earn for them eternal life. Since it is not enough just to be declared not guilty, man must have a positive righteousness which merits eternal life. That is, if man is to escape eternal punishment for his sins, he must not only not have any sins (demerit) against him on his record, but he must have a righteousness (merit) on his record or account. Since man cannot earn this righteousness himself (because of his sinful nature, he is not able not to sin and not able to do righteousness), someone must earn this for him. Thus Christ not only paid the penalty of man's sin by his sufferings and death on the cross in passive obedience, but he also provided a righteousness, the merits of Christ, which Christ earned during His life on earth before His death on the cross, by active obedience in fulfillment of the law. [31] This merit of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, is placed on the account of and imputed to the believer who puts his faith in Christ's death. [32] According to this legalistic point of view, salvation is vicarious law-keeping and vicarious paying of the penalty for breaking the law and the vicarious satisfaction of the demands of the justice of God. Christ's life of active obedience to the law earned for us the required righteousness and His passive obedience of death on the cross paid for us the penalty of the broken law and satisfied for us the demands God's justice. Therefore, the one who receives in faith Christ's work for him is declared not guilty, and Christ's righteousness is imputed to his account. He is legally justified. Salvation is thus understood to be a legal transaction.
The reformed theologians who held this view of salvation denied the Roman Catholic (and essentially Augustinian) view that the believer receives grace for the purpose of being able to earn eternal life by his good works done subsequent to his reception of this grace at baptism and its renewal by the sacraments. [33] Grace, they said, is God's unmerited favor, not the infused or imparted something which made man able not to sin and able to keep the law. Christ alone was able to earn eternal life by his active obedience; salvation was vicarious law-keeping and the vicarious paying penalty of man's sins and the satisfaction of the justice of God by Christ's passive obedience of death on the cross. Salvation is by grace through faith, not by works. Not by our works, but by the works of Christ. According to this theology, salvation is still basically by works even though done vicariously by another; salvation is still something that has to be earned by meritorious works, even if the good works are Christ's and not ours. Salvation is by grace because the grace of God provides the meritorous good works by which salvation is earned for us vicariously.
[1] Tertullian, On Pentence, 2; William P. LeSaint,
Tertullian, Treatises on Penance: On Penitence and On Purity,
in Johannes Quasten and Walter J. Burghardt, eds.
Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation
(Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press and London:
Longmans,Green and Co., 1959), pp. 16-17.
[2] William P. LeSaint, Tertullian, footnote 29, p. 142.
[3] Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, trans. Philip S. Watson
(New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1969), p. 348.
[4] Tertullian, Prescription Against Heretics in
Library of Christian Classics, vol.5,
Early Latin Theology, ed. S. L. Greenslade
(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1956), p. 40.
[5] William P. LeSaint, Tertullian, p. 24.
[6] Gustaf Aulen, Christus Victor
(New York: The Macmillan Company, 1951), p. 82.
See also J. S. Whale, The Protestant Tradition
(Cambridge: The University Press, 1954), pp. 59-61.
[7] Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, I, 11, in S. N. Deane,
Saint Anselm: Basic Writings
(LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Co., 1962) p. 202.
[12] Ibid., II, 6, pp. 244-245.
[13] Robert H. Culpepper, Interpreting the Atonement
(Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1966), p. 84.
[14] Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, II, 7, p. 246.
[15] Ibid., II, 8, pp. 247-248.
[17] Ibid., II, 19, pp. 283-284.
[20] Aulen, Christus Victor, p. 86, and Robert H. Culpepper,
Interpreting the Atonement, p. 86.
[21] Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, II, 12, p. 203.
[24] Ibid., II, 13, pp. 206-207.
[25] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. II
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970), pp. 197-198.
[27] Ibid., pp. 194-196.
I have made no attempt to review the long, technical debate over
the federal headship theory that developed during the 17th and 18th
centuries A.D. among reformed theologians. Neither have I tried to
distinguish from each other the different theories that developed
during this debate. For an excelllent discussion of this debate,
see G. C. Berkower, Sin, chapters 12-14, pp. 424-465.
[29] A. Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology
(Philadelphia: Judson, 1907).
[30] Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. II, pp. 470-479, 489-494.
[31] Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1949),
pp. 401-403, 405, 412, questions 1, 4, and 12.
[32] Ibid., pp. 500-501, questions 12 and 15.
[33] Ibid., pp. 509-512, questions 32, 33, and 34.