The Latin type of the atonement misunderstands the death of Christ legalistically. This 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 introduced the two fundamental concepts of merit and satisfaction, applying them to penance.
Tertullian introduced the whole legalistic scheme of salvation with its idea of merit in reference to penance or repentance. God cannot disregard good deeds. Tertullian 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, the works of man has to merit salvation. [3] Thus even faith is a meritorious act.
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. There it has its lawThat is, the idea of Merit is connected with the performance of that which commanded, the observance of the Law; and each such observance in general is "meritorious." And in special sense, the term "meritorious" is also applied to acts that are "supererogatoria," going beyond what is strictly obligatory such as, according to Tertullian, fasting, voluntary celibacy, martyrdoom, and so forth. Thus it is possible for men to earn an overplus of merit. The idea that such superfluous merit can be transferred from one person to another is not found in Terullian; but it is found in Cyprian, and the way is now prepared for the Latin Theory of the Atonement.
and it wins salvation by keeping the law." [4]
Associated with the idea of merit was the idea of satisfaction.
"What folly it is, what perversity, to practice an imperfect penitencePenance is satisfaction, the payment of a temporal penalty to escape eternal loss. It is a compensatory work of satisfaction which propitiates God.
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,
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." [6]
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.
[7]
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.
Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.) summed up the theological insights
of the Latin West about the death of Christ, and passed them on, with the
impress of his genius and authority, to the Middle Ages.
Firstly, Augustine emphasizes Christ's function as the mediator
between God and man. He writes,
"He is the one true mediator,Augustine claimed on the authority of I Tim. 2:5
reconciling us to God by the sacrifice of peace,
remaining one with Him to Whom He made offering,
making one in Himself those for whom He offered it,
Himself one as offerer and sacrifice offered." [8]
"In so far as He is man, He is mediator,The whole purpose of the Word's incarnation was that He might act as the mediator and as the Head of the Church. It is through His humanity that Christ exalts us to God and brings God down to us. The point of this line of reasoning Augustine did not intend to eliminate the role of the Word, Who is the subject of the God-man's Person, but rather to emphasize that Christ's humanity, in contrast with His divine nature, is the means of our restoration to God. While Augustine says, [10]
but not in so far as He is Word,
for as such He is coequal with God." [9]
"Christ is the mediator between God and man as man, not as God",he also says: [11]
"We would never have been delivered by the one mediator ...By this doctrine, Augustine seeks to establish that it is in Christ's humanity that fallen man and his Creator have a common meeting-ground where the work of reconciliation and restoration can take effect.
were He not also God."
Secondly, in expounding what the Mediator actually accomplished, Augustine uses several ways of explaining it. He sometimes speaks of deification as the goal of the incarnation, when he says,
"We are reconciled to God through the our Head,and when he remarks that,
since in Him the God-head of the Only-begotten participated in our mortality
so that we might participate in His immortality." [12]
"Him Who knew no sin, Christ, God made sin, i.e. a sacrifice for sins,A sacrifice in its effect is expiatory and propitionary:
on our behalf so that we might be reconciled." [13]
"By His death, that one most true sacrifice offered on our behalf,By this sacrifice the wrath of God is appeased and we are reconciled to Him:
He purged, abolished and extinguished ... whatever guilt we had." [14]
"He offered this holocaust to God;This means that Christ is substituted for us, and being Himself innocent, Christ discharges the penalty we owe. Augustine writes,
He extended His hands on the cross...
and our wickednesses were propitiated....
Our sins and wickednesses having been propititated
through this evening sacrifice, we passed to the Lord,
and the veil was taken away." [15]
"Though without guilt, Christ took our punishment upon Himself,And again,
destroying our guilt and putting an end to our punishment." [16]
"You must again confess that without our sinand,
He took the penalty owing to our sin upon Himself"; [17]
"He made our trespasses His trespasses,It was precisely His innocence that gave value to His sacrifice, for
so as to make His righteousness ours" [18].
"We were brought to death by sin, He by righteousness;Thus Augustine anticipates the satisfaction theory of the atonement,
and so, since death was our penalty for sin,
His death became a sacrifice for sin." [19]
Anselm of Canterbury (1033?-1109) in the eleventh century A.D. gave classic expression to the satisfaction theory of Christ's death. In his famous work Cur Deus Homo (1098) [Why God Became Man], 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,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. [21] 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,
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." [20]
"Man as a sinner owes God for his sin what he is unable to pay,Satisfaction 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." [24] 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. [25] But yet man must make the satisfaction for he is the one who has committed the sin and ought to make the satisfaction.
and cannot be saved without payment." [23]
"No one but God can make the satisfaction,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.
but no one but man should make it,
since it is man who sinned." [26]
"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. [28] The Son of God, through his voluntary death, obtained excess merit, requiring a reward from God, the Father.
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." [27]
"No man except this one ever gave to God what he was not obliged to lose,This 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 directily 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. [30]
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." [29]
"What is more proper than that,In the incarnation and the death of the Son, the mercy as well as the justice of God is shown. [32]
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." [31]
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." [33] 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." [34]
"Everyone knows that justice to man is regulated by law, so that,Justice demands that God's honor be upheld.
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." [35]
"If there is nothing greater or better than God,Therefore, sin which dishonors God must either receive satisfaction or be punished.
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." [36]
"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." [37]
But no sooner had Anselm completed the formulation of the satisfaction theory of the atonement than it was criticized by his younger contemporary from Pallet, Brittany, Peter Abelard (1079-1142 A.D.). Abelard in formulating the moral influence theory of the atonement in criticism of satisfaction theory began a controversy which has continued ever since. According to Abelard's moral influence theory of the saving death of Christ is directed toward influencing man to turn away from his sin by the example of God's love for sinful man in Christ. Anselm's theory made little reference to the love of God as the reason of Christ's death and man's love of God as the response to it. Abelard wanted to correct this omission. And in his formulation of his theory, Abelard attacked the basis of the satisfaction theory. He rejected the Augustinian doctrine of original sin, denying that all men are guilty of Adam's sin, and asserting that man has a tendency for good as well as for sin. Abelard also rejected Anselm's view of God that justice required a satisfaction of God's honor before sin could be forgiven. There was nothing in the nature of God that hindered the free exercise of forgiveness and the only obstacle to it was in man, not in God. [38]
Abelard raised a number of objections to Anselm's theory. But he never objected to legalistic basis of the theory and scheme of merit. In fact he treated the love awakened in men by God's love in Christ as meritorious. Also he saw the merits of Christ as completing the merits of man by virtue of Christ's intercession for them. [39]
The main objection to the moral influence theory is to its purely subjective interpretation of Christ's death. If the death of Christ is regarded only as a demonstration of God's love and as doing nothing objectively about man's sin, then this theory fails to answer the question of the "must", the necessity for Christ's death. It does not tell us why it was necessary for Christ to suffer and die such an awful death, why it had to be. If Christ did not have to die, then could not God have demonstrated His love some other way? Why does the death of Christ demonstrate the love of God? Also the theory seems to ignore the great body of scriptural teaching concerning Christ's death as a redemption and propitiation. It truly emphasizes the subjective effect of Christ's death but at the expense of the objective work accomplished.
John Calvin (1509-1564 A.D.) and Reformed theology modified this Anselmic satisfaction theory 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's death paid the penalty of the sins of mankind and thus satisfied the justice of God. This view of the atonement is also called the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement because Christ died in the place and instead of man, the sinner. Calvin says,
"Thus we perceive Christ representing the character of a sinner and a criminal,Christ is punished instead of and in the place of the sinner. This is a theory of the satisfaction of God's justice through vicarious punishment. It differs at this point from the Anselmic theory which sees the atoning act as the payment of a debt rather than a penalty.
while, at the same time, his innocence shines forth, and it becomes manifest
that he suffers for another's and not for his own crime." [40]
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. [41] God then entered into a covenant with the whole human race through Adam as their legal representative. [42] 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. [43] And because of this imputation of guilt, each member of the race has received by inheritance a sinful or corrupt nature. [44] 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 relationship 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. [45] 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 relationship to God as a legal relationship 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 who sinned. 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. [46] 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. [47] This merits 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. [48] 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. [49] Grace, the reformed theologians said, is God's unmerited favor, not the infused or imparted something (grace) 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 the 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 (the unmerited favor of God) provides the meritorous good works by which salvation is earned for us vicariously.
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[1] Tertullian, On Pentence, 2;
William P. LeSaint, Tertullian,
Treatises on Penance: On Penitence and On Purity,
in Johannes Quasten and Walter J. Burhardt, eds.,
Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation
(Westminter, 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.
[7] 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.
[8] De trin. 4, 19. Footnote 6 in
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 390.
[9] Confess. 10, 68: cf. tract. in ev. Ioh. 82. 4. Footnote 7 in
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 390.
[10] Serm. 293, 7. Footnote 4 in
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 391.
[11] Enchir. 108. cf. de civ. dei 9, 15, 1. Footnote 5 in
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 391.
[12] Ep. 187, 20. Footnote 6 in
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 391.
[13] Enchir. 41. Footnote 3 in
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 392.
[14] De Trin. 4, 17. Footnote 1 in
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 393.
[15] Enarr. in ps. 64, 6. Footnote 2 in
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 393.
[16] C. Faust. Manich. 14, 4. Footnote 3 in
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 393.
[17] Ib. 14, 7. Footnote 4 in
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 393.
[18] Enarr. 2 in ps 21, 3. Footnote 5 in
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 393.
[19] De Trin. 4, 15. Footnote 6 in
Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 393.
[20] Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, I, 11, in
S. N. Deane, Saint Anselm: Basic Writings
(LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Co., 1962), p. 202.
[25] Ibid., II, 6, p. 244-245.
[26] Robert H. Culpepper, Interpreting the Atonement
(Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1966), p. 84.
[27] Anslem, Cur Deus Homo, II, 7, p. 246.
[28] Ibid., II, 8, p. 247-248.
[30] Ibid., II, 19, p. 283-284.
[33] Aulen, Christus Victor, p. 86, and
Robert H. Culpepper, Interpreting the Atonement
(Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1966), p. 86.
[34] Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, II, 12, in
S. N. Deane, Saint Anselm: Basic Writings
(LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Co., 1962), p. 203.
[37] Ibid., II, 13, pp. 206-7.
[38] Robert H. Culpepper, Interpreting the Atonement
(Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1966), p. 88.
[39] Gustaf Aulen, Christus Victor
(New York: The Macmillan Company, 1951), p.96.
[40] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion,
translated by Henry Beveridge
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1957), II, xvi, 5.
[41] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. II
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970), pp. 197-198.
[43] 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.
[45] A. Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology
(New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell, 1907), pp. 45-46, 612-616.
[46] Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. II, pp. 470-479, 489-494.
[47] Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1949),
pp. 401-403, 405, 412, questions 1, 4, and 12.
[48] Ibid., pp. 500-501, questions 12 and 15.
[49] Ibid., pp. 509-512, questions 32, 33, and 34.