Governmental Atonement

This morning in Church, Dr. Schreiner went over Isaiah 52:13-53:12, one of Isaiah's 'Servant Songs.' While looking at this passage, I was really burnt-up inside on an issue that I had recently looked at again: the theory of the governmental atonement of Christ. Governmental Atonement, made popular by Charles Finney, the revivalist, teaches that Christ was not a substitutionary sacrifice for sin, but a representative of the race in perfect obedience to God's moral law and he must "bear the curse of the law--not the literal penalty, but a vast amount of suffering, sufficient, in view of his relations to God and the universe, to make the needed demonstration of God's displeasure against sin, and yet of his love for both the sinner and all his moral subjects," according to Finney.

This teaching is Christ dishonoring and cross belittling. In my opinion, this is an entirely different gospel than that which the apostles preached, which the Church preached and preaches, and which I preach. Isaiah 53:4-6 is one of the clearest passages in Scripture on the atonement. It says,

Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our wellbeing fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the inquity of us all to fall on Him.

This could not more clearly and explicitly convey substitutionary atonement. Christ took the penalty for our sins. He took our iniquity on Himself. Though this may go against logic, that an innocent man, especially God's anointed, could take the punishment due to the one who committed the crime, that is God's way; that is God's wisdom. In doing it this way, God has made the wisdom of the wise foolishness. He has hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to mere infants (see Matthew 11:25-27 and 1 Corinthians 1:18-31). Finney was a worldly-wise lawyer, not a childlike exegete, believing God at His word. Governmental atonement is philosophically sound, not Biblically/theologically sound.

In fact, governmental atonement flies in-the-face of the Old Testament sacrificial system, with scape goats, bulls, and sheep being sacrificied for the sins of the people (though they could not actually propitiate (appease God's wrath and make atonement for sins), they were a fore-picture of the Lamb to come (Hebrews 10:3-4)).

Christ came, and He is worthy, as God's creatures proclaim, because He was "slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth" (Revelation 5:9-10). Christ effectually saved for Himself a people by shedding His blood. "He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and nor for ours only, but also for those of the whole world" (1 John 2:2). As Caiaphas prophesied, "Jesus was going to die for the nation [of Israel], and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad" (John 11:51-53).

Christ is "a stone of stubling and a rock of offense" to Governmental Atonement (1 Peter 2:8). Yet He is the chief cornerstone for those who trust in His substitutionary sacrifice (1 Peter 2:7). Christ "Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed" (1 Peter 2:24). There is clear substitutionary purpose in this verse. Our wounds and sins are paid for in Christ. Further Peter says, "For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit" (1 Peter 3:18). The just suffered in the place of the unjust.

The writer of Hebrews says Christ "made purification of sins" (Hebrews 1:3). Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice once for sin, as a perfect High Priest (7:26-28). His death took place "for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed" (9:15). This is because "all tings are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (22). He did not need to continually suffer and die, but "He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him" (26-27). "We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (10:10). "He... offered one sacrifice for sins for all time.... For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified....Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin" (Hebrews 10:12, 14, 18).

"God made [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). I heard Billy Graham, a far more Biblical evangelist than Finney, preach on the substitutionary nature of Christ's atonement just last night on television. The doctrine of substitutionary atonement is absolutely clear and irrefutable from Scripture. Governmental Atonement degrades Christ and exults the sinner. It flows from an extreme freewill perspective that "[nullifies] the grace of God" (Galatians 2:21). Christ became "a curse for us," or on our behalf (Galatians 3:13). Only by taking our sin upon Himself do we receive the promise of blessing given to Abraham. Governmental Atonement fails to recognize and teach this, incurring upon itself and its preachers "a stricter judgment" (James 3:1), for this "gospel" is anathema (Galatians 1:6-9).