Reconciliation through satisfaction?

Originally posted on September 26, 2009 – by Andre Piet

The following report could be read in the Reformatorisch Dagblad:

KAMPEN – It is not reconciliation through satisfaction that is the red thread running through the Bible, but how God seeks the heart of people.

That is what Ton de Ruiter, former minister in the Reformed Churches (Liberated), writes in his new book Jesus in Us – Another View of Reconciliation, which is being released on Saturday.

In the book, published by Kok Publishers in Kampen, the former minister levels strong criticism at the Reformed confession. He writes how he came to read and understand the Bible in a radically different way. According to De Ruiter, God was not seeking “Someone on whom He could vent His wrath over sin,” and the term reconciliation through satisfaction from Luther and Calvin is not the message of the gospel.

(…)
De Ruiter studied theology in Kampen and was a minister for 26 years. In 2008 he requested release from office, because he could no longer proclaim the doctrine of reconciliation through satisfaction.

Rev. De Ruiter stuck his neck out by voicing such criticism. For whoever dares to go against the standard, traditional caricatures has no place within the church body. That can come at a great cost, but on the other hand: space and freedom are, after all, found more outside than inside the walls…

Scripture is clear that on Golgotha it was not God reconciling Himself to the world, but that God is reconciling the world to Himself through the cross. God is making peace and is nullifying the enmity and estrangement of all His creatures by furnishing the ultimate proof of His love (Col. 1:20). God was not seeking satisfaction or payment of the debt—He forgives the debt! The price was not paid to God, but the ransom was paid to the one who held us captive so that He might redeem us “through death.”

More on this (among other things):
what is reconciliation? (article)

Delen: