Atonement through satisfaction??

Originally posted on May 18, 2006 – by Andre Piet

Well-known within orthodoxy is the familiar phrase ‘atonement through satisfaction’. By this, one means that Jesus on the cross of Golgotha would have borne God’s punishment for sin in a substitutionary way. For, so the idea goes, God’s wrath over sin had to be appeased, and the demand of justice for retribution had to be satisfied. John Calvin expressed it as follows:

God has been an enemy to man (…) God the Father is satisfied and reconciled through Christ’s offering; His indignation is appeased by this Intercessor.

My commentary:

1. Nowhere does Scripture teach that God has ever been an enemy to man.
2. Nowhere does Scripture teach that Gód was reconciled. “God was in Christ conciliating the world to Himself…” So not: conciliating Himself to the world (2 Cor. 5:18,19). We are conciliated to God, not the other way around (Rom. 5:10).
3. The offering of Christ is not His slaughter on Golgotha, but the fragrant aroma that ascended when He rose and was exalted.
4. Nowhere does Scripture teach that God’s indignation or wrath struck Jesus on Golgotha. “…the punishment for our peace was on Him” (Isa. 53:5), was not the punishment inflicted by God, but the death sentence inflicted on Him by men (Acts 13:28).
5. “God was in Christ conciliating the world to Himself, NOT reckoning their offenses to them” (2 Cor. 5:19). The slogan ‘atonement through satisfaction’ assumes that God did reckon the world’s offenses (namely, to His Son).
6. Where guilt is paid for and settled, forgiveness would no longer be needed.

It is true, God did not spare His Son. But not by pouring out His wrath upon Him (which would have been unjust, by the way), but by handing Him over to His enemies (Rom. 8:32). Through this, “the Man of Sorrows” was crushed (Isa. 53:10), became a curse (Gal. 3:13), and became sin (2 Cor. 5:21). The three hours of darkness on Golgotha testify to this. Jesus was not forsaken by God at that time, but handed over by God, namely into the hands of lawless men (‘forsaken’ in Matt. 27:46 is the same word as ‘handed over’ in Acts 2:31 or Rom. 9:29). The Father was always with Him, even when He was left alone by everyone else (John 16:32).

Jesus bore the sins, not the punishment for the sins. The iniquities of the people came upon Him (Isa. 53:6). But it was wrongly that He was regarded…

…as plagued, smitten by God and afflicted.
Isa. 53:4

At the cross we see the climax of the world’s enmity. And yet God says: even if you nail My Son to the wood, I do not reckon it to you (2 Cor. 5:19). More than that: it is precisely in this way that I will give you Life! “One died for the sake of all…” (2 Cor. 5:15). Why? To give Life to all. Life that has left death behind! That is the message of conciliation! Not a God who reckons the transgressions of the world to His Son and finds satisfaction in that. What a caricature!

The message of conciliation is: despite the cross, I forgive you!
The cross is the ultimate proof of God’s love.

Delen: