Popular Questions About the Atonement

KEVIN HARRIS: Lots of questions! Let's get to some of these. These are from all over the world.

Dear Dr. Craig, When was the atoning blood of the Lord shed, and what does shedding of blood mean? The Lord said “It is finished,” then he delivered his spirit. I believe that the atonement work had been done, but the literal shedding of his blood didn't happen until after the Roman soldier pierced his side, then blood and water came out. Ben, United States

DR. CRAIG: I would say to Ben that what is meant by “the blood of Christ” or “the shedding of the blood” means the death of Christ. It's a metaphor for Christ's physical death on the cross. I do not think that the work of the atonement was done until Christ died. The animal sacrifices in the Old Testament had to be killed in order for the sacrifice to be efficacious, otherwise ancient Israel might have just practiced bloodletting – you just drain some of the blood out of the sheep or the goat and then scattered on the altar. But, no, the animal had to be killed. Similarly, Christ had to die. That's what is meant by “the blood of Christ” – his death. So the atonement work was not done until he died; otherwise, he could have come down from the cross without dying and would have achieved atonement.

KEVIN HARRIS: Looking at his question here, before the Roman soldier pierced his side, Jesus was scourged. There was plenty of shedding of blood prior to [the cross].

DR. CRAIG: Yes. I was a little surprised by that remark by Ben, but I think either way one is not appreciating that the blood of Christ isn't referring to the hemoglobin and blood cells that were coursing through his veins. It's referring to his death. That's what the blood of Christ is a metaphor for – the death of Christ.

KEVIN HARRIS:

Given PSA...

DR. CRAIG: Penal substitutionary atonement, I'm sure is what he means by PSA.

KEVIN HARRIS: That's what I thought as well.

Christ bore the penalty of mankind's sin or suffered the just desert of mankind's sin and in so doing satisfied God's demand for justice. Does that mean: (1) it was the actual physical suffering and the physical beating and torture of Christ that was the punishment for the sin of mankind? (2) If so, did Christ have to endure a certain number of lashes, a certain level of torture, a certain period of time of physical pain in order for God's justice to be met? Or (3) in the eyes of God we as sinners deserve to be physically tortured, indeed beaten and crucified, as punishment for our sins? Or is the crucifixion more of an outer manifestation of Christ bearing the punishment or our sin?

DR. CRAIG: I would take the latter view that the crucifixion is an outer physical manifestation of Christ's bearing the punishment for our sin which is spiritual death and separation from God. The actual physical suffering that Jesus endured, though horrible and just inconceivable, I think could never atone for all the sins of mankind past, present, and future. Rather, what he went through for us, I think, is forsakenness by God the Father. He who had never known separation from his Father experienced that rupture of the relationship, that alienation and estrangement from God the Father that we deserved as the just desert of our sin. This involves, I think, an incomprehensible suffering that none of us can truly understand. So the physical suffering of Christ is just a token of the much more profound spiritual suffering that he endured for us which was the punishment for our sin.

QUESTION: If Jesus paid the debt for everyone's sin then why does anybody go to hell since the debt for their sins has already been paid?

DR. CRAIG: I think that on the basis of Christ's satisfaction of divine justice that his atoning death is sufficient for all persons to be saved and pardoned. But it is on the basis of Christ's satisfaction of divine justice that God offers us a pardon for sin which we are then free to accept or reject. Just as when the king or the queen pardons someone, that person can refuse the pardon and then still be held liable for the crimes that he has committed. So a person can refuse the pardon that Christ has won, in which case his death is unavailing for us. I don't agree with the Calvinist who thinks of the atonement as sort of a done deal at the cross. I think that although divine justice has been satisfied at the cross, it needs to be applied historically to people's lives as they hear the message of the Gospel and respond to God's offer of a free pardon. They are then free to accept or to reject that pardon.

KEVIN HARRIS: This next question you used as Question of the Week #794, but maybe you can give us a little sneak preview. It says,

Dr. Craig, My pastor said all my sins were forgiven past, present, and future. Therefore, can a born again Christian actually commit sin? Michael from the United States

DR. CRAIG: Here I have to respectfully disagree with Michael's pastor. It's often said that God forgives all your sins past, present, and future. But if you have a theory of time according to which temporal becoming is real and things actually come into and go out of existence, there are no such things as future sins. They have not yet been committed, and therefore you cannot be guilty of sins that you have not committed. And if you cannot be guilty of sins you haven't committed, neither can you be forgiven of those sins that you have not committed. So I think that the Scripture teaches as we sin and we bring these before God in confession and repentance, God forgives us. The promise of 1 John 1:9 is that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This means that we need to keep a short account with God as we go through life. We shouldn't allow sin to accumulate in our lives. We shouldn't try to sweep it under the rug, but the minute we sense that we have acted in an unethical way, a way displeasing to God, we need to confess it, repent of it, claim God's forgiveness, and be cleansed of it, and move on. I don't think that God has already forgiven your future sins because I don't think you're guilty of those sins because you haven't committed those sins.

KEVIN HARRIS: The next question is on the atonement. It is rather long.

DR. CRAIG: Yes, we’ll have to take this one in pieces, I think.

KEVIN HARRIS: OK. He says,

In your book on the atonement you state that views of penal substitution where God punishes Christ are superior to those that don't punish Christ because if the suffering or harsh treatment is not punishment then the demands of retributive justice seem to go unsatisfied.

DR. CRAIG: What he's talking about here are two theories of penal substitution. One of the theories says that God did not punish Christ for our sins; rather, he inflicted on Christ the suffering that would have been punishment had it been inflicted on us. It was our just desert, and so Christ bore the suffering that would have been the punishment for our sins. The other view says that our sins were ascribed to Christ – they were imputed to Christ – and that therefore Christ bore the punishment for sin that we deserved. God punished Christ in our place so that we might be pardoned and set free. The claim that I make in the book is that, while the view that Christ was not punished for our sins is attractive in some ways, it seems to me that one of its drawbacks is that it doesn't explain very well how Christ's suffering satisfied the demands of God's justice. If Christ's suffering wasn't punishment for our sins, then how was God's justice satisfied? For example, suppose that the punishment for my wrongdoing is deportation. I'm going to be deported by the government. Suppose that instead you voluntarily go into exile in another country – say, “I'm going in Bill's place. Goodbye.” And you go.

KEVIN HARRIS: As long as it’s Hawaii! [laughter]

DR. CRAIG: How are the demands of justice satisfied in that case by your going into exile rather than me being deported? It's hard to see how your doing that (however loving and beneficial that might be to me) would satisfy the demands of justice. So I'm inclined to the view that the suffering that Christ bore was indeed a punishment, and that thereby the demands of God's retributive justice were satisfied. This questioner is drawing that into question.

KEVIN HARRIS: He says,

But couldn't the demands of retributive justice be overridden in this particular instance because the atonement would keep the entire world from destruction?

DR. CRAIG: This is a point that I do discuss in the book. What I claim is that it is very plausible that retributive justice is essential to God and therefore couldn't be overridden but must be met. The demands of retributive justice belong to God's very essence and would need to be satisfied.

KEVIN HARRIS:

The objection that it is unjust to inflict punishment on the innocent in certain circumstances is true if one holds to a retributive theory of justice. But the cup of God's wrath wasn't penal. It was corrective, medicinal, and disciplinary. The Hebrew word here is musar – discipline, chastening, correction. There's no penal element in the Hebrew word. God did not inflict Christ with penal punishment. So the objection doesn't hold.

DR. CRAIG: Well, I think that's inaccurate. It is true that the Hebrew word there means the chastisement that we deserve was laid on him. But more important was the notion that the righteous servant of the Lord bore our sins. And in Hebrew, this is a typical idiom for saying that this person was liable to punishment. To bear your sins or to bear your iniquity means to be liable to punishment or to endure punishment for those sins. So I think that the idea that the suffering of the righteous Servant in Isaiah 53 is both substitutionary and punitive is pretty convincing. It's not medicinal or corrective, as he said, because it wasn't for the sake of the righteous Servant. The righteous Servant of the Lord in Isaiah 53 doesn't need correction, chastening, or discipline. This is God's righteous Servant. But it says that he bore our iniquity; that the chastisement for our sins was upon him. It's substitutionary, and I do think that it's punitive.

KEVIN HARRIS: He says,

Rather, Christ voluntarily took upon himself death which would have been the penal punishment for us had it been inflicted upon us. Christ willingly paid the penalty for our sins. Since Christ didn't suffer God's penal wrath, God didn't unjustly punish the innocent. This would fit with the Old Testament sacrifices. Death is the penalty for sin, and the animal would die in the place of the worshiper, but it wasn't being punished by God with penal wrath. Rather, the animal suffered the fate that would have been the worshiper’s penal punishment had it happened to him.

DR. CRAIG: This is a point that I make in the book. In the Levitical sacrifices that were offered in the tabernacle and later the temple, you don't want to say that the animal was punished by being sacrificed. But rather what you say is that the animal suffered the fate which would have been the worshiper's punishment had it been inflicted on him. The worshiper deserved death as the just desert for his sins, but that the animal bears this instead. So, as I say, I do think this is a legitimate interpretation of penal substitution – this sort of counterfactual notion that the victim bears the suffering that would have been the punishment had it been inflicted on the wrongdoer. But my argument is that this doesn't satisfy the demands of retributive justice.

KEVIN HARRIS: He said,

Justice would be satisfied because of Christ's death, but the suffering was medicinal.

DR. CRAIG: And, again, that seems to me to just be clearly wrong. Christ was sinless. He didn't need medicinal suffering or correction. 1 Peter 2:24 says, quoting Isaiah 53, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” It was for our sins that he suffered and died. So I don't think in any way can we think of the death of Christ as a corrective or medicinal. I don't see how the demands of retributive justice for my sins are going to be satisfied. The questioner here doesn't address: how is the punishment that I deserve for my sins satisfied? How are the demands of justice satisfied for my sins if Christ wasn't punished in my place?

KEVIN HARRIS: He says,

The Bible tells us that Christ learned obedience through what he suffered.

I think he's trying to tie that into the medicinal.

DR. CRAIG: Yes, that's right. And certainly we do want to affirm what it says in Hebrews that Christ learned obedience through what he suffered. But that has nothing to do with the satisfaction of divine justice or the bearing of sin. That is more a topic of sanctification that just isn’t relevant to the issue before us.

KEVIN HARRIS: Going to the next question, this is from the United States. Brandon says,

I have a question about the atonement. I understand Christ was a divine person, but I also understand Christ fulfilled the law in his human nature. My question is: If Christ's righteousness comes from his human nature in which he suffered, couldn't an unfallen Adam have paid for our sins by virtue of his perfect righteousness? Why did Christ need to be divine?

DR. CRAIG: This is a good question but I think there's some confusion going on here. It is true that those theologians who believe that Christ's righteousness is imputed to us in virtue of our union with Christ think that this is the righteousness that Jesus earned or achieved during his earthly life by his perfect obedience to the Old Testament law, and that that righteousness of perfectly fulfilling the law is imputed to us. That's what is typically believed by those who believe in the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Biblically-speaking I can't think of any way to justify that assumption rather than saying it's his divine righteousness that's imputed to us. But this could simply be a theological posit that they make rather than a biblical inference. So let's allow them to make that theological assumption that the righteousness of Christ that is imputed to us in virtue of our union with him is the righteousness that he earned during his lifetime by perfectly fulfilling the law. Now, that does not mean, however, that it was that righteousness that atoned for our sins which, as he says, could have been a human righteousness. Rather, the doctrine of the atonement is that Christ was punished for our sins; that he bore the penalty for our sins by suffering the fate that we deserved. So it is not through his imputed righteousness that we are saved. Rather, it is by his satisfying fully the demands of God's justice that we are saved. To satisfy the demands of God's perfect justice, I think it's quite right to say that Christ had to be divine. Only a divine being could die to satisfy the demands of divine justice for the sins of humanity. That's why it couldn't just be a human person. You needed a divine person if he was to satisfy the demands of divine justice for all of humanity. So don't confuse the imputation of Christ's human righteousness to us with his atonement which consists in his bearing the punishment for the sins of humanity demanded by divine justice.^[1]