Simon the Heretic

Apparently I am.


I was preaching on 1 John 4, and went off on a sideline on the atonement (from v 10). Chasing definitions of atonement, expiation and propitiation, I came across this at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/propitiation: "The propitiation does not procure his love or make him loving; it only renders it consistent for him to execise his love towards sinners"

That set me thinking. I had always seen it as changing us: dealing with our sin by removing or covering it. But the above definition seems to imply that it does something on God's side as well: it makes him consistent within himself. Now: can God be changed? No. So this "renders it consistent for him to..." must be an eternal thing. So I wrote into my sermon:

"It is only in the eternity of Christ’s moment on the cross that God can be internally whole. God can only be God because of the cross."

And not everyone agrees!

So here's some of the discussion.

I am accused of making the existance of God dependant on a human action. And it is a valid point to make!

But my response goes along these lines.

In eternity:

• God is just
• God is loving

Therein lies the issue - his justice requires the punishment of sin, his love requires it's forgiveness. This is where the atonement renders it consistent for him to love sinners, as above.

My opponents say that before creation there was no sin, so there was no conflict between God's love and justice.

But I also say that in eternity:

• God is eternally creator
• Therefore I can't imagine a creator God without a creation: I can't imagine this 'before creation' state - even if it wasn't physically present, it was there in the mind of God, in every gory detail. (1 Peter 1:19-21 ...Christ.....was chosen before the creation of the world)(Ephesians 1:4 ... he chose us in him before the creation of the world)
• His creation eternally includes free will
• It is eternally inevitable that free will leads eventually to sin. (Murphy's law.)
• Before creation existed physically God knew that in creating he would also create the problem, so eternally as the creator God he was eternally aware of the love/justice issue and so he also eternally created the atonement. (as per my references above)
• The eternal nature of the eternal creator means that all of the above stuff in the mind of God is eternal (like the letters in a stick of rock), so the problem of love/justice and atonement is part of his eternal mind.
• ergo: it is only in the eternity of Christ's moment on the cross that He can be internally whole. He can only be God because of the cross.

Now I think I should turn the second sentance around to read "The cross is an inevitable consequence of the existance of God", but this doesn't convey the eternal nature of the atonement.

I don't think God was surprised by Adam's sin, as some of my opponents suggest. I think he planned for it all along, knowing that his ultimate goal was greater. Which is better: walking beside man in the Garden, or indwelling redeemed man?