REC'D r ~ ~ . ( Concou()ia Theological· Monthly FEBRUARY 1950 82 RECONCILIATION AND JUSTIFICATION 2:3). "Lex enim semper accttSat" (Apology IV, 38). The Law is the letter that kills. The way from man to God therefore is blocked, and every attempt on man's part to ascend to God is only an intensification of his revolt against God. For the wrath of God, God's punitive will against sin, must be satisfied. And this satisfaction no man can render, and no man wills to render. The initiative, impossible and incredible as it may sound, must lie with God. "Item} es wird gelehrt, dass GOTT DER SOHN sei Mensch geworden . . . dass e1' ein Opfer waere ... und Gottes Zorn versoehnte" (Conf. Aug. III). The Atonement is the high-priestly work of Christ, true man and true God. The Atonement, accordingly, is an act of God, who is therefore both the wrathful One and the Expiator, both the insulted One and the Propitiator. Both the initiative and the carrying out of he work of the Atonement are His. This indissollble unity of God and Christ is clearly expressed by St. Pa.ul in 2 COi. 5 .18-21: "And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us w Himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the Word of Reconciliation. Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ's stead: Be ye reconciled to God. For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." It is God who hath set forth Christ Jesus to be a Propitiation in His blood (Rom. 3: 25). The Lamb which takes away the sins of the world is the Lamb of God (John 1: 29). It is the blood of the S on of God that cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1 : 7) . It was God's eternal counsel before the foundation of the world that "predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself" (Eph. 1: 5 ). Perhaps the most incisive expression of the fact that the Atonement, and redemption generally, is the work of God is to be found in the words of St. Paul to the elders of Ephesus, where he speaks of the "church of God which He hath purchased with His own blood" (Acts 20: 28) . It is not a matter of redisposing an angry deity as in paganism. RECONCILIATION AND JUSTIFICATION 83 The grace of God meets us in Christ Jesus. This grace is the cause and the origin, not merely the result of the incarnation of the Son. But the holiness and righteousness of God are nevertheless full reality. The Law of God is His serious will. His wrath is not a mere illusion on the part of guilty man, but a divine realitythe inevitable reaction of His holiness and righteousness against sin and the sinner. And this wrath had to be satisfied: "Even God's grace proceeds on holy ways" (Althaus). Our Confessions do not expressly emphasize the fact that the Atonement is God's deed; and yet there is no real shift in emphasis over against the witness of the New Testament. For the First Article of the Augustana speaks of "Gott Vater, Gott Sohn, Gott Heiliger Geist, atle drei BIN goettlich Wesen.JJ The Third Article of the Augustana, just quoted, is very explicit on this point. And in the Apology Christ is spoken of as "qui DATUS EST pro nobis ... et POSITUS EST mediator ac propitiator." No dogmatic f o r m u l a t ~ o n has absolute valUe. None i; . i ~ a l l y indispensable, and every formulation of a faa of Biblical revelation necessarily involves some loss; some of the fullness and of the living freshness of the Biblical proclamation is sacrificed. What is gained in sharpness and clarity is gained at the cost of warmth and life. One might think of the relationship between formulated dogma and Biblical proclamation as that which exists between a map and a landscape. With these reservations, however, one is inclined to call the formula satis/actio vicaria truly a classic one, for it so emphasizes the manner of atonement that the central and decisive aspects of the manner of the atonement are clearly seen and felt. The formula cannot and should not replace Scripture, but it can serve to summarize and recall Scripture. The formula satis/actio vicaria takes seriously the presuppositions of our atonement. It takes cognizance of the fact that man is altogether a sinner, that he is guilty before God, that he is a debtor, burdened with an impossible debt; a debt, moreover, owed to One who has every right to say: "Pay Me that thou owest." The formula also deals seriously with the nature of God, the Holy and Righteous, who has nothing in common with sin, who cannot compromise with ungodliness and unrighteousness, whose 84 RECONCILIATION AND JUSTIFICATION wrath is a dreadful reality, a reality about which man dare not have any illusions, a wrath which is revealed "from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (Rom. 1: 18 ). This formula does not evade the Law of God, God's exacting and punitive will, the Law that reveals sin, provokes and intensifies sins, and curses and condemns the sinner; and therewith the formula remains true to the testimony of Scripture, the testimony that God came to man and in coming to man dealt punitively with sin. In the light of satis/actio God is no "good-natured old man." His righteousness is not called into question, and the bright beams of His holiness remain unclouded. He is both "just and the Justifier" (Rom. 3: 26) . The satisfactio formula is also a faithful confession to the manifold Biblical utterances concerning the life, sufferings, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Although the many figures in which the redemptive act is pictured cannot be ~ l l reduced TO one formula, yet the satts/actiO thought is true to most of them and to the more centra! of them. It is true to the figure of redemption, of ransom. "For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). The thought of the price paid and of its value is especially emphasized in 1 Pet. 1: 18-19: "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot." Compare also Titus 2: 14, where "gave Hilnself for us" and "that He might redeem us," standing in relation of cause and effect, are mutually explicatory; and the very precise a.V·dAUl:QOV of 1 Tim. 2:6: 0 ~ O V ~ E(l'Ul:OV uvtlAutQOV {ntEQ ltavl:wv. The idea of "price" or "payment" is clearly associated with AVl:QOV, UVLlAUl:QOV, and the simplex A'Ul:Q6w; the context in Heb. 9: 12 strongly suggests that it is also associated with A V l : Q W t n ~ . The flat statement, so often met with in commentaries, that M O A V l : Q W < H ~ means simply "emancipation, release," with no suggestion of "price paid," is, in view of the associations of the whole word group, startling; the context of Rom. 3:24-25, Eph. 1 :7, and Heb. 9: 15 makes the aSSOCIatIon of "price" and "payment" with & J t O A V l : Q W ( J l ~ almost inevitable. RECONCILIATION AND JUSTIFICATION 85 And the many passages in which a y o Q a ~ ( O and E 1 ; a y o Q a ~ ( O are used to describe Christians as "bought with a price" (1 Cor. 6:20; 7 :23; Gal. 3:13; 4:5; 2Pet.2:1; Rev. 5:9; Acts20:28) leave no doubt in the matter.1 The same holds for the figure of the high priest and sacrifice, which is often closely connected with that of the payment of a ransom, although this is no longer, strictly, a figure, but rather the reality, to which the type of the sacrificial cultus pointed. This thought is so central that the redemptive work of Jesus has been called His high-priestly office; and rightly so, for the whole New Testament takes up the Old Testament idea of sacrifice and sees it realized and fulfilled in Christ. John the Baptist points to Jesus as the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world (John 1 :29). At the institution of the Lord's Supper, John Himself interprets His death as a sacrificial death, Mark 14:24. So also Paul in 1 Cor. 10: 16; 11 :24-26. In the Gospel according to St. John (17.19) we read: "For their sakes I sanctify Myself." ~ According to St. John, Jesus is Himself the "Propitiation for our sins" (1 John 2: 2). God "loved us and sent His Son to be the Propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4: 10). And in the Apocalypse the exalted Christ is the Lamb that has been slain (Apac. 5:6), whose worthiness consists in this: "Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation" (Apoc. 5:9). In St. Paul, besides the references to the Words of Institution and their sacrificial import, 1 Corinthians 10 and 11, we find Christ in His atoning death pictured as the Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5 : 7) , as the propitiatory sacrifice provided by God (Rom. 3:25); the deed that shows His love is this: "Christ ... hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God ... " (Eph. 5: 2) . In the Epistle to the Hebrews, Christ is the High Priest kat' 1 Cpo Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, p. 327: "When anybody heard the Greek word A{rtQov, 'ransom: in the first century, it was natural for him to think of the purchase money for manumitting slaves." On the following page Deissmann dryly observes: "I refrain from entering into a criticism here of the remarkable obscurations and complications which this whole circle of ancient popular metaphors has undergone at the hands of modern dogmatic exegesis." 2 For the sacrificial implications of o.YlIif;ro see Ex. 13:2; Deur.15:19 (LXX). 86 RECONCILIATION AND JUSTIFICATION exochen, who as Priest and Sacrifice performs the expiation of our sins once and for all. The sacrificial-expiatory note is sounded by St. Peter, too, who speaks of Christ as of a "Lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Pet. 1: 19); as one "who His own self bare our sins in His body on the tree" (1 Pet. 2:24). Now, the general concept of expiation is that of a performance that makes good (gutmachende Leistung). Thus the sacrificial aspect of the redemptive act comes under the general head of satis/actio. The image of purification, too, belongs to the sphere of sacrifice and expiation and so can without violence be brought under the heading of satis/actio. In Titus 2: 14 we note the close connection between "gave Himself for us" and "purify"; in Hebrews the cleansing is by blood (Heb. 9: 14, 22-23); so also in 1 John 1:7: "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin"; and even in Eph. 5: 26, the bridal metaphor leads to the idea of cleansing. Where Christ's death is viewed as a penal death, the satis/actio idea is paramount and obvious. The Word of the Cross is a Word concerning One who, having become sin and a curse for us, died as a criminal, under the wrath of God and forsaken of God. Here the punitive will of God is satisfied. Similarly, the life and death of Christ, viewed as obedience, point in the same direction (Rom. 5:19; Phi1.2:6ff.; cpo also Heb.5:8; Ga1.4:4; John4:34; Matt. 3: 15 ). Here satisfaction is rendered to the exacting or demanding will of God. Accordingly, when the Augustana defines "propter Christttm" more closely with the sentence: "qui sua morte pro nostris peccatis satis/ecit," it has found and pregnantly expressed the heart of the Atonement (Augustana IV). When the Formula of Concord adds the active obedience of Christ (Epitome III, 3; Solida Declaratio III, 9), that is an expansion of the thought, but no distortion of it, for the whole life of Christ was a life of obedience "even unto death" (John 4: 34; Phil. 2:6 ff.). In the satisfaction the redemptive work of God meets us in all its comforting severity; it is a comforting severity, for "the terrified conscience could not understand the good news of the Atonement if that good news were not at the same time a testimony to this concrete way in which God has effected the Atonement. Every other form of atonement would evoke no response, would not be RECONCILIATION AND JUSTIFICATION 87 understood by man in his need." 3 In the little word vicaria, on the other hand, we see all the sluices of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God opened for us in their surpassing fullness. This word recalls for us those words of Scripture which attest the death of Christ as the spontaneous act of His love: "I am the good Shepherd .... I lay down My life for the sheep .... No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself." (John 10: 14-18.) "Christ hath loved us and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor" (Eph. 5: 2) . The thought of the vicarious nature of Our Lord's suffering and death needs no detailed demonstration: in redemption, in sacrifice, in the thought of Jesus' death as a penal death, wherever the blood and the life of Our Lord and Savior are spoken of, the pro nobis is heard again and again. Werner Elect has expressed it more chastely and more beautifully than is given to most of us to express it:± When Chnst carned HIS vo untary h miliation even to the deeps of death (Phi!. 2: g), a death in which the wrath of God spent itself upon. all that is man, He was acting "even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings" (Matt. 23: 37) to turn the threatening peril away from others upon Himself, as the shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep (John 10: 12). In so acting it was His wish to die for others (Mark 10:45), and the whole New Testament with consenting voice declares with grateful recognition and in manifold metaphors that He has done so. The effect of the death of Christ consists, then, in this, that the wrath of God is thereby, by His death, turned from the others: EV .0 ('('(!-la1'L (,(U1'oi) aw{hlaOfA£{}a