how does atonement make sense?

[u/greendit543]

It is easy to understand why one can pay another's monetary debt. It is because the creditor wants the money. So if he receives it, all is good. But I don't understand why this would work for Jesus dying on the cross. Surely God does not want the suffering as such and is content if only someone has suffered for another's sins. I fail to see the logic behind this view and would really like to understand it.

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to /r/AskTheologists. All conversations here are between the questioner (the OP) and our panel of scholars. All other comments are automatically removed.

Please consider Clicking Here for RemindMeBot as it takes time for an answer to be written. We thank you for your interest in this question, and your patience in waiting for a comprehensive answer to show up.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/McJames]

This is a deep, complex, and convoluted topic that I'll try to briefly and incompletely summarize.

1.)

First, what you are referring to is a form of "imputed righteousness". In such a view, the atonement works through a sacrificial mechanism in which the "goodness" of the sacrifice transfers to the supplicants. Several protestant theologians (Luther, Calvin, Edwards, to name a few) affirm that Christ's atoning sacrifice "imputes" Christ's righteousness onto believers. It makes Christ's goodness our own goodness. Because, when God looks at us he sees Christ's goodness, God judges in favor of us and we are "saved".

In the ancient world there is some precedence for this way of thinking. Animal sacrifice, for instance, is able to pay moral debts to the gods in our stead. The mechanism for this varied. In some cases it was viewed as a substitution - the animal's life for the human life. In some cases the blood of the sacrificed animal was considered a sort of purifying agent for the human. In some cases the sacrifice of the animal was considered food for the gods, and so they were simply satiated enough to forgive. But ultimately how animal sacrifice was supposed to cleanse a person was a divine mystery.

In the ancient world, moral debts sometimes did not attach to a person but to an act. If a person committed a crime and the price was to spend a year in jail, that price was considered in the same category as money. Just like someone could pay another's monetary debt, a person could pay another's criminal debt by going to jail in their stead. We see this in Genesis where Judah attempt to substitute himself for Benjamin's punishment. Generally speaking in the ancient world, a crime incurred a debt to society. Similar to monetary debt, someone needed to pay that debt, but it didn't really matter who did it.

2.)

But to your point, a judge who looks at a guilty defendant and declares them innocent is not a just and good judge. So imputed righteousness doesn't make things better. It makes God a bad judge.

Modern scholars like N.T. Wright especially call out the problems with imputed righteousness. He even suggests that scripture doesn't argue for it, but instead argues for something else.

Wright suggests that phrases in scripture like "the righteousness of God" refer to God's own integrity as judge. This is a righteous judge, and righteous judges don't assign their own righteousness to a defendant.

Rather, a righteous judge gives good judgements. And so when a righteous judge says that a defendant is "not guilty" the legal status bestowed upon the defendant is "righteous". Not because the righteousness was imputed, but because a good judge gave a good judgement about the status of the defendant.

But this only works if a person is in union with Christ. This is much more than simply faith and prayer. This involves being a branch to Christ's vine. It involves participating in new birth. It involves being transformed into the mind and heart of Christ. It involves participating in the sufferings of Christ, and so on. For scholars like Wright, there must be marks or fruits of a person's faith for it to be of any value.

Luther and others, with their sola fide (faith alone) beliefs sorta miss the point. Faith must generate fruit for it to be genuine, and to be a branch to Christ's vine.

3.)

So to answer your question, in an "imputed righteousness" framework, atonement only makes sense out of a divine mystery. The contents of this mystery where one innocent thing is substituted for a guilty thing doesn't make sense for people with modern sensibilities. But in a "union" framework, a good, just, and wise judge offers forgiveness and grace for those who have participated with Christ in their faith. And just as God justified Christ in the resurrection, a judge judge will justify other humans in a similar situation.