Have you ever heard someone assert, "why couldn't God just forgive sin simply by forgiving it? Why did Christ have to die upon the cross in order for us to be saved from the guilt of our sins? Isn't it cruel and unjust for God to punish an innocent person because of our crimes?". Such is the common objection raised against the New Testament doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. However, what many have missed is that this objection is nothing new or innovative. In fact, it is one of the chief theological issues that the Reformed wrote against, in response to a heretical group known as the Socinians. This group arose under the leadership of the Italian humanist Faustus Sozzini, who published a book called De Jesu Christo Servatore
I. According to Socinus, the nature of God’s justice against sin was not that He obtained any intractable right (jus) of punishment, and it could be waived at any time without any need for a satisfaction to be made—just as it often occurs in the case of earthly rulers—just as any individual creditor may forgive the debtor without satisfaction. God is the absolute Lord (Dominus) and is therefore not bound to any external law, and can do as He sees fit in regards to sin and debt. The Socinians therefore taught that there is no intrinsic proportion between sin and the execution of punishment, and that this law may be dispensed with and indeed, abrogated. God may punish in different ways, or not at all. Yet there is herein great contradiction and ambiguity in the Socinian teachings (Gert van den Brink, The Transfer of Sin, pg. 392). For although they constantly insist that God is not obliged to punish, and that He may utterly dispense with this right of His as Dominus, yet they also assert that when He does choose to punish, it is both just and in accordance with God’s nature; hear Crellius’ own confessions, perhaps done by the force of truth constraining, as the Spirit did with Balaam: “Meanwhile, we by no means deny that the justice and rectitude of God, as in all His other works, are also seen in punishments, and that they govern the measure of those punishments.” (Ad librum Grotii, pg. 98); “For neither His holiness nor His majesty in any way permits that His commandments be violated with impunity.” (De Uno Deo Patre Libri Duo [1650], pg. 287)
(1). Guilt and merit cannot be transferred from one person to another, but they remain inextricably attached to the individual action and its performer. It was on this poisonous foundation that he erected his error of utterly denying the satisfaction of Christ, and utterly overturning the foundations of Christian religion and piety. Divine justice was reduced not to the character and essence of God, but only to a broader concept of laws derived from human customs and devised by Socinus himself! The right of God to punish sin became no different from the right possessed by human individuals to exact the payment for a debt that is owed to them by some other party. These heretics saw sin as a pecuniary debt, which may be remitted without any condition.
(2). Socinus taught that mercy and justice are not real attributes and perfections in God, but only effects of His will. One perhaps sees in all of this a hyper-Nominalist influence spreading its roots throughout his thinking. He states, “I sufficiently showed that this justice, to which you contend that satisfaction must absolutely be made, does not reside in God, but is an effect of His will" (De Jesu Christo Servatore, book III, ch. 1). He allows for some devised non-punitive justice in God, which is opposed not to mercy, but to evil generally. The wrath of God is simply the decision of God to punish sin, rather than an operation founded in a divine attribute such as righteous justice. Ans. 1st, this is opposed by the express testimonies of Scripture, which show that justice and mercy are in God, not as mere effects of will, but as perfections of the divine nature; [1]. “The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” (Ex. 34:6-7) [2]. Indeed, the works of mercy are expressly distinguished from the attribute itself, as in Neh. 9:31, “Nevertheless for thy great mercies' sake thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them”—and what is the reason that the prophet adduces but this, כִּי אֵל־חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם אָתָּה, “for thou art a gracious and merciful God.” If the opinion of Socinus were true, the text would be utterly redundant; for the works of mercy are here set distinctly from God as merciful and gracious. Assuredly, the testimony of Nehemiah is sure and true, although these Unitarians may rail against it all they wish; [3]. Here also another argument from the mouth of the psalmist, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him” (Psalm 103:13). Now, by way of the analogy to which is represented the mercy of the Lord, is not a father naturally disposed to the pitying and compassionate care of his offspring, and not merely by his own will without any proper foundation? And by arguing from the lesser to the great, how much more is God merciful above any earthly father—which certainly could not hold firm if justice and mercy were merely operations of His will. Here again Psalm 145:9, “The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.” If there is no such distinction to be granted, if mercy is nothing but the act of will itself, should not the psalmist have rather said, “The Lord is merciful to all by His works”? [4]. So pertinent also is the consequence given by the apostle, whereby the works of mercy are grounded in the divine nature; Eph. 2:4-5, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.” The mercy of God is the source of all merciful works toward us for the sake of Christ. See also Rom. 5:8 to the same purpose. Some of them may seek to evade all this by saying that God is disposed to mercy congruently, and not by any necessity of nature, otherwise it could not truly have the character of good to begin with. But in reply to this, we need only show how they have constantly confused different types of necessity; that of the consequence or supposition, which is hypothetical and consistent with freedom, and that of the consequent, which is absolute. The former rather is that which applies here, for God is not constrained or coerced in any of His works, but free. Furthermore, if they are willing to admit that it is congruent and fitting for God to be merciful, then I ask, is this fittingness essential or accidental to God? If the former, then they must at least come one step closer to conceding with us that this mercy is natural to God according to essence. But if they assert that this fittingness toward mercy is accidental, then they still must assign some cause or reason why the Lord inclines this way rather than another (pardon the mode of expression!). [5]. If sin deserves punishment condignly (Rom. 1:32), then it would not follow from this that God is constrained or acts according to some law or rule of justice that is antecedent to Himself. Because assuredly all will confess that it is intrinsically for a creature to sin against God and disobey Him, and not only from a decree of God to the same, so that sin is of itself ἄξιον θανάτου, worthy of death. But the truth of that rule is not sought anywhere else but the nature of God, founded in His holiness and supreme truth, after which all created holiness and truth are but a pattern. It is therefore a just thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict (2 Thess. 1:6). That God will not let the guilty go unpunished is not grounded in a mere decision of His will, but rather His very own nature (Num. 14:18; Jer. 5:29; Nahum 1:3). And as to the Socinians themselves, the Scripture speaks, לֹא תִתְנקֵּם נַפְשִֽי, shall not my soul avenge itself? For if God were to hate sin and evil (as all assuredly confess), and yet not also regard it as truly deserving of punishment as a penal debt, then His judgment would not be according to truth, esteeming sin to be less evil than it really is, unless perhaps the Socinians wish to also assert that sin does not carry the liability to punishment, as the wicked heathen nations sought to justify themselves in all their abominations.
(3). In denying the satisfaction of Christ, Socinus turned to a new meaning upon which he suspended the efficacy of Christ’s atonement; and this was to say that it was an example that manifested the way of salvation: "But I truly judge—and I consider this to be the orthodox opinion—that Jesus Christ is our Savior for this reason: because he has announced to us the way of eternal salvation, confirmed it, and in his own person plainly shown it, both by the example of his life and by rising from the dead; and that he himself will give eternal life to us who have faith in him" (De Jesu Christo Servatore, 1.1.2; see also Alan W. Gomes, “De Jesu Christo Servatore: Faustus Socinus on the Satisfaction of Christ,” in Westminster Theological Journal, Vol. 55 [1993], pg. 210). And by this device, they utterly eviscerate and destroy the priestly office of our Lord Jesus, and bring everything into disarray and confusion—for by them it is distinguished from His royal office as King by a mere act of the intellect, and say that by His kingly office, He is able to help us, but that by His priestly office He actually wishes to help us. And for any man to see that this is not all that distinguishes the offices and works of Priest and King, he need only study the apostle’s epistle to the Hebrews. For the Socinians, salvation is ultimately obtained through this imitation of Christ in His suffering, akin to how the Pelagians placed the beginning of sin in our imitation of Adam’s transgression, rather than a natural transmission of original sin as a corrupt principle. The redemption accomplished by Christ which the Scriptures speak of is nothing more than a mere liberation (just as Moses is said to have redeemed the Jews from Egypt, Acts 7:35), and no payment of a price took place. What a reprehensible blasphemy this is, indeed! To say that Christ is our Savior, only insofar as He declares to us the way of salvation, and that His death was merely akin to a martyrdom, is the most wicked of all. And that no reader may think that I hear represent these Unitarians, let him read their own words: “[He is] our Saviour principally for this reason, that we may understand that there is no other reason more for our salvation through Christ, than that through Him we most fully obtained the will of God in conferring salvation on us; and that we looked upon God Himself as it were present.” (Faustus Socinus, De Jesu Christo Servatore, book I, ch. 2). I need not issue any other rebuttal to such a notion, but the plain words of Scripture that declare on what account and grounds Christ is truly and properly the Savior of sinners: “thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.” (Matt. 1:21); “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15); “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” (1 Pet. 1:18-19); “for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.” (Rev. 5:9)
However, it was Hugo Grotius who sought to use the weapon of legal philosophy and jurisprudence against Socinus, which he championed against the orthodox when he argued against the doctrine of satisfaction. In Grotius' view, the right of punishment was something distinct from all other rights, insofar as it belongs to a ruler and a judge, and is exercised for the sake of the common good and right ordering of a society. This therefore, is that which distances it from such absolute rights of ownership which are possessed exclusively by individuals, and can therefore be suspended by them merely by virtue of their own will and liberality. The right of punishment ought not to be reduced to a mere individual’s right to receive what he is owed.
Furthermore, why ought we formulate our doctrine of the justice of God rigidly according to the rules and manners of human laws, and the customs of various nations? Although these things indeed have their with regard to the light of nature, they are not an absolute rule. The right of God to punish sin is ultimately grounded in His sovereign dominion over us, who are His creatures, and subject to Him in every way.
The Socinians distinguish a twofold justice with respect to acts. There is an action which is just in that it is licit and permissible; but there are also acts which are just insofar as they are equitable and ought to be done. In his response to Grotius, the Polish Socinian Johannes Crellius (1590-1633) said thus: “As to the remaining places, in them nothing else is said than that the judgment or punishment of God is just, or that God and Christ [judge] in justice, that is, with justice, or justly judge and fight: which does not signify that God is impelled by the force of justice to exact punishments; but only that divine punishments agree everywhere with the norm of justice: so that not the punishment itself taken in itself, but its legitimate manner and reason should be considered an effect of justice.” (Ad librum Hugonis Grotii, quem de satisfactione Christi adversus Favstvm Socinvm Senensem scripsit, responsio, as found in Opera Omnia, Exegetica, Didactica Et Polemica, Vol. 4 [1656], pg. 44). This right of punishment is individual only, and not essential to the rectitude and ordering of what God has created, and therefore Crellius sought to demonstrate against Grotius that it was not an intrinsically positive thing in human law for crimes to be punished, and that God was in no way bound or impelled to punish sinners. It is this constant rejection of any connection between the right of punishment and the common good that is used by Crellius to infer, against Grotius specifically, that God may easily retract the exercising of punishment, and that the right to punish is not connected to God’s rule and dominion over us, but only to a “natural liberty.” (Sarah Mortimer, “Human and Divine Justice in the Works of Grotius and the Socinians,” in The Intellectual Consequences of Religious Heterodoxy, 1600-1750, ed. Sarah Mortimer & John Robertson [Leiden: Brill, 2012], pgs. 86-89). The right to punishment did not exist for the sake of establishing equitable order and rectitude, but only for the solace of the injured party (Johannes Crellius, Opera Omnia, Exegetica, Didactica Et Polemica, 4:81). The Socinians did not make any distinction between the upholding of the right to punish and the upholding of the law itself, and the obligation it contained. If God punishes sinners, He upholds both. But their key and distinctive error is that if God forgives sin, He has not upheld the sanction of the law, nor His divine right to punish sin. Hence, they say that the sanction “The soul that sins shall die” (Gen. 2:16-17) was abolished by the Gospel (Gert van den Brink, The Transfer of Sin, pgs. 251-252). The Socinians say that God does indeed have the right to punish, but is neither obligated nor under any necessity to actually exercise that right.
We may see here how the Socinians are inconsistent with themselves in relating to the distinctions between the payment of a monetary debt and that of a debt punishment, i.e. the divide between civil law (pertaining to the former) and criminal law. Socinus constantly presses this distinction against the orthodox, thinking himself to have gained an upper hand against us. However, because of his dishonesty, he elsewhere collapses the distinction, again with the same aim of contending against the true doctrine; he does this by asserting that just as a creditor can forgive a monetary debt without satisfaction, so also may a lord and judge do. Socinus’ failure to distinguish between the different roles of a creditor, an offended party, and a lord forms the sandy foundation upon which his heresy is built; but the waves of Scripture and sound doctrine will crush it to the ground, as we’ll further demonstrate.
Grotius’ main contribution was to argue that, when speaking of the necessity of Christ’s satisfaction, a strict distinction must be observed between upholding the law and upholding divine right (Gert van den Brink, The Transfer of Sin, pg. 255). When God cancels the punishment for the elect on account of the death of Christ, there is not here a whole abrogation of the law, but rather a dispensation of it with respect to particular persons, and these are only those for whom Christ died. But an abrogation is more broadly and generally, a complete cancelling of the legal obligation with respect to all persons by whom it was formally binding. Yet Grotius nonetheless agreed at least somewhat with Socinianism in maintaining that since God was not under any law, He could dispense with the punishment; He was not properly to be regarded as a Judge, but rather a governor (rector). He may change and abolish the law as He sees fit. Grotius taught that when God transferred the penalty of sin to Christ, He was not acting as a Judge, but rather as a legislator. Here how he says it in his own words: “God is to be regarded as judge when He inflicts punishments upon Christ, now made our surety. But that which precedes this, and which is chiefly treated by us—namely, the right of transferring punishment from one to another—if we judge the matter rightly, belongs to the ruler, not to the judge; for it is a dispensation. And a dispensation of the law is not an act of the judge but an act of the legislator.” (Hugo Grotius, Epistle of July 14 1618, in Briefwisseling van Hugo Grotius, 17 vols [Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1928–2001], 1:619)
I shall now proceed to the opening of the truth concerning the necessity of Christ’s satisfaction, doing this in two parts. First, I wish to preface some important heads of distinction that must be considered in treating of this doctrine, or else it will likely not be properly understood, nor will it satisfy the most weighty objections propounded against it. Second, I will bring forth such reasons and arguments from Scripture and the analogy of faith, that show both the necessity of satisfaction, and that the death of Christ possesses the true, proper, and formal character of such a payment to the justice of God, as an innate perfection of the divine nature.
I. In the clearing of any doctrine, it is the common rule of prudence that such preferential matters as serve to explain it be prefaced before specific arguments are brought to the fore. That is therefore what I now desire to do, with God’s help.
(1). In considering the right and possession that God has over His creatures, it is twofold. 1st, He is a Lord in the true sense, a Dominus. We are all His workmanship, created by Him for His glory, and He Himself is the chief end of our own natures and personhood. Since He is such an Owner of our very selves, He can do as He pleases with us, when, where, and in whatsoever manner He deems fitting. This God executes in the common works of creation and providence. For not only does He have all power to create an infinite possible number and types of creatures, He does so dispense and own those whom He has actually created. 2nd, He is our Sovereign Ruler and Governor, who possesses such an authority over us which is that of a lawgiver, with the prerogative of making a judgment, and executing the sentence. Therefore, in punishing sin, God acts as the Supreme Ruler of the world, out of a love for His righteousness and justice, to which we are all subjected. Otherwise, were He not to do so, He would be as but one of us, as the psalmist so argues: “These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.” (Psalm 50:21). Our obedience to Him, and our subjection to punishment on account of disobedience, is related to God as a Judge, and not as an absolute Lord. “Where there is no law, there is no sin” (Rom. 5:13). In the sins we have committed against Him, God is not some mere offended party, a private person that may dispense with his right (jus) as he so wills. Rather, He is an offended ruler, with a right to punish transgressors. Because He is righteous and holy, it is necessary that He do what is right with regard to the issue of punishment. Sin, as all generally confess, is the disordering of man and the whole created order, and as such must be punished, else everything would be brought into utter confusion and disarray. And in proving that God acts as a Ruler in this business, no small part of the hydra of Socinianism is put to extinction.
(2). The proper definition of satisfaction must also be taken into account and appropriately set forth: It is such a voluntary rendering and recompense of some injury that has been inflicted, according to the equality of justice, or as much as the creditor or judge requires. It is not an absolute giving of any thing to another party, but a voluntary rendering, since that which is involuntary, as the suffering of the damned in hell, is not properly a satisfaction to divine justice, but rather what learned men call satispassio. And according to justice, satisfaction involves such an equivalent payment as suffices for the discharging of a debt and obligation. When the debtor renders what he owed, this is payment. And thus it has been commonly defined by the jurists and masters of law; “The obligation arising from a penalty (poena) is extinguished by satisfaction when the penalty is performed or paid. But if satisfaction is not made, the penalty remains.” (Justinian, Digesta, 50.16); and again in book 9, ch. 2 of the same code: “Satisfaction is the completion of performance by which an obligation is discharged. When the thing owed has been handed over, there is satisfaction; and so the obligation is extinguished.” And although satisfaction is considered as a form of payment, it is nonetheless distinct from payment simply and absolutely, as shall be more fully disclosed below.
II. I now desire to relate all that has been said up to this point directly to the matter of Christ’s death and sufferings.
(1). The generality of divines have said that some relaxing of the law took place with the death of Christ, considering that the punishment was carried out upon a Surety rather than us, who were the actual sinners. However, this is not the same thing as cancelling the obligation of the law per se. It is rather akin to ἐπιείκεια—that concept of ancient jurisprudence—wherein the law is upheld, but mercifully. The strict rigor of the law requires that the sinner satisfy the penalty in his own person, but the mercy of Christ in the law has it done in His own person. The law itself has a twofold purpose. Intrinsically and immediately, that God is both a Judge, as well as the Supreme Lord and the offended party, are not mutually exclusive. For by the death of Christ, the penalty is paid in our stead, but we are also now the friends of God through Him, and herein does this respect God as an offended party—as Paul expressly declares, “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” (Rom. 5:10). The execution of a sentence is only righteous if it comes from a judgment that the crime that has been committed is contrary to the law, for this is the very nature of sin qua sin (1 John 3:4). A man is not righteous simply because he demands the payment of a debt which he is owed, but rather because the infringement committed is condemned according to the standard of the law. And if this is not the act of a Judge, I do not know what is! Hear the example of the apostle Paul: “Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you.” (2 Thess. 1:5-6) Was it righteous for the persecutors to be punished and recompensed merely because a debt was owed, or because they had disturbed the common good of the public order, as Grotius might have it? Is it not rather because these crimes of theirs were gross sins and aggravations against the holiness of God, which is nowhere else expressed formally but in His righteous law?
(2). God is to be especially regarded in this business as a Judge and Ruler (Rector). He is not, as the Socinians, a mere creditor and offended party who may demand restitution and compensation, but with no obligation to exact punishment. God is the highest pattern and exemplar of all reason, truth, and goodness; In exercising these perfections of His nature, He has given a law to man to which he is subject as a creature, whereby man has a natural debt to the law stemming from that relation between God, the Lord of all the world, and man, a rational creature who has been created by Him. This authority God possesses, is not a mere effect of His will and acts, but rather has as its basis the very infinite divine majesty, supremacy, and sovereignty of God—all of which are His essential perfections. Contrary to Grotius, we do not believe that God’s rulership is merely an effect of His will, but rather stems from His holy nature.
It is true, a private person may remit any debt owed to him, as he may please. This is the great outcry of Socinianism against the orthodox! But it is not so with a public Magistrate, who must punish crimes for the sake of justice. To demand restitution of a thing taken away, or to practice self-defense, is permitted to anyone by nature. But one who compels another to restore what was taken, by that very act designates himself as superior to the offender, and carries out true justice; and he does this not as a private person who has been injured, but as one who rightfully has power to do it.
If a group of terrorists were to go around and burn the entire city of Grand Rapids in Michigan, the Judge may forgive the offense so far as their own houses, their private property is concerned; but who would then infer that they therefore are under no obligation to punish the criminals at all, simply because they have remitted the private offense against their own persons? This is a fallacious argument from the particular (secundum quid) to the general and absolute. For the further confirmation that we must consider God in this transaction as a Judge and Rector, I propose the following heads. 1st, the acts of absolving and condemning are properly those acts which pertain to none but a Governor. None administers these acts merely under the relation of being an absolute Lord, or a private party who has been offended against. Indeed, this very principle is easily gathered from the light of nature; as the Stoic philosopher Seneca (4 BC - AD 65) wrote, Clementia est temperantia animi in potestate ulciscendi vel lenitas superioris adversus inferiorem in constituendis poenis, — “Clemency is the moderation of the mind when it has the power to take revenge, or the gentleness of a superior toward an inferior in determining punishments.” (Seneca, De Clementia, II.3.1). To demand the payment of a debt or to remit, as they are performed by a private party, are not properly acts of justice, but this is precisely how the Scriptures denote the Lord’s punishment of sinners. “Every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward” (Heb. 2:2); “For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.” (Rev. 19:2). And since it pertains to justice, it is not merely a private issue. Now the very acts of remission and punishment pertain to God as a Lawgiver, as the apostle states: “There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another” (James 4:12), and many Greek manuscripts herein read νομοθέτης καὶ κριτής, Lawgiver and Judge; 2nd, the Socinians themselves will confess that sins cannot, and ought not, be remitted by God if they are not repented of. But herein is the weapon which will overturn them, and establish the gospel. For a private person to remit the debt over which he has absolute power, or to forgive as a mere creditor, are neither contrary to justice. But if it is unjust for God to forgive sins without repentance, then on what account it is unjust? The Socinians cannot give any consistent answer to this, being convicted by the force of the truth. For it is unjust for God to do so, because it conflicts with the holy principles of His nature; and as a consequence, God in punishing acts as a Judge rather than a creditor. 3rd, the chief end and purpose whereby a creditor pursues his right and debt, is not for the public interest or common good, but merely to establish his own interest and welfare. Since the whole end of the death of Christ was for the righteous government of the world, that sin might not go unpunished, it therefore shows in what capacity we are to regard God as so acting.
Although it is certainly true that God is to be regarded as an offended party insofar as we have sinned against His majesty, yet this is not the same thing as for God to punish insofar as He is an offended party (rather than as Judge), and this is precisely what the controversy is about. A prince who has been injured may punish, but this more because he is a prince than merely because he has been injured; for if it were instead a common citizen that was injured, then who would dare assert that they may carry out the punishment themselves according to justice (de jure)? In the case of the prince who has been offended, he himself is the one harmed—although this may serve certainly as a motivating cause to execute vengeance, it yet does not confer upon him the right to do so, since he already possessed it even before he was injured. Further, if punishing or granting impunity belonged to rulers simply as injured parties, then they would have no right to punish crimes in which they themselves have not been harmed (if that indeed is what formally constituted the right to punish).
An offended party in and of himself does not have the right of punishing, nor of compelling a superior to exercise such a right. And thus, the offended party in this regard does not truly fall under the relation of a creditor, by which I simply intend here those to whom a thing is owed from any cause whatsoever. Now a right is twofold—it is either natural or positive. Natural right pertains to the very equation of things among themselves according to themselves (ex natura rei). But a positive right is something that comes about through a free act of the will, and that act is either one of contract or one of law. A contract is such an act that pertains to the effect of the power that one has over what is his own and properly belongs to him individually, while law pertains to the effect of the power that one has over what belongs to another. And the former pertains to restitution, wherein as much as you have taken from me is exactly that which you owe to return to me. In the case of things such as theft or slander, we see instances in which we can become creditors through the offensive acts of another person. If you steal from me, I become a creditor insofar as you are obligated to return what you owe to me, insofar as I am now lacking in that thing which you stole that was previously in my possession. If you defame my reputation in public, you are detracting from my dignity and good name, and therefore are obligated to make a truthful profession to the restoration of what I have lost as a result of your offense. Thus Aristotle established it: ὁ γὰρ ἀδικηθείς, κἂν πρὶν ἴσος ᾖ, ἔλαττον ἔχει ὁ δὲ ἀδικήσας πλεῖον;—“For the person who has been wronged—even if previously equal—has less, while the one who has done the wrong has more.” (Nicomachean Ethics, book V, ch. 4, 1132a1-3)
Johannes Crellius has offered a few considerations to show that God’s right of punishing is merely that of an absolute Lord and creditor, and I therefore will offer a response thereunto.
[1]. He first asserts that, Obedience to God's law is owed to Him by right of absolute dominion; but when that obedience is not rendered, punishment succeeds in its place: therefore this punishment is owed to God by the same right by which obedience is owed, namely by the right of supreme dominion. Ans. While it is indeed true that we owe obedience to the law of God by virtue of His Supreme dominion, yet His relation as a Ruler and Rector also intervenes antecedent to our performance of duty. For the very proscription of the law is the act of a Governor, and “sin is not counted where there is no law” (Rom. 5:13). Therefore as God decrees His law as Rector, which shows the manner of our obedience we owe to Him as the Supreme Lord, He also punishes disobedience as Rector.
[2]. In seeking to establish God’s act of punishing as that of a private creditor (so that he may remove any necessity for satisfaction), Crellius says—Every punishment is established for the sake of utility, as Grotius asserts, and as reason dictates. But that utility ought by right to revert only to him who suffered harm from the offense for which the punishment is required — namely, the injured party. Ans. It is not retribution but rather restitution that properly belongs to the injured party, but the reason for punishment is not to the injured party alone, but also to the good of the entire community in which the offense took place. Is it not in the interest of any good society that evil be punished, this being the office of any good magistrate (Rom. 13:4)? Thus any transgression of the law ultimately redounds to the harm of the community as a whole, and therefore punishment also pertains to the same, not merely to the private individual.
[3]. If punishment pertains to the whole community, what are we to think when the whole community has sinned? Can then such punishment against them be said to be in their collective interest? But this is exactly the case here, since the entire human race has sinned in Adam and is liable to everlasting condemnation. Ans. The community consists not only of those who are governed, but also him who governs; the head belongs to the body as well as the members, although it may be said that it is more principal than all the rest. If the entire human race had been damned eternally, this would have redounded to the benefit of God with respect to His avenging justice, and the damned themselves, although unwilling, acknowledge the justice of their condemnation. But He does this not merely as an offended party, but as a Ruler—as it is the prerogative of a Ruler to compel a thief to make restitution, and the coercive power of punishment does not belong to a private person, but to a Ruler, as is said in Rom. 12:19, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
(3). Upon the entrance of sin, the nature of satisfaction is also considered. Satisfaction answers the nature of sin itself in a threefold respect. For sin is called in the Scriptures a debt (Matt. 6:12), that which makes us guilty (Rom. 3:19), and enemies of God (Col. 1:12; Rom. 8:7-8). Answering to this, satisfaction must involve the payment of a debt, the appeasing of God’s wrath, and the expiation of guilt (the punishment is in some way accounted for. 1st, in the payment of debts, they are divided into penal and pecuniary. A pecuniary debt is that wherein the very payment of a debt by that act frees the debtor immediately, and the person who pays is not attended to herein—whether the person himself, or a surety that undertakes for him. In a pecuniary debt, there is properly no indulgence given by the creditor, because he only receives what he is owed, and nothing else. A penal debt has an obligation in it which regards not only the thing paid, but also the person who pays. 2nd, the intention of the one paying is also considered—what he intends to pay, and to the true creditor.
II. I now desire to divulge in greater the detail the proper relationship that exists between the death of Christ and the debt of sin as it relates to the law in its retributive part, or the sanction of punishment against sinners---"The soul that sins shall die."
(1). It is true, that some relaxing of the law took place with the death of Christ, inasmuch as the punishment was carried out upon a Surety rather than upon us, who were the actual sinners and transgressors of that law. For God might have justly cast us all into damnation on account of our own sin, but this way of Christ was that wherein righteousness and peace met and were in harmony. However, this is not the same thing as cancelling the obligation of the law per se. It is rather akin to ἐπιείκεια—that concept of ancient jurisprudence—wherein the law is upheld, but mercifully; or, that wherein the general law is filled and accounted for by a gracious interpretation of that part which was not previously determined in the law. And this must be carefully distinguished from the notion of Hugo Grotius, who said that in Christ’s death, the law was dispensed with. It is true that the strict rigor (τὸ Δίκαιον) of the law requires that the sinner satisfy the penalty in his own person, but the mercy of Christ in the law has done it in His own person. For not only are the promises of God sure and certain, but His threatenings also, and we must therefore uphold them with regard to the matter itself. The prophet exclaimed, “Yet he also is wise, and will bring evil, and will not call back his words” (Isaiah 31:2); “For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.” (Jer. 4:28); “And this shall be a sign unto you, saith the Lord, that I will punish you in this place, that ye may know that my words shall surely stand against you for evil.” (44:29)
For the better unfolding of this, the concepts themselves must be more carefully expressed and determined. I desire not to tire my readers with Greek terms and Latin expressions, but also explain them thoroughly, that this work be not only for scholars, but for lay Christians also—so far as the Lord shall permit.
[2]. Coming now to the matter at hand—there was not in the satisfaction of Christ any change of the law itself, nor of its justice in sanctioning punishment, but rather a change concerning the object around which the execution of the law took place; and this is Christ, who though holy and just, was made sin and made a curse in our place. The change was not a change of the payment nor the requirement that it be paid in full (aliud solvitur), but rather of the person who made the payment (alius solvit). Here therefore, is an ἐπιείκεια, a merciful and gracious upholding of the law. The payment is made, but by a Surety, so that we are set free in Him. We therefore conclude that the mercy of God is displayed, and the law is justly upheld in this matter. The threat of the law was, The soul that sins shall die, but it was not determined absolutely that sin must always be punished in the person of the sinner, but rather it gave way to the existence of a Surety, as was typified in the goat on the day of redemption (Leviticus 16). According to the manner of ἐπιείκεια, then, the law did not particularly decide in its original (Gen. 2:16-17) that a Surety might not suffer in place of the sinner, and pay the penalty in his stead.
(2). Another pillar of Socinianism is that they utterly deny that the death of Christ is properly speaking, a penalty and a punishment. An affliction and a trial they will admit—but that it is a penalty that is being paid, they shall never grant to us. The death of Christ may be a moral example to us and reveal the way of salvation, but they deny it to be the payment for our sins which we owed. Thus they utterly destroy and mutilate the gospel itself, and deny that doctrine which is the foundation of the forgiveness of our sins, our peace and comfort before God, and our very salvation.
[1]. Socinus taught that suffering can only be called a punishment if it comes as a direct result of sin, as the impulsive cause thereof. Relativa enum sunt poena, et delictum; ita ut ubi delictum non est, ibi poenae esse nullo modo possi;—“For the correlatives are punishment and offense; so that where there is no offense, there can in no way be punishment.” (De Jesu Christo Servatore, book III, ch. 10). Hence they utterly denied as impossible any imputation of the believer’s sins to Christ. When the Scriptures explicitly state that Christ suffered for sins, they say this is only in the manner of an ultimate cause, not as an antecedent one, insofar as the death of Christ moves us to flee sin and live holily. The death of Christ is for them not a matter of divine justice, but of wisdom—wherein God acts not as a Judge, but simply as King. “Indeed, one who has committed no offense can be afflicted without injustice—not only if he himself wills it, but even unwillingly—if he is in the power of another who, for some good purpose, and perhaps even salutary for him, wishes him to be afflicted, though he is undeserving and unwilling; but such affliction is by no means, in any respect, to be considered a punishment or a penal infliction.” (De Jesu Christo Servatore, book III, ch. 10). Assuming that nobody can be willingly punished, they argued that Christ’s death cannot be called a punishment, since He laid down His life for the sheep completely of His own accord. Here, they simply assume the thing that is in dispute to prove their arguments, since they presuppose that remission and satisfaction cannot coexist.
[2]. Concerning the nature of penalties, a difference is to be observed between retaliation and compensation. In any crime which has been committed, a twofold obligation ensues thereupon. First, there is an obligation that the crime be punished; secondly, there is an obligation to pay damages and make restitution for the loss that the crime has incurred. Restitution properly respects not the offense itself, but the damages that have come as a result of the offense. Hence a crime can be dealt with according to both distributive and commutative justice; one must suffer punishment, but also compensate for the loss of the offended party. The first concern of the obligation toward punishment respects the common good existing in the public sphere, while the latter respects that which is private and primarily between the two parties. One of the chief failures of the Socinians is that they did not properly distinguish between these two things, thinking that retaliation and vengeance for the same thing. But on the contrary, they are truly different; as described by Aristotle, “Punishment is inflicted for the sake of the person punished; revenge for that of the punisher, to satisfy his feelings.” (Rhetoric I.10, 1369b10–15) Since punishment is about retaliation rather than private compensation, it is proven from hence that it pertains more properly to a Ruler and governor than to a private creditor. Indeed, neither an owner nor a creditor is he to whom it belongs to inflict punishment, that is rather than act of vengeance. Who other than the Magistrate of the city punishes a murderer, although he is not the direct victim and offended party of the crime? The cause of a punishment is in the injustice of the deed, not the damages inflicted; for there are often penalties in which there are no damages. Punishment pertains to justice—not power—and pertains to Him who has such a sovereign rule to order and dispose of transgressors, wherein those that act contrary to His rule of action are recompensed with that which is evil to them, in accordance with the intrinsic demerit of the sin or crime.
[3]. Different types of punishment are also to be observed. First, there is νουθεσία; which has as its proper end the good of him that is punished. For example, such penalties are inflicted for the criminal’s recovery and rehabilitation in some respect. This is that which the Lord threatens to impose against Israel in Lev. 26:23-24, “And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me; Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.” The punishment which they previously suffered in this threatening is now increased on account of their perpetual impenitence against the end for which the first afflictions were imposed, namely their recovery and repentance. And yet in many instances, such punishments were effectual in bringing men to return from their backsliding, as seen in the repentance of Manessah when carried away into bondage; or in the descriptions given in Psalm 78:32-35, “For all this they sinned still, and believed not for his wondrous works. Therefore their days did he consume in vanity, and their years in trouble. When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned and enquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer.” Second, another end of punishment, whereby it is distinguished in kind from the former, is for the benefit of others, that they may avoid similar sins; and this is titled παράδειγμα. The purpose under the Mosaic Law for the punishment of presumptuous and high-minded transgressors was that “All the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.” (Deut. 17:13). Thus we see that God may oftentimes permit some wicked men to go headlong into their own destruction, so that others might fear, and their hearts be softened toward repentance. The example of the rebellious Israelites in the wilderness was used by the apostle for the improvement and stirring up of the Jewish Christians to whom he wrote (Hebrews 3 & 4), that they might avoid drifting away from the faith that had been delivered unto them. This aspect of punishment is not properly applicable to Christ, seeing that He never sinned at all—for how can His death be an example to offenders, when He never did offend? Indeed, we may fetch a weapon against the Socinians from hence; for all acknowledge that it would be unjust for a king to punish his innocent son, merely for the sake of striking terror into the consciences of malefactors, and to prevent any future crimes from occuring. Third, some punishments are inflicted for the good of him that has been offended against, and that punishes; and this called κόλασις or τιμωρία, a recompensing of the evil committed, that the offense may be properly avenged. “The Lord made all things for himself, even the wicked for the day of evil.” (Prov. 16:4). Thus it is defined by the ancient Roman author Aulus Gellius, in Attic Nights; book VI, chapter 24:—“this is punishment administered for the sake of maintaining the dignity and authority of the one against whom the sin was committed, lest, if punishment be omitted, contempt for him arise and his honor be diminished.”
[4]. Satisfaction is distinct from payment considered simply. In the case of satisfaction, the thing that is owed is not given, but rather something other than what was contained in the obligation. Any payment which is strictly identical to what was in the obligation frees the debtor automatically (ipso factor), without any other requirement or condition. If someone undergoes punishment upon this, they may be liberated from the debt, but this is not the same as remission.
This in no way jeopardizes the reality of Christ’s satisfaction, since it did not take place according to arithmetic proportion. Satisfaction of its own nature does not release the debtor, but an act of the creditor must intervene whereby this payment is accepted as sufficient, and by such acceptance, that obligation is discharged whereby it could have been enforced with strict right. And such an act of God as Judge is nothing other than that relaxation (ἐπιείκεια) of the law in the precise manner in which it has been explained, according as something was paid which was different from the strict obligation of the law, namely that the sinner be punished in his own person; and therefore an act of the Ruler is required so that the satisfaction may release the debt. The definition that Grotius gives of forgiveness and remission is therefore insufficient, when he supposes that it is merely the decision not to punish, and nothing more. For not only is it this, but also a very cancellation of the punishment with respect to the sinner.
On the other hand, such learned divines as John Owen or Sibrandus Lubbertus (a worthy member of the Synod of Dort, and disputer against Socinus), wherein the necessity that sin be punished is grounded in the essential perfections of God’s nature, and not merely an act of His will. This specific dispute will be disclosed more fully below, but I desire not to simply disclose how these things relate to the concepts of debt, justice, and the proportionality between sin and punishment. For such divines as these who maintain this absolute necessity of punishment, every punishment must be equal to the offense committed; the necessity of satisfaction not only determines the reality of punishment, but also its degree of severity. God must render to each what is his due
(4). In order for this penalty to be transferred to Christ, it is also requisite that the guilt of our sins are also transferred; or else that which He endured was properly no punishment nor penalty at all. As it is stated roughly by Aquinas, “This is manifestly repugnant to the divine justice, namely, that someone not having any fault would be obligated to punishment, since a punishment is only justly due to a fault.” (Commentary on the Sentences II, dist. 30, q. 1, art. 2). It has already been distinguished elsewhere those two senses in which guilt must be taken in this matter; for many may use the term to refer either to the intrinsic demerit of sin, or its “punishability”, or the actual judicial sentencing to condemnation. It is this latter aspect of guilt that was imputed to Christ, and not the former.
(5). A great dispute occurred between John Owen and Richard Baxter (two excellent divines of the Reformed church) concerning the punishment that Christ endured. For satisfaction can be considered in a twofold way; either when one pays exactly what was contained in the obligation, or when someone pays something different from what is in the obligation of the law, but his payment, although distinct, is nonetheless accepted by the creditor.
It was Owen who insisted that Christ suffered one and the same punishment (solutio eiusdem) that was contained in the penalty of the law, while Baxter insisted that it was an equivalent punishment (solutio tantidem), rather than an identical one. It appears that Baxter’s chief objection against Owen was that he was not able to adequately answer the Socinian argument that forgiveness excludes satisfaction, since he thought that Owen understood the satisfaction in terms of God as a creditor rather than as Rector. Owen did not view the satisfaction in terms of arithmetic proportion (as some have misunderstood him to be saying), but rather in terms of distributive justice, as most of our divines do; and he also taught that this was all in respect to God as Ruler, as may be seen from his treatise on Communion with God: “That God in this matter is to be considered as the chief, supreme, absolute rector and governor of all, — as the Lord of the law, and of sinners; but yet so as an offended ruler: not as an offended person, but as an offended ruler, who hath right to exact punishment upon transgressors, and whose righteousness of rule requires that he should so do…It appears, from what hath been spoken, that, in this matter of satisfaction, God is not considered as a creditor, and sin as a debt.” (The Works of John Owen, 2:424, 444; my credits to Gert van den Brink for pointing out these quotations)
Baxter’s concern was to avoid any way of thinking about Christ’s satisfaction in terms of a pecuniary debt, and this was what he accused Owen of doing; for Christ paid the identical punishment that sinners deserved, is not this akin to a financial transaction in which only the thing paid is regarded, and not the person who pays? Baxter appears to have in some ways followed Grotius in thinking of the law as being dispensed with, since the sinner does not suffer in his own person. If another pays, then the payment is different (Aphorismes of Justification, 2:140). He also considered Owen as teaching that the sinner undergoes satisfaction in his own person, and therefore was an Antinomian. In Baxter’s view, the satisfaction of divine justice occurred because it better upheld the Supreme majesty and governing justice of God, rather than being identical to the penalty of the law—compensation was made not so much to the law, but to the Lawgiver. As he says, “The true Reason of the satisfactoriness of Christ’s sufferings was, that they were a most apt means for the demonstration of the Governing Justice, Holiness, Wisdom and Mercy of God, by which God could attain the ends of the Law and Government, better than by executing the Law on the world in its destruction (as in general was before intimated).” (Richard Baxter, Catholick Theologie [London, 1675], 2:40-41). God then did dispense with the law upon this pretense, that Christ satisfied in place of the law; “for we affirme that Christ's suffering was of the same kinde of punishment, (at least in the main;) but yet not the very same in the obligation.” (Aphorismes of Justification, 2:137)
III. We come now to some particular testimonies of Scripture where this truth is declared, as well as a vindication of them against some common objections used to evade their force.
(1). The testimony of the prophet in Isaiah 53 is always of great force on this matter; now that it does indeed speak of the Messiah, I have elsewhere proven against the Jews (in chapter 4 of my treatise The Blindness of Israel).
[1]. A chief thing may be gathered are those texts in this prophecy wherein the work of the Messiah in His sufferings, and the exact character of it, is laid down: “He hath born our griefs, carried our sorrows, smitten of God” (verse 4); “wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities” (verse 5); “for the transgression of my people was he stricken” (verse 9); “thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin” (verse 10); “He shall bear their iniquities” (verse 11). All such things as these do plainly declare that the death of Christ was a punishment for the sins of those for whom He died, and nothing else than this. There is also a description given of His person; “His visage was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men” (52:14); “he hath no form nor comeliness, no beauty” (53:2), “despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” (verse 3)
[2]. Some insight is gained into the nature of Christ’s death, and what kind of suffering it is to be classed into, by that place in the text, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5). Much ink has been spilled by theologians and Hebraists concerning how ought to render this chastisement, this מוּסַר that was put upon Christ. And for the opening of this word’s meaning, it is first to be noted that it is called מוּסַר שְׁלֹומֵנוּ, the chastisement of our peace—nothing other than what was due to us, and what more properly belonged to us on account of our transgressions.
[3]. The text shows that this suffering of the Messiah was a punishment properly so called. And all other pretenses against this are refuted, not so much by us as by the Scripture itself. Was this suffering a νουθεσία, for His own correction and reformation, as some afflictions are? No, for “He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth” (verse 9). Since our Christ was perfectly pure and innocent, such suffering was in no wise of this kind. Neither was it for His instruction, since at the very outset of the prophecy, we are told that “he shall deal prudently, and be exalted” (52:13). Neither was His sacrifice for the end of a mere example, for the end assigned of His death is quite different: “He shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities” (verse 11). For what does it mean, that the Lord laid on Him the iniquities of us all, if not that He was punished in our stead?
[4]. For this laying of iniquities upon Christ, the word פָגַע is used (verses 6 & 12). A common meaning of this word in the Old Testament is to meet, reach, or encounter some person, thing, or place (Gen. 23:8; Ex. 5:20; Num. 35:19, 21; Josh. 14:34). It can signify such an encounter either for good and evil, as the latter in 1 Sam. 22:17, “The servants of the king would not put forth their hand לִפְגֹעַ,” to meet them—that is, to kill the priests. Thus Samson asked the men of Judah to swear that they would never תִּפְגְּעוּן, “fall upon him.” (Judg. 15:12). It is also used of prayer and intercession (Isa. 49:16, 53:12), which assuredly cannot be admitted here, insofar as it would be utterly nonsensical for it to read, “The Lord prayed him for the iniquity of us all.” Now, the word is here in Isa. 53:6 used in the Hiphil, wherein the purpose in Hebrew is to express the action and the cause by whom and through whom the thing is done, so that the sense properly then is, “He made to meet”, occurrere fecit.
[5]. But it is now requisite to examine and obviate some of the chief objections by which they seek to escape this prophecy. That wherein Socinus takes refuge is to say that this word “to bear iniquities”, נָשָׂא, is only to be taken as meaning “to carry away” or “take away”, and that no proper imputation of guilt is intended or designed therein. And to this objection a few things may be said. 1st, it was vain to plead anything here as a pretense for denying the whole truth that the passage declares, as the Socinians have attempted to do. For נָשָׂא is not the only word used by the prophet to describe the suffering of the Servant, for there is also the usage of סָבַל (verses 4 and 11), the signification of which has generally remained unquestioned; to bear, to endure a heavy load, etc (Gen. 49:15; Eccl. 12:5; Isa. 46:4, 7; Lam. 5:7). Accordingly as used in the Paul, the Hebrews signifies one who is heavy-laden (Psalm 144:14). 2nd, although it may be true that נָשָׂא is in many places used by the Scripture in conjunction with sin and iniquity to signify merely the remission and taking away of it, yet it does also carry that which we plead here, namely such a bearing, as to bring those sins upon oneself as to their guilt, and be liable to the punishment thereof. As in Lev. 22:9, where the priests are exhorted to perform their service according to the prescription of the law, lest they וְלֹא־יִשְׂאוּ עָלָיו חֵטְא, bear their sin. And assuredly, the meaning is not “lest they take away their sin”? See also Numbers 14:34; 18:1-3, 32. And accordingly the writers of the New Testament are to be trusted rather than Socinus, who use βαστάζω in the description of this matter (Matt. 8:17; Luke 14:27). Most interesting is that darling text of theirs whereby they try to disprove the necessity of satisfaction, “The son shall not bear the sins of the father” (Ezek 18:20); but mark how it is in the Hebrew, בֵּן לֹא־יִשָּׂא בַּעֲוֹן הָאָב. Following their childish reasoning, ought we not put it as “The son shall not take away the sins of the father”?
(2). The second group of testimonies from the Scripture are all those places wherein it is said that Christ died for sins, on account of them, for us, in our stead, etc. And herein, such prepositions are used in the Greek to express this; and chiefly are these: διά, ὑπέρ, ἀντί; and they are joined either to sins as the impulsive cause for His death, or to men and sinners, expressing those for whom Christ paid the penalty. But as has been already remarked, Socinus wishes to understand nothing else by these expressions than that Christ died for sins as a final cause; “ For to die on account of sins, or for sins, as the very words sufficiently indicate, is nothing other than to die for the cause or occasion of those sins. But the one who certainly dies for the cause or occasion of someone's sins is he who dies to the end that someone may be drawn away from his sins, and that faith may be given him that his sins, if he withdraws himself from them, will be forgiven, and moreover that he may in reality sense and obtain the fruit of such forgiveness, and thus the forgiveness itself.” (De Jesu Christo Servatore, book II, ch. 7). And thus he relegates the atonement once again to a mere martyrdom or moral example, whereby we might abstain from sin, and that this is all that is intended by the expressions of Scripture. And to this evasion, a few things may be said.
[1]. If such is true what Socinus asserts, than the death of Christ has no more efficacy for our salvation from the power and guilt of sin, and the dominion thereof in our hearts and lives, than the preaching of the Word does, or the Scripture itself, which are also no doubt the effectual means appointed by God for our growth in grace, and the removal of sin through sanctification and remission. What impiety to think that the death of the precious Son of God has no more power and efficacy than this!
[2]. That very text which Socinus brings forth, 1 Kings 14:16, shows that this expression on account of when used of sin, signifies not only the extrinsic occasion or reason, but also a meritorious cause: “And he shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin.”
[3]. Let us examine in turn each of the prepositions used by the Spirit in the sacred writings where the relation of Christ’s death to sin and sinners is delineated. 1st, there is that expression used in such places as Rom. 4:25, who was delivered διὰ τὰ παραπτώματα ἡμῶν, for our transgressions. And Crellius (Ad Librum Grotii, 1.10) here fetches an argument from the use of διὰ, that it always denotes an impulsive cause or impulsive cause when joined with suffering or affliction, as in 1 Cor. 7:2, διὰ δὲ τὰς πορνείας—“because of, or on account of sexual immorality”—let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Or where Christ is raised ἠγέρθη διὰ τὴν δικαίωσιν ἡμῶν, raised for our justification, wherein, the Socinians claim, no one is to doubt that a final cause is intended. In reply to this, we may note as a prefatory remark that διὰ has a different signification in the Greek language when it is joined to a noun functioning in the accusative case (as a direct object), or when joined with the genitive (the case for possessive nouns). In the case of the accusative, as it is here in Rom. 4:25, it does properly mean through, on account of, because of, etc. It may also denote an efficient cause, as it does in Matt. 10:22, “And ye shall be hated of all men, διὰ τὸ ὄνομά μου, for my name's sake”; John 19:38, “Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, διὰ τὸν φόβον τῶν Ἰουδαίων, for or on account of the fear of the Jews.” For other examples, one may see Matt. 6:17; 13:5; 14:9; 15:3, 6; Luke 23:19; Acts 21:34-35; Phil. 2:30; Col. 4:3; Rev. 1:19; 2:3; 6:9. But most relevant to our task here is to inquire into what signification this preposition has when it is joined with a noun which denotes death, suffering, or any affliction of a similar nature. The wife of Pontius Pilate thus complained concerning Jesus, “Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream, δι’ αὐτόν, because of him.” (Matt. 27:19). Who can say here that a final cause is intended, as Socinus and Crellius would attempt to persuade? “for which of those works do ye stone me?” (John 10:32), διὰ ποῖον αὐτῶν ἔργον ἐμὲ λιθάζετε, because of which, on account of which, for which work that I have done you to desire to stone me, and put me to death? In speaking of sexual sin, the apostle Paul says διὰ ταῦτα γὰρ ἔρχεται ἡ ὀργὴ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τῆς ἀπειθείας (Eph. 5:6), on account of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. And here no doubt these things on account of which the wrath of God is executed are such works are properly merit and contract this liability to condemnation, such as the lusts of the flesh, indulged in without repentance. To the same purpose, I refer also to Col. 3:6, 2 Tim. 1:12; 2:10. Thus does the Septuagint render the Hebrew מִן in Isaiah 53:5 (“for our iniquities, for our transgressions”) with διὰ. Hence when the apostle says that Christ was delivered for our transgressions, the meaning is not that He suffered on account of sins to be abolished afterward by His example, but rather simply what is stated by the Scripture, that He suffered and died because of sin, for sin, and account of sin. Now although we do not deny that διὰ may signify the final cause, when it is said that Christ was raised for our justification, yet it is not a good consequence to say that must also be here in the prior clause of the verse, especially when other places plainly show what meaning it has when joined to a noun denoting suffering and death, as it is in this place.
2nd, this preposition ἀντί also especially pierces the Socinians and all other heretics that deny the vicarious and substitutionary nature of Christ’s death and sufferings. It is said that the Lord Jesus gave His life as an λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν, a ransom for many (Matt. 10:28; Mark 10:45; 1 Tim. 2:6). Now the common meaning of this word in Scripture is undeniably to refer to being in the stead of or in the place of some other thing. So King David mourned over his son Absalom, מִי־יִתֵּן מוּתִי אֲנִי תַחְתֶּיךָ, “Would God that I had died for thee!” (2 Sam. 18:33), where the Septuagint here places αντί for תַחְתֶּיךָ. It was the supposition of the apostle that perhaps a good man might die ὑπὲρ, for another (Rom. 5:7). That this preposition does therefore connote such a substitution and commutation is plain from its usage in various other places (Matt. 2:22; 5:38; 17:27; Luke 11:11; Heb. 12:16; 1 Cor. 11:15; Rom. 12:17; 1 Thess. 5:15; 1 Pet. 3:9) wherein two nouns are involved, as the life of one being a ransom, or a snake rather than a fish (Luke 11:11). That Christ died ἀντὶ πολλῶν plainly shows that it was as a substitute for many. Nor was the meaning of this preposition unknown to some of the ancient heathen writers either. So Appian in the Mithridatic Wars, §7.23, “In this way Nicomedes succeeded (ἀντὶ) Prusias as king of the Bithynians.”
Nor does the reply of the Socinians avail, that as believers are exhorted to lay down their lives for the brethren (John 15:13), or as Paul wishes he might fill up the afflictions of Christ in his body on behalf of the church (1 Cor. 1:24), so it is with Christ also, and in case was, as they say, any satisfaction made to God by death or affliction. But such places where believers are exhorted do plainly intimate how αντί should be interpreted, given that the whole design of the those discourses (whether John 15:13 or 1 John 3:16) concerns the love and fellowship that believers have with another, and therefore do not admit the notion of satisfaction, but this is not any force against the meaning of αντί as it used elsewhere in texts that relate precisely to the present dispute. And to say that Paul would have died or suffered in the same manner as Christ is a ridiculous blasphemy that is unworthy of any response. Furthermore, to die for another is one thing, and to die for sins is quite beyond this. The former only is true of believers and the Church, both are properly true of Christ.
3rd, Christ is said to have died and περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν ἔπαθε, suffered for sins (1 Pet. 3:18); δίκαιος ὑπὲρ ἀδίκων, the just for the unjust—which declaration of the substitutionary nature of His death is so undoubtable from hence that only a blind heretic such as Socinus could ever continue to doubt it. Burnt offerings for sin (περὶ ἁμαρτίας), thou didst not approve (Heb. 10:6; cf. verse 8). He Himself is the propitiation περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν, for our sins. Now the very nature of propitiation in its determined notion has respect primarily to such antecedent sins which are unremitted before the propitiation, hence grounding the necessity of the sacrifice, so that the justice of God might be satisfied. Consult the manner in which the sacred authors use περὶ in places such as Heb. 5:3 and Col. 2:1.
4th, Christ died ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν, for sins, and ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, for us (1 Cor. 15:3; Gal. 1:4). He lays down His life ὑπὲρ τῶν προβάτων, for the sheep (John 10:18). The general meaning in its usage is for—and more especially, on behalf of. John the Baptist testified ὑπὲρ the Lord Jesus (John 1:30), who exhorted us to pray ὑπὲρ our enemies (Luke 6:28). Christ told Paul concerning what the apostle was to suffer ὑπέρ my name (Acts 9:16; cf. 2 Cor. 12:10). See again Rom. 1:5; 8:32; 14:4; Luke 22:19; Col. 1:17; Phil. 1:4; 2 Cor. 5:20; John 6:51. Thus from all of these Scripture-reasonings, it is most certain that when Christ is said to have suffered for us and for our sins, this refers not only to a final cause, so that sin might be taken away and removed, but it conveys that His death was in our stead, and suffered that which we deserved to endure in the wrath of God.
It is useless and vain for them to appeal to 1 Pet. 2:21, “Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps”; as though this text were intended to give us all and only what belongs to the atonement! But this example to which the apostle Peter exhorts us to follow, is not that our suffering is to in all respects be like that of the Lord Jesus, but specifically what he himself sets forth in verses 22 and 23: “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.”
(3). Since the sacrifice of Christ is an expiation for sin, then it also follows from this that through it, He made satisfaction to the justice of God. Socinus himself concedes that Christ made expiation, and does not dare to deny it: “But the death of Christ both frees us from the guilt of all preceding transgressions and of future ones, and sanctifies us perpetually, and renders us blameless before God for ever.” (De Jesu Christo Servatore, book II, ch. 14) However, his definition of what expiation is quite flawed, wherein he states that “nothing else is the expiation of our sins in fact than a full and perpetual liberation from the death of sin” (book II, ch. 13). However, expiation is not merely liberation considered broadly and generally; but rather it is liberation with a specific difference, namely that it is the purging of an offense through a just payment of punishment, in order that the wrath of the offended party might be appeased. Indeed, this is the common and received notion of expiation, which even the pagans recognized. Cicero said, “It was the divinity of Ceres, the antiquity of their sacred observances, the holy veneration due to their temple, which they wished should have atonement made to them by the punishment of that most atrocious and audacious man” (Against Verres, §2.4.11); and also Livy, “For it is neither pleasing to me that old crimes now forgotten should be raked up again, seeing that the recent ones have been atoned for by the punishment of the decemvirs” (History of Rome, book I, ch. 21). But more importantly than this, the very concept of expiation as set down in the law of Moses included the element of punishment in the stead of others, namely the Israelites and their transgressions. Expiation itself is distinguished from the remission of guilt and the removing of sins, which shows that it is not to be defined as broadly as the Socinians would have it. “And the priest shall make an atonement for him as touching his sin that he hath sinned in one of these, and it shall be forgiven him” (Lev. 5:13). Note that the atonement here, from the verb כָּפַר, is distinguished from the result of it, which is forgiveness. And again in the same chapter:—“and the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him.” (verse 16).
(4). Christ is not only called an expiation, but the ἱλαστήριον for our sins (Rom. 3:25; Heb. 9:25). The Socinians contend that ἱλαστήριον signifies nothing other than the remission of sin, as they also say for כָּפַר, which this Greek word often translates it as such, and that no idea of propitiation, or appeasing divine justice, is herein to be sought or intended. While we in no wise deny that through the blood of Christ our souls are purged and cleansed (for what sound or orthodox Christian would ever dream to reject this essential truth?), yet we do deny that this is all that is imported in this expressions and others like it, some of which we have already examined. [1]. כָּפַר in its most basic usage describes to cover, as it is in Genesis 6:14 concerning the ark, וְכָפַרְתָּ אֹתָהּ מִבַּיִת וּמִחוּץ בַּכֹּפֶר—“Cover it with pitch inside and out.” And so is it in other places. But yet this word also does undoubtedly have the idea of propitiation and satisfaction in it also, particularly when the object of the verb is a person, or in other expressions of an equivalent meaning–wherein the person remitting the offense is placated, and his anger or wrath turned away, and he may now be merciful to the offender. Such atonement as this takes place only πρὸς τὸν θεόν, before God, or before His face. So Jacob said of Esau, after he had provoked him by the selling of his birthright years prior, אֲכַפְּרָה, “I will appease him with the present that goeth before me” (Gen. 32:20); “The wrath of a king is as messengers of death”, but the promise is חָכָם יְכַפְּרֶנָּה, “but a wise man will pacify it.” (Prov. 16:14). And it is also used of the sacrifices of the Old Covenant, Ex. 29:36-37, 30:10, 15-16; Lev. 4:20, 26, 31; 5:6, 10, 13, 18; 6:7, 30. A proper instance may be gathered from Lev. 17:11, “I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement [לְכַפֵּר] for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” Now, if the words here refer only to remission, then this only forces the Socinians into a greater bind, since the force of that remission is attributed to the blood, and that not as an efficient cause (for it is God alone who forgives sin), but rather the meritorious cause, for it cannot be taken in any other way. And the men of the Septuagint arguably understood it likewise, since they chose the words θυσιαστηρίου ἐξιλάσκεσθαι to translate this verse. Num. 35:31, “Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death”, where כֹפֶר לְנֶפֶשׁ is “for his life”, and לְ (περὶ in the LXX) here is not to, but rather for or for his sake, for the murderer would not be the one receiving a satisfaction, but a guilty party on behalf of whom a satisfaction is rendered to the judge. See again Lev. 4:20; 5:10, 18, where expiation and remission are distinguished as cause and effect. [2]. Ἱλαστήριον is used in the LXX to refer to the mercy-seat in the tabernacle and temple (Ezek. 43:14, 17, 20), and this is the sense of many interpreters today as well as in the past. While the exact and precise lexical meaning of the word has been debated, it is my purpose only here that the concepts of satisfaction and propitiation are intended in it. As an example from antiquity, consider Dio Chrysostom’s account of the famous story of the Trojan Horse (Oration, 11.121): “Odysseus said to the Trojans that if any indemnity should be necessary for propriety's sake, he was ready with a plan. For the Greeks would leave a very large and beautiful offering (ἀνάθημα) to Athena and carve upon it this inscription: ‘A propitiation (ιλαστήριον) from the Achaeans to Athena of Ilium.’ This, he explained, conferred great honour upon the Trojans and stood against the Greeks as an evidence of their defeat.” So also Josephus, in relating the story of Herod’s two guards that attempted to rob the tomb of David, after they were consumed by fire: “So [Herod] was terribly affrighted, and went out, and built a propitiatory monument (ίλαστήριον μνῆμα) of that fright he had been in; and this of white stone, at the mouth of the sepulchre, and that at a great expense also.” (Antiquities of the Jews, 16.182). And see again how Plutarch uses the term ἱλασμός, where he explicitly distinguishes it from the mere removing away of offenses, and the cleansing of it: “For he made the Athenians decorous and careful in their religious services, and milder in their rites of mourning, by attaching certain sacrifices immediately to their funeral ceremonies, and by taking away harsh and barbaric practices in which their women had usually indulged up to that time. Most important of all, by sundry rites of propitiation [ἱλασμοῖς] and purification [καθαρμοῖς], and by sacred foundations, he hallowed and consecrated the city, and brought it to be observant of justice and more easily inclined to unanimity.” (Plutarch, La vita di Solone, 12.5)
(5). The death and sufferings of Christ are in Scripture referred to as a price, and a redemption. “For ye are bought with a price” (1 Cor. 6:20); “Who gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:6); “the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20:28); “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.” (1 Pet. 1:18-19). Now, in answer to all of this, the Socinians say it signifies nothing more than a bare and simple liberation from captivity, and not the idea of satisfaction; and further, that nothing more can be gathered from the words the Scriptures use for these actions, as פָדָה, λυτρον, and λυτρόω. But Socinus evades all of this with a childish excuse, that these words are only used in a metaphorical sense, and that there is properly no party that receives a price in Christ’s work concerning our redemption. And certainly we say that it is God as Judge that received this price, and showed forth His acceptance and approbation of it through the resurrection; “when he shall have put his soul as a sacrifice for guilt, he shall see seed” (Isaiah 53:10); “Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.” (Acts 2:24). And λυτρον pertains to a true and proper redemption, for are we to take the words of Scripture in any other manner, than what they plainly state so many times over? “In whom we have redemption [ἀπολύτρωσιν] through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7). The apostle here does not simply say that we are redeemed by the blood of Christ as a price, or as something merely resembling it, without the true nature thereof; no, his words are that the blood of Christ is that by which we are redeemed. We are truly redeemed from a true captivity, paid by a true price. And the testimony of Peter (1 Pet. 1:18-19) particularly pierces Socinus, since the blood of Christ is explicitly regarded by the apostle as genuine price of redemption, for it is superlatively compared as more precious than gold or silver, which would be a less excellent price for the discharging of any debt, as this one is, that has been paid in full by the Son of God.
Seeing the fierce force of Scripture against him, he says “just as a simple liberation is metaphorically called redemption, because the same effect results from a simple liberation as from a true and proper redemption, for a person is removed from servitude no less in one way than the other: so also what in simple liberation intervenes to accomplish it, is by transference called a price. Indeed then the metaphor of redeeming properly proceeds and is absolutely consistent with its parts, when in simple liberation something intervenes which by some transference corresponds somewhat to a price.” (De Jesu Christo Servatore, book II, ch. 1). Ans. He does not prove that the death of Christ was called a price in a sense other than true redemption, nor that what is called a price is not really a price, and he cannot escape the fact that the verses which speak of the redemption through the blood of Christ give us no reason for interpreting it as a metaphor or anything less than the true force thereof. Nor will it avail for him to say that they admit that we are redeemed through the blood of Christ only as a mediate and instrumental cause, according to the preposition “through”, for there are many things which are instrumental causes and necessary conditions sine qua non for salvation, which are yet not described or enumerated in such terms and ways as the death of Christ is in the Scripture, which is a sure indication that it is related to our own redemption and freedom from punishment in a far greater manner than a mere instrumental cause.
Refutation of Socinian Objections
IV. Now although what we have hitherto confirmed from Scripture on this point is sufficient in and of itself to overturn all arguments of the adversaries, yet it is also prudent in our task to deal with such objections as they make from the light of reason, as well as various debates they have instigated concerning the legal nature of such concepts as satisfaction, propitiation, the paying of a penal debt, imputation, punishment, etc.
(1). They first argue that forgiveness and satisfaction are utterly contradictory to one another, and cannot exist together simultaneously. Even if one should make satisfaction so that remission can be given to another person—the moment the debt is removed through satisfaction, there is nothing to be remitted; and therefore, satisfaction cannot effect remission. A debt cannot be both remitted and satisfied at the same time, since this would entail the contradictory notion that the debt is both exacted and not exacted at the same time. “Remission therefore necessarily has two parts. One is that the one who owes is released from that obligation; the other is that the one to whom it is owed does not wish satisfaction to be made to himself. If either of these parts is lacking, there is no remission.” (Faustus Socinus, De Jesu Christo Servatore, book III, ch. 2) Ans. [1]. First of all, any man with half a brain can see clearly that Socinus simply assumes the thing in question, viz. He presupposes that remission and satisfaction cannot coexist by asserting that something inherent in the notion of remission is that the creditor removes any desire or need for a satisfaction in the first place! Cannot even a small child see the absurdity of this man’s reasoning? Secondly, there is a great difference between forgiveness as exercised by a creditor and as performed by a ruler. In the former case, it is merely the decision of the private party to waive their right to compensation, whereby they no longer claim their right to seek punishment and bring an indictment. But in the latter case, it is the waiving of the right to actually execute punishment, not merely to seek it at the hand of the law. Since private individuals do not have the right to punish, neither do they have the right to forgive and release from punishment insofar as the crime is considered as an offense simply against them. In a pecuniary payment, the person has a right to receive what they are owed, not considered the person who makes the payment and discharges the debt. But as we have explained above, a penal debt respects not only the payment itself but also him by whom it is paid; and this is the notion of satisfaction. And because God has embraced the satisfaction of Christ and accepted it as a sweet-smelling savor, He therefore forgives sinners on His behalf. Remission and retention are only opposed to each other exclusively when used of the same thing, in the same respect, for the same purpose, in the same way, and at the same time; but if there is retention satisfaction is made and remission after satisfaction, these do not conflict. Neither is it contradictory for the debt to be remitted in respect to us, but retained in respect to the Surety who has undertaken the obligation to pay it; [2]. Keeping in mind all of the previous axioms laid down concerning the relation of satisfaction to God as Judge and Rector, it is absurd in and of itself to inquire about whether God may remit sin without satisfaction as Socinus does; since the question is not about what God can do, but concerning justice, and whether it suffers sins to remain absolutely unpunished. [3]. As for his assertion that remission is not given to one for whom a full satisfaction is made, this is utterly false. For not only is the due punishment not inflicted upon the sinner, but also the hand-writing of debt against us is loosened, and the guilt is removed from our own persons. For the debts that Christ made satisfaction were not His, but ours, and we are liberated on account of the Surety paying it for us. [4]. Not everything which is required by a creditor in the name of satisfaction destroys remission, for even Socinus himself requires that the act of repentance must be performed in order for remission to be granted. It is therefore false what he asserts, that a necessary condition for remission is that he to whom the debt is owed does not require any satisfaction. [5]. It is false what they say, that a debt can only be exacted from anyone except him who originally owes it. For if a Surety wills to take this obligation upon himself, then the debt may justly be sought at his hands. A central instance of such a transaction may be seen in the case of Paul: “If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account” (Philemon 18); where Paul now may justly be called the surety and pledge of Onesimus, although the apostle himself had not injured Philemon in any way—and yet by his undertaking, that which would be exacted from Onesimus is now by right to be sought from Paul, should the occasion interpose itself where such a thing might have been necessary.
(2). The Socinians contend that even if one would concede that the death of Christ was a payment for the debt of sin in a literal sense, nonetheless His death is not equal to the debt which is owed, and therefore cannot be a satisfaction to divine justice. The death of Christ, that of one Person for a few hours upon the cross, cannot compensate for the eternal punishment of all mankind, they say. If an individual free from all debt possessed 100 golden coins, he may satisfy for one person who owes the same amount, but he could not satisfy for a thousand men who owed 100 gold coins each. “Therefore perhaps only a single person out of all might in this way be saved, and satisfaction be made to divine justice for his sins. All the rest would have to perish eternally, if God had wished that true satisfaction be made for their sins.” (De Jesu Christo Servatore, book III, ch. 3); “For Socinus, not every punishment is a true satisfaction, but only that punishment which is entirely equal to the merits of the sin.” (Johannes Crellius, Ad librum Hugonis Grotii quem de satisfactione Christi adversus Faustum Socinum Senensem scripsit Responsio [Rakow: Sternatzki, 1623], pg. 297). Ans. Concerning the proportion that exists between sin and punishment, it is divided into geometric and arithmetical (of which distinction I desire to more fully discourse upon in the section on merit against Papists); the former was that which was suffered by Christ, the latter was not. Since it has already been shown that God punishes sin as a Ruler, not merely as a private creditor, we thence infer that is with geometric proportion and distributive justice that the question of the death of Christ as a proper punishment may be regarded. Since He is both God and man, infinite value accrued to His sufferings. However, He had to suffer that which was in the law, and therefore one drop of blood alone would not have sufficed. And He was therefore able to satisfy the divine justice without suffering eternally, since this everlasting duration of punishment per se is not the essence of what is contained in that curse of the law which Christ bore in our stead, but rather an accidental element of it, which occurs on account of sinful creatures being finite, and therefore must suffer eternally, seeing they are not capable of paying divine justice in any other way. Christ had born an equivalent punishment to what is contained in the law, just as a father may pay an equivalent payment in silver coins of what his son owes in gold coins. [2]. The punishment constituted for sin is death, and this is both bodily and eternal. Since Christ did not owe anything in and of Himself, He was therefore able to take the guilt of our sins upon Him and pay the debt as a Surety—hence the argument of Socinus does not follow, when he asserts that nobody can pay for another that which he himself owes.
(3). They say that even if we consider that infinite value which comes to the sufferings of Christ on account of His divine nature (which they also impiously deny), it still would be sufficient to pay this infinite price. As in the previous cases, I will append Socinus’ own words: “In that case, then, the infinite value which is allegedly found in Christ's sufferings, because the divine nature suffered, could have paid for one person at most. And so, only one of us could have been freed from our liability to eternal death by his power. This conclusion is true if, as it was said, any of us were liable, on our own, to pay an infinite price. Consequently, it would be necessary for there to be just as many prices of infinite value paid as there are people for whom a payment is to be made. Just one infinite price would not be enough if all of us are to be freed from our liability through a transaction based on a payment made through another for what we ourselves were owing.
Now, you might assume, quite contrary to reason, that we should regard the infinite value which accrues to the sufferings of Christ through the divine nature as sufficient to cover all of the infinities of punishment which each of us ought to have paid. But then you must also assume that any suffering of Christ could bring about this same effect. Some of the so-called Scholastic doctors have contrived just such a doctrine. They say that one drop of Christ's blood would be sufficient—and more than sufficient—to redeem the human race. But if that is true, I fail to see, as I remarked recently, how God could escape the charge of either ignorance or savageness. After all: when he could have given salvation by subjecting Christ to only minimal suffering, he chose instead to inflict a horrible and accursed death on him, which came after serious and innumerable evils.” (De Jesu Christo Servatore, book III, chapter 4)
The Imputation of Sin to Christ
Part of the great difficulty lies in the question, whether in the imputation and impartation of a thing, it may only occur as a foundation for subsequent judgment in the case that the imparted thing is in some way inherent or intrinsic to the subject (as Wotton and Baxter taught), or if it is also true that an imputed thing can be truly communicated in some way, and yet so as to remain extrinsic to the subject, and not be possessed subjectively and inherently (the view of John Owen).
What must be affirmed is that our sins are not so transferred to Christ in such a way that they become His subjectively and properly; for on this ground, the nature of satisfaction would be overturned altogether. Christ would no longer be paying for our sins, but for His own—which is a blasphemous thought! Such a thing is not an imputation at all, but a transfusion of sin into a different subject.
When thinking of sin, four aspects must be distinguished: the fault, the defilement, the guilt, and the punishment. (1) The first is simple enough to understand, the fault is a deed which is a transgression of the law of God. Under this light, it is the most formidable evil that there ever was or shall be in the world. (2). Ensuing thereupon are the defilement and guilt that are brought upon the soul. Having described this defilement of sin in more detail previously, I may briefly surmise much of that again for our present task. This defilement (macula) is nothing but that absence of rectitude and order in the soul that is brought in by sin, the lack of that innocency and righteousness which the Law requires of us in our persons and all our actions. The guilt (reatus) of sin is nothing but that whereby the sinner is rendered liable to eternal condemnation under the threatening of the Law. Even when the act of sin itself may have ceased and been long past, there yet remains this stain and guilt lingering and festering upon the soul. Beware therefore, of such presumptuous and arrogant ways of thinking as would lessen the guilt of sin, on the pretence that it is a thing long past or committed long ago. Be assured, that though some great sin of yours may have been transacted years ago, yet if you have not been cleansed through repentance and faith by Christ, that same sin still is a wound and scar upon the soul, rendering you obnoxious to hell and damnation. (3). This guilt arises from sin and gives way unto punishment. I thus embrace the learned definition offered by Andre Rivet in the Leiden Synopsis: “Guilt (reatus) is something relative, intermediate between sin and punishment—namely, that relation by which the sinner, through his sin, is turned away from God and is bound and ordered toward punishment.” (Synopsis of a Purer Theology: Latin Text and English Translation: Disputations 1–23, ed. Dolf te Velde [Leiden: Brill, 2014], pgs. 392–393). We may consider that relation existing between sin and guilt either in a legal sense or in a moral sense. Sin by its nature is a rebellion against God and is an affront to His holiness and righteous purity, and we therefore consider it in this respect as a moral blot and stain upon the soul. However, it also has respect to the sanction of the law, and this is that which is referred to when some divines speak of “extrinsic guilt” or the “extrinsic ordination” pertaining to sin. This intrinsic depravity of sin whereby it merits condemnation is assuredly inseparable from sin itself, and is something inherent in its very nature, as a transgression of the Law. So also, the actual ordination to punishment (ordinatio ad poenam) cannot be removed from sin itself, however it can be removed from the sinner, when it is transferred to a Surety that will pay on his behalf. And if this be the primary thing which we intend when speaking of the imputation of sin to Christ, I think it may well serve as a means of reconciliation among brethren, for is not what Owen and Baxter both say concerning it? The former’s sentiments are well known, but hear the statements of the latter on this point, wherein he seems to agree in substance with the general consensus of Reformed divines: “As our sin is not reputed Christ’s sin in itself, and in the culpability of it (for then it must needs make Christ odious to God) but in its causality of punishment.” (Richard Baxter, A Treatise of Justifying Righteousness [London, 1676], 1:70); “God willed to inflict the punishments voluntarily undertaken by him no less than if Christ himself had been the sinner. Even though therefore Christ had neither the guilt of the deed, nor the guilt of the fault; He nevertheless took upon himself the guilt which they call of punishment or for punishment. Namely, for the punishment to which we are obligated on account of the guilt of the fault, so that we might be liberated, he obligated himself, by the obligation of his own sponsorship.” (Methodus Theologiae Christianae [London, 1681], determination 7, II.4)
Considering sin as an act and deed, this cannot be transferred to Christ; this was indeed a chief foundation of the Antinomians, so that they might obviate any need for believers to have an ongoing sorrow over sin, and say that God simpliciter does not see any sin in us after justification. However, this foundation is but made of sand and rubble. Sin is a transient act, and once it has passed away, cannot be transferred to another subject so as to become theirs really. For the satisfaction of Christ, it was sufficient that only the guilt was imputed to Him. It is clear that more than just the penalty for sin was laid upon Christ—for if it were only the punishment that was given to Him, and nothing else at all, then it would no longer be a penalty, but merely the suffering of an innocent party. It is guilt alone that serves as the foundation for punishment, and nothing else.
But recall above the distinction we have made concerning the guilt of sin in its legal and moral relations. It is not the moral aspect, wherein the liability to condemnation consists; or more particularly, the intrinsic demerit of sin is not given to Christ, but rather the actual ordination of the law unto punishment. Sin insofar as it is a deed, its stain and defilement, and potential guilt remained with the sinner, and are not imputed to Christ. And this therefore, shows as erroneous the key foundation of Antinomianism, which maintained that not only the guilt of sin was transferred to Christ but also the very deed itself and the defilement, such that Christ was formally called a sinner by them. This very well may have been due to their failure to distinguish between the deed of sin and the guilt thereof (Gert van den Brink, The Transfer of Sin, pg. 193).
And that this is the sense of the Scripture, may be seen from Isaiah 53, wherein we have already dwelt for a while. But I desire to draw attention to the usage of the word עָוֹן in the Hebrew, as it is expressed as that direct thing which the Lord placed upon Christ in His suffering. He was bruised for our iniquities, the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all, he bare the sin of many, and the like expressions. Now that this refers to the guilt of sin, its liability to punishment, and not the deed of sin itself, may be proven easily. 1st, it is used in other places. As where Cain said, “My עָוֹן is greater than I can bear”, which all translators generally do render “punishment.” Thus also Saul told the witch of Endor that no עָוֹן would fall upon her (1 Sam. 28:10), as a punishment for her sorcery in summoning an apparition of Samuel. See also Lev. 20:17, 19. 2nd, that this is the proper interpretation of the word appears from the whole design of the chapter; for in what manner did the Lord lay our עָוֹן upon Christ? “He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities”, which answers to that statement that our iniquity was laid upon Him, wherein nothing other than a proper punishment is intended.
It is therefore null to argue that this doctrine of imputation does entail that Christ became a sinner, or was judged as a sinner by God upon the cross; for this is the teaching of the Antinomians, and not of the orthodox. When God “made him to be sin” (2 Cor. 5:21), the deed of sin, and its intrinsic demerit, were not transferred to Christ, but only the sanction of the law towards punishment was laid upon Him. Thus many divines and learned men take that place of Scripture to mean that Christ made an אשם, a sin-offering (William Ames, Bellarminus enervatus [Amsterdam, 1630], 4:137; Chad van Dixhoorn, Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly, 2:57), as one may also see in the Dutch biblical annotations of the Statenvertaling. It is the language of Scripture to call and denominate things by way of metonymy, and such was assuredly the case with the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament that typified the suffering of Christ. They are called guilt and sin offerings (Lev. 4:28-29, 33; 7:1-2), because they were offerings made to atone for guilt and expiate sin, and satisfy its due penalty. Thus they are expressed by the apostle as offerings περι ἁμαρτιας, “about sin, concerning sin, for sin” (Heb. 10:6). Christ has so suffered our stead, and paid that penalty for us, so that God now regards us just as if we had paid it in our person; but He did not so fulfill the law that we should thereby be released from all obligations of obedience and godliness.
We may see the falsehood of this mode of expression by also comparing that which corresponds to it, namely the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us. If Christ had formally become a sinner, as the Antinomians think, then have we become such persons as have never sinned, and fully satisfied the law? Does Christ become the perpetrator of the sins we have committed? See how Tobias Crisp speaks: “[T]hat very sinfulness that we were, Christ is made before God; so that here is a direct change, Christ takes our persons and condition, and stands in our stead, we take his person and condition, and stand in his stead. What the Lord beheld Christ to be, that he beholds his members to be; what he beholds them to be in themselves, that he beholds Christ himself to be.” (Christ Alone Exalted [ed. 1832], 1:274).
Is not all of this to confuse the law and the gospel? Is not this to in some way make the believer the one who has satisfied the demands of the law, and made payment to God—indeed, for sins that they have not committed, on account of their being imparted to Christ?
On the other hand, there are those who deny altogether any sense in which the guilt of sin has been imputed to Christ, but only its punishment—i.e., Christ was treated as a sinner, which even Socinus and Crellius are willing to admit (see De Jesu Christo Servatore, book I, chapter 8). Therefore, something more than this is to be desired and intended in our doctrine.
Our sins may be said to be ours, and not Christ’s; and Christ’s, and not ours, according to different respects and significations. The sins are ours, because they have been committed by us as the acting subject, and we bring the guilt of everlasting punishment upon ourselves thereby. It is always true that we committed them, and therefore deserve damnation. But by the grace of God, these same sins are not ours, in the sense that we are no longer obliged to make satisfaction for them, since Christ has done this for us. It was, then, the actual ordination to punishment that was transferred to Christ.
