Well, according to Steve Chalke in his book The Lost Message of Jesus, God isn’t guilty of child abuse (that’s a relief).
However, we are culpable of depicting him that way, if we hold to the Penal Substitution Theory of the Atonement (PSA hereafter) because this theory in Chalke’s opinion does portray God as a cosmic child abuser.
Let me explain, in case you missed it. You see if you hold to the view that God punished Jesus on our behalf, in order to remit the guilt attached to our habitual failure to live as God requires (aka Sin), then I’m sorry to say, you too (according to S. Chalke) are guilty of portraying God as a violent despot, intent on getting His pound of flesh. Moreover, in order to appease His wrath against your sin, he unleashed it mercilessly on His Son, on the cross. Hence the allegation of cosmic child abuse.
The popular hymn sung in most churches, most Sundays, ‘In Christ Alone’, puts it very clearly……
‘Til on that cross as Jesus died, The wrath of God was satisfied’
Hmmmm ……….there you go, it seems we’ve an angry God? Now let’s consider whether this depiction of God is actually the logical outcome of PSA.
Retributive justice or restorative justice?
The opponents of PSA, aver that God doesn’t require retribution for our crimes, but rather restoration from them. Let me explain, they contend that God who created the world and humans is a God of Love (true), whose purpose in the atonement is to restore the relationship we’re meant to have with Him (true). And consequently, we shouldn’t rely on a transactional model to explain the atonement, but a relational one.
According the PSA theory ‘one sin needs to atoned for by one payment’ commensurate with the quality and quantity of the offence. For example, an ‘eye for an eye’, you take out my eye, then I can justly remove yours, but only one. There you go, now justice is satisfied, I think you get it.
There is some merit and something to be learnt from those, who challenge the sovereignty of PSA wields over evangelical churches. They highlight the danger of over-emphasising the Wrath of God without giving enough weight to the Love of God.
After all, who wants to be friends with a God who enjoys having his son cruelly murdered, in order to placate his fury against our sin. It creates a grotesque dichotomy within the unity of God. A loving, gentle Son and stern, severe Father. Sounds a little bipolar.
So, can we support PSA, while at the same time avoiding depicting God as a monster? Let’s have a go.
Should we let the translators decide for us?
The word for atonement (which means; at-one-with someone) in the NT is ‘hilasmos’ (the act of atonement) and ‘hilasterion’ (place where it occurs). The ‘mercy seat’ on which the victim’s blood is splashed in the ‘holy of holies’ means ‘covering’ in Hebrew and is translated in the LXX (Greek version of the OT) as the aforementioned ‘hilasterion’.
Now depending on the translator’s view of God, the word ‘hilasmos’ is variously translated. Those translators, who believe God to be wrathful & therefore needs His anger against sin appeased, use the word ‘propitiation’. But the exact same word ‘hilasmos’ is translated ‘expiation’ by the translators, who feel God is a loving and merciful God and desires to cover our sin, rather than vent his anger against it. (Eg: Romans chapter 3, verse 25 is translated in our translations as; propitiation, expiation & atonement, from the verb ‘hilaskomai’)
Rather than engaging in a slanging match, contending my translation is better than your translation, let’s step back, to look at the bigger picture
Some fundamentals
Firstly, sin is serious. So serious that the Godhead (Father, Son & Holy Spirit) collaboratively devised a plan to fix the problem of Sin, which would require nothing less than the death of God the Son, which proves just how serious sin is. The creator of the universe dying, to save the universe from the consequences of our rebellion is a big deal.
But does the solution to the problem (Christ’s death) evince the wrath of God, the justice of God or the love of God? Or maybe all three?
Secondly, the OT sacrificial system (an adumbration of Christ’s death), required the death of a living creature on behalf of the sinner (this is serious). If the solution to sin were simply forgiveness (without atonement), then we could apologise for running over our neighbours’ only child after getting drunk on Friday night, and then they could just forgive us.
However, the problem is not solved, nor is it solved for any other sins we commit, an outstanding Debt remains. The parents have been robbed of a lifetime of enjoyment afforded by their relationship with their son, likewise their grandparents etc and let’s not forget the transcendent element, we’ve offended the God of the universe. Who’s going to pay the debt, what payment could ever be sufficient?
We’re in a hopeless and impotent position to do anything to repay the debt. At this point God comes to our rescue. Constrained by love and longing to have our relationship restored, he covers the debt. It wasn’t anger that compelled Him to pay our sin debt, it was coalescence of His justice combined with love.
One suffers, all suffer
Any view of the Atonement, which presents God visiting his wrath against on Son, which removes Him from the suffering of his son, which makes him remote and unfeeling is abhorrent and needs to be rejected completely.
Rather God the father felt ever nail brutally driven into the hands and feet of his Son, he did not ‘turn his face away’ angrily as stated in the lyrics of another popular hymn. God didn’t abandon his Son not for a moment. Even with the enormity of the sum total of humanity’s sin borne by Jesus on the cross, could force God to look away. Psalm 22, verse 24:
For he has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.