Getting Rid of Christ's Substitutionary Atonement

5/19/2017

(The following article was written by Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook - here and twitter - here.)

The Bible teaches, and the Church has always believed, that Jesus died in our place for our sins. But some liberals in the Church today are saying "No, that would be divine child abuse." They teach that God is love and God doesn't need to punish sin, and God did not punish Jesus for our sins. However, Jesus Himself said "The Son of Man came to give His life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45) and other verses in the Old Testament (Isaiah 53:5) and New Testament agree (Romans 5:8-10, 2 Corinthians 5:21, I Peter 2:24, 3:18).

In the tragic article below, a president of an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America seminary denies Christ died in our place to pay for our sins. Because the ELCA is shrinking, his seminary is now merging with another ELCA seminary and Dr. Lose is no longer president of the newly formed seminary. But, sadly, his new position will be the senior pastor of one of the largest ELCA churches in the country, Mt. Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.

It is tragic enough that the ELCA allows this kind of false teaching, but to put it at the forefront of a seminary and now one of its largest churches, is incredibly sad. The Bible--and Martin Luther's writings--have no trouble proclaiming the basic truth that Jesus died in our place for our sins. In fact, the Apostle Paul goes so far as to say "Christ died for our sins" is the most important teaching of the Christian Church (I Corinthians 15: 3).

It is this attack on basic Christian doctrine that is causing the ELCA and other liberal mainline denominations to shrink in numbers and financial giving, as true believers take their membership and money to more evangelical churches which joyfully proclaim the Gospel message: Jesus died for our sins.

In Jesus our Savior,

Pastor Tom Brock
pastorsstudy.org

(Here is the article)

4 Comments

John

5/19/2017 01:44:18 pm

Dan and Pastor Tom,
Thanks for the warning. I wonder if anyone can still keep a straight face while reading about Mr. Lose and the ELCA being part of the Church. Even the ELCA Model Constitution (paras C2.03-C2.07) admits that the Bible's teaching (which includes substitutionary atonement) is true, valid, and authoritative. Therefore Mr. Lose, like many of his fellow ELCAnites, may be on the rolls but not in the faith. Maybe the term "club" would be better for their situation than "church" -- especially considering the "clubbing" they give faithful Christians.

Didaskalos link

5/20/2017 05:51:30 pm

David Lose: "I suggest that Jesus didn’t come to make God loving but because God is loving. Jesus didn’t die, that is, to appease a pissed-off deity."

This is so lamentably stupid and anti-biblical, it's pathetic. God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, as He states in His Word. But as Pastor Brock notes, Jesus did in fact die to atone for our sins: Isaiah 53:5, Romans 5:8-10, 2 Corinthians 5:21, I Peter 2:24, 3:18, I Corinthians 15: 3.

Unlike David Lose, Martin Luther understood and faithfully explicated the Bible's clear teaching on Jesus' substitutionary atonement:

"But now, if God’s wrath is to be taken away from me and I am to obtain grace and forgiveness, some one must merit this; for God cannot be a friend of sin nor gracious to it, nor can he remit the punishment and wrath, unless payment and satisfaction be made.

"Now, no one, not even an angel of heaven, could make restitution for the infinite and irreparable injury and appease the eternal wrath of God which we had merited by our sins; except that eternal person, the Son of God himself, and he could do it only by taking our place, assuming our sins, and answering for them as though he himself were guilty of them.

"This our dear Lord and only Saviour and Mediator before God, Jesus Christ, did for us by his blood and death, in which he became a sacrifice for us; and with his purity, innocence, and righteousness, which was divine and eternal, he outweighed all sin and wrath he was compelled to bear on our account; yea, he entirely engulfed and swallowed it up, and his merit is so great that God is now satisfied and says, “If he wills thereby to save, then there will be a salvation. . .

"…it [the term “satisfaction”] is nevertheless too weak and says too little concerning the grace of Christ and does not do honor enough to his sufferings, to which one should give higher honor, confessing that he not only has made satisfaction for sin but has also redeemed us from the power of death, the devil, and hell, and established an everlasting kingdom of grace and of daily forgiveness of the sin that remains in us; and thus is become for us, as St. Paul says in 1 Cor. 1:30, an eternal redemption and sanctification…"
(Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 2, pp. 344, 351)

"Martin Luther on Atonement and Penal Substitution"--https://guardthedeposit.com/2013/03/martin-luther-atonement-penal-substitution/

ELCA leaders and pastors like David Lose continue to prove that the world is calling all the shots for the ELCA. Whatever will win the world's praise is what the ELCA will fob off on its defrauded parishioners.

Dave from Minnesota

5/23/2017 05:24:36 pm

I occasionally attend services at Mt Olivet. It's an usual church as it's an ELCA facility in very liberal South Minneapolis, yet it comes across as rather non-political and more of a traditional Christian church. Its the only ELCA church in the Twin Cities that I will ever show up at. They rarely if ever mention that they are part of the ELCA, and unlike almost every other ELCA congregations in the area, they have no homosexual rainbow flags or banners, no calls for open borders, no political messages on their outdoor signage.

I hope this move doesn't signal a shift in Mt Olivet to become more like all the rest of the ELCA churches.

Jim Kluth

5/25/2017 06:29:34 am

I read the David Lose article. This is the ultimate in cherry-picking to make his own point. Further, he extrapolates that Jesus' death was human orchestrated and accomplished. But this same Jesus said that no one takes his life from him; instead, he lays it down willingly. Ultimately Lose will lose.

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Getting Rid of Christ's Substitutionary Atonement

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