On page 65 (2nd ed.) under the sub heading "What 'Good News'?" Camp takes aim at penal substitutionary atonement. Something that has been going on in the scholarly world of late as well. Some (like NT Wright) are re-thinking atonement altogether. Others (like Scot McKnight) are arguing for a robust and very full golf club bag. Still others (like John Piper) are going on a seeming "heresy hunt" to defend penal substitution only.
First, where do we bloggers fit into this? Secondly, shall we join with Camp in going on the offensive against this understanding of atonement? He seems to be rooting his understanding in relational terms, redemptive terms, and Christus Victor terms.
Some have predicted that atonement understandings are the next big fight in evangelicalism. Undoubtedly biblical authority and homosexuality and other issues are down the pipe, but for now some are saying atonement could be the next big thing to divide us. Open theism v. Reformed theology came very close in the providence debates of the BGC a decade ago. Are we on the verge of another showdown?
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Okay, I'm way out of the loop on this, so in order to make comment here, I'm going to have to go and review some theology, some vocabulary, and some definitions. How do local church pastors have time to debate all this? And why?
Okay . . . I'm not buying Camp's rejection of penal substitutionary atonement. I think he creates an unnecessary dualism. If the kingdom can be "now and now yet" in the present divine economy, why can God not also be "law and gospel," as my good friend, the Lutheran, is so fond of saying.
Yes, God's creative activity is relational at heart, but does he not relate as God-just and God-love at the same time? Can a command to refrain from eating some fruit not be "arbitrary" but intentionally legal and relational at the same time? Is there some reason why God cannot be multifaceted in his intentions and expressions? He made human beings in his image. We can do it. Why can he not?
Further, I suspect that the overlap of aeons that Camp describes does not extend far enough into the past. Is it possible that Jesus came announcing a kingdom that was "already near at hand but consummately ignored, misunderstood, or rejected?" Is he announcing the advent of something new or the revelation of something very, very old of which all previous history was a part, but not recognized (for whatever reason) by the participants. Hebrews 11 points to the past and says the saints looked to future with faith. Does that not make them part of the kingdom of God which is not of this world and is of faith?
I prefer to take Camp's questions, as I understand them so far, to be motivation for engaging in the kingdom today on the basis that the kingdom is present and liveable, though not fully revealed within the long period of time denoted by "aeon." Hebrews 2 tells us that Jesus is already crowned by virtue of his death, though we do not yet see all things in subjection to him. One reason, perhaps that we do not see all things in subjection is because Christians themselves do not perceive themselves as presently living in the divine kingdom, but as awaiting someday.
Hebrews 9 informs us that the benefits of the kingdom as laid out in God's last will and testament have ALREADY been released and are currently available to those who are called. They are available because 1) God died (in Christ) and 2) the executor (The risen Christ) lives to guarantee receipt by the heirs, the Holy Spirit being the 1st installment.
Many of us simply live as if we are awaiting possession of our inheritance when in fact we are already in possession of it. Our failure to "spend" it amounts to our failure to live as kingdom citizens in the present and enjoy what God has provided, to his glory and our ever increasing joy.
I see no grounds for an "either/or" debate on the nature of the atonement, since only those with a new heart (Jeremiah 31:31, Hebrews 8) participate in the new covenant, and those with a new heart will live out re-created lives (2 Cor. 5:17).
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