How exactly do the temporal and creaturely dimensions of this work of Christ interact with the eternal and self-sufficient aspects of the divine life? That the cross has its ultimate object of action in the heavenlies is clear in the book of Hebrews. The inspired author speaks of Christ entering “not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (9:24). 

I will argue (1) that the satisfaction of the atonement objectively changed the relationship between God and elect sinners, but (2) that this change of wrath to favor occurs ad extra of the divine life and not in se.

Toward this end, my argument will flow from (a) relevant biblical texts on the Godward dimension of the atonement, to (b) reconciling divine eternality with the temporal work of Christ, to (c) offering an explanation for the “point” or “way” in which elect sinners pass from being objects of God’s wrath to his favor. 

Christ’s work on the cross very directly affected the relationship between God and sinners. If we take the orthodox view, the most basic design of the cross was not a moral example, nor a spiritual influence on the heart, nor even a triumph over evil powers. Though these rival atonement theories each communicate something that is true of the cross, the satisfaction model drives to the core. Jesus Christ reconciled sinners to God by this work. It was primarily aimed at God. Consequently, new difficulties emerge. In providing an answer, we cannot ignore that several New Testament texts speak of wrath as abiding (Jn. 3:36) and as revealed from heaven in the present (Rom. 1:18); nor the substitution of Christ, in the place of that wrath, being “at the right time … [that] Christ died for the ungodly … while we were sinners … while we were enemies” (Rom. 5:6, 8, 10)—all expressions of wrath and reconciliation in the course of time.

Biblical Texts on the Godward Dimension 

Several New Testament texts are foundational to the Godward dimension. Let us begin with the very notion of sacrifice. Although the sacrifices in the Old Covenant were typological, we are still told that, “it will be accepted” (Lev. 1:4) and that it was “an aroma pleasing to the LORD” (Lev. 1:9). The divine pleasure in the sacrifice is retained by Paul, “as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:2). Note the sense in which God is depicted as the object receiving the action. Hebrews 9:14 is no less clear: “Christ … offered himself without blemish to God.” God is accepting sinners on the basis of what his Son has accomplished. 

Four places in the New Testament use some form of the noun hilasterion rendered “propitiation” (cf. Rom. 3:25, Heb. 2:17, 1 Jn. 2:2, 4:10). The ordinary sense of propitiation is of a religious sacrifice that appeases an offended deity. In Hebrews 2:17 and 1 John 2:2 there is a link to Christ’s priestly intercession. He offers prayers to God on behalf of his people. We may safely infer that these prayers are directed toward God on the basis of the sacrifice which is equally directed toward God. The burden of proof is on anyone who would sever that connection. 

Even several texts that focus on divine initiative hint at the divine end. For instance, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Cor. 5:19). The only obstacle mentioned here is human sin, which obstacle stands in the way of divine acceptance. With the connection to divine appeasement firmly established, we are prepared to face the theological dilemma.

What these passages teach us is that God received something from Christ’s sacrifice. Whether we put that in Anselmian or Reformed terms matters little at this point. On the surface of what I am calling the “classical” position, which takes satisfaction and penal substitution together, it would seem that God is affected by Christ’s work. Several classically conceived divine attributes are in play at this point: for instance, how there can be any suffering in the impassible God. However, my focus is on eternality. How can a time-bound payment translate into an eternal satisfaction complete? 

Temporal Appeasement of an Eternal Disposition? 

It is assumed here that God has love and wrath. However love belongs to God in se whereas wrath “is a function of God’s holiness against sin.” Mercy is likewise a function of God’s love in the face of justice. In short, wrath and mercy both presuppose sin. This implies that God eternally decreed both the objects of wrath and mercy as well as his disposition toward them (Rom. 9:22-23). This may seem a tidy formulation until we consider the Godward effect of the atonement. Here there are not simply two lines running parallel from God’s decree to eternal blessedness and damnation. In this case there is an interruption. In fact the lines seem to intersect, for wrath is aimed at all, and it seems as if only after the work of Christ do the lines run parallel again. How can we speak of the reconciliation of those for whom Christ died if these were elect in Christ from the start?

Modern religion, if it speaks of an unreconciled state at all, sees the hostility entirely on man’s side and not on God’s. Donald Macleod suggests a reason for this in all the passages where “the atonement is an expression of divine love, not its cause … Yet, while never capricious, God’s love for us was an expression of the divine freedom.”1 In other words, God does not love us in the same way as the Father loves the Son.

Divine love for humanity may be more essential than, or antecedent to, the atoning work; however it is not absolutely necessary to the divine essence that he loves the creature. Now how does this help us deal with the apparent change in God’s disposition toward the sinner? To set the stage for the heart of the problem, let me turn to a very strong way of putting it. 

Leon Morris goes as far to say,

“Clearly it is God’s demand that we live holy lives that is the root cause of the problem. As long as he is angry with the selfishness, the disregard of the needs of others and the general attitude of lovelessness that the Bible calls sin, the attitude of God is going to be an important factor, indeed the important factor.”2

These authors are decisively answering one dilemma posed by modern liberal theologians. However, due to the recent resurgence in the premodern doctrine of God, we may safely anticipate the dilemma to which I am calling attention. What about this divine disposition (or, to use Morris’ word, “attitude”)?

How is God satisfied by such a work if he is eternal and immutable? Most specifically, how is a temporal action of Christ upon the cross said to be causal to a divine disposition if God transcends time? Theological mutualism resolves this by conceiving of God in time per his relationships to the creature. 

Macleod stops short himself, opting for concession that the biblical language must inform even our formulations of the divine attributes. Perhaps God is “not only proactive … but reactive.”3

Two things may be said in reply: first, that the biblical language has a priority on our formulations is granted, but it is also question-begging as to whether the scriptural language actually does conflict; second, that God is both proactive and reactive need only denote two divine acts within the same eternal decree.

One act may often be subordinate in relation to the other. That God is said “react” to that which he has decreed (e. g. a saint’s prayer)—if what we are doing is theology proper (rather than exegeting the text in its applicational dimension)—implies rather that both the existence of the prayer and the divine response existing subordinately within the higher decree are, in fact, two dimensions logically distinguished in the one eternal decree.  What matters is that no talk of “reaction” can imply potentiality in God. Reaction itself, in other words, is just more of that analogical speech that we recognize about our talk of God.

Similarly in the case of the Godward effect of the cross, the dilemma is often set up as if classical theologians reduce divine emotions by making them eternal, and therefore fixed, and therefore “static.” But the reductionistic shoe is on the other foot. Do theological mutualists mean to suggest that God only possesses emotions, or that divine emotions only acquire their intensity, in relation to the creature? If so, then who is it that is really denying personal emotion to God? Dolezal summarizes their larger operative principle:

“A temporal effect can only proceed from a temporal act of causation, and such acts can only go forth from temporal agents.”4

The classical position is also not denying the real vindication of justice, as in the “just and justifier” truth set forth by Paul in Romans 3:26. Whether we cast the demands in terms of offended honor (Anselm) or legal debt (Luther), what matters is that the effect of the satisfaction addresses no insufficiency in the divine life. Even the pagan Socrates famously recognized that a divine being could, strictly speaking, need nothing in the way of sacrifice.5 But it is just in this defense of aseity that a confusion may exist. That justice requires punishment of sin does not mean that the justice of God is “needy” in the divine life. Speaking of a “demand” consequent to a divine attribute having been violated is again to speak of a deficiency in the creature. The demand is squarely upon the creature in debt. 

Where then is the satisfaction made? Another resource from which to draw is the communicatio idiomatum. If we can use phrases like “blood of God” or “mother of God,” it is because all that the humanity of the Son possesses may be spoken of the divine person; even if not of the nature. So it is that the Son, in his human nature, can satisfy God’s demands, through which God, in eternal act, determined to expiate the sins of his people. Turretin gave the best summary of satisfaction: “He gives [satisfaction] as God-man … he receives it as the Word … he gives it as Mediator and receives it as a Judge.”6

In what sense does the relationship between God and sinner change?

Paul says that even believers “were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:3). The classical position is not embarrassed to affirm this truth. The argument is not that divine wrath was never looming over the elect. Rather it is that the change affected by the cross was in the relationship between God and elect sinner and not a change in the divine essence or decree. It may be objected, however, that this makes divine wrath against the elect something less than real, personal anger. It may seem reduced to an abstraction. But there is nothing “abstract” about the ordered matrix in the divine decree wherein God accounted for satisfaction of what justice demands, out of a higher free choice to love some for whom he would provide that satisfaction. To the extent that we can speak of plural decrees within the singular decree of God, the logical relationships between the higher and lower divine priorities are as real as the whole decree itself. The burden of proof is on anyone who would argue that these are mere abstractions. 

God loves all people in Adam (Jn. 3:16)—that is, in the more general sense of beneficence. However, God loves the elect in a more special way (1 Tim. 4:10). This special love is that which determines to satisfy the demands of divine justice. So Paul writes that, “God has not destined us for wrath” (1 Thess. 5:9). Jesus gives us the most crucial statement at this juncture, making divine love the cause of averting wrath and not the other way around: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13; cf. 1 Jn. 4:10).

Propitiation of wrath does not initiate love. Love deals with wrath by propitiation. Propitiation exercises a ceasing influence on wrath, but it is not the case that God only began to love his people at that point.

So it is precisely in the biblical-temporal account that we find the priority of the eternal decree to save his own through judgment. It is not that God experienced a change in his essence or decree. It is that the relationship ad extra has undergone a change from real divine displeasure to an even more real propitious standing. 

Shedd seems to divide (1) propitiation per se and (2) the change in our relationship, where the oblation is “wholly ab intra” since the two feelings, wrath and compassion, “exist together in one and the same being,”7 yet this does not imply any change in either God’s essence or decree, since he eternally decreed that wrath no longer abides. 

It is in this way that the expression of Augustine makes sense: “Thus in a marvelous and divine way he loved us even when he hated us.”8 This also informs how we relate election and covenant to the gospel call. The author of Hebrews links the covenant death of Christ to those who are called into it (9:15). But this is not to be construed as incompatible with a universal offer to believe. All begin outside of the covenant with respect to our lives as sinners. In regard to the eternal decree the number of the elect are fixed, yet in regard to our temporal perspective, the identity of the elect are unknown. Thus we can call everyone from God’s wrath to his love with a straight face: “Be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20). The relationship between God and sinner really does change, and thus the sinner has a real interest in appropriating the fitting means of repentance and faith. 

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WORKS CITED

Carson, D. A. “God’s Love and God’s Wrath,” Bibliotheca Sacra 156 (Oct-Dec 1999) 387-98

Dolezal, James. All That is In God. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2017

Macleod, Donald, “The Work of Christ Accomplished,” Allen & Swain ed. Christian Dogmatics. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016

Morris, Leon. The Atonement. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1983

Plato. Five Dialogues. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981

Shedd, W. G. T. Dogmatic Theology. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2003

Turretin, Francis. Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Volume 2. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1994