The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross

The following are excerpts from the concluding chapter of Leon Morris' stellar work on the atonement entitled The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross:

• Something happened on Calvary quite objective to man, and it is because of this we can have the completest assurance of our salvation. In the last resort it depends on what God has done, and not upon some effect of that action upon the human heart (which is not to deny that there is such an effect, and that it is important). (299)

• The salvation which Christ effects is not thought of as brought about with effortless ease. On the contrary, it is purchased at great cost, at the price of His blood. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the New Testament writers thought of redemption as an objective thing, as a process whereby Christ paid the price which brought them salvation. The idea that this means no more than that His example inspired them to be better men

• There is very little place for human activity in this way of viewing Calvary, and once again we see that atonement is essentially something wrought for, rather than in, man. (300)

• On the contrary, sin calls forth the implacable hostility of His holy nature, and until something is done about it this puts the sinner in an unenviable position. (301)

• First may we go back to a statement of James Denney: 'God condones nothing: His mercy itself is of an absolute integrity. He is a righteous God, even in justifying the ungodly; and the propitiation He sets forth in Christ Jesus, dying in His sinlessness the death of the sinful, is the key to the mystery. Once more, is not the word which spontaneously rises to our lips to express this the word substitution?' In these words Denney reminds us of a fact which we must always bear in mind in dealing with the atonement, namely that the forgiveness sinners receive is not at the expense of ignoring sin's consequences. 'God condones nothing', and we must not theorize as though He has become indifferent to the wages of sin. While admittedly it raises problems, substitution does emphasize this aspect of atonement. Alternative concepts do not always do so. (302-3)

• At any rate when we speak of substitution in connection with His death, we should bear in mind that the substitution which results is not the substitution of a casual stranger, but of one who stands in the closest possible relationship with those for whom He died. (303)

Justification and Sanctification

Justification is the doctrine that God pardons, accepts, and declares a sinner to be "just" on the basis of Christ's righteousness (Rom 3:24-26; 4:25; 5:15-21) which results in God's peace (Rom 5:1), His Spirit (Rom 8:4), and salvation. Justification is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ apart from all works and merit of the sinner (cf. Rom 1:18-3:28).

Sanctification, or in its verbal form, sanctify, literally means "to set apart" for special use or purpose, that is, to make holy or sacred. Therefore, sanctification refers to the state or process of being set apart, i.e. made holy.

 It is quite true that sanctification and justification should not be sundered, but rather kept in the closest of relations to one another. But this does not mean that we are to confuse the one with the other. If a man is truly justified by faith, then that faith will surely lead him in the power of God to a new life, and the one experience may well held to imply the other. But that is not the same as saying that the two experiences are in the essence the same. Though in practice they may go together, yet for purposes of discussion they may be considered separately, and justification is the name given in the Bible tot he changed status, not the changed nature. (Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965. Print. 291)

Is penal substitution just? Leon Morris thinks so.

How does the idea of Christ suffering and dying on our behalf, taking our place and becoming a sin for us, correspond with our perception of justice. Most would say that someone being punished on behalf of another is not just at all. Leon Morris addresses this issue in this excerpt from The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross.

It is objected to this interpretation that the bearing of penalty by one in the place of another is not really just, so that when Christ suffers for us it is not a matter of fulfilling legal requirements. There is some force in this objection, and there would be more if we were dealing with a human law. But the fact is that we are not. The law in question is the law of God's holy nature, and that nature is merciful as well as just. Thus God's justice, while it is not capricious but works by the method of law, is a justice which finds a large place for mercy and is not hard, bare, and legalistic. At any rate, whether our legal categories can find a place for mercy or not, those of the Bible can and do ... neither justice nor mercy must be whittled down; but neither must they be separated.

(Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965. Print. 280)

Leon Morris on God being reconciled

Thus we may speak of God being reconciled. It may be necessary, indeed it is necessary, to use the term carefully, when we apply it to God. But then does not this happen with all our language? We must face the position that whenever we talk about God we must do so in a language devised to describe man, and accordingly there must always be a certain reserve. This applies to reconciliation as well as other terms. When we say that God is reconciled to man, this does not mean that, with various imperfections, He completely alters His attitude to man. Rather it is our groping way of expressing the conviction that, the He reacts in the strongest possible way against sin in every shape and form so that man comes under His condemnation, yet when reconciliation is effected, when peace is made between man and God, than that condemnation is removed. God now looks on man no longer as the object of His holy and righteous wrath, but as the object of His love and blessing.

(Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965. Print. 247)

Leon Morris on the God of peace and peace with God

So completely is the idea accepted that peace comes from God that He can be referred to as 'the God of peace', an expression which implies that the bringing about of peace is a characteristic feature of His activity. A particularly instructive example is Romans 16:20, 'And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly'. In the very sentence in which He is designated 'God of peace' that same God is pictured in warlike activity of bruising Satan. Nothing could more graphically illustrate the fact that peace in the New Testament is not simply the absence of war. It is a much more positive concept, and one which, as here, may be compatible with struggle. It stands for spiritual well-being at the highest level, a prosperity of soul resulting from being in right relationship with God ... Christ, by His atoning death, has done away with enmity. He has brought about a comprehensive peace, one which includes complete wholeness spiritually, and right relations with God issuing in right relations with man ... The New testament does not regard man in his natural condition as at peace with God. Rather, so long as he is outside Christ, he is at enmity with God ... In the Person of Jesus Christ He intervened and brought about a new state of affairs and it is this which is called 'peace'.

(Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965. Print. 241-3)

Leon Morris on reconciliation

Thus it is clear that certain ideas run through the passages where the reconciliation words are used in the New Testament. Common to all are the thoughts that it is the sin of man which represents the barrier to communion with God, and that this must be dealt with if reconciliation is to take place. It is this which gives point to the idea that God can be said to be reconciled to man, for it is manifestly impossible for God to regard man in quite the same way before the barrier is removed as He does after that takes place. At the same time the reconciliation is always God's work, and in several ways we have the truth stressed that it is the love of God that is the dominant factor in bringing reconciliation about. 

(Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965. Print. 236)

But for Christ

Here let us notice first of all that there is an aspect of reconciliation which is outside man, an objective element. We are said to have received the reconciliation, which, therefore, is in some sense independent of us. Obviously reconciliation must be personal to be effective, and we must enter into a state of being reconciled; but, nevertheless, there is a sense in which a reconciliation can be said to be proffered to us. In other words the New Testament view is that reconciliation was wrought on the cross before there was anything in a man's heart to correspond. There is an objective aspect to reconciliation, and this may well be held to imply that there is a sense in which God can be said to be reconciled to man. As James Denney puts it: 'Reduced to its simplest expression, what an objective atonement means is that but for Christ and His passion God would not be to us what He is.'

(Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955. Print. 226)

Leon Morris on the wrath of God

"Modern men find difficulty with this aspect [wrath of God] of the Old Testament teaching, in part at least because they have so well learned that God is love. But it is important to notice that this was a truth known and valued by men of Old Testament times. They apparently did not find it insuperably difficult to combine the ideas that God loved them and and that He hated all evil and would punish it severely ...

But in view of the fact that we have both truths expressed, and expressed very strongly ... it seems better to say that divine love and the divine wrath are compatible aspects of the divine nature. There is a divine wrath, but if we may put it this way, it is always exercised with a certain tenderness. Even when he is angry with man's sin God loves man and is concerned with his well-being in the fullest sense. There is a divine love, but it is not a careless sentimentality indifferent to the moral integrity of the loved ones. Rather it is a love which is a purifying fire, blazing against everything that hinders the loved ones from being the very best that they can be." (Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965. Print. 175-176)

Leon Morris on the Lamb of God

'The Lamb of God' is a way of referring to Jesus which has made a powerful appeal to Christian devotion through the centuries. The petition, 'O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us', occurs in many liturgies, while those who prefer extempore prayer often find the words 'Lamb of God' come easily to their lips. Christian art has found the symbolism congenial, and many are the pictures  and the stained glass windows which show forth the Lamb. There is something about the expression which does not require explanation before it can appeal to the depths of the heart. In the words themselves lurks a numinous quality. (Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955. Print. 129)

Leon Morris on Redemption

I have recently finished Leon Morris' powerful book on atonement titled The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Morris studies and evaluates the many-faceted approach to atonement that the apostles demarcate in the Bible. Obviously, one of the concepts he must deal with is that of redemption. After a thorough treatment of this atonement metaphor, Morris concludes the subject with a consideration of three aspects of redemption that were particularly in view in the apostles' writings:

1. The state of sin out of which man is to be redeemed – "It is a basic tenet of biblical theology that man is completely unable to grapple with the position created by the fact of his sin, and the redemption passages must be interpreted in light of this context." (61)
2. The price which is paid – "When the New Testament speaks of our redemption … it means that Christ has paid the price of our redemption. To the extent that the price paid must be adequate for the purchase in question this indicates … a substitution." (61)
3. The resultant state of the believer – "In the Scripture we see the price paid, the curse borne, in order that those who are redeemed should be brought into the liberty which may paradoxically be called slavery to God. The whole point of this redemption is that sin may no longer have dominion; the redeemed are saved to do the will of their Master." (62)

Instead of our death there is His: Leon Morris on ransom

"There is no need to water down the language of the biblical writers, to reduce their colourful metaphors to a uniform drabness. They did not intend ransom to be taken as a full and sufficient statement of what the atonement was and did, but as far as it goes it gives a picture of one aspect of that great work. It is a metaphor which involves the payment of a price which is plainly stated in several places and understood in others to be the death of Christ. From the very nature of the imagery this involves a substitutionary idea; instead of our death there is His, instead of our slavery there is His blood. All of our verbal juggling cannot remove this from the New Testament." ((Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965. Print.53)

One of the issues many of the theologians of the atonement continually return to is the desire to incorporate and defend all of the figurative depictions of Christ's work. They decry the depreciation of any of the atonement metaphors and it seems that the concepts most under attack are those which place mankind in the worst light. We are those in need of ransom and reconciliation and representation. Why lessen the magnitude of Christ's great work by minimizing or ignoring certain aspects of the atonement? It seems to me that we should be trying to expound this multifaceted miraculous mediation! What can we expect but a more glorious apprehension of His grace if we pursue a full and robust perspective of atonement that entails all of the Bible's explanations of it?

D. A. Carson and Leon Morris on the wrath of God

Leon Morris: Those who object to the conception of the wrath of God should realize what is meant is not some irrational passion bursting forth uncontrollably, but a burning zeal for the right coupled with a perfect hatred for everything that is evil. It may be that wrath is not a perfect word to describe such an attitude, but no better has been suggested, and we must refuse to accept alternatives which do not give expression to the truth in question. Perhaps there is a certain anthropomorphism involved in the use of the term wrath, but it must not be forgotten that 'A false anthropomorphism is to be laid to the charge not of those who maintain that there is, in the Biblical sense of the word,such a thing as the wrath of God. Rather it is to be laid to the charge of those who encourage the idea that God is like an easy, good-natured, benevolent man.' We sometime find among men an affection which is untempered by a sterner side, and this we call not love but sentimentality. It is not such that the Bible thinks of when it speaks of the love of God, but rather a love that is so jealous for the good of the loved one that it blazes out in fiery wrath against everything that is evil. (Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965. Print. 209)


D. A. Carson:

HT: Grace for Sinners

Redemption is inextricably linked to the cross

The older writers spoke of a coming redemption, but without any precise idea of how God's Messiah would bring it about. The New Testament writers had in view a redemption purchased at the price of the precious blood ... As we read, for example, the glowing words of St. Paul it is impossible not to be struck by the fact that he sees everything in the light of the cross which for him has made all things new ... In light of Paul's statements elsewhere about the cross, and about redemption, we must surely hold here, too, he sees redemption only in light of the cross ... To speak of a future redemption is no to imply that there awaits us a redemption which has no relationship to that accomplished at Calvary, being simply a deliverance from some outward enemy n the typical Jewish style. On the contrary, the future redemption is the consummation, the outworking of the redemption which was accomplished once for all by the death of the Redeemer.

(Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965. Print. 48)

Ransom in Mark 10

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
(Mark 10:45 ESV)

To bring this discussion to a close: the natural meaning of the ransom saying is that Jesus' death was in the stead of the many, He was to give His life instead of their lives, and we see no reason for abandoning this interpretation. It may or may not be easy to integrate this into some theory of the way the atonement works, but either way we are not justified in evading the plain sense of the Greek. (Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965. Print. 38)

Words, rich with meaning

I'm in the process of reading through 1 & 2 Thessalonians in my devotional time. I am also reading Leon Morris' Tyndale New Testament Commentary alongside. I recently read the first passage; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-3.

Greeting

1:1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Grace to you and peace.

The Thessalonians' Faith and Example

2 We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Morris, in his commentary, points out the significance and rich meaning of several words in this opening to 1 Thessalonians.Speaking of their "labor of love", Morris writes "Paul means more than small deeds of kindness done without of hope of reward. The word kopos denotes laborious toil, unceasing hardship borne for love's sake." That exposition put me in my place; often I look to my small deeds as heroic sacrifice for Christ. And yet, the call is to unceasing and laborious working for Christ.

Morris also discusses the steadfastness of hope. "Hypomone, rendered endurance [or steadfastness], means not a negative, passive acquiescence, but an active, manly endurance; 'not the resignation of the passive sufferer, so much as the fortitude of the stout-hearted soldier' ." I'm not here to patiently 'get through' life, but to endure with courage and strength.

Morris' explanation of key words and phrases is helping my understanding as I go through these epistles. They are powerful words, rich with meaning, inspired by the Power, and the Source of all meaning; God.

Exercise of self-deception

Faith, in itself, does not remove sins. For forgiveness to take place something objective must happen; we cannot just talk ourselves or reason ourselves into being forgiven...A concern for right inner attitude is legitimate, but if there is no more than this we are caught up in futility. There must be a factual basis for the central tenets of Christianity, and specifically for Christ's atoning death and resurrection or the believer has been engaging in a futile pursuit. He has embraced a faith that is completely worthless, barren of results. He has occupied himself in an exercise of self-deception. (Morris, Leon. The Cross of Jesus. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 1998. p44)

Leon Morris on the cross

In the modern world this [the cross] is not always understood as clearly as it might be. Today it is not uncommon to be told that the essence of Christianity is to be found on the Sermon on the Mount, in Jesus' ethical teachings generally, in the idea of liberation, in the thought that God came near to his creation in the idea of liberation in the incarnation, in "peace on earth", in brotherly love, in newness of life, or the like. I do not wish to denigrate such ideas. Christianity is a profound religion and its teaching has many aspects. But if we are to be true to the New Testament we must see the cross at the very heart of it all. These other suggestions may have truth in them, but that truth arises from the fact that the cross brings about many changes. New Testament Christianity centers on the cross. (Morris, Leon. The Cross of Jesus. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 1998. p2)