From Adam S. Miller and his book ‘Original Grace:’
If we grant that justice doesn’t require suffering as punishment, then what is the purpose of Christ’s atonement?
As President Russell M. Nelson reminds us, Christ’s atonement is “infinite beyond any human scale of measure or mortal comprehension.”1 C. S. Lewis makes the same point. “The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death somehow puts us right and gives us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter. A good many different theories have been held as to how it works; what all Christians agree on is that it does work.”2 For Lewis, it follows that all our theories are “quite secondary: mere plans and diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us, and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the things itself.”3 As a result it’s important to be clear about our limitations. When calling about Christ’s atonement, we need to keep in mind the weakness of language in general and the weakness of this book’s experiment in particular. And, especially, we need to keep in mind that even our canonical explanations consist largely of powerful but only loosely overlapping parables, analogies, and metaphors.
The basic facts of the atonement are these: Christ suffered for us, Christ died on the cross, Christ was resurrected on the third day, and as a result Christ can save us from both sin and death.
In response to these facts, the root question for any atonement theory is straightforward: but why did Christ need to suffer and die? How does Christ’s willingness to suffer on our behalf save us from sin and meet the demands of God’s law?
In what follows, I will take two ideas for granted: (1) that Christ’s suffering can reconcile sinners to God and thus fulfill God’s law, and (2) that God’s law can only be fulfilled when justice is achieved. In short, I will take for granted that Christ’s vicarious suffering unlocks—in some eternally decisive way—the possibility of justice and redemption.
How we think this works will depend on how we think about justice. And how we think about justice will depend on what we make of suffering.
So far, we’ve considered two models of justice: a model of justice defined by the logic of original sin and the model of justice defined by the logic of original grace. If the aim of Christ’s atonement is justice, then these different models of justice will necessarily branch into different theories of atonement. (next GOD’S LAW)
~Adam S. Miller, Original Grace (Salt Lake City: Desert Book, BYU Maxwell Institute, 2022) p.49-50
Continued with tomorrow’s post. . . . which will be, by far, the longest of any post that has appeared on ‘zionwisdom.com’. (This is because we will be traveling to visit historical sites and family.) Pure and true doctrine, revealed as Adam Miller teaches it in his book ‘Original Grace’, is without question or dispute. He covers all the bases, thoroughly, wonderfully. . . . You can read, study, assess, and pray about what Adam teaches. (I suggest you give a gift to yourself. Go out and buy the book! Tomorrow’s post will be the last for three or four weeks as we will be traveling to visit historical sites and family.) kdm (continued with Original Grace II, Atonement II)
