Thursday, August 10, 2017

Slick vs. Morrell Debate on the Atonement

The following video is that of a debate between Matt Slick (Reformed Presbyterian) and Jesse Morrell (Arminian/Open Theist) on the nature and extent of the atonement:




While it is annoying to watch at times, especially as Matt Slick was his disingenuous self at times, it does show the many logical and biblical problems with Limited Atonement and Penal Substitution.

Furthermore, Slick is dead-wrong in his eisegesis of Col 2:14. See, for instance, my article Does Galatians 2:20 and Colossians 2:14 support Forensic Justification? As I argued in this paper, Col 2:14 is about the "ordinances" of the Law of Moses. The Greek term τοις δογμασιν means "the ordinances" and is coupled with χειρογραφων, referring to a written record of one's debts/sins under this division of the Law of Moses.

In the parallel text in Ephesians, we read the following which supports this interpretation (emphasis added):

For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, (Eph 2:14-15, NRSV)

Furthermore, on the meaning of the term χειρόγραφον Protestants E.K. Simpson and F.F. Bruce wrote the following in their Commentary on the Epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition, and Notes (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1957):

Gk. χειρόγραφον, a term (found also in Plutarch and Artemidorus) very common in the papyri, among which many original χειρόγραφα have been preserved (cf. G. A. Deissmann, Bible Studies [Edinburgh, 1909], p. 247). Cf. also Moulton-Milligan, VGT, p. 687. J. A. T. Robinson (op. cit., p. 43 n.) describes this χειρόγραφον as “our written agreement to keep the law, our certificate of debt to it” (he compares the undertakings of Ex. 24:3; Deut. 27:14–26). But our failure to keep the law has turned this certificate into a bond held against us to prove our guilt. It is this bond, representing the power which the law has over us, rather than the law itself, which Paul views as cancelled by Christ. This is decidedly preferable to E. Lohmeyer’s view that the χειρόγραφον represents an I.O.U. (a Schuldschein) which Adam gave to the devil in Paradise at the time of the fall of man (MK, pp. 116 f.).

Elsewhere, they write the following which shows the problematic nature of Slick and other Reformed readings of this verse:

He removed it (Gk. ἦρκεν ἐκ τοῦ μέσου); this removal is elaborated in two figures: He blotted it out (Gk. ἐξαλείψας), He nailed it to His cross (Gk. προσηλώσας αὐτὸ τῷ σταυρῷ). According to Deissmann, papyrus debt-records illustrate the popular appeal of this double metaphor; the bond is first blotted out and then cancelled (Paul [Eng. tr., London, 1926], p. 172). We may compare two successive petitions in the Jewish prayer Abinu Malkenu: “Our Father, our King! blot out our transgressions, and make them pass away from before thine eyes. Our Father, our King! erase in thine abundant mercies all the records of our debts” (cf. S. Singer, The Authorised Daily Prayer Book [London, 1939], p. 56). As for the bold conception of the cancelled bond being nailed to the cross of Christ, Deissmann thinks of the cancellation of a bond or similar document by crossing it out with the Greek cross-letter X (chi) (Light from the Ancient East [London, 1927], p. 333). But would σταυρός suggest the X shape? (The Greek word for such “crossing out” is χιάζω.) On the “supposed ‘ancient custom’ of cancelling a bond by driving a nail through it” see F. Field, op. cit., pp. 195 f.; he can find no real authority for it, and thinks rather of the custom of hanging up spoils of war in temples (but it is unlikely that any such analogy was in Paul’s mind).