In this blog post, I will be offering some criticisms of the latest volume by Fiona and Terryl Givens, The Christ Who Heals: How God Restored the Truth that Saves Us (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017) (158pp + xvii).
I am a long-standing fan of Terryl Givens. His book, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) was a book I read while investigating the Church back in 2004, and to this day, this book is a personal favourite of mine, as are most others he has authored (e.g., Viper on the Hearth).
When I found out that Terryl and his wife, Fiona, were writing a volume on Christology, I was really looking forward to it. Indeed, Christology is perhaps my favourite area of research, and I have written much on the topic from an informed LDS perspective, including:
Indeed, I agree 100% with the authors when they write the following on the central importance of (1) Christology and (2) the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith thereon:
[W]e believe that no religious contribution of Joseph Smith could possibly transcend in significance a restored knowledge of the true nature and character and conduct of God the Father, and especially the Son, the Savior of the world. (p. 3)
However, this recent volume was a disappointment. While an informed Latter-day Saint may be able to sift the chaff from the wheat, (1) there is a lot of “chaff” in this volume and (2) a member of the Church without a background in the relevant fields will not be able to tell when the authors are correct and when they are often just simply wrong about the issues they discuss. Indeed, because of the popularity of the authors, I fear that they will be accepted "at face value" even when they are demonstrably wrong and guilty of really flimsy Scriptural interpretation (eisegesis, in other words).
I realise that, as the authors are very popular, Terryl deservedly so, some may not like this review, but due to (1) the popularity of the authors, and as a result, the popularity this book will be among LDS readers and (2) intellectual honesty and integrity, I am forced to write this.
Here are some of the many errors in this short volume. When I quote the authors, their words will be in red. I have split this review up according to the chapters of the book.
Setting the Stage
On pp. xvi-xvii, on the topic of the “Western Reformers,” the authors seem ignorant as to why Luther was excommunicated by the Catholic Church. Indeed, the idea of total depravity and predestination is seen as a novelty introduced by Calvin:
In addition to embracing salvation by grace alone, Calvin emphasized human bondage to sin, election (predestination) and God’s absolute sovereignty” (p. xvi)
Luther explicitly taught the total depravity of unregenerate man and absolute predestination before Calvin came on the scene, so Calvin's theology was not a novelty. Indeed, Luther engaged in a debate with Erasmus on these very issues and was even more extreme than John Calvin (see Luther’s The Bondage of the Will—Luther gave credit to Erasmus for zoning in on what Luther believed to be the key “dividing line”—the nature of the human will). Luther’s teachings on predestination were the root cause of his excommunication from the Roman Church.
Leo X, in his papal bull Exsurge Domine, condemned, among many others, the following theological error (proposition 36) of Luther:
Free will after sin is a matter of title only; and as long as one does what is in him, one sins mortally.
Luther stated his extreme predestinarian views in many places; consider the following from the Assertio omnium articulorum:
A man’s way is that which we speak of as his natural power to do what is in him. But this very thing is not in the free will of man, so then, what is this so-called free will but a matter of empty words? How can a man prepare himself for good? It is not even in his power to make his ways wicked. For God works even the evil works in the wicked, as it says in Prov. 16, “He has made all things for himself, even the wicked for the day of evil,” and Rom. 1, “God handed them over to a reprobate mind so that they should do things not fitting,” likewise, Rom. 9, “whom he will he hardens and whom he wills he pities,” and in Exodus 9, “for this very reason I raised you up that I might show my power in you.” So then, God is terrible in his judgments and in his works. (Luthers Werke: Kritische Ges., Weimar 1888 7, 144, 30-36; 145, 1-4)
Interestingly, the authors, later in their book, present Luther's theology of the human will accurately, and even contradict their positive view of Luther later in the volume(!):
Erasmus pleaded that “no one should despair of pardon from a God by nature most merciful;” Martin Luther fumed in response that Erasmus was “without Christ, without the spirit,” because God “foresees, purposes, and does all things according to his immutable, eternal and infallible will.” (p. 23)
And, quoting Luther:
“There is no free will in man to resist” the salvation or the damnation God has predestined for us. Luther, also, insists that free will “can be applicable to none but [God].” We, by contrast, “do all things from necessity, not ‘Free-will,’” and God “makes us necessarily damnable.” When he engages the Catholic moderate Erasmus in debate, Luther (or Dr Hyperbolicus, as Erasmus affectionately calls him) at one point claims to have proven that, “’Free-will’ is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces.” Man’s salvation “is utterly beyond his own powers, counsel, endeavors, will, and works, and absolutely depends on the will, counsel, [and] pleasure . . . of God only.” (pp. 34-35)
And elsewhere, we read:
Following Augustine’s lead, the first of the great Reformers, Luther, claimed that as a consequence of the Fall, “man . . . is with his whole nature and essence not merely a sinner but sin itself.” “Your works are examined and found to be all evil . . [There is] not an atom of virtue in you.” In the 1577 Lutheran Formula of Concord, original sin is defined not as a “slight corruption of nature, but .. . so deep a corruption that nothing sound or uncorrupted has survived in man’s soul or body.” In fact, the same creed does “reject and condemn” the teaching that “man still has something good about him in spiritual matters—for example, the capacity . . . to initiate, to effect or to cooperate in something spiritual. (p. 39)
Introduction
Continuing with the rather ignorant depiction of the Reformers, we read the following:
We admire the moral fervor of Martin Luther (p. 2)
One has to wonder what “moral fervor” they are talking about. Do they mean the Martin Luther, whose siding with the princes for political reasons, resulted in the slaughter peasants (see The Peasants War [1525])? The Martin Luther whose book, which influenced Hitler, The Jews and their Lies, is such an example?
Here is Luther's reason for writing such an anti-Semitic volume:
I had made up my mind to write no more either about the Jews or against them. But since I learned that these miserable and accursed people do not cease to lure to themselves even us, that is, the Christians, I have published this little book, so that I might be found among those who opposed such poisonous activities of the Jews who warned the Christians to be on their guard against them. I would not have believed that a Christian could be duped by the Jews into taking their exile and wretchedness upon himself. However, the devil is the god of the world, and wherever God's word is absent he has an easy task, not only with the weak but also with the strong. May God help us. Amen.
It is a pity that such a “white-washing” of the Reformers is still prevalent among Latter-day Saints, even those who should know better.
Furthermore, we have this comment from the authors about the Catholic Mass:
We feel holy envy for the liturgical beauty and power of the mass. (p.2)
One has to note that, as with myself, Fiona Givens joined the Church from a Roman Catholic background. Sadly, it does seem to colour her perception of the Church of Rome, even today as a Latter-day Saint. Yes, one does often wish that there was more liturgy in sacrament meeting (although there is such in the temple endowment), that some groups have such, not just Roman Catholicism (Anglo-Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, for instance). However, there is nothing that is “beautiful” or “powerful” about the Mass when one understands the theology of such, and keep in mind, it was not liturgy per se that the authors have holy envy for, but the ”beauty and power of the mass.”
I have discussed the Roman Catholic dogma pertaining to the Mass (the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice and Transubstantiation) in detail elsewhere:
However, do note the following (accurate) description of the theology of the Mass from a Catholic priest and apologist:
The supreme power of the priestly office is the power of consecrating. “No act is greater,” says St. Thomas, “than the consecration of the body of Christ.” In this essential phase of the sacred ministry, the power of the priest is not surpassed by that of the bishop, the archbishop, the cardinal or the pope. Indeed, it is equal to that of Jesus Christ. For in this role the priest speaks with the voice and authority of God Himself.
When the priest pronounces the tremendous words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens, brings Christ down from His throne, and places Him upon our altar to be offered up again as the Victim for the sins of man. It is a power greater than that of monarchs and emperors: it is greater than that of saints and angels, greater than that of Seraphim and Cherubim.
Indeed, it is greater even than the power of the Virgin Mary. While the Blessed Virgin was the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings Christ down from heaven and renders Him present on our altar as the eternal Victim for the sins of man—not once but a thousand times! The priest speaks and lo! Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest’s command.
Of what sublime dignity is the office of the Christian priest who is thus privileged to act as the ambassador and the vicegerent of Christ on earth! He continues the essential ministry of Christ: he teaches the faithful with the authority of Christ, he pardons the penitent sinner with the power of Christ, he offers up again the same sacrifice of adoration and atonement which Christ offered up on Calvary. No wonder that the name which spiritual writers are especially fond of applying to the priest is that of “alter Christus.” For the priest is and should be another Christ. (Rev. John A. O’Brien, The Faith of Millions [Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 1974], 255-56; italics in original).
One would do well to read the following decrees from the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and the anathemas attached thereto against those who, as with Latter-day Saints, reject such:
Canons on the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist (October 11, 1551)
Canons of Session Twenty-Two (1562)
Holy envy for a high liturgy? Acceptable.
Holy envy for the Roman Mass and calling it "powerful" and "beautiful"? Unacceptable if one takes both LDS and Roman theologies seriously. To do otherwise is to pander to the madness of theological ecumenism.
We get this comment in a rather desperate attempt to, implicitly, support the muted Latter-day Saint in a Mother in Heaven:
It is important to note that in both Genesis 5:2 and Moses 6:9, the term Adam is familial: “and [he] called their name Adam” in the same way the term God can incorporate both a male and female deity.(p. 134 n.7)
I would like to see the lexical evidence for their claim about "God" here. None are provided for good reason—there is none (I don’t believe either of the authors know biblical languages, but such a bald assertion is pure sloppiness and unbecoming of such a work). Again, they are reading LDS theology back into the semantic domain of words (here, "God" [elohim]), in this instance, the muted LDS belief in a Mother in Heaven.
Chapter 1: Covenant
On pp. 12-13, in an attempt to bolster the antiquity of the Latter-day Saint belief in personal pre-existence, not simply ideal or notional pre-existence, the authors reference two main figures. The first is the medieval Jewish scholar Menasseh ben Israel. While it is true that he held to the personal pre-existence of the soul, what the authors did not tell you is that he also believed in reincarnation, so what ben Israel gives, he also takes away. His major work Nishmat Hayim explicates such (portions of which can be found here).
The second figure cited is the early Christian theologian, Origen. Again, however, it should be noted that, while Origen did believe in a view similar to the pre-existence of “intelligences,” he did not believe that they were eternal (cf. D&C 93:29). Furthermore, Origen’s theology of pre-existence was intimately tied into his anti-anthropomorphic theology of God as well as his view that, as a result of sin, such pre-existent souls are condemned to be born in a material body, a far cry from LDS theology.
Commenting on Origen’s doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul, Brian
Daley, a leading expert on patristic Christology, noted:
Origen’s anti-gnostic
narrative, unlike that of Irenaeus, does reach back speculatively into an age
when conscious and free souls existed y themselves, not yet burdened by a body
and its appetites. But it was not an alien conspiracy, but the failure of all
souls except that of Jesus to cling to God in love and obedience that led to their
“fall” into the weaknesses of the present world, which was created to receive
them. Origin theorizes, and it was the sole fidelity of Jesus that unites him, in
permanent and transformative desire, to the divine Word. (Brian E. Daley, “Astonishing
Fulfillment: Irenaeus and Origen on the Humanity of Christ,” in George
Kalantzis, David B. Capes, and Ty Kieser, eds. Who Do You Say I am? On the Humanity of Jesus [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf
and Stock, 2020], 123-40, here, p. 137)
As can be seen, Origen’s understanding of pre-existence is often at odds
with Latter-day Saint theology on many points.
For a much fairer discussion of Origen’s theology, see Mark S.M. Scott, Journey Back to God: Origen and the Problem of Evil (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)
The early Christian text composed during the New Testament era, the Song of the Pearl . . .(p. 13)
The authors then quote the opening stanza of this (Gnostic) text as support for personal pre-existence as well as belief in both God the Father and a Heavenly Mother. However, they are simply wrong in claiming that this text was composed “during New Testament times.” As G.R.S. Mead notes:
The original text of the Poem is in Old Syriac, in lines of twelve syllables with a cæsura, and so in couplets, for the most part of six syllables. A text of a Greek version has recently been discovered by Bonnet at Rome (C. Vallicellanus B. 35) and published in his text of The Acts of Thomas (1903). It is partly literal, partly paraphrastic, with occasional doublets and omissions of whole lines. In addition there is a summary in Greek by a certain Nicetas, Archibishop of Thessalonica, who flourished prior to the XIth century (the date of the MS. in which his abridgment is found), but who is otherwise unknown. This seems to be based on another Greek version.
The copy of the original Syriac text is found in a single MS. only (Brit. Mus. Add. 14645), which contains a collection of Lives of Saints, and bears the precise date 936 A.D. Our Poem is found in the text of the Syriac translation from the Greek of The Acts of Judas Thomas the Apostle; it has, however, evidently nothing to do with the original Greek text of these Acts, and its style and contents are quite foreign to the rest of the matter. It is manifestly an independent document incorporated by the Syrian redactor, who introduces it in the usual naïve fashion of such compilations.
. . .
Our Hymn is indubitably Gnostic; but of what school or tradition? Learned opinion is preponderatingly in favour of attributing it to the Syrian Gnostic Bardaisan (Bardaiṣān, also Latinized as Bardesanes, 154-222 A.D.), or, less precisely, to some Bardesanist poet. (For Bardesanes, see F. pp. 392-414).
This is borne out by the text of the Poem itself, in which the mention of the Parthians (38a) as the ruling race is decidedly in favour of its having been written prior to the overthrow of the Parthian dynasty in 224 A.D.
There are also other indications pointing to Bardaisan as the poet; not only are some of the leading doctrines peculiarly those of this distinguished teacher, as has been pointed out by Bevan and Preuschen, but also, as I have ventured to suggest, there is a certain personal note in the Poem.
Interestingly, the authors missed out on perhaps the best theological argument for universal pre-existence, the Christological necessity thereof. I discussed such in an article:
Chapter 2: God
Commenting on the theology of the Shepherd of Hermas, the authors writes that it:
[P]lainly described God and Christ as separate and distinct Deities. (p. 18)
The problem is that it is generally agreed that the theology of this document is one of Modalism, wherein the Father, Son, and Spirit are three distinct modes/manifestations of the same person. For instance, in Parable 9:1, we read:
After I had written down the commandments and parables of the shepherd, the angel of repentance, he came to me and saith to me; "I wish to show thee all things that the Holy Spirit, which spake with thee in the form of the Church, showed unto thee. For that Spirit is the Son of God.
With respect to the Didache, the authors, in an attempt to support the LDS view that we are all spirit sons and daughters of God, writes:
The earliest Christian “General Handbook” of instructions,” the first century Didache, encouraged Christians to employ the Lord’s Prayer several times daily. One historian notes a beautiful insight that such love for that prayer invites Christians, following the example of the Savior, are the first to address God as Father. “To do so is a distinctive mark of the disciples of Jesus, who through him, are sons and daughters of God.” (pp. 18-19)
The problem is that they missed the qualification: Christians are sons/daughters through Jesus. Nothing here is said in favour of being “natural” (spiritual) sons/daughters of God. The former is accepted as theologically sound by all Christians, including LDS; the latter, unique to LDS theology, is not in view. Such is an example of eisegesis of the patristic literature, sadly very common in LDS apologetic works. Indeed, on p. 2, we see that this is a driving force behind the hermeneutic employed by the authors (emphasis added):
Mormonism has immense theological profundity. It repudiates notions of inherited guilty and depravity, restores vulnerable compassion and empathy to a Heavenly Father, recaptures the sage of human preexistence and our literal co-heirship with Christ . . .
While I agree that LDS teachings on this issue are, exegetically, sound (see this article exegeting Acts 17:28-29), one will have to do more than the Didache and the Lord's Prayer's reference to God as "Father" to prove the LDS understanding of that term.
Commenting on Tertullian, they write:
The North African Tertullian agreed that God was invisible, incomprehensible, and inconceivable. (p. 19)
All of this is true, but it should be noted that, in case a reader came out with a false impression that he was, Tertullian was not a “proto-Trinitarian” as some make him out to be.
One can access Tertullian’s writings here, and I would always urge any reader to rely on the primary source materials than anyone’s commentary, no matter how informed (my own included). However, when one reads his writings, we find a number of things that are inconsistent with Trinitarianism; for instance:
That the person of the Father is the only true God (Answer to the Jews ch. 1)
That the true God was the “common Father” (the person of the Father [Apology ch. 39])
That Jesus did not exist eternally (Against Hermogenes ch 3)
That the Son’s relationship to the Father can be understood as that of a beam to the sun, a rather “Arian” understanding of the relationship between Jesus and the Father (Against Praxeas 8)
The Father is older than the Son (Against Praxeas 9)
One could go on, but you get the idea. Tertullian also believed that, while God is “spirit,” he did not believe “spirit” was immaterial but material; this belief is inconsistent with the doctrine of “divine simplicity,” which is necessary for any (creedal) Trinitarian theology (see Against Praxeas 7), something that Trinitarian defenders will readily admit.
In an attempted to support the LDS belief that God is embodied, they appeal to John 14:9:
Jesus told his apostles that “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” but theologians insisted on moving them poles apart, dismissing Christ’s own words in the process. (p. 22)
The problem is that the authors are engaging in eisegesis of John 14:9. Firstly, absolutizing this verse results in Modalism, wherein the Father and the Son are numerically identical to one another.
Furthermore, the context shows that Jesus is not addressing the ontological nature of deity.
In vv. 6-7, we read:
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
In vv. 10-11, we read:
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.
The context clearly shows that Jesus means, in v. 9, that the Father is working through Him in the salvation of mankind. It is similar to the “oneness” of the Father and the Son in John 10:30 (cf. 6:45). On this, see LDS Christology and John 10:30 and 14:10-11
Chapter 3: The Fall
In another attempt to find support for the LDS view of universal personal pre-existence, the authors write:
Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish contemporary of Jesus, taught that “after having for habitat and country the most pure substance of heaven,” we transition into mortality. Reading the account in Genesis, he finds in the coats of skin with which God clothed Adam and Eve clear reference to the incarnation of their preexistent souls. (p. 26)
True, but as with Origen and Menasseh ben Israel, as discussed above, the reader may come away with the impression that Philo’s views were the same as a modern Latter-day Saints. As Kevin L. Barney noted:
Philo (first century A.D.), who interpreted the Bible allegorically, saw in the three Hebrew terms ruach, nephesh and neshamah a confirmation of Plato’s tripartite view of the soul (the rational, the spiritual and the seat of desire). The rational part is preexistent and immortal. (De Opificiis Mundi 1:648) As a divine being, the soul aspires to be freed from its bodily fetters and to return to the heavenly spheres whence it came. Presumably Philo believed that the spirit is condemned to be imprisoned for a certain time in the body in expiation of some sin committed in its former state. (Kevin L. Barney, On Preexistence in the Bible, p. 5)
As with Origen, but totally opposed to LDS theology, mortality is a punishment for a pre-existing spirit.
It is rather common, and understandable, for faiths to stress their unique teachings (e.g., the LDS stress on Jesus’ sufferings in Gethsemane), but often, a balance is lost (in the case of the stress on Gethsemane, a de-emphasis on the crucifixion’s role in the atonement). With respect to the Fall, I do believe that LDS authors need to strike a better balance between the negative aspects of the Fall explicated in Scripture as well as the positive elements thereof.
The rest of the chapter reads thusly:
The New Testament itself does not speak of Adam’s fall as a sinful tragedy, but as the introduction of death into the world. (“In Adam all die,” and “by one man . . . death passed upon all men.”) (p. 26)
This should be compared with the following comment (though there are many that are representative of such in this short volume):
With no premortal context to give Eve’s choice its due honor, Christians could only read that choice as fatally wrong. (p. 16)
Such comments are true up to a point. Scripture, both biblical and uniquely Latter-day Saint, have some rather negative things to say about the Fall and the actions of Adam and Eve, including how, as a result, we have become morally and epistemologically fallen:
O Lord, thou hast said that we must be encompassed about by the floods. Now behold, O Lord, and do not be angry with thy servant because of his weakness before thee; for we know that thou art holy and dwellest in the heavens, and that we are unworthy before thee; because of the fall our natures have become evil continually; nevertheless, O Lord, thou hast given us a commandment that we must call upon thee, that from thee we may receive according to our desires. (Ether 3:2)
As King Benjamin said in his famous farewell address:
For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3:9)
Speaking of the Fall, the Lord, through the Prophet Joseph Smith, said:
And that he created man, male and female, after his own image and in his own likeness, created he them; And gave unto them commandments that they should love and serve him, the only living and true God, and that he should be the only being whom they should worship. But by the transgression of these holy laws man became sensual and devilish, and became fallen man. (D&C 20:18-20)
Capturing the Greek, especially the meaning of γεγονεν (from γιωομαι "to be/become"), the NRSV renders 1 Tim 2:14 accurately:
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
In this chapter, Irenaeus of Lyon, among a few other early Christian authors, is quoted to support the LDS view of the Fall. It is true that their view of the Fall is more positive when compared with the later theological formulations of the Fall as seen in the writings of Augustine and the Second Council of Orange in AD 529. However, when one examines the full quotations of these writers and not the snippets provided, we see that they held to a more negative view of the Fall than Latter-day Saint theology, and the reader without access to the patristic texts will walk away from reading this book with a false understanding of this area of patristic theology.
On p. 27, the authors, after stating that Irenaeus interpreted “the transgression itself as necessary rather than catastrophic,” quoted, in part, Against Heresies IV.xxxix.1-2:
Man has received the knowledge of good and evil. It is good to obey God, and to believe on him, and to keep His commandment . . . as not to obey God is evil . . . Wherefore he has also had a two-fold experience, possessing knowledge of both kinds, that which discipline he may make choice of the better things. But how, if he had had no knowledge of the contrary, could have had instruction in that which is good? . . . How, then, shall he be a God, who has not yet been made a man?
Here are the full quotations of these two sections (emphasis added):
1. Man has received the knowledge of good and evil. It is good to obey God, and to believe in Him, and to keep His commandment, and this is the life of man; as not to obey God is evil, and this is his death. Since God, therefore, gave [to man] such mental power (magnanimitatem) man knew both the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience, that the eye of the mind, receiving experience of both, may with judgment make choice of the better things; and that he may never become indolent or neglectful of God's command; and learning by experience that it is an evil thing which deprives him of life, that is, disobedience to God, may never attempt it at all, but that, knowing that what preserves his life, namely, obedience to God, is good, he may diligently keep it with all earnestness. Wherefore he has also had a twofold experience, possessing knowledge of both kinds, that with discipline he may make choice of the better things. But how, if he had no knowledge of the contrary, could he have had instruction in that which is good? For there is thus a surer and an undoubted comprehension of matters submitted to us than the mere surmise arising from an opinion regarding them. For just as the tongue receives experience of sweet and bitter by means of tasting, and the eye discriminates between black and white by means of vision, and the ear recognises the distinctions of sounds by hearing; so also does the mind, receiving through the experience of both the knowledge of what is good, become more tenacious of its preservation, by acting in obedience to God: in the first place, casting away, by means of repentance, disobedience, as being something disagreeable and nauseous; and afterwards coming to understand what it really is, that it is contrary to goodness and sweetness, so that the mind may never even attempt to taste disobedience to God. But if any one do shun the knowledge of both these kinds of things, and the twofold perception of knowledge, he unawares divests himself of the character of a human being.
2. How, then, shall he be a God, who has not as yet been made a man? Or how can he be perfect who was but lately created? How, again, can he be immortal, who in his mortal nature did not obey his Maker? For it must be that thou, at the outset, shouldest hold the rank of a man, and then afterwards partake of the glory of God. For thou dost not make God, but God thee. If, then, thou art God's workmanship, await the hand of thy Maker which creates everything in due time; in due time as far as thou art concerned, whose creation is being carried out.Offer to Him thy heart in a soft and tractable state, and preserve the form in which the Creator has fashioned thee, having moisture in thyself, lest, by becoming hardened, thou lose the impressions of His fingers. But by preserving the framework thou shalt ascend to that which is perfect, for the moist clay which is in thee is hidden [there] by the workmanship of God. His hand fashioned thy substance; He will cover thee over [too] within and without with pure gold and silver, and He will adorn thee to such a degree, that even "the King Himself shall have pleasure in thy beauty." But if thou, being obstinately hardened, dost reject the operation of His skill, and show thyself ungrateful towards Him, because thou wert created a [mere] man, by becoming thus ungrateful to God, thou hast at once lost both His workmanship and life. For creation is an attribute of the goodness of God but to be created is that of human nature. If then, thou shalt deliver up to Him what is thine, that is, faith towards Him and subjection, thou shalt receive His handiwork, and shall be a perfect work of God.
The rest of the chapter reads thusly:
3. If, however, thou wilt not believe in Him, and wilt flee from His hands, the cause of imperfection shall be in thee who didst not obey, but not in Him who called [thee]. For He commissioned [messengers] to call people to the marriage, but they who did not obey Him deprived themselves of the royal supper. The skill of God, therefore, is not defective, for He has power of the stones to raise up children to Abraham; but the man who does not obtain it is the cause to himself of his own imperfection. Nor, [in like manner], does the light fail because of those who have blinded themselves; but while it remains the same as ever, those who are [thus] blinded are involved in darkness through their own fault. The light does never enslave any one by necessity; nor, again, does God exercise compulsion upon any one unwilling to accept the exercise of His skill. Those persons, therefore, who have apostatized from the light given by the Father, and transgressed the law of liberty, have done so through their own fault, since they have been created free agents, and possessed of power over themselves.
4. But God, foreknowing all things, prepared fit habitations for both, kindly conferring that light which they desire on those who seek after the light of incorruption, and resort to it; but for the despisers and mockers who avoid and turn themselves away from this light, and who do, as it were, blind themselves, He has prepared darkness suitable to persons who oppose the light, and He has inflicted an appropriate punishment upon those who try to avoid being subject to Him. Submission to God is eternal rest, so that they who shun the light have a place worthy of their flight; and those who fly from eternal rest, have a habitation in accordance with their fleeing. Now, since all good things are with God, they who by their own determination fly from God, do defraud themselves of all good things; and having been [thus] defrauded of all good things with respect to God, they shall consequently fall under the just judgment of God. For those persons who shun rest shall justly incur punishment, and those who avoid the light shall justly dwell in darkness. For as in the case of this temporal light, those who shun it do deliver themselves over to darkness, so that they do themselves become the cause to themselves that they are destitute of light, and do inhabit darkness; and, as I have already observed, the light is not the cause of such an [unhappy] condition of existence to them; so those who fly from the eternal light of God, which contains in itself all good things, are themselves the cause to themselves of their inhabiting eternal darkness, destitute of all good things, having become to themselves the cause of [their consignment to] an abode of that nature.
Chapter 4: Agency
The only main issue I have with this chapter (pp. 33-36, 138-39) is the poor biblical exegesis displayed when the authors reference John 8:32 as support for (1) free-will and (2) the LDS understanding thereof (p. 33). The problem is that Jesus is speaking of people being freed salvifically, He is not discussing the nature of the human will and the abilities thereof. Furthermore, in Reformed theology, the will of man is changed and it is no longer depraved due to regeneration and sanctification, so such a concept (the believer being set “free” in the sense of their wills being changed) is not problematic to Reformed and other theologies.
For those who wish to delve more into this issue, one should check out my article:
Blake Ostler’s book, The Problems of Theism and the Love of God (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Book, 2006) is a must-read on this and many of the other issues discussed in The Christ Who Heals.
That God is not only loving but wrathful against our sins, was put rather well and very succinctly by the Book of Mormon prophet Alma:
The model of atonement in The Christ Who Heals makes nonsense of this verse and other passages in the Latter-day Saint canon.
Christ's on-going work before the Father as High Priest and Heavenly Intercessor also shows us that it is for the appeasing of God's (righteous) anger:
Other texts in uniquely Latter-day Saint Scripture also explicates the theme one divine wrath, propitiation, and divine retribution, such as:
Christ's sacrifice is not simply for the "aftershocks" of sin (p. 55) merely. Christ is constantly referred to being a "sin sacrifice" and other like-terms. For instance, Isa 53:10 (quoted by Abinadi in Mosiah 14:10 and interpreted to be a prophecy of Christ), reads:
The term "offering for sin" in Hebrew is אָשָׁם and in the LXX is περι αμαρτιας, a technical term for a "sin offering" or "sin sacrifice" (cf. its usages in Num 29:11, 16, 19, 22, 25, 38, 31, 34, 38 for example).
As one final example (as this section is getting very lengthy, but it is a central theological issue, thus its importance):
While (correctly) rejecting one error, the more forensic models of atonement (especially Penal Substitution), the authors empty the atonement of its other purposes than they discuss in their book (some of which they reject).
For more, see An Examination and Critique of the Theological Presuppositions Underlying Reformed Theology wherein the anger of God and other issues, such as appeasement in the Old Testament and New Testament, are discussed and many of the relevant texts are exegeted.
Chapter 8: The Atoning Christ
The authors attempt to empty the atonement of Christ from having any propitiatory element. At best, their theory of atonement is a half-truth (restorative justice and other themes) while, not just ignoring, but denying, other key elements of the atonement. Here are some relevant quotes from this chapter:
One epithet attached to Christ that can mislead in unfortunate ways is that of “mediator.” Warring nations may employ mediators. Contending spouses may make use of mediators. And antagonistic strikers and management are often assigned them . . . In the Christian West, with its emphasis on sin as rebellion against God’s “rigid interdiction,” Christ’s role as mediator became that of our shield and defender against the wrath and vengeance of a sovereign God . . . Appeasing some abstract justice, or propitiating a sovereign God, is not the point. (p. 53, 55, emphasis in original)
It was in precise anticipation of such weakness that our Savior was appointed, before earth’s creation, to bear the burden of pain that follows in sin and error’s wake. Christ assumes the full weight of the aftershocks of our actions in our place (he “suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer”). (p. 55, emphasis added)
Mediation . . . refers to Christ’s serving as an instrument by which a desired purpose or harmony is achieved. And that is precisely what Christ does. He brings out our soul’s healing, mending fractured relationships, resolving our temporary alienation from our Heavenly Parents, and effecting a more whole and holy self-hood. In this role, Christ is not protecting us from divine anger or judgment. On the contrary, Christ is collaborating with our Heavenly Parents for our homecoming. (p. 58)
Comfort, not judicial defense, is the purpose of a paraclete. Jesus promised a comforter, not a legal counsel, to those apostles who would soon bear the gospel to a hostile world, suffering trials, persecutions, and execution. Rather than a judicial advocate, they would need a helper, a sustainer, a teacher—someone to comfort them in times of distress and danger. And that is what the Lord promises them—the Holy Spirit as Comforter. (p. 59)
While rejecting the Reformed doctrine of Penal Substitution (which I, too, reject), the authors empty the propitiatory nature of Christ’s redemptive sacrifice and intercession. Note the following:
(1) The Propitiatory Nature of Christ's Sacrifice
In some Protestant circles, there is a debate as to the meaning of the terms ιλασμος and ιλαστηριον in the New Testament as well as the Hebrew כפר. For some commentators, most notably C.H. Dodd in his book, The Bible and the Greeks, such terms mean only expiation. Such would fit with the forensic nature of atonement and justification held by Protestantism, wherein an offender/sinner has their trespasses covered over, but there is no intrinsic change within the person at justification (such belonging only to sanctification). Dodd’s thesis was critiqued from various angles from Leon Morris in his The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, and the debate still continues in some circles to this day.
From my study of the issue, I think it would be unwise to claim that such terms, as well as related terms, only mean one or the other; there are some instances where these can mean expiation, but there are clearly instances where it can mean propitiation and others where both could be in view. One classical example would be Rom 3:25:
Whom [Jesus] God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement (ἱλαστήριον) by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed. (NRSV)
In this verse, the apostle Paul teaches us that God the Father provided Jesus as a ἱλαστήριον. As it is the Father who proposed/planned (the meaning of the Greek προτιθημι) his Son to be a place of ιλασμος/propitiation, translating it as propitiation would be unusual—God planning Christ to be a sacrifice that appeases His own wrath—contextually, it suits the meaning of “expiation,” that is, Christ as the means of our sins being covered/remitted.
Notwithstanding, Num 16:46 explicitly states that the propitiation is for the purpose of averting God’s anger against sin:
And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement (LXX: εξιλασκομαι; Heb: כפר) for them: for there is wrath gone out from the Lord; and the plague is begun.
Furthermore, in John 2:1-2, Christ is said to be our advocate (παρακλητος, the very same term used of the Holy Spirit [KJV: Comforter] that the authors discussed [quoted above!]), that is, the person who pleads our cause before the Father (cf. Heb 7:25; Rom 8:33-34), and tied into this, is John's statement that he is the propitiation (ιλασμος) for our sins. An advocate seeks reconciliation between an offended party (the Father) and those who offended the party (us as sinners). Obviously, the concept of appeasement is in view here.
As has been noted by commentators, the Maccabean literature is important for understanding the term ιλαστηριον ("place of atonement/propitiation" sometimes rendered "mercy-seat" or "propitiatory"), such as 4 Macc 17:22, where propitiation, not only expiation, is in view:
And through the blood of those devout ones [i.e., the Maccabean martyrs] and their death as an atoning sacrifice [ιλαστηριον], divine Providence preserved Israel that previously had been mistreated. (NRSV)
In other words, one must not engage, as some have done regardless of their translation preference, make this into an either-or issue; it can be at times “both-and.”
One of the main arguments against the propitiation motif is that God’s wrath is often relegated as a mere anthropomorphism. However, this results in a lot of fanciful eisegesis of the biblical texts. Furthermore, as Latter-day Saints, this is one approach we cannot take, as the reality of that wrath is emphasized time and time again in our canon, and furthermore, God is often only appeased by personally appeasing Him, whether through intercession (as in the case of Moses in Exo 32-33) or sacrifices.
One of the best examples of this is the case of Phinehas who averted the wrath of God from the Israelite camp. In Num 25 we read of some of the men of the Israelite camp were engaging in cultic sexual intercourse with Moabite and Midianite women (e.g., Num 25:2-3, 6), resulting in God commanding Moses to kill them (Num 25:4), resulting in 24,000 who died in the plague (Num 25:9). In defiance of this divine command, and Israelite man brought a Midianite woman to his tent, more than likely to engage in such cultic sexual intercourse. Phinehas, a priest, saw this happen and took the following action:
And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand; and he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel. (Num 25:7-8)
As a direct result of the actions of Phinehas, God’s wrath was appeased (propitiated) against the Israelite camp.
One text from modern revelation that further supports our thesis is that of D&C 63:2-4:
Yea, verily, I say, hear the word of him whose anger is kindled against the wicked and rebellious; Who willeth to take even them whom he will take, and preserveth in life them whom he will preserve; Who buildeth up at his own will and pleasure; and destroyeth when he pleases, and is able to cast the soul down to hell.
Commenting on this passage, Heber C. Kimball wrote:
The potter tried to bring a lump of clay into subjection, and he worked and tugged at it, but the clay was rebellious and would not submit to the will of the potter and marred in his hands. Then of course he had to cut it from the wheel and throw it into the mill to be ground over, in order that it might become passive; after which he takes it again and makes of it a vessel unto honor, out of the same lump that was dishonored. . . . There may be ten thousand millions of men sent to hell, because they dishonor themselves and will not be subject, and after that they will be taken and made vessels unto honor, if they will become obedient. . . . Can you find fault with that? (Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball. An Apostle; The Father and Founder of the British Mission [Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1888], 475-76)
That God is not only loving but wrathful against our sins, was put rather well and very succinctly by the Book of Mormon prophet Alma:
And now, my brethren, seeing we know these things, and they are true, let us repent, and harden not our hearts, that we provoke not the Lord our God to pull down his wrath upon us in these his second commandments which he has given unto us; but let us enter into the rest of God, which is prepared according to his word. (Alma 12:37, emphasis added)
The model of atonement in The Christ Who Heals makes nonsense of this verse and other passages in the Latter-day Saint canon.
That Christ Himself continues to appease God’s wrath against sin is found in D&C 45:3-5:
Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him—Saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom though gavest that thyself might be glorified. Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.
As we are told in D&C 38:4, the efficacy of Christ's intercession for us is grounded on "the virtue of the blood which I have spilt."
Of course, there is an important caution when it comes to adopting the concept of propitiation, and one that Leon Morris and others have correctly pointed out—that is, we must not think of God being able to be simply “paid off” and have his wrath averted against our sins like some pagan conceptions of propitiation that Dodd critiqued in his work. This was discussed by Elder Joseph E. Robinson, Conference Report, April 1918, p. 47:
Of course, there is an important caution when it comes to adopting the concept of propitiation, and one that Leon Morris and others have correctly pointed out—that is, we must not think of God being able to be simply “paid off” and have his wrath averted against our sins like some pagan conceptions of propitiation that Dodd critiqued in his work. This was discussed by Elder Joseph E. Robinson, Conference Report, April 1918, p. 47:
I know that it is written by John and Paul that Christ was offered as a propitiation for our sins. I take it, if we had the original text we would learn that it was not in the sense of appeasing the anger of God that he became a propitiatory gift. That the Lord may have been, and has been, grieved and sometimes angry with his stubborn people, I grant you, but I have never felt that God had to be "bought off," if you will allow the expression, through the death of his Son, from visiting upon us condition punishment. No. As I understand it, he gave us his best loved gift, the First Born among many brethren in the spirit world, the only begotten of God in the flesh, that we might know him and thus in knowing him that we might be made free, "for this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." He gave its the gift of his Son that we should be won to him, that we should love him, for we give gifts to those whom we would win, whom we would have love us, whom we would draw to us, whom we would bring close in our affections, that they might be with us and associate with us, and share with us our joys and good fortune. He gave the Christ unto men that they might live again, that they might be made free, for the truth should make them free in their worship, in their power of mind and in their bodies, too, for that matter, and the redemption wrought out by the Christ makes us all alive again in eternity, clothed upon with immortality and eternal youth.
The reason why God is appeased with the sacrifice of Christ and forgives (expiates) our sins is due to the strong covenantal/personal relationship Christ has with the Father, and, by being united to Christ through the salvific covenant of baptism and other covenants that engraft us to Christ (e.g., John 6:3-4; Gal 3:27), and as a result, we can appropriate the salvific benefits of Christ’s atonement (remission of our sins; new spiritual life; an advocate whose intercession will allow for the remission of our future sins, etc), and not the “whimsical” concepts within pagan conceptions of atonement.
While it is true that many ancients held to a view of God’s anger that was capricious and whimsical, it would be wrong to jettison the theme of propitiation because of such errors, as the authors do in the above quotes, as well as the following quote from chapter 10, “The Collaborative Christ”:
We have tried to show that our Savior’s Atonement is more fully understood within the context of a collaborative Godhead rather than as a defense against a sovereign God’s wrath. (p. 74)
Apart from being a false dilemma, such an attitude towards the placating of God’s (righteous, not whimsical) wrath against sin should not be compared to perversions of such a model. As theologian John Stott correctly noted in his The Cross of Christ pp. 173-75:
Secondly, who makes the propitiation? In a pagan context it is always human beings who seek to avert the divine anger either by the meticulous performance of rituals, or by the recitation of magic formulae, or by the offering of sacrifices (vegetable, animal or even human). Such practices are thought to placate the offended deity. But the gospel begins with the outspoken assertion that nothing we can do, say, offer or even contribute can compensate for our sins or turn away God’s anger. There is no possibility of persuading, cajoling or bribing God to forgive us, for we deserve nothing at his hands but judgment . . . No, the initiative has been taken by God himself in his sheer mercy and grace.
This was already clear in the Old Testament, in which the sacrifices were recognized not as human works but as divine gifts. They did not make God gracious; they were provided by a gracious God in order that he might act graciously towards his sinful people...It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a propitiation for our sins...God does not love us because Christ died for us; Christ died for us because God loved us...What the propitiation changed was his dealing with us . . . It is God himself who in holy wrath needs to be propitiated, God himself who in holy love undertook to do the propitiating, and God himself who in the person of his Son died for the propitiation for our sins.
As S.R. Driver notes on the meaning of כפר in the Hebrew Bible, in this instance Deut 21:8 (“Be merciful, O Lord, unto thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israel's charge. And the blood shall be forgiven them”) wherein the LXX uses ἵλεως (BDAG: "pert. to being favorably disposed, with implication of overcoming obstacles that are unfavorable to a relationship, gracious, merciful")
The note on 21:8 was so worded as to give the general sense of this term, whether its primary meaning were assumed to be (from the Syriac) to wipe, wipe off, or (from the Arabic) to cover. Although, however, there are many passages in which the use of the word could be naturally explained upon the former supposition, there are others (esp. Gn. 32:21) in which this is hardly the case: the latter (which is also the usual explanation) must accordingly be deemed the more probable one. The various applications of the word are best explained in the note in Wellh. Comp. p. 335 f. Kipper is to cover—never, however, in a purely literal sense (like בסה), but always morally, viz. with the collateral idea of either conciliating an offended person, or screening an offence or an offender. It is used in three applications. (1) Its most primary application appears in Gn. 32:21, where Jacob, in dread of Esau’s anger, says אֲכַפְּרֶה פניו במנחה I will cover his face with the present—i.e. conciliate him, the fig. being that of a person blinded by a gift (Ex. 23:8, 1 S. 12:3) so as not to notice something (cf. Gn. 20:16). Hence (face being omitted) kipper acquires the gen. sense of to conciliate, propitiate, appease, the means employed (the כֹּפֶר) being, according to circumstances, a gift, an entreaty, conciliatory behaviour, and esp. (see 2) a sacrifice: so Ex. 32:30 אולי אֲכַפְּרֶה בעד חטאתכם (by intercession: v. 31f.), fig. Pr. 16:14 (of a king’s wrath) ואיש חכם יכפרנה, Is. 47:11 (of calamity) לא תוכלי כפרהּ (|| שחרהּ to charm it away). The subst. kopher, lit. a covering, i.e. a propitiatory gift, is, however, restricted by usage to a gift offered as an equivalent for a life that is claimed,—the wergild so rigorously prohibited by Hebrew law (above, p. 234) in the case of murder, but permitted in certain other cases, and evidently a familiar popular institution. This sense of kopher illustrates 2 S. 21:3, where David says to the representatives of the murdered Gibe˓onites וּבַמָּה אֲכַפֵּר wherewith shall I make propitiation? the satisfaction demanded being the lives of Saul’s sons who are thereupon sacrificed to appease Jehovah’s anger (v. 6; cf. v. 1, 24:1) See also Nu. 35:33, comp, with v. 31, 32. (2) In the distinctively priestly phraseology (Ez. and P), the subject of kipper is the priest, the means a sacrifice—usually the blood of the sin-offering, or the guilt-offering (אשם), occasionally the burnt-offering (Lev. 1:4, 16:24), now and then something else: the object was perhaps orig. פני יהוה (cf. Gn. 32:11, and חלּה פני יהוה), the verb being construed absolutely, to perform a propitiatory rite, with על (on behalf of) the person, less freq. with בעד (Lev. 9:7, 16:6, 11, 17, 24, Ez. 45:17); but the use of the accus. of a material object (Lev. 16:20, 33, Ez. 43:20, 26, 45:20†) supports the view that the idea involved is to cover up (cf. כסה על, חתם בעד), screen, viz. by a propitiatory rite: there follows (if required) טן of the guilt from which one is freed (Lev. 4:26, 5:6, 10, 16:16 al.), or על (on account of), Lev. 4:35, 5:13, 18, G usually ἐξιλάσχομαι. See more fully on Lev. 4:20. (3) Sometimes God is the subject, who “covers”—i.e. treats as covered, overlooks, pardons, condones—either (a) the offender, or (b) the offence: so (a) Dt. 21:8a, 32:43, Ez. 16:63, 2 Ch. 30:18; (b) Jer. 18:23, Ps. 65:4, 78:38, 79:9, Dan. 9:24 (obj. in all עון or פשעים)†. God is also, no doubt, conceived as the implicit agent where the verb is passive: viz. Dt. 21:8b, 1 S. 3:14 (אם יתבפר עון בית עלי בזבח ובמנחה עד עולם), Is. 6:7 וסר עונך וחטאתך תְּכֻפֶּר (the means a purging or atoning rite); Is. 22:14 (means not specified); Is. 27:9, Pr. 16:6 בחסד ובאמת יְכֻפַר עון (the means meritorious conduct): in all these cases, the subj. is the iniquity, which, when the verb is in the active voice, is the obj. in (3b), but never in (2). On Nu. 35:33, see above, No. 1, at the end. In actual usage, the primary sense of covering was probably altogether forgotten. The connexion between the three applications may, perhaps, be best preserved by rendering in (1) and (2) propitiate, or make propitiation, and in (3) deal propitiously with. (S.R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy [3d ed.; Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1902], 425-26, emphasis added)
Other instances where כפר is used in the sense of propitiate/appease, further refuting the thesis of C.H. Dodd et al., include the following:
And you shall say, "Moreover your servant Jacob is behind us." For he thought, "I may appease him (Heb: כפר ; LXX: ἐξιλάσκομαι) with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterwards I shall see his face; perhaps he will accept me" (Gen 32:20 [v. 21 in Hebrew] NRSV)
A king's wrath is a messenger of death, but a wise man will appease it (Heb: כפר ; LXX: ἐξιλάσκομαι) (Prov 16:14 NRSV)
In LDS literature, one will find that many commentators have referred to Christ’s sacrifice as a propitiation; others, expiation, and some have used both terms in the same breath, showing that one cannot divorce one from the other. Consider the following examples:
Use of “propitiation”
Doctrine and Covenants (1835), p.57 (Lecture Fifth of Faith)
Q. Was he ordained of the Father, from before the foundation of the world, to be a propitiation for the sins of all those who should believe on his name?
A. He was. I Peter, 1:18, 19, 20. For as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifested in these last times for you. Rev. 13:8. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, [the beast] whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. l Corin. 2:7. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden mystery, which God ordained before the world unto our glory.
Elder Joseph D. Robinson, Conference Report, April 1918, p.47
I know that it is written by John and Paul that Christ was offered as a propitiation for our sins. I take it, if we had the original text we would learn that it was not in the sense of appeasing the anger of God that he became a propitiatory gift. That the Lord may have been, and has been, grieved and sometimes angry with his stubborn people, I grant you, but I have never felt that God had to be "bought off," if you will allow the expression, through the death of his Son, from visiting upon us condign punishment. (N.B. note that Robinson agrees that God's anger is in some sense placated [propitiated] by the atonement of Christ, he rejects that such is a legal or monetary-like exchange, á la Penal Substitution; this shows how one must be careful to balance appeasement and the personal nature of God, something missing in many atonement theologies as they view God as an angry, stern judge and can only be placated via a legal payment)
Marion D Hanks, Conference Report, April 1969, p.25
He died willingly, alone, for this was how it must be. There had to be a propitiation, by one of his unique qualifications, for the sins of men -- our sins -- payment for which, through the love of God and the love of his Son, was made on Calvary's hill. (Note: Hanks, while using the language of "payment," clearly uses it as a metaphor, as it is tied into love which is not a legal virtue, but a free-will volition)
James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, pp.77-78
4. Nature of the Atonement:—The atonement wrought by Jesus Christ is a necessary sequence of the transgression of Adam; and, as the infinite foreknowledge of God made clear to Him the one even before Adam was placed on earth, so the Father's boundless mercy prepared a Savior for mankind before the world was framed. Through the Fall, Adam and Eve have entailed the conditions of mortality upon their descendants; therefore all beings born of earthly parents are subject to bodily death. The sentence of banishment from the presence of God was in the nature of a spiritual death; and that penalty, which was visited upon our first parents in the day of their transgression, has likewise followed as the common heritage of humanity. As this penalty came into the world through an individual act, it would be manifestly unjust to cause all to eternally suffer therefrom, without a chance of deliverance. Therefore was the promised sacrifice of Jesus Christ ordained as a propitiation for broken law, whereby Justice could be fully satisfied, and Mercy be left free to exercise her beneficent influence over the souls of mankind.d All the details of the glorious plan, by which the salvation of the human family is assured, may not lie within the understanding of man; but surely, man has learned from his futile attempts to fathom the primary cause of the phenomena of nature, that his powers of comprehension are limited; and he will admit, that to deny the effect because of his inability to elucidate the cause, would be to forfeit his claims as an observing and reasoning being.
James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, p.80
8. The many kinds of sacrifice prescribed by the Mosaic law are clearly classified under the headings, bloody, and bloodless. Offerings of the first order only, involving the infliction of death, were acceptable in propitiation or atonement for sin
James P. Harris, The Essential James E. Talmage, p.149
The Atonement accomplished by the Savior was a vicarious service for mankind, all of whom had become estranged from God through sin; and by that sacrifice of propitiation, a way had been opened for reconciliation whereby man may be brought again into communion with God, and be made able to live and advance as a resurrected being in the eternal worlds. This fundamental conception is strikingly expressed in our English word "atonement," which, as its syllables attest is "at-one-ment," "denoting reconciliation, or the bringing into agreement of those who had been estranged."
B. H. Roberts, The Truth, The Way, The Life, p.467
The Christ suffered for Adam's transgression, not for his own; and for the transgression of all men; for the sins of the world. He suffered for all men, that they might not suffer on certain conditions—the condition of repentance and acceptance of the Christ (D&C 19:16-17). And that by reason of his stripes men might be healed (Isa. 53:5, and Isa. 53:1-4). He made "propitiation" for men's sins (1 Jn. 2:2), and thus satisfied the claims of the law to the uttermost—even unto death—the death of the cross. But it was not "possible that he should be holden of it" (Acts 2:24)—i.e, of death; for he was Lord of life and of death. He had power to lay down his life, and to take it up again.
James E. Talmage, The Vitality of Mormonism, Ch.88, p.308-10
Israelitish sacrifices may be conveniently classified as bloody and bloodless, the former comprising all offerings involving the ceremonial slaughter of animals, and the latter consisting in the offering of vegetables or their manufactured products. The bloody sacrifices were early associated with the idea of expiation, or propitiation for sin, the offerer, whether an individual or the community as a whole, acknowledging guilt and craving propitiation through the death of the animal made to serve as proxy for the human offender.
The animal victim intended for sacrificial death had to be chosen in accordance with specific requirements. Thus, it was to he of the class designated as clean, and within this class only domestic cattle and sheep and certain birds--pigeons and turtle-doves--were acceptable. Furthermore, it was essential that the selected animal be without physical defect or blemish; and thus all that were deformed, maimed or diseased were absolutely excluded. Physical defects were held as typical of spiritual blemish, or sin; and "God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance."
These requirements of relative perfection on the part of the victim were in accord with the fact that the slaughter of animals as a priestly rite by Divine direction was in prefigurement of the then future sacrifice of the Christ Himself, whose atoning death would mark the consummation of His ministry in mortality, while the animal victims slain on Israel's altars figuratively bore the sins of the people, who in their observance of the sacrificial rite sought propitiation for their offenses, or reconciliation with God, from whom they hail become estranged through transgression, Jesus Christ actually bore the burden of sin and provided a way for a literal reconciliation of sinful man to God. The principal sacrifice in the Mosaic dispensation was that of the Passover; and the superseding of the type by the actual is forcefully expressed by Paul: "For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us." (1 Cor. 5:7.)
Theologians, Bible scholars generally, and ethnologists as well, admit the absence of all record both in the Bible and in profane history concerning the origin of sacrifice. The writer of the article "Sacrifice" in one of our Bible Dictionaries (Cassell's), which article is in line with other learned commentaries, says, following an array of facts: "On these and other accounts it has been judiciously inferred that sacrifice formed an element in the primeval worship of man; and that its universality is not merely an indirect argument for the unity of the human race, but an illustration and confirmation of the first inspired pages of the world's history. The notion of sacrifice can hardly be viewed as a product of unassisted human nature, and must therefore be traced to a higher source and viewed as a Divine revelation to primitive man."
Use of Expiation
President David O. McKay, Conference Report, April 1944, p.121
A young student recently expressed the thought that belief in Christ as the Redeemer, as God made manifest, is waning; that professing Christians no longer believe that Jesus is the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh; that in some miraculous manner his death made expiation for sin; or that after His crucifixion Christ rose from the dead.
President Hugh B. Brown, Conference Report, April 1962, p.108
The transgression of Adam, together with all of its consequences, was foreseen and the expiation provided for before the foundations of the world were laid. In that primeval council, of which the scriptures speak
George Q. Cannon, Journal of Discourses Vol. 11, p.68
The Lord has truly provided for us a plan of salvation that is as wide as eternity, that is God-like in its nature and in its origin; it is intended to exalt us, his children, and bring us back into his presence. For this purpose our Lord and Savior came in the meridian of time. His blood was shed that an expiation might be made by which the plan of salvation could be completed, that we, whose bodies would otherwise continue subject to an everlasting sleep in the grave, might have our mortal tabernacles resurrected and brought into the presence of our Father and God, there to dwell eternally.
George Q. Cannon, Journal of Discourses vol. 15, p. 367
those who contend for the same faith to know that slander, persecution, ignominy and shame, and even death itself are not evidences of the falsity of a system, or of the falsity of the doctrines taught by any individual, because we have the history of the Apostles—some of the best men that have ever trod the earth, and of Jesus, the holiest and best man that ever trod the earth, or that ever will, and we find that he and they were persecuted, hated and despised, and their names were east out as evil, and they were slain by a generation who professed to honor God and be very righteous, and who claimed to be the descendants of the Patriarchs of old, who were called the friends of God. If this story were told to us without our knowing anything of the circumstances, we should be reluctant to believe it. It would be a difficult thing to persuade us that human beings could have been so base and degraded, and so lost to every feeling of humanity as to persecute and crucify a pure being like Jesus, who had come from the Father for the express purpose of laying down his life as an expiation for their sins.
The Latter-day Saints' Messenger and Advocate, Vol.1, No.3, p.35
The very idea of atonement or reconciliation, where there is so much guilt as there is attached to the family of man, involves the idea of expiation in propria persona or vicariously: For says the apostle, without shedding of blood is no remission. There is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time. We who were once far off by reason of sin and rebellion, are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
John Taylor, Mediation and Atonement, Ch.16, p.126 - p.127
As from the commencement of the world to the time when the Passover was instituted, sacrifices had been offered as a memorial or type of the sacrifice of the Son of God; so from the time of the Passover until the time when He came to offer up Himself, these sacrifices and types and shadows had been carefully observed by Prophets and Patriarchs; according to the command given to Moses and other followers of the Lord. So also did He Himself fulfil this requirement, and kept the Passover as did others; and now we, after the great sacrifice has been offered, partake of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in remembrance thereof. Thus this act was the great connecting link between the past and the future; thus He fulfilled the law, met the demands of justice, and obeyed the requirements of His Heavenly Father, although laboring under the weight of the sins of the world, and the terrible expiation which He had to make, when, sweating great drops of blood, He cried: "Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not my will be done," and when expiring in agony upon the cross He cried, "It is finished," and gave up the ghost.
John Taylor, Mediation and Atonement, Ch.20, p.144 - p.145
In the economy of God pertaining to the salvation of the human family, we are told in the Scriptures that it was necessary that Christ should descend below all things, that He might be raised above all things; as stated above, He had to "become subject to man in the flesh." It was further necessary that He should descent below all things, in order that He might raise others above all things; for if He could not raise Himself and be exalted through those principles brought about by the atonement, He could not raise others; He could not do for others what He could not do for Himself, and hence it was necessary for Him to descend below all things that He might be raised above all things; and it was necessary that those whom He proposed to save should also descend below all things, that by and through the same power that He obtained His exaltation, they also, through His atonement, expiation and intercession, might be raised to the same power with Him; and, as He was the Son of God, that they might also be the adopted sons of God; hence John says: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."--1 John, iii, 2.
B. H. Roberts, The Truth, The Way, The Life, p.491
It can be readily understood that not even God's omnipotence could make it possible for Him to act contrary to truth and justice. It ought to be no more difficult to understand that God's omnipotence would not permit Him to set aside a satisfaction to justice, any more than to grant an arbitrary concession to mercy. Mere power has not the tight to nullify law, nor even omnipotence the right to abolish justice. Might in Deity is not more fundamental than right. God, we must conclude, will act in harmony with all His attributes, else confusion in the moral government of the world. These reflections lead to the inevitable confusion that there must be a satisfaction made to justice before there can be redemption for man. They also lead to the confusion that the necessity of expiation in order to pardon both Adam's transgression and secure forgiveness of man's individual sins arise from the nature of the case, an existing reign of law, and harmonious reactions to the attributes of God, and not from arbitrary action. Justice is of such an absolute character that it would be as impossible to save the guilty without an antecedent satisfaction to God's attribute of justice as it would be for God to lie; and for God to lie would wreck the moral government of the universe, and result—if such a thing were possible—in His dethronement.
B. H. Roberts, The Truth, The Way, The Life, p.504
We conclude, then, that for man's individual sins, as for Adam's transgression, though differing in some respects already noted, involve the same necessity of atonement. There is the same inexorableness of law; the same helplessness on the part of man to make satisfaction for his sin; hence, man's dependence upon a vicarious atonement, if he is to find redemption at all. There is the same need for ability on the part of the one making the atonement to make full satisfaction to justice by paying the uttermost farthing of man's obligations to the law; the idea of satisfaction necessarily involves that of penal suffering. This couples together the two ideas, satisfaction through expiation; or satisfaction to justice through expiation. Whosoever redeems man from his individual sins must pay the penalty due to sin by suffering in man's stead. No merely human sacrifice will be adequate. As put by Alma, the Nephite prophet: "If a man murder, behold, will our law, which is just, take the life of his brother? I say unto you, Nay. But the law requireth the life of the murderer. Therefore, there can be nothing which is short of an infinite atonement which will suffice for the sins of the world (cf. Alma 34:11-12)."
James E. Talmage, The Vitality of Mormonism, Ch.14, p.60
We have learned but little of the eternal laws operative in the heavens; but that God's purposes are accomplished through and by law is beyond question. There can be no irregularity, inconsistency, arbitrariness or caprice in His doings, for such would mean injustice. Therefore, the Atonement must have been effected in accordance with law. The self-sacrificing life, the indescribable agony, and the voluntary death of One who had life in Himself with power to halt His torturers at any stage, and whom none could slay until He permitted, must have constituted compliance with the eternal law of justice, propitiation and expiation by which victory over sin and death could be and has been achieved. Through the mortal life and sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus Christ the demands of justice have been fully met, and the way is opened for the lawful ministration of mercy so far as the effects of the Fall are concerned.
James E. Talmage, The Vitality of Mormonism, Ch.88, p.308-p.309
Israelitish sacrifices may be conveniently classified as bloody and bloodless, the former comprising all offerings involving the ceremonial slaughter of animals, and the latter consisting in the offering of vegetables or their manufactured products. The bloody sacrifices were early associated with the idea of expiation, or propitiation for sin, the offerer, whether an individual or the community as a whole, acknowledging guilt and craving propitiation through the death of the animal made to serve as proxy for the human offender. [Note how this and the previous quote uses both terms]
The Latter-day Saints' Messenger and Advocate, Vol.1, No.10, p.156
Scarce can the reflecting mind be brought to contemplate these scenes, without asking, for whom are they held in reserve, and by whom are they to be enjoyed? Have we an interest there? Do our fathers, who have waded through affliction and adversity, who have been cast out from the society of this world, whose tears have, times without number, watered their furrowed face, while mourning over the corruption of their fellowmen, an inheritance in those mansions? If so, can they without us be made perfect? Will their joy be full till we rest with them? And is their efficacy and virtue sufficient, in the blood of a Savior, who groaned upon Calvary's summit, to expiate our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness? I trust, that as individuals acquainted with the gospel, through repentance, baptism and keeping the commandments of that same Lord, we shall eventually, be brought to partake in the fulness of that which we now only participate the full enjoyment of the presence of our Lord. Happy indeed, will be that hour to all the saints, and above all to be desired, (for it never ends) when men will again mingle praise with those who do always behold the face of our Father who is in heaven.
(2) The Nature of Christ's Intercessory Work
Christ's on-going work before the Father as High Priest and Heavenly Intercessor also shows us that it is for the appeasing of God's (righteous) anger:
New Testament:
Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. (Rom 8:34)
Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. (Heb 2:17)
But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. (Heb 7:24-25)
Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. For ever high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat to offer. (Heb 8:1-3)
And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of the things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, not to appear in the presence of God for us. (Heb 9:22-24)
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)
And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lam as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. (Rev 5:5-6)
Book of Mormon
Wherefore, he is the first fruits unto God, inasmuch as he shall make intercession for all the children of men; and they that believe in him, shall be saved. And because of the intercession for all, all men come unto God; wherefore, they stand in the presence of him, to be judged of him according to the truth and holiness which is in him. Wherefore, the ends of the law which the Holy One hath given, unto the inflicting of the punishment which is affixed, which punishment that is affixed in opposition to that of the happiness which is affixed, to answer the ends of the atonement. (2 Nephi 2:9-10)
And thus God breaketh the bands of death, having gained the victory over death; giving the Son power to make intercession for the children of men--having ascended into heaven the bowels of mercy; being filled with compassion towards the children of men; standing betwixt them and justice; having broken the bands of death, taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice. (Mosiah 15:8-9)
Doctrine and Covenants
Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him-saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified; wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life. (D&C 45:3-5)
With respect to Heb 2:17 (cf. D&C 43:3-5 quoted above), there are a number of interesting things when one examines this verse. Firstly, there are two “purpose clauses” in this verse; the first (“that he might be a merciful high priest”) is the Greek ινα clause; the second is the use of the Greek preposition εις which means “into” or “with a goal towards” and this is coupled with the present infinitive form of the verb ιλασκομαι “to make atonement” (ιλασκεσθαι), and this present “making of atonement” is “for the sins of the people” (τας αμαρτιας του λαου). The author of Hebrews views Christ’s on-going office of heavenly intercessor as one that allows for the continuing appeasement of the Father to win the forgiveness of sins committed by believers, sins that were not forgiven at one’s conversion. In other words, this verse presents Jesus as the heavenly high priest who, even at present, makes atonement for sins; this is alien to many theologies that think of one's forgiveness as being once-for-all. The author of Hebrews says Jesus makes atonement for sins on an ongoing basis. If ones’ then-future sins were already atoned for when one appropriated Jesus (esp. if one holds to imputed righteousness), and their justification can never be lost, this verse and its theology is nonsensical. However, Christ's ongoing work as High Priest in the heavenly tabernacle is ongoing in reference to our own sins. Thus, the present infinitive form in Heb 2:17 conclusively demonstrate the continuing need for the application of Christ's work for our own salvation. Reformed Protestants are in the unenviable position of having to advocate a soteriology that is at odds with the witness of biblical exegesis.
Such should be compared with other texts that speak of (1) the reality of God's wrath against sin; (2) its necessary appeasement/propitiation and (3) that such is not whimsical or capricious, unlike other ancient understandings thereof, such as:
This mirrors the propitiatory appeasement of God by Moses in Exo 32-33. Let us look at it in point by point format:
1. God determines to destroy all of Israel for worshipping the golden calf.
2. Moses pleads with God to relent, reiterating the promise to Abraham and the potential mockery from Egypt.
3. God rescinds His threat to destroy all of Israel, yet punishes the leading perpetrators.
4. Moses spends 40 days prostrate and fasting to appease God for Israel’s sin.
5. Although temporarily appeased, God refuses to go with the Israelites through the desert, because they are so “stiff-necked” he “might destroy them on the way.”
6. Moses pleads again with God to change His mind.
7. God changes His mind and decides to go with them.
8. God then remarks on the intimate relationship He has with Moses as the basis of His decision to change His mind.
9. God confirms this intimate relationship by showing Moses part of His actual appearance.
What Moses (and Helaman) and other intercessors did in an imperfect manner, Christ, through His atoning sacrifice and intercessory work before the Father, does in a perfect manner. Indeed, we should not think that Christ’s work was, reverently speaking, “done and dusted” 2,000 years ago—instead, it continues and will continue, as we read in the Doctrine and Covenants, “until the fulness of times, when Christ shall have subdued all enemies under his feet, and shall have perfected his work” (D&C 76:106). Such is also beautifully summed up in the second stanza of the hymn, O Thou, Before the World Began (no. 189 in the current [1985] LDS hymnal), which reads as follows:
This fits perfectly well with what we find in the Expositor's Greek New Testament (5 vols.), ed. Nicoll Robertson, where Protestant scholar Marcus Dods wrote the following on Heb 2:17 (here, vol. 4 pp. 269-70):
εἰς τὸ ἱλάσκεσθαι, “for the purpose of making propitiation,” εἰς indicating the special purpose to be served by Christ’s becoming Priest. ἱλάσκομαι (ἱλάσκω is not met with), from ἵλαος, Attic ἵλεως “propitious,” “merciful,” means “I render propitious to myself”. In the classics it is followed by the accusative of the person propitiated, sometimes of the anger felt. In the LXX it occurs twelve times, thrice as the translation of כִּפֵּר. The only instance in which it is followed by an accusative of the sin, as here, is Psalms 64 (65):3, τὰς ἀσεβείας ἡμῶν σὺ ἱλάσῃ. In the N.T., besides the present passage, it only occurs in Luke 18:13, in the passive form ἱλάσθητί μοι τῷ ἁμαρτωλῷ, cf. 2 Kings 5:18. The compound formἐξιλάσκομαι, although it does not occur in N.T., is more frequently used in the LXX than the simple verb, and from its construction something may be learnt. As in profane Greek, it is followed by an accusative of the person propitiated, as in Genesis 32:20, where Jacob says of Esau ἐξιλάσομαι τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς δώροις κ.τ.λ.; Zechariah 7:2, ἐξιλάσασθαι τὸν Κύριον, and Zechariah 8:22, τὸ πρόσωπον Κυρίου, also Matthew 1:9. It is however also followed by an accusative of the thing on account of which propitiation is needed or which requires by some rite or process to be rendered acceptable to God, as in Sir 3:3; Sir 3:30; Sir 5:6; Sir 20:28, etc., where it is followed by ἀδικίαν, and ἁμαρτίας; and in Leviticus 16:16; Leviticus 16:20; Leviticus 16:33, where it is followed by τὸ ἅγιον, τὸ θυσιαστήριον, and in Ezekiel 45:20 by τὸν οἶκον. At least thirty-two times in Leviticus alone it is followed by περί, defining the persons for whom propitiation is made, περὶ αὐτοῦ ἐξιλάσεται ὁ ἱερεύς or περὶ πάσης συναγωγῆς, or περὶ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὑμῶν. In this usage there is apparent a transition from the idea of propitiating God (which still survives in the passive ἱλάσθητι) to the idea of exerting some influence on that which was offensive to God and which must be removed or cleansed in order to complete entrance into His favour. In the present passage it is τὰς ἁμαρτίας τοῦ λαοῦ which stand in the way of the full expression of God’s favour, and upon those therefore the propitiatory influence of Christ is to be exerted. In what manner precisely this is to be accomplished is not yet said. “The present infinitive ἱλάσκεσθαι must be noticed. The one (eternal) act of Christ (c. x. 12–14) is here regarded in its continuous present application to men (cf. c. Hebrews 2:1-2).”
The theme of the appeasement of the anger of God is explicated throughout the LDS canon, including the Book of Mormon. After Nephi “saw that the people had repented and did humble themselves in sackcloth” (Helaman 11:9), we read:
O Lord, behold this people repenteth; and they have swept away the band of Gadianton from amongst them insomuch that they have become extinct, and they have concealed their secret plans in the earth. Now, O Lord, because of this their humility wilt thou turn away thine anger, and let thine anger be appeased in the destruction of those wicked men whom thou hast already destroyed. O Lord, wilt thou turn away thine anger, yea, thy fierce anger, and cause that this famine may cease in this land. O Lord, wilt thou hearken unto me, and cause that it may be done according to my words, and send forth rain upon the face of the earth, that she may bring forth her fruit, and her grain in the season of grain. O Lord, thou didst hearken unto my words when I said, Let there be a famine, that the pestilence of the sword might cease; and I know that thou wilt, even at this time, hearken unto my words, for thou saidst that: If this people repent I will spare them. Yea, O Lord, and thou seest that they have repented, because of the famine and the pestilence and destruction which has come unto them. And now, O Lord, wilt thou turn away thine anger, and try again if they will serve thee? And if so, O Lord, thou canst bless them according to thy words which thou hast said. (Helaman 11:10-16)
Such should be compared with other texts that speak of (1) the reality of God's wrath against sin; (2) its necessary appeasement/propitiation and (3) that such is not whimsical or capricious, unlike other ancient understandings thereof, such as:
But if the children shall repent, or the children's children, and turn to the Lord their God, with all their hearts and with all their might, mind, and strength, and restore four-fold for all their trespasses wherewith they have trespassed, or wherewith their fathers have trespassed, or their father's fathers, then thine indignation shall be turned away. And vengeance shall no more come upon them, saith the Lord thy God, and their trespasses shall never be brought any more as a testimony before the Lord against them. D&C 98:47-48)
Then Jared said unto his brother: Cry again unto the Lord, and it may be that he will turn away his anger from them who are our friends, that he confound not their language. (Ether 1:36)
And he had sworn in his wrath unto the brother of Jared, that whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the fulness of his wrath should come upon them. And now, we can behold the decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise; and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of his wrath shall come upon them. And the fulness of his wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity. For behold, this is a land which is choice above all other lands; wherefore he that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be swept off; for it is the everlasting decree of God. And it is not until the fulness of iniquity among the children of the land, that they are swept off. And this cometh unto you, O ye Gentiles, that ye may know the decrees of God-- that ye may repent, and not continue in your iniquities until the fulness come, that ye may not bring down the fulness of the wrath of God upon you as the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done . . . And the brother of Jared repented of the evil which he had done, and did call upon the name of the Lord for his brethren who were with him. And the Lord said unto him: I will forgive thee and thy brethren of their sins; but thou shalt not sin any more, for ye shall remember that my Spirit will not always strive with man; wherefore, if ye will sin until ye are fully ripe ye shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And these are my thoughts upon the land which I shall give you for your inheritance; for it shall be a land choice above all other lands. (Ether 2:8-11, 15)
1. God determines to destroy all of Israel for worshipping the golden calf.
2. Moses pleads with God to relent, reiterating the promise to Abraham and the potential mockery from Egypt.
3. God rescinds His threat to destroy all of Israel, yet punishes the leading perpetrators.
4. Moses spends 40 days prostrate and fasting to appease God for Israel’s sin.
5. Although temporarily appeased, God refuses to go with the Israelites through the desert, because they are so “stiff-necked” he “might destroy them on the way.”
6. Moses pleads again with God to change His mind.
7. God changes His mind and decides to go with them.
8. God then remarks on the intimate relationship He has with Moses as the basis of His decision to change His mind.
9. God confirms this intimate relationship by showing Moses part of His actual appearance.
What Moses (and Helaman) and other intercessors did in an imperfect manner, Christ, through His atoning sacrifice and intercessory work before the Father, does in a perfect manner. Indeed, we should not think that Christ’s work was, reverently speaking, “done and dusted” 2,000 years ago—instead, it continues and will continue, as we read in the Doctrine and Covenants, “until the fulness of times, when Christ shall have subdued all enemies under his feet, and shall have perfected his work” (D&C 76:106). Such is also beautifully summed up in the second stanza of the hymn, O Thou, Before the World Began (no. 189 in the current [1985] LDS hymnal), which reads as follows:
Thy off’ring still continues new before the righteous Father’s view.
Thy self the Lamb for ever slain; thy priesthood doth unchanged remain.
Thy years, O God, can never fail, nor thy blest work within the veil.
Other texts in uniquely Latter-day Saint Scripture also explicates the theme one divine wrath, propitiation, and divine retribution, such as:
Yea, behold, the anger of the Lord is already kindled against you; behold, he hath cursed the land because of your iniquity. And behold, the time cometh that he curseth your riches, that they become slippery, that ye cannot hold them; and in the days of your poverty ye cannot retain them. And in the days of your poverty ye shall cry unto the Lord; and in vain shall ye cry, for your desolation is already come upon you, and your destruction is made sure; and then shall ye weep and howl in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts. And then shall ye lament, and say: O that I had repented, and had not killed the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out. Yea, in that day ye shall say: O that we had remembered the Lord our God in the day that he gave us our riches, and then they would not have become slippery that we should lose them; for behold, our riches are gone from us. Behold, we lay a tool here and on the morrow it is gone; and behold, our swords are taken from us in the day we have sought them for battle. Yea, we have hid up our treasures and they have slipped away from us, because of the curse of the land. O that we had repented in the day that the word of the Lord came unto us; for behold the land is cursed, and all things are become slippery, and we cannot hold them. Behold, we are surrounded by demons, yea, we are encircled about by the angels of him who hath sought to destroy our souls. Behold, our iniquities are great. O Lord, canst thou not turn away thine anger from us? And this shall be your language in those days. But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head. O ye people of the land, that ye would hear my words! And I pray that the anger of the Lord be turned away from you, and that ye would repent and be saved. (Helaman 13:30-39)
And it came to pass that there was a voice heard among all the inhabitants of the earth, upon all the face of this land, crying: Wo, wo, wo unto this people; wo unto the inhabitants of the whole earth except they shall repent; for the devil laugheth, and his angels rejoice, because of the slain of the fair sons and daughters of my people; and it is because of their iniquity and abominations that they are fallen! Behold, that great city Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof. And behold, that great city Moroni have I caused to be sunk in the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof to be drowned. And behold, that great city Moronihah have I covered with earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come any more unto me against them. And behold, the city of Gilgal have I caused to be sunk, and the inhabitants thereof to be buried up in the depths of the earth; Yea, and the city of Onihah and the inhabitants thereof, and the city of Mocum and the inhabitants thereof, and the city of Jerusalem and the inhabitants thereof; and waters have I caused to come up in the stead thereof, to hide their wickedness and abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come up any more unto me against them. And behold, the city of Gadiandi, and the city of Gadiomnah, and the city of Jacob, and the city of Gimgimno, all these have I caused to be sunk, and made hills and valleys in the places thereof; and the inhabitants thereof have I buried up in the depths of the earth, to hide their wickedness and abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up any more unto me against them. And behold, that great city Jacobugath, which was inhabited by the people of king Jacob, have I caused to be burned with fire because of their sins and their wickedness, which was above all the wickedness of the whole earth, because of their secret murders and combinations; for it was they that did destroy the peace of my people and the government of the land; therefore I did cause them to be burned, to destroy them from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up unto me any more against them. And behold, the city of Laman, and the city of Josh, and the city of Gad, and the city of Kishkumen, have I caused to be burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof, because of their wickedness in casting out the prophets, and stoning those whom I did send to declare unto them concerning their wickedness and their abominations. And because they did cast them all out, that there were none righteous among them, I did send down fire and destroy them, that their wickedness and abominations might be hid from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints whom I sent among them might not cry unto me from the ground against them. And many great destructions have I caused to come upon this land, and upon this people, because of their wickedness and their abominations. O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you? (3 Nephi 9:1-13)
Verily, verily, I say unto you, my servants, that inasmuch as you have forgiven one another your trespasses, even so I, the Lord, forgive you. Nevertheless, there are those among you who have sinned exceedingly; yea, even all of you have sinned; but verily I say unto you, beware from henceforth, and refrain from sin, lest sore judgments fall upon your heads. For of him unto whom much is given much is required; and he who sins against the greater light shall receive the greater condemnation. (D&C 82:1-3)
(3) Christ's atonement is for "aftershocks" of sin?
Christ's sacrifice is not simply for the "aftershocks" of sin (p. 55) merely. Christ is constantly referred to being a "sin sacrifice" and other like-terms. For instance, Isa 53:10 (quoted by Abinadi in Mosiah 14:10 and interpreted to be a prophecy of Christ), reads:
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasures of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
The term "offering for sin" in Hebrew is אָשָׁם and in the LXX is περι αμαρτιας, a technical term for a "sin offering" or "sin sacrifice" (cf. its usages in Num 29:11, 16, 19, 22, 25, 38, 31, 34, 38 for example).
As one final example (as this section is getting very lengthy, but it is a central theological issue, thus its importance):
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Pet 2:24)
The verb translated as "bare" is αναφερω, which is a sacrificial term. This verb is used ten times in the Greek New Testament in contexts of "lifting up" or "offering sacrifices" (e.g., Matt 17:1; Mark 9:2; Luke 24:51; Heb 7:27; 9:28; 13:15; 1 Pet 2:5). Note how the verb is defined in BGAD (highlight added for emphasis):
3. to offer as a sacrifice, offer up, specif. a cultic t.t. (SIG 56, 68; Lev 17:5; 1 Esdr 5:49; Is 57:6; 2 Macc 1:18; 2:9 al.; ParJer 9:1f; Did., Gen. 219, 15) ἀ. θυσίας ὑπέρ τινος offer sacrifices for someth. Hb 7:27. ἀ. τινὰ ἐπὶ τὸ θυσιαστήριον (Gen 8:20; Lev 14:20; Bar 1:10; 1 Macc 4:53; Just., D. 118, 2 θυσίας) offer up someone on the altar Js 2:21. Of Jesus’ sacrifice: ἑαυτὸν ἀνενέγκας when he offered up himself Hb 7:27. τὰς ἀμαρτίας ἡμῶν αὐτὸς ἀνήνεγκεν ἐν τῷ σώματι αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον he himself brought our sins in his body to the cross 1 Pt 2:24 (cp. Dssm., B 83ff [BS 88f]). Pol 8:1 (Is 53:12).—Fig. (schol. on Apollon. Rhod. 2, 214b χάριν=render thanks to the divinity) ἀ. θυσίαν αἰνέσεως offer up a sacr. of praise Hb 13:15 (cp. 2 Ch 29:31). ἀ. πνευματικὰς θυσίας 1 Pt 2:5. ἀ. προσευχάς offer prayers 2 Cl 2:2. ἀ. δέησιν περί τινος offer up a petition for someth. B 12:7.
Additionally, note the following comment from two biblical scholars writing on the nature of the atonement with respect to related sacrificial terminology used in the gospels, including the Isa 53:10 text quoted above:
If the Johannine formula, “who takes away sin,” is understood as a reference to the “Servant of God,” it must be recalled that neither in vv. 4 nor 21 of Is 53 is the verb nāsā accompanied by the phrase, “upon himself,” in spite of the Greek translation in verse 4, tas hamartias hēmōn ferei, “he carries our sins.” When Matthew applies the statement of Is 53:4 to Christ, he wishes to say that he took away our illnesses, not that he took them upon himself. The same meaning is found in the Exultet of the Paschal liturgy: “he is the true Lamb who took away (absulit) the sins of the world,” and in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “Thus Christ offered once for the taking-away of the sins of many, a second time—without sin—will be seen to those awaiting for salvation” [Heb 9:28]. (Stanislas Lyonnet and Léopold Sabourin, Sin, Redemption, and Sacrifice: A Biblical and Patristic Study [Analetcta Biblica Investigationes Scientificae In Res Biblicas 48; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1970], 40)
While (correctly) rejecting one error, the more forensic models of atonement (especially Penal Substitution), the authors empty the atonement of its other purposes than they discuss in their book (some of which they reject).
For more, see An Examination and Critique of the Theological Presuppositions Underlying Reformed Theology wherein the anger of God and other issues, such as appeasement in the Old Testament and New Testament, are discussed and many of the relevant texts are exegeted.
Chapter 11: The Judging Christ
We find this rather interesting comment about God “forgetting” our sins:
God and Christ are omniscient, and yet the promise is: “He who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more” . . . He purposely forgets our sins, to extirpate our shame. (p. 91, emphasis in original)
Elsewhere, we read:
It is in the forgiving and the forgetting that healing lies. It is not in the quenching of divine wrath or eternal justice that we find the miracle, but in the healing of our wounds. The imagery of Isaiah is quite explicit here. “Through your sins be s scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” This mystery of a Christ who heals our wounds and forgets our wrongs steers our understanding of judgement in new directions. (p. 92, emphasis in original)
The very fact the authors would emphasis and focus on God saying that he will “remember [our sins] no more” and emphasising His "forgetting" thereof seems to me that they are taking such language at an all-too-literal reading. Such is the language of metaphor, just as the Isaiah verse is metaphor. God’s “forgetting” our sins is not His “memory” (in the sense of his knowledge/recollection skills) being erased (even self-voluntarily). If such were the case, it would mean that we know things (our sins) that God is now clueless about, an absent-minded professor-like deity, if you will.
That such is a metaphor and not to be taken literally can be seen elsewhere. In D&C 82:7 (emphasis added):
And now, verily I say unto you, I, the Lord, will not lay any sin to your charge; go your ways and sin no more; but unto that soul who sinneth shall the former sins return, saith the Lord your God.
In reality, when God says he will no longer “remember” our sins, it just means that our sins will not be held against us if they have been repented of.
Furthermore, there is nothing in the Isaiah verse that empties the atonement of a propitiatory nature—see the discussion of Isa 53:10 and other like-texts above.
In an attempt to empty the Final Judgment of wrath, we find the following comment which is representative of the poor biblical material in this book:
It is tragically erroneous to maintain that such is the purpose or intent of judgment. Indeed, Jesus testifies in John’s gospel that such is not the purpose of Christ’s engagement with the human family: “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” We have, thankfully, left behind much of the medieval Church’s imagery of sulfurous pits, the Reformation’s language of “total depravity” and “desperate corruption,” and Puritan sermons about a spiteful God holding souls over hell like a vicious boy with a spider. (p. 92)
The Gospel of John does not empty wrath from God’s final judgment nor is there any particularity in salvation therein. Even in John 17, quoted by the authors to support their thesis, we read the following:
I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou has given me; for they are thine. (John 17:9)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
One should note that the phrase “whosoever believeth” is not a completely accurate translation of the underlining Greek. The Greek is ὁ πιστεύων which is a participle, properly translated as “the ones believing.” This shows that the “belief” John is speaking about it not a superficial belief, or a faith that only lasts momentarily, as one finds with Antinomian and “No-Lordship Salvation” camps; instead, it is an on-going belief in the life of a believer, and one that perseveres until the end.
Another abuse of this text is that it teaches God has no particular love for any individual or group; instead, he loves all people equally the same. This is, at best, a half-truth. Yes, God loves all people insofar as Christ died for all men without distinction (cf. 1 Tim 2:1-4). However, just as we have different types of “love” for different people (how I love my pet dog clearly differs from the love I have for my parents), God has a special or “salvific” love to true believers.
That John is teaching a particularity vis-à-vis God’s love in John 3 can be seen in verses 3-5, whereJesus teaches the need for baptism to enter the Kingdom of God (cf. 1 Pet 3:21). Furthermore, John’s use of the Old Testament is also further evidence of this. John presents Jesus as the antitype (the fulfilment of a type) of the brazen serpent in verse 14:
And as (καθος) Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.
John hearkens back to Num 21, where God commands Moses to forge a serpent made from bronze (KJV: brass) to counteract the fiery serpents that invaded the Israelite camp:
And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. (Num 21:6-9)
The Book of Mormon also speaks of the brazen serpent as an Old Testament “type” that would be fulfilled in the then-future atoning sacrifice of Christ:
Behold, he was spoken of by Moses; yea, and behold a type was raised up in the wilderness, that whosoever would look upon it might live. And many did look and live. (Alma 33:19)
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God (ἡ ὀργὴ τοῦ θεοῦ) abideth on him. (John 3:36)
Such shows that one must be careful in Scriptural, not just biblical, exegesis and to read the writings of an author in full.
Interestingly, in D&C 76, notwithstanding being more "universalistic" in its theology than Calvinism and other systems, we read that those who will eventually inherit the telestial kingdom must go through a purgation period:
These are they who suffer the wrath of God on earth. These are they who suffer the vengeance of eternal fire. These are they who are cast down to hell and suffer the wrath of Almighty God, until the fullness of times, when Christ shall have subdued all enemies under his feet, and shall have perfected his work. When he shall deliver up the kingdom, and present it unto the Father, spotless, saying: I have overcome and have trodden the winepress alone, even the wine-press of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. (D&C 76:104-107).
In a discussion of the relationship between divine judgement and forgiveness, the authors appeal to John 8:1-11 and the woman taken in adultery:
Christ himself, engaging a woman caught in the very act of adultery, emphasized that judgement does not entail condemnation. “Where are thine accusers?” he asked before adding, “Neither do I condemn thee.” (p. 92)
The problem is that the vast majority of New Testament scholarship, of which the authors are familiar with, are of the opinion that John 7:53-8:11 is a later interpolation to the text. Note the following from the NET Bible which summarises the evidence:
This entire section, Joh 7:53-8:11, traditionally known as the pericope adulterae, is not contained in the earliest and best MSS and was almost certainly not an original part of the Gospel of John. Among modern commentators and textual critics, it is a foregone conclusion that the section is not original but represents a later addition to the text of the Gospel. B. M. Metzger summarizes: "the evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelming" (TCGNT 187). External evidence is as follows. For the omission of Joh 7:53-8:11: î66, 75 א B L N T W Δ Θ Ψ 0141 0211 33 565 1241 1424* 2768 al. In addition codices A and C are defective in this part of John, but it appears that neither contained the pericope because careful measurement shows that there would not have been enough space on the missing pages to include the pericope Joh 7:53-8:11 along with the rest of the text. Among the MSS that include Joh 7:53-8:11 are D Û lat. In addition E S Λ 1424mg al include part or all of the passage with asterisks or obeli, 225 places the pericope after Joh 7:36, ƒ1 places it after Joh 21:25, 115 after Joh 8:12, ƒ13 after Luk 21:38, and the corrector of 1333 includes it after Luk 24:53. (For a more complete discussion of the locations where this "floating" text has ended up, as well as a minority opinion on the authenticity of the passage, see M. A. Robinson, "Preliminary Observations regarding the Pericope Adulterae Based upon Fresh Collations of nearly All Continuous-Text Manuscripts and All Lectionary Manuscripts containing the Passage," Filologia Neotestamentaria 13 [2000]: 35-59, especially 41–42.) In evaluating this ms evidence, it should be remembered that in the Gospels A is considered to be of Byzantine texttype (unlike in the epistles and Revelation, where it is Alexandrian), as are E F G (MSS with the same designation are of Western texttype in the epistles). This leaves D as the only major Western uncial witness in the Gospels for the inclusion. Therefore the evidence could be summarized by saying that almost all early MSS of the Alexandrian texttype omit the pericope, while most MSS of the Western and Byzantine texttype include it. But it must be remembered that "Western MSS" here refers only to D, a single witness (as far as Greek MSS are concerned). Thus it can be seen that practically all of the earliest and best MSS extant omit the pericope; it is found only in MSS of secondary importance. But before one can conclude that the passage was not originally part of the Gospel of John, internal evidence needs to be considered as well. Internal evidence in favor of the inclusion of Joh 8:1-11 (Joh 7:53-8:11): (1) Joh 7:53 fits in the context. If the "last great day of the feast" (Joh 7:37) refers to the conclusion of the Feast of Tabernacles, then the statement refers to the pilgrims and worshipers going home after living in "booths" for the week while visiting Jerusalem. (2) There may be an allusion to Isa 9:1-2 behind this text: Joh 8:12 is the point when Jesus describes himself as the Light of the world. But the section in question mentions that Jesus returned to the temple at "early dawn" (῎Ορθρου, Orthrou, in Joh 8:2). This is the "dawning" of the Light of the world (Joh 8:12) mentioned by Isa 9:2. (3) Furthermore, note the relationship to what follows: Just prior to presenting Jesus' statement that he is the Light of the world, John presents the reader with an example that shows Jesus as the light. Here the woman "came to the light" while her accusers shrank away into the shadows, because their deeds were evil (cf. Joh 3:19-21). Internal evidence against the inclusion of Joh 8:1-11 (Joh 7:53-8:11): (1) In reply to the claim that the introduction to the pericope, Joh 7:53, fits the context, it should also be noted that the narrative reads well without the pericope, so that Jesus' reply in Joh 8:12 is directed against the charge of the Pharisees in Joh 7:52 that no prophet comes from Galilee. (2) The assumption that the author "must" somehow work Isa 9:1-2 into the narrative is simply that - an assumption. The statement by the Pharisees in Joh 7:52 about Jesus' Galilean origins is allowed to stand without correction by the author, although one might have expected him to mention that Jesus was really born in Bethlehem. And Joh 8:12 does directly mention Jesus' claim to be the Light of the world. The author may well have presumed familiarity with Isa 9:1-2 on the part of his readers because of its widespread association with Jesus among early Christians. (3) The fact that the pericope deals with the light/darkness motif does not inherently strengthen its claim to authenticity, because the motif is so prominent in the Fourth Gospel that it may well have been the reason why someone felt that the pericope, circulating as an independent tradition, fit so well here. (4) In general the style of the pericope is not Johannine either in vocabulary or grammar (see D. B. Wallace, "Reconsidering 'The Story of the Woman Taken in Adultery Reconsidered'," NTS 39 [1993]: 290-96). According to R. E. Brown it is closer stylistically to Lukan material (John [AB], 1:336). Interestingly one important family of MSS (ƒ13) places the pericope after Luk 21:38. Conclusion: In the final analysis, the weight of evidence in this case must go with the external evidence. The earliest and best MSS do not contain the pericope. It is true with regard to internal evidence that an attractive case can be made for inclusion, but this is by nature subjective (as evidenced by the fact that strong arguments can be given against such as well). In terms of internal factors like vocabulary and style, the pericope does not stand up very well. The question may be asked whether this incident, although not an original part of the Gospel of John, should be regarded as an authentic tradition about Jesus. It could well be that it is ancient and may indeed represent an unusual instance where such a tradition survived outside of the bounds of the canonical literature. However, even that needs to be nuanced (see B. D. Ehrman, "Jesus and the Adulteress," NTS 34 [1988]: 24-44).
sn Double brackets have been placed around this passage to indicate that most likely it was not part of the original text of the Gospel of John. In spite of this, the passage has an important role in the history of the transmission of the text, so it has been included in the translation.
sn Double brackets have been placed around this passage to indicate that most likely it was not part of the original text of the Gospel of John. In spite of this, the passage has an important role in the history of the transmission of the text, so it has been included in the translation.
If the authors still wished to appeal to this text as part of their evidence for their understanding of Christology, then the burden was on them to provide some support for the authenticity of this passage and/or that it is a tradition that goes back to the New Testament-era. Sadly, they did not do such.
Elsewhere in this chapter, they write:
We need to recover judgment's more benevolent character. The Greek word κρινω (krínō), had the original meaning of "to separate," as in "to distinguish." (p. 94)
The authors are engaging in a very common fallacy in interpretation: the etymological or root fallacy. For a discussion of this and many others, one should read D.A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies. While it is true that its original meaning had such a semantic range, when used in texts in the LXX and Greek NT, it has the more juridical meaning. Louw and Nida, in their Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (2d ed) provides the following definition of the term:
30.75 κρίνω ; ἐπικρίνω: to come to a conclusion in the process of thinking and thus to be in a position to make a decision - 'to come to a conclusion, to decide, to make up one's mind.' κρίνω: οὐ γὰρ ἔκρινά τι εἰδέναι ἐν ὑμῖν εἱ μὴ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν καὶ τοῦτον ἐσταυρωμένον 'for I made up my mind to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified' 1 Cor 2.2; ἠρνήσασθε κατὰ πρόσωπον Πιλάτου, κρίναντος ἐκείνου ἀπολύειν 'you rejected him in Pilate's presence, even after he had decided to set him free' Ac 3.13; τοῦτο κέκρικεν ἐν τῇ ἰδίᾳ καρδίᾳ 'he has already decided in his own heart (or 'in his own mind') what to do' 1 Cor 7.37. ἐπικρίνω: Πιλᾶτος ἐπέκρινεν γενέσθαι τὸ αἴτημα αὐτῶν 'Pilate decided to grant their demand' Lk 23.24.
In some languages the process of 'deciding' is expressed idiomatically, for example, 'to come to the end in one's thinking' or 'to choose in one's mind' or 'the mind sees its goal.'
Commenting on alleged parallels between Joseph Smith’s theology and Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), we read:
A century before Joseph Smith lived, Emanuel Swedenborg wrote with inspiration of many of those truths of the prophet of the Restoration would soon reveal authoritatively. Swedenborg saw in vision a relational and sociable heaven, three degrees of celestial glory, and the preaching of the gospel to the dead. (p. 99)
It is rather surprising that the authors would argue that Swedenborg’s theology is mirrored by Joseph Smith’s for many reasons, for the first is that it is often used as a criticism of Joseph’s theology as being dependent upon previous authors and not the result of divine revelation. In reality, only by an eisegetical reading of both Swedenborg’s Heaven and its Wonders and Hell and the revelations of Joseph Smith can one make this conclusion that critics (e.g., D. Michel Quinn) and the authors make. A really good article refuting this claim would be an article by J.B. Haws. It was entitled:
One can read a copy of Heaven and its Wonders and Hell online.
To give one example, section 32 reads:
In each heaven there is an internal and external; those in the internal are called there internal angels, while those in the external are called external angels. The internal and the external in the heavens, or in each heaven, hold the same relation as the voluntary and intellectual in man--the internal corresponding to the voluntary, and the external to the intellectual. Everything voluntary has its intellectual; one cannot exist without the other. The voluntary may be compared to a flame and the intellectual to the light therefrom.
Here, Swedenborg does not present three divisions of the "celestial kingdom" as some have argued; instead, he has two divisions in his "central heaven."
Finally, while Joseph follows Paul in describing the three heavens as the Sun, the Moon and the Stars, Swedenborg describes them as three parts of the body, or as three parts of a house. In section 29, Swedenborg wrote:
There are three heavens, entirely distinct from each other, an inmost or third, a middle or second, and an outmost or first. These have a like order and relation to each other as the highest part of man, or his head, the middle part, or body, and the lowest, or feet; or as the upper, the middle, and the lower stories of a house. In the same order is the Divine that goes forth and descends from the Lord; consequently heaven, from the necessity of order, is threefold.
The concept of plural heavens and other teachings one finds in D&C 76 predates Swedenborg, and Joseph’s teachings fit better such ancient conceptions than those in Heaven and its Wonders and Hell. Note the following from the Jewish pseudepigrapha:
Take him up into paradise, into the third heaven, and leave him there until that fearful day of my reckoning, which I will make in the world. (Apocalypse of Moses 37:5)
And then he spake to the archangel Michael: "Depart into paradise in the third heaven and bring to me three garments of fine Syrian linen." (Apocalypse of Moses 40:1)
For a fuller discussion, see:
Chapter 12: The Saving Christ
As the author of the Clementine Recognitions, a fourth-century narrative, put the urgent question: “If those shall enjoy the kingdom of Christ, whom His coming shall find righteous, shall then those be wholly deprived of the kingdom who have died before his coming?” The answer for the vast majority of Christian history has been an almost unqualified yes. With the exception of a few righteous patriarchs rescued by Christ’s “harrowing of hell” (visit to the spirit world), there was emphatically no salvation for those who died outside or before the Christian dispensation, or for those who rejected or deferred the call to repent. (p. 105)
This is simply false.
With respect to Old Testament figures, in the theologies of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, upon Christ’s “harrowing of hell” and subsequent resurrection, all the Old Testament faithful, not just the patriarchs, entered heaven. Salvation was not limited only to Abraham and the other patriarchs in the official theologies of these groups. As one Catholic theologian and apologist wrote:
The Church also holds as dogma that the souls of most Old Testament saints were released from “Sheol” (Hebrew: שׁאול) or “Hades” (Greek: αδης) when Christ visited this realm immediately after his death, in accord with the statement in the Apostles Creed “he descended into hell.” The descent into Sheol or Hades corresponds to other Scriptures which refer to the conscious abode of the dead, both righteous and unrighteous, before the resurrection of Christ, e.g., “he went and preached to the spirits in prison” (1Pt 3:19); “the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead” (1Pt 4:6); “the heart of the earth” (Mt 12:40); “Abraham’s bosom” (Lk 16:22-26); “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God...and live” (Jn 5:25); “the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life” (Mt 27:52-53); “he also descended to the lower, earthly regions” (Ep 4:9); “you and your sons will be with me” (1Sm 28:19); “consign to the earth below...with those who go down to the pit” (Ez 32:18ff); “he leads down to Hades” (Tb 13:2); “the dominion of Hades” (Ws 1:14; 2:1; 16:13). These interpretations were upheld at the Council of Rome (745 AD; Denz. 587); the Council of Toledo (625 AD; Denz. 485). See Catholic Catechism, ¶¶631-635. (Robert A. Sungenis, Not by Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification [2d ed.; Catholic Apologetics International Publishing Inc., 2009], 64 n. 90)
In a footnote for the previously quoted section, we read:
Catholicism has since expressed recurrently a softening of this position, notably in John Paul II’s Redemptoris Missio: “The universality of salvation means that it is granted not only to those who explicitly believe in Christ and have entered the Church. Since salvation is offered to all, it must be made concretely available to all. (p. 148 n. 12)
The official, dogmatic teaching of Roman Catholicism has always been Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside of the Church, no salvation). Note the following:
Boniface VIII in his bull Unam Sanctam (November 8, 1302) issued the following infallible ex cathedra pronouncement:
[W]e declare, say, define, and proclaim to every human creature that they by necessity for salvation are entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff. (Sources of Catholic Dogma, p. 187)
The Council of Constance (1414-1418), condemned and pronounced an anathema upon the following teaching of John Wycliffe during session VIII (May 4, 1415):
621 [DS 1191] 41. It is not necessary for salvation to believe that the Roman Church is supreme among other churches. (Sources of Catholic Dogma, p. 210)
There is the concept of "invincible ignorance," but its nature and limitations has never been defined dogmatically. Pius IX in Quanto Conficiamur Moerore (10 August, 1863) briefly touched upon it:
There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace. Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments.
Section 14 of the Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium, states:
This Sacred Council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.
They are fully incorporated in the society of the Church who, possessing the Spirit of Christ accept her entire system and all the means of salvation given to her, and are united with her as part of her visible bodily structure and through her with Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. The bonds which bind men to the Church in a visible way are profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical government and communion. He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a "bodily" manner and not "in his heart."(12*) All the Church's children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged.
Catechumens who, moved by the Holy Spirit, seek with explicit intention to be incorporated into the Church are by that very intention joined with her. With love and solicitude Mother Church already embraces them as her own.
Based on the comments of Lumen Gentium 14, Section 847 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (endorsed by John Paul II whom the authors quoted) gives the rather limited exception:
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.
Reading the comment in the footnote, one would get the mistaken impression that Roman Catholicism is heading towards, in its dogmatic theology and not that of Karl Rahner and other liberals, inclusivism and/or universalism with respect to its soteriology.
Conclusion
To say that this volume was a disappointment is an understatement. I truly was expecting something more substantial from the authors, even allowing for it being a popular level volume and not a scholarly volume, but a lot of it is rather flowery pontificating and little scholarly engagement with next-to-no meaningful exegesis; indeed, as we have seen, their attempts at biblical exegesis are often a dismal failure. Furthermore, they did not really produce a solid work on Christology, but more of their own literary meanderings on various issues.
This is not to say that there are no good portions of this volume. I rather enjoyed some insights the authors provided, such as the following about adoption in LDS theology:
If sometimes it seems we are adopted by Christ, and sometimes as children of God, that is because adoption operates in both those two senses. As the First Presidency clarified in a doctrinal exposition, the title of Father “has reference to the relationship between [Christ] and those who accept His Gospel and thereby become heirs of eternal life.” At the same time, “by obedience to the Gospel men may become sons of God, both as sons of Jesus Christ, and, through Him, as sons of His Father.” . . .We have all become separated from the divine family by physical distance—our introduction into mortality—as well as by harmful choices. As a result, we require a cleansing, healing, spiritual rebirth through formal “’adoption’ into the heavenly kingdom and into sonship [and daughtership] with God.” This is possible because, as B.H. Roberts explained, we are “by nature the[children] of God.” (pp. 48-49, 50)
However, these errors are just representative of the many errors in this short work. If one reads the volume, caveat lector and all that, although if one wishes for a more scholarly discussion of Christology from a Latter-day Saint perspective, one should pursue the relevant sections of the three-volume Exploring Mormon Thought series by Blake T. Ostler.