Commenting on some of the errors of the common Protestant views of the nature of the atonement, Chares Finney (1792-1875) offered the following criticism:
I must show that the atonement was not a commercial transaction. Some have regarded the atonement simply in the light of the payment of a debt; and have represented Christ as purchasing the elect of the Father, and paying down the same amount of suffering in his own person that justice would have exacted of them. To this I answer—
(1.) It is naturally impossible, as it would require that satisfaction should be made to retributive justice. Strictly speaking, retributive justice can never be satisfied, in the sense that the guilty can be punished as much and as long as he deserves; for this would imply that he was punished until he ceased to be guilty, or became innocent. When law is once violated, the sinner can make no satisfaction. He can never cease to be guilty, or to deserve punishment, and no possible amount of suffering renders him the less guilty or the less deserving of punishment: therefore, to satisfy retributive justice is impossible.
(2.) But, as we have been in a former lecture, retributive justice must have inflicted on him eternal death. To suppose, therefore, that Christ suffered in amount, all that was due to the elect, is to suppose that he suffered an eternal punishment multiplied by the whole number of the elect. (Charles Finney, Finney’s Systematic Theology [ed. J.H. Fairchild; Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany House Publishers, 1976], 206-7)
Finney (ibid., 334) reproduces a portion of the Westminster Confession of Faith on the topic of justification:
The Westminster Confession of Faith affirms as follows: chapter on Justification section 3—“Christ by his obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are thus justified, and did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to the Father’s justice in their behalf. Yet, inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them, and his obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead, and both freely, not for anything in them, their justification is only of free grace, that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.”
Finney, answering the theology of the WCF and other like-theologies that teach that Christ died the legal price of sins due to the elect, offered, among others, offered, among others, the following criticisms:
(3.) That if, as their substitute, Christ suffered for them the full amount deserved by them, then justice has no claim upon them, since their debt is fully paid by the surety, and of course the principal is, in justice, discharged. And since it is undeniable that the atonement was made for the whole posterity of Adam, it must follow that the salvation of all men is secured upon the ground of “exact justice.” This is the conclusion to which Huntington and his followers came. This doctrine of literal imputation, is one of the strongholds of universalism, and while this view of atonement is held they cannot be driven from it.
(4.) If he satisfied justice for them, in the sense of literally and exactly obeying for them, why should his suffering be imputed to them as a condition of their salvation? Surely they could not need both the imputation of his perfect obedience to them, so as to be accounted in law as perfectly righteous, and also the imputation of his sufferings to them, as if he had not obeyed for them. Is God unrighteous? Does he exact of the surety, first, the literal and full payment of the debt, and secondly, perfect personal obedience for an in behalf of the sinner? Does he first exact full and perfect obedience, and then the same amount of suffering as if there had been no obedience? And this, too, of his beloved Son?
(5.) What Christian ever felt, or can feel in the presence of God, that he has a right to demand justification in the name of Christ, as due to him on the ground of “exact justice?” Observe, the framers of the Confession just quoted, studiously represent all the grace exercised in the justification of sinners, as confined to the two acts of giving his Son and accepting the substitution. This done, Christ fully pays the debt, fully and exactly satisfies his Father’s justice. You now need not, must not conceive of the pardon of sin as grace or favor. To do this is, according to the teaching of this Confession, to dishonor Christ. It is to reject his righteousness and salvation. What think you of this? Once act of grace in giving his Son and consenting to the substitution, and all forgiveness, all accepting and trusting as righteous, is not grace but “exact justice.” To pray for forgiveness, as an act of grace, is apostacy from Christ. Christian! Can you believe this? No; in your closet, smarting under the string of a recently committed sin, or broken down and bathed in tears, you cannot find it in your heart to demand “exact justice” at the hand of God, on the ground that Christ has fully and literally paid your debt. To represent the work and death of Christ as the ground of justification in this sense, is a snare and a stumbling-block. (Ibid., 335-36)
