Friday, July 10, 2020

The Relationship between Divine Justice, Mercy, and the Atoning Sacrifice of Christ in Origen's Commentary on Romans

Some critics claim that the Book of Mormon's discussion of the relationship between the justice and mercy of God vis-a-vis the sacrifice of Christ is dependent upon Anselm of Canterbury and/or other modern theologians. However, it appears in earlier sources (see Jeff Lindsay, Mercy, Justice, and the Atonement in the Book of Mormon: Modern or Ancient Concepts?). It also appears in Origen (185-254) in his commentary on Romans. As William Lane Craig wrote:

 

Notice that Christ’s sacrificial death serves both to expiate sin by discharging the penalty due for sin and to propitiate God by satisfying the demands of divine justice:

 

“God pre-determined him as a propitiation through faith in his blood.” This means of course that through the sacrifice of himself he would make God propitious to men . . . For God is just, and the one who is just could not justify the unjust; for that reason he wanted there to be the mediation of a propitiator so that those who were not able to be justified through their own works might be justified through faith in him. (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans 3.8.1)

 

At the foundation of Origen’s atonement doctrine lie the demands of divine justice, which prescribed the just desert for sin and which must be satisfied if forgiveness of sin is to be available. (William Lane Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ: An Exegetical, Historical, and Philosophical Exploration [Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2020], 96)