THE ATONEMENT SERIES: PART 7
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QUESTION: Does God have the freedom to forgive sinners without punishing them? If so, why was it necessary for Christ to suffer and die on the cross?
GOVERNMENTAL THEORY was developed by a Dutch lawyer and theologian named Hugo Grotius. He developed it both in a effort to refute the Socinian view of the Atonement (that God could simply forgive sinners and therefore any Atoning work of Christ is unnecessary) and as a replacement for Penal Substitution, which Grotius viewed as incoherent. Whereas Penal Substitution primarily understands God the Father as a Moral Judge, Governmental Theory primarily understands God the Father as a Moral Ruler. As Moral Ruler, God the Father can modify, relax, or eliminate moral rules at His pleasure. This said, it is critical for Moral Governance to be upheld. Therefore, God in His mercy can forgive us of our sins without punishing us, but upholds moral governance by demonstrating the gravity of sin through Christ’s suffering and death on the cross.
READING 1: The end of the matter which is being discussed, as to the intention of God and of Christ, is twofold: the display of the Divine justice; and, so far as we are concerned, the remission of sins, that is, our release from punishment. For if you take the exaction of penalty impersonally, its end is the display of the Divine justice; but if personally, that is, why Christ is punished, its end is that we may gain release from punishment. [Hugo Grotius, A Defense of the Catholic faith Concerning the Satisfaction of Christ Against Faustus Socinus, Ch. 1]
READING 2: There is therefore no wrong in this, that God, who has supreme power as to all things not unjust in themselves, and who is liable to no law, willed to use the torments and death of Christ for the setting up of a weighty example against the immense faults of us all. . [Hugo Grotius, A Defense of the Catholic faith Concerning the Satisfaction of Christ Against Faustus Socinus, Ch. 4]
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