In the second part of Shults\u2019 chapter on facing, forgiveness and salvation, Shults looks at what the Christian tradition means by forgiveness. Shults seeks here to liberate the idea of forgiveness from judicial metaphors and make room for the reality that forgiveness \u201creally changes lives\u201d (125). If you had to define forgiveness, how would you define it? I\u2019m willing to suggest that this section in Sandage\/Shults is an enormous challenge to the overemphasis on satisfaction and penal substitution in much of contemporary evangelical theology. In the second part of Shults\u2019 chapter on facing, forgiveness and salvation, Shults looks at what the Christian tradition means by forgiveness. Shults seeks here to liberate the idea of forgiveness from judicial metaphors and make room for the reality that forgiveness \u201creally changes lives\u201d (125). If you had to define forgiveness, how would you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThis book, The Faces of Forgiveness,<\/em> uses three senses of forgiveness: forensic, therapeutc, and redemptive. Exodus 34:6-7 is the most significant text about forgiveness in the OT. That text resonates in several others, showing that it was a liturgical set of words with an ongoing life. Cf. Num 14:17-20; Neh 9:17; Pss 86:15; 103:8-10; 145:8-9; 86:5; 130:3-4. In fact, Shults contends that within the OT is a trajectory toward God\u2019s graciousness and forgiveness. His NT study, which trots out the standard texts, draws this sort of conclusion: \u201c\u2026 we need to explore the possibility that both salvation and grace in the NT are broader that the legal, mechanical, and individualistic soteriological concepts that have so deeply shaped large streams of Protestant thought\u201d (136). And this is perhaps his key statement: \u201cPaul is focused on the dynamic gracious divine presence that heals the anger and shame that block peaceful life in community through redemptive forgiveness\u201d (137). It is the \u201creal presence of divine grace that heals human relations\u201d (138) and he speaks here of the \u201creconciling intentionality of grace.\u201d
\nSo, you can see that Shults is intent on showing that forgiveness has been usurped by a legal metaphor and he is arguing that it is creative redemption rather than simply forensic settlement. He traces this forensic usurpation from Tertullian on: it begins with the Roman law\u2019s sense of satisfaction and the notion of penance that developed. [Lots of my readers are Protestants who do not like the notion of penance as necessary for forgiveness; Shults contends that some of our ideas of forgiveness flow out of this sense of satisfication and penance. You\u2019ll hae to read the book to see if it convinces you.] He looks at Augustine\u2019s On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins<\/em> and the development of the \u201cOrder of Penitents.\u201d
\nAnselm\u2019s theory of satisfaction applies a medieval (post-Roman) sense of satisfaction to the theory of atonement. Indulgences flow out of this sense of the necessity of satisfaction. Luther didn\u2019t want the term \u201csatisfaction\u201d used \u201cin our schools or on the lips of our preachers, but would rather send it back to the judges, advocates, and hangmen, from whom the pope stole it\u201d (144). Calvin\u2019s theory of salvation is best approached through \u201cunion with Christ\u201d [Debate here: some think Calvin undercut the genuineness of his double-imputation insight by approaching salvation through union with Christ.] Out of these issues developed the post-Reformation scholastic debate on the ordo salutis<\/em>: what is the order of such things as regeneration, justification, etc\u2026 Is righteousness imputed or imparted? Etc. Shults sees departures from the original visions of both Luther and Calvin in this sort of thinking.
\nTomorrow: how the ordo salutis<\/em> ought to be seen as a \u201csalutary ordering.\u201d I can\u2019t wait.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"