Since our forgiveness is dependant on our escaping a kingdom that no longer has a rightful ownership of us because of Christ’s sacrifice... Obedience is necessary. God’s Spirit and power are automatically made available upon faithfull obedience.

Acts 5:32And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.

John 14:15-16 If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth…

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

So no one who simply chooses to get up and follow Christ by doing what he said should have to worry about whether or not they are doing it in their own strength. Rather, as it says in I John1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light … the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. As Christ said to Paul in Acts26:17-18 …the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

Simply walking in the light of Christ’s commandments, hearing his word and doing it, enables us to receive the cleansing of his blood… We don’t have to worry about whether we believed hard enough in our hearts to be forgiven by God. We don’t have to worry about whether we imagined Christ dying on the cross in just the right way for it to work for us. Repentance is defined as the very act of obeying instead of disobeying God. Following Christ instead of our own will. Repentance is the very act of doing a commandment that we were in disobedience to.

The Satisfaction Model

Origens of The Satisfaction Model

Anselm of Canterbury, the 11th century Archbishop of Canterbury, first articulated the satisfaction view in his Cur Deus Homo? The then-current ransom view of the atonement held that Jesus' death paid a ransom to Satan, allowing God to rescue those under Satan's bondage. St. Anselm argued against the ransom view, saying that Satan, being himself a rebel and outlaw, could never have a just claim against humans.

Drawing primarily from the works of Anselm of Canterbury, the satisfaction theory teaches that Christ suffered as a substitute on behalf of humankind, satisfying the demands of God's honor. Anselm regarded his satisfaction view of the atonement as a distinct improvement over the older ransom view of the atonement. Anselm's theory was a precursor to the refinements of Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin which introduced the idea of punishment to meet the demands of divine justice.

Thomas Aquinas' later developments conclude that…

punishment is a morally good response to sin "Christ bore a satisfactory punishment, not for His, but for our sins," and substitution for another's sin is entirely possible.ref.9

John Calvin further expounded these views. He used verses like Romans 6:23 (For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.) to state that Christ is a substitute taking our wages and thus satisfying the demands of justice and appeasing God's wrath so that God can justly show grace.

This theory has exercised immense influence on church doctrine, providing the basis for the Roman Catholic concept of the treasury of merit and the evangelical doctrine of penal substitution, as developed by John Calvin. Anselm's philosophy is very different from older views, insofar as it focuses on a contest between the goodness and justice of God rather than a contest between God and Satan.

How the Satisfaction Model is thought to please the Father

Christ’s death is seen as a ritualistic sacrifice to God similar to pagan sacrifices offered to appease angry gods.

The Prophecy of God’s words to Satan would have to be changed in Gen 3:15 to say

...And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and I shall bruise his heel.

God the Father then becomes the author of a cruel and agonizing death that would be the perfect payment for sin.

According to this view, Christ came to purchase us from God for God… Acts 20:23 …the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. Christ came to save us from God.

Isaiah 53:10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; He hath put him to grief.. Vs. 11. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Taken from the King James version which was translated from the Masoretic text - a Hebrew text which neither Christ nor the apostles quoted from.*

In conclusion: God is satisfied with seeing someone suffer the justice of his wrath as the penalty of sin thus reconciling himself to humanity through the suffering of his son.

* Note: When Christ quotes from the Old Testament in Matthew 21:16 Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? Now notice how Psalm 8:2 reads in your Old Testament … Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength. This is not the only example that shows the New Testament writers were reading a different Old Testament text than we have today. Also see...Heb10:5,6 & Psalm40:6… Many more examples can be given.

The Satisfaction Model in light of the parable of the unjust servant.

(Matthew 18:23-35)

The Satisfaction Model identifies the main problem being God’s inability to forgive our debt of sin without full payment being made.

"Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt."

Since the Satisfaction Model says that God can’t forgive until payment is made for sin, for this parable to line up with the Satisfaction Model, the king's son would have to step in and pay the price of the servant's debt for the king to be able to forgive.

If this were the case, the king would not later be able to say… "O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me…"

Rather it would have to say… “I forgave thee that debt because my son paid for it, therefore you can never lose that forgiveness…”

In this case the king would not later be able to reinstate a paid debt delivering the wicked servant to prison.

Contrary to what Christ taught in this parable, this view of unconditional forgiveness would of necessity lead to the Doctrine of “once saved always saved” because of this reasoning:

1. God can’t forgive until full payment for sin is made. God’s attitude has to be changed.

2. Christ’s sacrifice is full payment to God allowing him to forgive.

3. God cannot reinstate a debt already paid in full to him no matter what.

Forgiveness thus becomes unconditional and something that can never be lost or taken away.

The Satisfaction Model identifies two problems of man's sin being…

1. Man is a sinner by nature. Based on the claim that man is born with original sin, or an inherent sin nature as a result of the fall, which causes him to be totally depraved and unable to respond to God’s righteous demands on his life. So man can only say “I’m a sinner, I can’t help it. It’s just the way I am.”

Solution: Imputed righteousness, received through Christ’s sacrifice... Since sin is seen as imputed at birth through original sin, then righteousness by the same token has to be imputed as well through Christ’s sacrifice. Imputed righteousness (the doctrine that a sinner being declared righteous by God is declared such purely by God's grace, without any merit or personal worthiness.) makes Christ’s commandments non-essential or secondary since righteousness depends not on our actual being righteous but rather God seeing us as righteous when he sees the sacrifice.

2. God’s inability to forgive due to the justice required. Since man is a sinner by nature and God isn’t going to help him because he can’t forgive, man can’t change.

Man has to be forgiven to escape Satan’s kingdom. This addresses the problem as an issue on God’s part. Christ came to change God, to reconcile God to man.

Solution: -God has to change, not man. -When Christ dies on the cross, God’s attitude is changed because Christ’s sacrifice appeases him thus reconciling God to sinful man.

Romans5:8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. This verse would mean that while we were still sinners, Christ saved us. The Gospel of the kingdom becomes nothing more than this: All Christ really needed to do was come and die on the cross and not say a thing. That’s why most professing Christians live their lives just as though Christ hadn’t said a thing. The only important thing they think he did for them was die on the cross.

The Satisfaction Model defines repentance as...

Since our forgiveness is dependent upon God’s favor being obtained toward us through the imputed righteousness of Christ Sacrifice… Obedience is secondary. Obedience is not possible until God’s power and Spirit are given.

This results in a backwards Gospel…

Acts 5:23 would have to say …the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them so that they can obey him.

John 14:15-16 would have to say …If ye love me I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, so that you can keep my commandments…

John 14:23 would have to say… Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him so he can keep my words…

You better worry about whether you’re obeying in your own strength or not because if God hasn’t forgiven you first, you're not going to get any help from Him.

Rather I John 1:7 would have to say… But if the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin, then we can walk in the light, as he is in the light…

And Christ would have had to say to Paul in Acts26:17-18…the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, that they may receive forgiveness of sin in order to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God…

So if Obedience is not the prerequisite to obtaining forgiveness and the gift of the Holy spirit then what is? Being forgiven would then totally depend on how well you understand Christ’s sacrifice to God. You would have to think about Christ's work on the cross just the right way and when you believe it hard enough in just the right way God would be appeased.

Repentance is then defined as an experience or a prayer where you think about your sins and Christ’s death just the right way to be forgiven.

Repentance is an abstract thing that happens in your heart without the need to see or do a single command of Christ.

Conclusion

Much more could be said about both views of the atonement. But a few things would be good to add. We explored a little bit how the “satisfaction model” rests on the basis of the doctrine of original sin. That’s why it’s important to note how Augustine of Hippo (354 –430), the first to develop a doctrine advocating holy war, also laid down a perfect frame work by which the satisfaction model of atonement could be built. Augustine's formulation of the doctrine of original sin has substantially influenced both Catholic and Reformed (that is, Calvinist) theology. His understanding of sin and grace was developed against that of Pelagius.[43] Original sin, according to Augustine, consists of the guilt of Adam which all human beings inherit. As sinners, human beings are utterly depraved in nature, lack the freedom to do good, and cannot respond to the will of God without divine grace. According to Augustine, grace is irresistible, results in conversion, and leads to perseverance. We can clearly see here how the belief that man is totally depraved and can do nothing toward salvation would of necessity imply that it’s up to God to arbitrarily pick and choose who gets saved and who doesn’t. That’s why Augustine's understanding of predestination rests on the assertion that God has foreordained, from eternity, those who will be saved. God has chosen the elect certainly and gratuitously, without any previous merit (ante merita) on their part.

It’s no wonder then that by the year 1100 Anselm saw the need to develop a new and improved view of the atonement that would fit the frame work that his precursor Augustine had laid down. And it’s no wonder that a man like John Calvin who did such a wonderful job of poisoning the reformation with Augustine’s doctrines of original sin and predestination would have also been able to make further developments to the Satisfaction Model which, as we have seen, pretty much explains the faulty framework by which the evangelical salvation message is built on. In summary, the development went like this:

1. Adam's sin, including the guilt, penalty, and depravity of it, is imputed to us upon birth even before we actually sin. (developed by Augustine).

2. Our sin, including the guilt, penalty, and depravity of it, is then imputed unto Christ upon the crucifixion without him actually sinning.(developed by Anselm, Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin).

3. Christ’s righteousness is then imputed unto us before we even do one act of righteousness. (developed by Luther).

Let us not imagine, like so many evangelicals do, that Christ only gave commandments to his followers only to show them that they couldn’t do it in their own strength, and then some how gave them a new revelation after his resurrection making his commandments now secondary to a 'moment of faith salvation experience'. Let's remember that Christ’s first words to Peter before his death and resurrection were the same as his last words to Peter after His resurrection… Follow thou me…

Mathew 4:19, John 21:22

-Brian Gray