Taking out the Trash!

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to watch a wonderful sermon by Gregory Boyd entitled "Taking Out the Trash". Greg raises up some very good points about problems with strict judicial atonement theories such as the Calvinist - Retributive Substitution Atonement Model.

The main issue any atonement theory must address is not only the removal of the penalty of sin, but more importantly it must reform the sinner from selfishness to loving God supremely (An essential to becoming a citizen of God's Kingdom or moral government). An atonement must pardon us of the "crimes" we have committed, but at the same time ascertain that the criminal (or sinner) has been truly reformed from the heart! To strictly forgive without reforming the heart would be like pardoning a criminal from prison and unleashing them back onto society to reek havoc upon the society. The Retributive Atonement model lacks this essential element as it simply addresses the strict judicial transaction and in no way reforms the sinners heart, but simply takes away the penalty and then "secures" them in their still sinful state.

To make his point Greg uses two wonderful analogies here - the "Truck Driver" and a simple bag of trash. The reality is God does not simply overlook our sinfulness, but he truly desires that we are transformed and we truly become a "new creature in Christ" whereby we are no longer walking according to the flesh, but according to God's Spirit. Again, this plays right into my analogy I provided a couple of weeks ago regarding the steak in the toilet - do you really want to eat any part of that steak? God desires that we have no part of sin as Kingdom citizens!



Although this is not the entire video sermon, you can see the sermon in its entirety here.