CALVIN: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE LAW AND THE NATURE OF ATONEMENT
CALVIN: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE LAW AND THE NATURE OF ATONEMENT
A. Calvin's Interpretation of the Law of God
1. Every Detail of the Law Cannot Be Relaxed
Edward A. Dowey declares, "Law is one of the basic concepts of Calvin's theology." Calvin defines the law of God in two senses: a narrow and a general senses. In a narrow sense it refers to moral laws, that is, "the Ten Commandments, which set forth a godly and righteous rule of living." In a general sense the law of God refers to cultic laws, that is, "the form of religion handed down by God through Moses," such as the ceremonial, judicial and political laws of Israel. Calvin insists that the cultic laws cannot be taken literally. Neither can they be interpreted according to its form. Instead, they act only "as shadows and figures corresponding to the truth." They have to be understood in terms of its purpose to "lift their (men's) minds higher." If we understand the cultic laws in this way, we shall realize that the cultic laws are supplementary to the moral laws in order to make clear what the moral laws declare. Indeed, for Calvin the moral and cultic laws should be taken as a whole.
What is the major hermeneutical principle of interpreting the moral and the cultic laws? "Whatever the law teaches, prescribes, and promises," Calvin writes, "is always orientated towards Jesus Christ its center." "Thus no one can have a correct understanding of the law unless he constantly relates it to Him." Accordingly, Calvin repudiates Jewish literal and legalistic interpretation. He contends that since the meaning of the cultic and the moral laws as a whole contains more than the words literally express, the cultic and the moral laws have to understood spiritually, that is, either in light of the purpose of the Law-giver (Jesus Christ), or in terms of a sign, which points to the "`future' salvation in Christ until His advent." Calvin writes,
"In almost all the commandments there are such manifest synecdoches that he who would confine his understanding of the law within the narrowness of the words deserves to be laughed at. . . . I think this would be the best rule, if attention be directed to the reason of commandment; that is, in each commandment to ponder why it was given to us. For example, each precept either commands or forbids. The truth of each sort comes to mind at once, if we look into the reason or purpose."
According to the above "spiritual" interpretation of the law Calvin judges that the law has "a universal and permanent validity." It can apply to all dispensations, namely, both in Old Testament and New Testament times. It is useful in man's whole life, namely, both non-believers' and believers' lives. Every detail of the law, therefore, requires all men to obey. It cannot be relaxed, or set aside. Those who are able to keep the law can definitely receive the reward of eternal salvation, since "God promised in the law for our works: `he who will do these things, will live in them' [Lev.18;5, cf. Comm.]."
2. The Three Uses of the Law in Man's Life Cannot be Superseded
For Calvin there are three uses of the law, which are clearly revealed in the Scriptures.
First, the law is the best means to learn God's righteous nature, and God's sovereign will and authority. It expresses accurately "(God's) rule of perfect righteousness," represents His "everlasting and unchangeable rule," and discloses "a perfect pattern of righteousness (of God)," that is, "the righteousness alone acceptable to God." When man studies God's righteous law, he is reminded of God's aversion of sin, convicted "his own unrighteousness," and feels guilty and condemned because of it. In short, through the law man's conscience cannot help but fear God.
Second, the law discloses the moral obligation of man, either believers or non-believers. Calvin writes,
We are not so exempted from the law by Christ's benefit that we no longer owe any obedience to the teaching of the law and may do what we please. For it is the perpetual rule of a good and holy life.
This is to say, "The law points out the goal toward which throughout life we are to strive." No matter whether one is believer or not, one is encouraged to follow and live according to the strict standard of the law. In this sense the law is to bind man, and to limit his sin.
Third, the law leads man to Christ. For Calvin the major function of the law is not to make man despair without consolation. It is to help us recognize our own weakness, and nullify our confidence in our own strength. It follows that we can "flee to His mercy to lean wholly upon it, . . . appreciate that it alone is our true virtue and merit and is ever open to us in Christ as long as we desire it with all our hearts." In this situation the law becomes no longer an external regulation forced upon man. It is included in the covenant of grace. It is now written on man's heart by the Spirit in such a way that man is empowered to obey or fulfill the law. As a result, the law does not need to be relaxed for the believers, since, "It [the law] no longer cause their [believers] conscience to torment them with terrors, and has no more power to condemn them finally." Instead, the law is welcomed and praised by believers. It can also used by believers in gratitude. "By such confidence," Calvin says, "we have peace with Him and recognize His goodness toward us."
Through the above three uses of the law, Calvin believes, God's abhorrence of sin is fully and clearly revealed. They can also "show us how our life should be conformed to the will of God." The law thus becomes the necessary preparation for the coming of the Gospel, and the nutrition of Christian life. It can never be neglected. Neither can it be replaced by anything. It has to be fulfilled by man. Man in a fallen state, however, is unable to fulfill the requirements of the law of God. He is subject to be punished according to the measure of the law.
3. God's Righteous Nature Forbids Him to Relax the Law for Those Who Fails to Observe the Law
Faced with man's wretched situation, can God forgive sinners, and wipe out all evil in them without demanding satisfaction? Absolutely not. God cannot be propitious to the sinners by relaxing any requirement of His law. It is because there is an inseparable connection between God's righteousness and the law. He writes,
For to make God beyond law is to rob him of the greatest part of his glory, for it destroys his rectitude and his righteousness. Not that God is subject to law, except in so far as he himself is law. For such is the agreement between his power and his righteousness, that nothing proceeds from him that is not considered, legitimate and regular. . . . His power . . . is tempered with righteousness and equity.
According to this necessary connection, Calvin contends that whoever wants to relax (the punishment of) the law misapprehends the true meaning of the law, and shall be punished by God seriously.
Why is God so unmerciful and strict to the requirements of the law that He has to demand some satisfaction? Calvin explains, "Since there is a perpetual and irreconcilable opposition between righteousness and unrighteousness, so long as we remain sinner he cannot receive us completely." As a result, "He (man) must," Calvin writes, "anxiously seek ways and means to appease God--and this demands a satisfaction." He is in need of a Mediator who legally substitute man's place to propitiate God's wrath by fulfilling God's law both actively and passively: Through His active fulfillment of the law Christ fulfills every detail of the law. Through His passive fulfillment Christ suffers the fatal punishment that is deserved for those who fail to obey the law perfectly. Indeed, without considering the fulfillment of the law God's wrath, His judgment against man, and "Christ's benefits" upon man can never be solemnly understood.
B. Calvin's Understanding of Christ as Our Legal Substitute
1. Christ's Twofold Fulfillment of the Law
Having considered that the law can never be relaxed and superseded in any circumstance, we shall examine how Calvin depicts Christ's twofold fulfillment (namely, the passive and active obedience) of every detail of the law as follows:
a) Christ's Passive Obedience of the Law
The first legal substitutionary work of Christ is His death on the cross. Calvin describes that Christ's death is under the sacrificial law to atone for sins. It is, according to the Old Covenant, an indispensable sacrifice in the place of sinners. It is because, Calvin says,
Under the law the priest never entered the sanctuary without blood having been shed. . . . By this symbol God wanted to show that he who procures grace for us must be furnished with a sacrifice. For when God is offended, the price of a satisfaction is required to pacify Him.
Because of the close connection between the sacrificial law and Christ's death, Calvin can say,
From the Law, therefore, we may learn to know Christ properly, if we consider the Covenant which God made with the Fathers was founded on the Mediator, . . . that the Law itself, with its promises was ratified by the shedding of blood.
Calvin not only regards that Christ's death with a sacrificial blood is the ground of fulfilling the requirement of the law, but also stresses that the way of Christ's death, namely, His death on the cross, is an indispensable way to satisfy the requirement of the law itself. Calvin describes that the cross is a symbol of the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13). In order to take away from us the condemnation of the law Christ cannot "suffer any kind of death." He has to die on the cross in our place. Accordingly, the condemnation of the law upon man is able to be transferred from man, who is worthy of death, to Christ. In this sense, Christ's death on the cross means that "He has revoked the power of the law."
b) Christ's Active Obedience of the Law
In addition to Christ's death on the cross Calvin regards that Christ's obedience to the law in His whole life is indispensable in Christ's redemption. This is why, Calvin says, the Scripture asserts that Christ was "born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them which were under the law." When Christ began his ministry, He let John the Baptist baptize Himself in order "to offer His Father full obedience." At the last week of His earthly life, Christ did not forget His subjection to the law either. He went up to Jerusalem "on the eve of the sabbath," that is, "the day appointed by the law," to keep the Passover. In summarizing Christ's active obedience to the law, Calvin writes,
We know the particular care He [Christ] gave not to depart one jot from the letter. Seeing He wished to be bound by the Law, that He might relieve us of its yoke, He forgot not the least article of its oversight.
Why Christ did not want to forget "the least article [of the law]"? Calvin explains that since "the righteousness [of God] consists in the observance of the law," the whole life of Christ has to fulfill the demand of the law actively. Accordingly, Christ can "earn" the righteousness of God on behalf of man. Following this understanding, Calvin concludes Christ's ministry on the earth in his commentary on Romans 3:31 by saying that throughout his life Christ fulfilled the "exact righteousness of the Law." In short, Calvin sees Christ's active obedience to the law as significant as His passive fulfillment of the law in his legal substitutionary theory of atonement.
2. The Legal Substitutionary Nature of Christ's Fulfillment of the Law
We have acknowledged that Christ is a fulfiller of the law in terms of His passive and active obedience to the law.Through the fulfillment of the law He is able to earn righteousness in God's sight. The righteousness which Christ earns, however, is not to benefit Himself, but to "merit favor for us." He offers the righteousness to the Father "as the ransom of our righteousness." As a result, if man believes in Christ, his debt or sin is completely released through Christ's substitutionary work. He becomes righteous, and is able to stay out of God's wrath and curse.
This process of transferring Christ's righteousness to be our righteousness often occurs in Calvin's writings. After Calvin describes how Christ obeys the law, and satisfies the Father in his commentary on Romans 5:19, he uses a forensic or juridical imagery to describe this process. He writes, "Righteousness exists in Christ as a property, but that which belongs properly to Christ is imputed to us."
In his commentary on Romans 6:14, he uses the commercial imagery to make his point. He asserts,
Christ submitted Himself to the bondage of the Law, although He was not otherwise a debtor to its demands, in order that, in the words of the apostle, He might redeem those who were under the Law (Gal. 4:5).
In his commentary on Titus 2:14 Calvin uses a commercial imagery again. He says, "Christ offered Himself for us, that He might redeem us from the bondage of sin, and purchase us to Himself as property." In short, no matter what imagery Calvin uses, his aim is to confirm that Christ does all that is necessary according to the law of God to satisfy God's justice. The only way to propitiate man's sin is through the transference of Christ's righteousness. Calvin therefore refutes any suggestion that the law can be relaxed. For him the curse or penalty of the law upon man can never be exempted without damaging or denying God's justice. It can only be satisfied through Christ's twofold fulfillment of the law.
3. God's Participation in Christ's Legal Substitutionary Work
Calvin's forensic understanding of imputing Christ's righteousness to us is not a reality without God's consent. In fact, Christ is merely an instrument or a minister of "the decree of His Father." Christ's twofold substitutionary fulfillment of the law on behalf of man is not only a means to satisfy God's righteous demand of the law (or His wrath), but in itself is an expression of God's merciful love that "He spared not His only-begotten Son."
This is to say, for Calvin God shall neither overlook man's sin easily, nor unmerciful toward sinner. Within the law of justice there is love. Although the law of justice demands punishment on account of man's sins, the essence of God's love makes Him reconcile us to Himself through the providence of His only begotten son, namely Christ, as a legal substitute. Indeed, Calvin's theory of legal substitutionary atonement is portrayed in terms of the tension between the justice and the love of God, or between the law of God that cannot be relaxed in any condition, and God's providence of Christ who acts as our legal substitute to fulfill the law. The best and only way to solve this tension is not, as Grotius teaches, to relax the punishment of the law, but to satisfy the law through God's method.
Summary
We have considered the difference between Calvin's substitutionary theory of atonement and Grotius's governmental theory. The goal of these two theories is to explain how the sin of men can be forgiven by God, and how they can be adopted as sons of God through God's forgiving grace. Nevertheless, their approaches or reasoning are wholly different. For Calvin in order to transfer God's forgiving grace to man it has to depend on Christ and His atoning works, which fulfill or satisfy the demands of the law. Christ's works are the principal and foundational factor of God's atoning planing. (The other instrumental factors include the two sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper, and God's Word.)