“If the tremendous reality that Christ has become a curse for us is denied, then the entire preaching of the Scriptures shrivels to nothing.”
THE OUTLOOK is indebted to Rev. John H. Piersma, pastor of the Bethany Christian Reformed Church of South Holland, Illinois, for complying with the request to make available to our readers the content and the message of an important article by Professor C. Veenhof of the Netherlands dealing with the notorious position on the Atonement advocated in that country by Dr. H. Wiersinga.
The prevailing winds may be westerly for “the weather man” on your favorite newscast, but they are easterly so far as the Christian Reformed Church is concerned. If you look at the 1973 Agenda of the Christian Reformed Synod, you will find more than one Report which very simply follows and sometimes even reproduces material already known and in force among the Gereformeerden (our Dutch sister church). Fact is that one of my friends was able to predict with 100% accuracy the content of the report of the Committee to Study Homosexuality from his knowledge of the latest writings in the old country! Some never weary of saying that we have “Americanized,” but this does not rule out the possibility that we are increasingly influenced by Dutch theological trends.
As a loyal son of immigrant parents I’d like to rejoice in this linkage with our past. I can’t, however, because I believe that we are being influenced by some very wrong thinking on the part of the “new school” (Kuitert, Baarda, Augustijn, etc.) in Amsterdam.
One of the most emphatic of doctrinal alterations in the Netherlands came to light when Dr. H. Wiersinga published his doctoral dissertation entitled De Verzoening in de Theologische Discussie (Reconciliation in Theological Discussion). This was followed by a more popular book entitled De Verzoening als Verandering (Reconciliation as Alteration). In addition to popularization, Wiersinga attempts in this second work to indicate the ethical consequences of his view of reconciliation. Our relationship to our fellowman, marriage, capital punishment, the irreconcilable (or, at least, irreconciled) groups in society Wiersinga looks at these familiar and current “problems” in the light of his revised view of the atonement or reconciliation.
C. Veenhof, “Wiersinga Contra Berkouwer”
Needless to say, I am not competent to offer significant comment on these things, and that for all kinds of reasons.
This article is intended to give our readers an impression of the controversy which surrounds Wiersinga’s views. The way we can do this is by heavy reliance on an article written by Prof. C. Veenhof of the Theological School maintained by the liberated Reformed Churches at Kampen. Perhaps most of us know these churches best by the name of the late Dr. K. Schilder, whose deposition from office led to their formation in the mid-forties.
Dr. Veenhof”s competence goes without question. He is one of the most erudite Christian scholars I have ever had the pleasure to meet. The November 3, 1972 issue of Opbouw, a periodical of which he is an editor, contains his article entitled “Wiersinga contra Berkouwer”—from which we will quote copiously.
The contention of the article is that Wiersinga must be seen as in direct opposition to Berkouwer on the doctrine of divine reconciliation. The question Veenhof poses is, “What is going to happen? Shall we proceed in the line of Berkouwer, or shall we deviate from that line to follow Wiersinga?” This question was really addressed to what was then a forthcoming synod of the Reformed Churches. Since then that synod has met, and, as many know, predictably did little with the entire matter. It seems as if today’s church has great difficulty as it tries to solve today’s problems!
That readers of THE OUTLOOK may know something of the discussion surrounding Dr. Wiersinga’s views, we will offer a summary of Prof. Veenhof”s comments. A significant introductory paragraph in the Veenhof article states the issue as follows:
“As in his doctoral dissertation Wiersinga in this book also turns sharply against what the reformational confessions teach about the reconciliation of sinners with Cod upon the basis of the self-sacrifice of Christ. He describes the ‘by him rejected view of the atonement’ as follows: “In catechesis and preaching we have been taught that this sacrifice of Christ was necessary because the justice of God required ‘satisfaction.’ By this death (of Christ) the wrath of God is stilled and the way is opened to a new fellowship with the Father. The reconciliation between God and men has become a fact. We on our part may believe in this definitive atonement. We must of course bring this into practice, even though actually we accomplish nothing of it. At best we attain certain ‘marks’ of the reconciliation.”
What Wiersinga Rejects
Veenhof goes on to say that Wiersinga rejects out of hand this reformational, confessional truth. In Wiersinga’s eyes this view of the atonement is completely a product of the life-and thought-climate of the Reformers. To quote Veenhof:
“They (the Reformers) simply translated “the once-delivered faith ‘in terms of their circumstances and language.’ And they often gave in their time a ‘certain striking translation of the biblical message.’ But there has been since then a steady erosion of the aforementioned propositions because of an alteration in the ‘infrastructure.’ The relationship between the new situation in which people live and (Christian) dogma makes it necessary that the biblical message be ‘translated’ anew. And that must happen with an appeal to the evident estrangement found among the people of our time with respect to the conception of our redemption through Christ.”
Prof. Veenhof points out now that we ought to note that the first and definitive impulse which leads to Wiersinga’s revised view of the atonement comes from the changed situation in which people now live, in their altered conception or view of the world and man, sin and guilt, life and death. With such questions Wiersinga goes to the Bible to find answers.
Here we find a very incisive comment on the part of Dr. Veenhof:
“Looking at this procedure one cannot help but think of a beautiful statement made by Prof. J. H. Bavinck. He once wrote that all the questions which exist for modern man are never the last, definitive questions. The fundamental, all-determining question for every man is the question of a good relationship to God. This question never exists with the ‘natural’ man. This question can only be born through the proclamation of the Gospel. All that proceeds from the questions which modern man poses can only result in the pursuit of side roads, and these are wrong ways, leading one astray.”
What Wiersinga Teaches
Veenhof now attempts a brief characterization of Wiersinga’s views. Basic to them is the idea that the Bible furnishes us with a narrative, an account of a never-to-be-repeated, irreversible history. This history is an account of God’s deeds. Not one of these, not even the earth-shaking, world-changing moment of the Cross, may ever be lifted out of that history. For example: to say that the Cross is some kind of central moment in and for all of history is to “eternalize” that one moment. It then becomes something which stands above history, above time. It is then said to be something which is relevant to any situation in any period of history.
After the fashion of idealistic philosophy the atonement, says Wiersinga, then becomes something vaguely supra-temporal. And then the question must rise: How shall we bridge the gap between the temporality of men and that piece of eternity, in this case, the atonement? A question which will have to be answered by saying: It is not possible.
We must maintain resolutely, therefore, that the events of the Cross are completely historical. And that they are no more than that. The Cross is an unsurpassed revelation of God’s love. It is an unbelievably far-reaching act of Jesus’ love. This historical deed in the center of history has really qualified and changed history. It is for all men who live after Christ of absolute significance. The bridge between that deed and the post-Jesus people can now be built. “By way of confrontation with the Crucified One—via the Holy Spirit in preaching and in the practice of discipleship—people are changed and peoples reconciled.”
The Cross of Christ, says Wiersinga, bears the character of a judicial murder which Cod Himself only in the resurrection surprisingly corrects. It is not at all proper to say in connection with the crucifixion that Jesus by the judgment of God suffered a death which was willed by God. Who has been affected by God’s judgment at the Cross? The perpetrators, the bystanders, the world! In the Crucified One, the Judge of heaven and earth demonstrates irrefutably the fact of our guilt. The Bible knows nothing of a judgment sent by the Father directly against His Son.
Summary Statements
To make plain the nature of Wiersinga’s view of the atonement, Prof. Veenhof offers a series of statements, each one of which is intended to show the radical character of this doctrinal revision. Veenhof dares to slate unequivocally that Wiersinga denies the following things:
– that Jesus Christ has borne our sin and guilt;
– that Jesus Christ has borne for us the burden of God’s wrath against our sin;
– that Jesus Christ has satisfied the justice of God by His death on the Cross;
– that Jesus Christ has accomplished a righteousness which is imputed unto us;
– that we become partakers of that righteousness of Christ by faith and arc thus justified by God;
– that God reconciles us to Himself upon the basis of the self-sacrifice of Christ in the way of faith.
Typically, Prof. Veenhof appeals to one of the Reformers to emphasize the point of all this. He remarks:
Luther once wrote—and that was the core of Reformation preaching: “Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, I am your sin. Thou hast taken from me that which was mine and given me what was yours. Thou hast assumed that which Thou art not and given to me that which I was not.”
This word of Luther, if Wiersinga is right, is a fundamental mistake, an obvious misunderstanding with respect to the biblical message.
A Fatal Dilemma
Veenhof comments that one does not have to be a keen-eyed theologian to sense that Wiersinga’s views carry great significance for the doctrine and, more importantly perhaps, for the life of the church. He tells us that Prof. Kuitert once said that what he was teaching represented the beginning of a radical revolution in theology. “In Wiersinga’s doctrine of the atonement this observation gains sharper contours.” Wiersinga’s idea of reconciliation is more than a simple deviation!
At this point Veenhof sets out to contrast Wiersinga’s doctrine of the atonement with that found in Prof. G. Berkouwer’s fine book, The Work of Christ. In his opinion Berkouwer’s treatment of this subject represents a most impressive, “magisterial” exposition of the Scriptural, reformational view of the atonement. He avers. “Against the background of this exposition (Berkouwer’s. J.H.P.) Wiersinga’s views appear plainly as a denial of the essential moments of that doctrine.”
Berkouwer indicates that the doctrine of the atonement has in its history been marked by the presence of what may be called “a fatal dilemma.” It is this: Does God become reconciled with man, or does man become reconciled with God? “Saying it otherwise, is God the ‘subject’ of reconciliation and man the ‘object?’ Or is man ‘subject’ and God ‘object’? Or, to say it still another way, Does the arrow of the atonement direct itself toward God or toward man?”
In modern theology it is usually maintained that God is the “subject” of the atonement. Wiersinga shares this view. God reconciles; He is not reconciled. He cannot be reconciled. There is no need for a change of attitude to take place in God with respect to man. It is not so that the suffering and death of Christ were necessary that God might become a friend rather than an enemy of man. No, God was and is and remains gracious in His attitude toward man.
He who needs reconciliation with God is man. And Christ’s work relates to that need. By His great and loving act of suffering and death Christ brings people into a reconciled relationship with God. “By way of confrontation with the Crucified One—via the Holy Spirit in preaching and in the practice of discipleship—people are changed and people are reconciled.” By Jesus’ obedience our obedience is aroused and we come to know the beginning of our liberation as sons of God. That is to say: we are reconciled. we come to desire and to know and to practice a new relationship of peace with God.
By taking upon Himself the sin and guilt of humanity and by bearing the burden of God’s wrath Jesus took away the barricades so that the love of God might be fully effective in the reconciliation, the redemption of men. Thus the Cross of Jesus Christ, His self-sacrifice, is the revelation of God’s love. God sent His Son for the atoning of our sin. At the same time that Cross is the revelation of God’s justice—for the sin and guilt of the world are thereby actually put away and God’s wrath against that sin is silenced.
What is the Reconciliation?
The suffering and death of Christ is not just a sign, an illustration of God’s love, nor is it merely the unveiling of it. One of Prof. Veenhof’s most telling observations is:
Whenever the death on the Cross is viewed merely as a sign or an illustration, as Wiersinga does, and thus seen as judicial murder, a martyr’s death in which the love of God and the love and faithfulness of Christ to God are manifested in the situation in which the Savior lived while on earth, then that death is denied its historicity, then it is denied that it was a historical event by which our guilt is actually taken away.
Veenhof goes on to point out that this fails to do justice to such Scriptural expressions which speak of “communion of the blood of Christ,” of the fact that we who were “far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ,” of “having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water,” and of the great throng “which came out of the tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the lamb,” and of victory “by the blood of the Lamb.”
God’s love becomes manifest in the suffering and death of Christ as a love which is in harmony with His holiness and justice. “This love becomes finally evident in the passio magna (the great suffering) when Christ in His meeting up with the Father takes upon Himself our guilt.” Veenhof says, “If the tremendous reality that Christ has become a curse for us, that He alone stills the wrath of God against sin is denied, and if it is not affirmed that the suffering of Christ is a necessity because such a Highpriest became us (Heb. 7:26), then the entire preaching of the Scriptures shrivels to nothing.”
This closing paragraph is a summary of Berkouwer as viewed by Veenhof:
Thus no reconciliation according to the Scriptures comes to pass except through the satisfaction of the justice of God by the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. The church has emphasized this strongly not out of some kind of reaction, but out of the desire in no way to diminish the message of the Scriptures, neither with respect to the love of God, nor His wrath. When the church uses such words as ‘payment’ or ‘purchase’ or ‘satisfying the justice of God’ it did not intend to set the work of Christ apart from the reconciling work of God. No, the deepest intention thereof was that she did not want to make the love of God loose from the curse as borne by Christ, nor the work of Christ from the reconciling love of God.
Concluding Remarks
That is, says Veenhof, the heart and core of Prof. Berkouwer’s writing about the atonement. He adds:
Much more could be mentioned. I’m thinking about Berkouwer’s explanations concerning the sacrifice of Christ. And above all of that beautiful study entitled Faith and Justification. There Berkouwer demonstrates that the atonement is closely related to justification. “It has to do with the same reality of our being reconciled and justified after the darkness of guilt and hostility.” What Berkouwer in that work writes is a defense of the refonnational confession of the sola gratia, sola fide (only by grace, only by faith) right in the very midst of the jungle of modem theology. Still more: it is a doxology to God’s unfathomable mercy as revealed by Him in Christ’s house, a doxology upon the mystery of reconciliation through satisfaction.
I point to one more thing. In his Faith and Justification Berkouwer points to the fact that the sola fide, sola gratia has to do with the very central point of reformational confession. The many and various expressions of this truth are religiously simple and plain. “It has been recognized that justification by faith is indeed a confession with which the church stands or falls.”
At the time of the writing of his article Prof. Veenhof expressed deep interest and concern for the reaction of the Synod of the Reformed Churches (Gereformeerde Kerken). By this time many of us know that the actions of Synod were once again disappointing to people like Prof. Veenhof and others desiring to remain faithful to the doctrines of our Reformed Confessions.
This is a day of surprise and dismay. Surprise because issues and problems and positions are summarily posed which many of us thought to be per se inadmissible and unacceptable for Bible-believing Christians of Reformed persuasion. Dismay that today’s church seems incapable of resolving such matters in terms of its avowed commitments.
THE OUTLOOK is indebted to Rev. John H. Piersma, pastor of the Bethany Christian Reformed Church of South Holland, Illinois, for complying with the request to make available to our readers the content and the message of an important article by Professor C. Veenhof of the Netherlands dealing with the notorious position on the Atonement advocated in that country by Dr. H. Wiersinga.
The prevailing winds may be westerly for “the weather man” on your favorite newscast, but they are easterly so far as the Christian Reformed Church is concerned. If you look at the 1973 Agenda of the Christian Reformed Synod, you will find more than one Report which very simply follows and sometimes even reproduces material already known and in force among the Gereformeerden (our Dutch sister church). Fact is that one of my friends was able to predict with 100% accuracy the content of the report of the Committee to Study Homosexuality from his knowledge of the latest writings in the old country! Some never weary of saying that we have “Americanized,” but this does not rule out the possibility that we are increasingly influenced by Dutch theological trends.
As a loyal son of immigrant parents I’d like to rejoice in this linkage with our past. I can’t, however, because I believe that we are being influenced by some very wrong thinking on the part of the “new school” (Kuitert, Baarda, Augustijn, etc.) in Amsterdam.
One of the most emphatic of doctrinal alterations in the Netherlands came to light when Dr. H. Wiersinga published his doctoral dissertation entitled De Verzoening in de Theologische Discussie (Reconciliation in Theological Discussion). This was followed by a more popular book entitled De Verzoening als Verandering (Reconciliation as Alteration). In addition to popularization, Wiersinga attempts in this second work to indicate the ethical consequences of his view of reconciliation. Our relationship to our fellowman, marriage, capital punishment, the irreconcilable (or, at least, irreconciled) groups in society Wiersinga looks at these familiar and current “problems” in the light of his revised view of the atonement or reconciliation.
C. Veenhof, “Wiersinga Contra Berkouwer”
Needless to say, I am not competent to offer significant comment on these things, and that for all kinds of reasons.
This article is intended to give our readers an impression of the controversy which surrounds Wiersinga’s views. The way we can do this is by heavy reliance on an article written by Prof. C. Veenhof of the Theological School maintained by the liberated Reformed Churches at Kampen. Perhaps most of us know these churches best by the name of the late Dr. K. Schilder, whose deposition from office led to their formation in the mid-forties.
Dr. Veenhof”s competence goes without question. He is one of the most erudite Christian scholars I have ever had the pleasure to meet. The November 3, 1972 issue of Opbouw, a periodical of which he is an editor, contains his article entitled “Wiersinga contra Berkouwer”—from which we will quote copiously.
The contention of the article is that Wiersinga must be seen as in direct opposition to Berkouwer on the doctrine of divine reconciliation. The question Veenhof poses is, “What is going to happen? Shall we proceed in the line of Berkouwer, or shall we deviate from that line to follow Wiersinga?” This question was really addressed to what was then a forthcoming synod of the Reformed Churches. Since then that synod has met, and, as many know, predictably did little with the entire matter. It seems as if today’s church has great difficulty as it tries to solve today’s problems!
That readers of THE OUTLOOK may know something of the discussion surrounding Dr. Wiersinga’s views, we will offer a summary of Prof. Veenhof”s comments. A significant introductory paragraph in the Veenhof article states the issue as follows:
“As in his doctoral dissertation Wiersinga in this book also turns sharply against what the reformational confessions teach about the reconciliation of sinners with Cod upon the basis of the self-sacrifice of Christ. He describes the ‘by him rejected view of the atonement’ as follows: “In catechesis and preaching we have been taught that this sacrifice of Christ was necessary because the justice of God required ‘satisfaction.’ By this death (of Christ) the wrath of God is stilled and the way is opened to a new fellowship with the Father. The reconciliation between God and men has become a fact. We on our part may believe in this definitive atonement. We must of course bring this into practice, even though actually we accomplish nothing of it. At best we attain certain ‘marks’ of the reconciliation.”
What Wiersinga Rejects
Veenhof goes on to say that Wiersinga rejects out of hand this reformational, confessional truth. In Wiersinga’s eyes this view of the atonement is completely a product of the life-and thought-climate of the Reformers. To quote Veenhof:
“They (the Reformers) simply translated “the once-delivered faith ‘in terms of their circumstances and language.’ And they often gave in their time a ‘certain striking translation of the biblical message.’ But there has been since then a steady erosion of the aforementioned propositions because of an alteration in the ‘infrastructure.’ The relationship between the new situation in which people live and (Christian) dogma makes it necessary that the biblical message be ‘translated’ anew. And that must happen with an appeal to the evident estrangement found among the people of our time with respect to the conception of our redemption through Christ.”
Prof. Veenhof points out now that we ought to note that the first and definitive impulse which leads to Wiersinga’s revised view of the atonement comes from the changed situation in which people now live, in their altered conception or view of the world and man, sin and guilt, life and death. With such questions Wiersinga goes to the Bible to find answers.
Here we find a very incisive comment on the part of Dr. Veenhof:
“Looking at this procedure one cannot help but think of a beautiful statement made by Prof. J. H. Bavinck. He once wrote that all the questions which exist for modern man are never the last, definitive questions. The fundamental, all-determining question for every man is the question of a good relationship to God. This question never exists with the ‘natural’ man. This question can only be born through the proclamation of the Gospel. All that proceeds from the questions which modern man poses can only result in the pursuit of side roads, and these are wrong ways, leading one astray.”
What Wiersinga Teaches
Veenhof now attempts a brief characterization of Wiersinga’s views. Basic to them is the idea that the Bible furnishes us with a narrative, an account of a never-to-be-repeated, irreversible history. This history is an account of God’s deeds. Not one of these, not even the earth-shaking, world-changing moment of the Cross, may ever be lifted out of that history. For example: to say that the Cross is some kind of central moment in and for all of history is to “eternalize” that one moment. It then becomes something which stands above history, above time. It is then said to be something which is relevant to any situation in any period of history.
After the fashion of idealistic philosophy the atonement, says Wiersinga, then becomes something vaguely supra-temporal. And then the question must rise: How shall we bridge the gap between the temporality of men and that piece of eternity, in this case, the atonement? A question which will have to be answered by saying: It is not possible.
We must maintain resolutely, therefore, that the events of the Cross are completely historical. And that they are no more than that. The Cross is an unsurpassed revelation of God’s love. It is an unbelievably far-reaching act of Jesus’ love. This historical deed in the center of history has really qualified and changed history. It is for all men who live after Christ of absolute significance. The bridge between that deed and the post-Jesus people can now be built. “By way of confrontation with the Crucified One—via the Holy Spirit in preaching and in the practice of discipleship—people are changed and peoples reconciled.”
The Cross of Christ, says Wiersinga, bears the character of a judicial murder which Cod Himself only in the resurrection surprisingly corrects. It is not at all proper to say in connection with the crucifixion that Jesus by the judgment of God suffered a death which was willed by God. Who has been affected by God’s judgment at the Cross? The perpetrators, the bystanders, the world! In the Crucified One, the Judge of heaven and earth demonstrates irrefutably the fact of our guilt. The Bible knows nothing of a judgment sent by the Father directly against His Son.
Summary Statements
To make plain the nature of Wiersinga’s view of the atonement, Prof. Veenhof offers a series of statements, each one of which is intended to show the radical character of this doctrinal revision. Veenhof dares to slate unequivocally that Wiersinga denies the following things:
– that Jesus Christ has borne our sin and guilt;
– that Jesus Christ has borne for us the burden of God’s wrath against our sin;
– that Jesus Christ has satisfied the justice of God by His death on the Cross;
– that Jesus Christ has accomplished a righteousness which is imputed unto us;
– that we become partakers of that righteousness of Christ by faith and arc thus justified by God;
– that God reconciles us to Himself upon the basis of the self-sacrifice of Christ in the way of faith.
Typically, Prof. Veenhof appeals to one of the Reformers to emphasize the point of all this. He remarks:
Luther once wrote—and that was the core of Reformation preaching: “Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, I am your sin. Thou hast taken from me that which was mine and given me what was yours. Thou hast assumed that which Thou art not and given to me that which I was not.”
This word of Luther, if Wiersinga is right, is a fundamental mistake, an obvious misunderstanding with respect to the biblical message.
A Fatal Dilemma
Veenhof comments that one does not have to be a keen-eyed theologian to sense that Wiersinga’s views carry great significance for the doctrine and, more importantly perhaps, for the life of the church. He tells us that Prof. Kuitert once said that what he was teaching represented the beginning of a radical revolution in theology. “In Wiersinga’s doctrine of the atonement this observation gains sharper contours.” Wiersinga’s idea of reconciliation is more than a simple deviation!
At this point Veenhof sets out to contrast Wiersinga’s doctrine of the atonement with that found in Prof. G. Berkouwer’s fine book, The Work of Christ. In his opinion Berkouwer’s treatment of this subject represents a most impressive, “magisterial” exposition of the Scriptural, reformational view of the atonement. He avers. “Against the background of this exposition (Berkouwer’s. J.H.P.) Wiersinga’s views appear plainly as a denial of the essential moments of that doctrine.”
Berkouwer indicates that the doctrine of the atonement has in its history been marked by the presence of what may be called “a fatal dilemma.” It is this: Does God become reconciled with man, or does man become reconciled with God? “Saying it otherwise, is God the ‘subject’ of reconciliation and man the ‘object?’ Or is man ‘subject’ and God ‘object’? Or, to say it still another way, Does the arrow of the atonement direct itself toward God or toward man?”
In modern theology it is usually maintained that God is the “subject” of the atonement. Wiersinga shares this view. God reconciles; He is not reconciled. He cannot be reconciled. There is no need for a change of attitude to take place in God with respect to man. It is not so that the suffering and death of Christ were necessary that God might become a friend rather than an enemy of man. No, God was and is and remains gracious in His attitude toward man.
He who needs reconciliation with God is man. And Christ’s work relates to that need. By His great and loving act of suffering and death Christ brings people into a reconciled relationship with God. “By way of confrontation with the Crucified One—via the Holy Spirit in preaching and in the practice of discipleship—people are changed and people are reconciled.” By Jesus’ obedience our obedience is aroused and we come to know the beginning of our liberation as sons of God. That is to say: we are reconciled. we come to desire and to know and to practice a new relationship of peace with God.
By taking upon Himself the sin and guilt of humanity and by bearing the burden of God’s wrath Jesus took away the barricades so that the love of God might be fully effective in the reconciliation, the redemption of men. Thus the Cross of Jesus Christ, His self-sacrifice, is the revelation of God’s love. God sent His Son for the atoning of our sin. At the same time that Cross is the revelation of God’s justice—for the sin and guilt of the world are thereby actually put away and God’s wrath against that sin is silenced.
What is the Reconciliation?
The suffering and death of Christ is not just a sign, an illustration of God’s love, nor is it merely the unveiling of it. One of Prof. Veenhof’s most telling observations is:
Whenever the death on the Cross is viewed merely as a sign or an illustration, as Wiersinga does, and thus seen as judicial murder, a martyr’s death in which the love of God and the love and faithfulness of Christ to God are manifested in the situation in which the Savior lived while on earth, then that death is denied its historicity, then it is denied that it was a historical event by which our guilt is actually taken away.
Veenhof goes on to point out that this fails to do justice to such Scriptural expressions which speak of “communion of the blood of Christ,” of the fact that we who were “far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ,” of “having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water,” and of the great throng “which came out of the tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the lamb,” and of victory “by the blood of the Lamb.”
God’s love becomes manifest in the suffering and death of Christ as a love which is in harmony with His holiness and justice. “This love becomes finally evident in the passio magna (the great suffering) when Christ in His meeting up with the Father takes upon Himself our guilt.” Veenhof says, “If the tremendous reality that Christ has become a curse for us, that He alone stills the wrath of God against sin is denied, and if it is not affirmed that the suffering of Christ is a necessity because such a Highpriest became us (Heb. 7:26), then the entire preaching of the Scriptures shrivels to nothing.”
This closing paragraph is a summary of Berkouwer as viewed by Veenhof:
Thus no reconciliation according to the Scriptures comes to pass except through the satisfaction of the justice of God by the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. The church has emphasized this strongly not out of some kind of reaction, but out of the desire in no way to diminish the message of the Scriptures, neither with respect to the love of God, nor His wrath. When the church uses such words as ‘payment’ or ‘purchase’ or ‘satisfying the justice of God’ it did not intend to set the work of Christ apart from the reconciling work of God. No, the deepest intention thereof was that she did not want to make the love of God loose from the curse as borne by Christ, nor the work of Christ from the reconciling love of God.
Concluding Remarks
That is, says Veenhof, the heart and core of Prof. Berkouwer’s writing about the atonement. He adds:
Much more could be mentioned. I’m thinking about Berkouwer’s explanations concerning the sacrifice of Christ. And above all of that beautiful study entitled Faith and Justification. There Berkouwer demonstrates that the atonement is closely related to justification. “It has to do with the same reality of our being reconciled and justified after the darkness of guilt and hostility.” What Berkouwer in that work writes is a defense of the refonnational confession of the sola gratia, sola fide (only by grace, only by faith) right in the very midst of the jungle of modem theology. Still more: it is a doxology to God’s unfathomable mercy as revealed by Him in Christ’s house, a doxology upon the mystery of reconciliation through satisfaction.
I point to one more thing. In his Faith and Justification Berkouwer points to the fact that the sola fide, sola gratia has to do with the very central point of reformational confession. The many and various expressions of this truth are religiously simple and plain. “It has been recognized that justification by faith is indeed a confession with which the church stands or falls.”
At the time of the writing of his article Prof. Veenhof expressed deep interest and concern for the reaction of the Synod of the Reformed Churches (Gereformeerde Kerken). By this time many of us know that the actions of Synod were once again disappointing to people like Prof. Veenhof and others desiring to remain faithful to the doctrines of our Reformed Confessions.
This is a day of surprise and dismay. Surprise because issues and problems and positions are summarily posed which many of us thought to be per se inadmissible and unacceptable for Bible-believing Christians of Reformed persuasion. Dismay that today’s church seems incapable of resolving such matters in terms of its avowed commitments.