Lee Iron’s quotes Meredith Kline in his 4th post on merit saying:

…the value of the Son’s atonement payment was sufficient for all mankind, yet the Father gives him the elect only, not all.

Kline argues that without some notion of a prior agreement between the Father and the Son that his atonement would be “rewarded” with only the elect, the Father could be accused of injustice toward the Son.

But is this necessarily the case?

I have previously argued that Jesus can bear the full punishment humans deserve because he is an infinite being who can translate “punishment of limited severity for an infinite duration” into “punishment of infinite severity for a limited duration” and so take every ounce of punishment due to human beings.

…(!)

Ahem. Let me try to make that less a wall of words: Everyone who will suffer eternal punishment will suffer a certain level of punishment eternally. So, let’s say one person suffers level 1 punishment, another level 3 punishment but they are punished at that level for ever.

Now, I believe that Jesus, when he died, did not suffer a limited “level” of suffering for an eternity (a infinite length of time). Instead, he suffered an infinite “level” of punishment for a finite amount of time, and in this way “absorbed” the eternal punishment due to redeemed humanity.

If this is the case, (and, of course, I believe it is), then because of the unlimited nature of infinity, whether Jesus translated one person’s punishment of limited severity for an eternal duration into infinite severity for a limited duration, or 500 million people’s punishment of limited severity for an eternal duration into infinite severity for a limited duration, the outcome is the same: infinite severity and limited duration.

Therefore, God can not be accused of injustice.  Jesus’ atoning death was big enough to absorb the punishment of the whole world, and yet could be justly applied to only the elect without Jesus having paid anything less.

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed