Retying Love S Knot

RETYING LOVE’S KNOT

an exploration of the relationship between the Trinity and the Atonement

by E. Jerome Van Kuiken

The Problem: The Cry of Dereliction

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”1 These soul-wrenching words from

Jesus’ lips as he hung dying on the cross have been called his “cry of dereliction,” the anguished admission of his abandonment by his Father. A number of theologians (both professional and amateur) have used a literal understanding of these words in order to interpret the nature of the

Atonement in relation to the Trinity. Perhaps most notorious in this regard is German Protestant theologian Jurgen Moltmann, who sees in the Cross the constitution of the Trinity in history:

“What happened on the cross... was a deep division in God himself, in so far as God abandoned

God and contradicted himself, and at the same time a unity in God, in so far as God was at one with God and corresponded to himself.”2 Summarizing Moltmann, John J. O’Donnell writes, “In this moment of the cross, the divine being is rent asunder. Father and Son are held apart by death, darkness and sin.”3

1Mat 27:46 (unless otherwise noted, all quoted verses NASB Updated Ed.) 2Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, tr. R. A. Wilson and John Bowden (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), 244, quoted in Stanley J. Grenz and Roger E. Olson, Twentieth-Century Theology: God and the World in a Transitional Age (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity, 1992), 180. 3O’Donnell, The Mystery of the Triune God (Mahwah, N.J: Paulist, 1989), 63. Emphasis mine. Hans Urs von Balthasar, the late Swiss Catholic thinker, likewise holds to an actual separation of being between Father and Son due to sin. Once again, O’Donnell provides the summary:

If... the death of a sinner is hell, if God’s holiness excludes the sinner from his presence, because his holiness cannot abide sin, if sin must provoke the wrath of God, then Jesus on the cross experienced hell. As Balthasar says, hell is in fact a christological concept. The meaning of hell is determined from Christ’s experience on the cross.4

Neither is popular evangelicalism a stranger to such a conception of the

Atonement. Max Lucado gives typical expression to it:

And now on Skull’s hill, the sinbearer is again alone. Every lie ever told, every object ever coveted, every promise ever broken is on his shoulders. He is sin. God turns away.... The despair is darker than the sky. The two who have been one are now two. Jesus, who had been with God for eternity, is now alone. The Christ, who was an expression of God, is abandoned. The Trinity is dismantled. The Godhead is disjointed. The unity is dissolved.5

Statements like the above, however, raise serious trinitarian questions. If the

Father and Son are actually separated, if the Trinity is “rent asunder” and “dissolved,” then were there two Gods for three hours one Friday long ago? Or did the Son cease to be God? In fact, the thinking represented above is Arian at base. It destroys the eternal generation of the Son, for the communion with the Father which is the continuous cause of the Son’s existence is cut off when the Father supposedly turns his back on his Son.

Furthermore, the Son is made to be of a different nature than the Father, for the Son is

4O’Donnell, 68. Balthasar inverts Moltmann’s position on the Cross and the constitution of the Trinity. Rather than the Trinity being constituted in history by the Crucifixion, as Moltmann holds, Balthasar claims the primordial separation-in-union which constitutes the Godhead in eternity makes possible the separation-in-union of the Cross. Cf. O’Donnell, 65. 5Max Lucado, No Wonder They Call Him The Savior (Portland: Multnomah, 1986), 47. able really to be “made sin” while the Father, the “real” God, must turn away in holy horror.

Such dangerous ideas may be avoided by a more careful interpretation of Jesus’ cry of dereliction as well as the Apostle Paul’s alleged statement that Christ became sin,6 both of which O’Donnell cites in his presentation7 and which clearly have influenced

Lucado’s passage (as quoted above). In Matthew’s account, Jesus is quoting the opening line of Psalm 22. Since one is dealing with poetry, one ought to be careful about taking the saying too literally. The Psalms may describe how the writers are feeling rather than what is actually happening. In Psalm 22, David begins by expressing his feeling of abandonment by God. By the end of the psalm, though, David realizes that God has not abandoned him and has in fact come to his rescue. Jesus, the Son of David, may be expressing the feeling that God has abandoned him, not the fact of that abandonment. In fact, his quotation of that particular psalm suggests that Jesus understands Psalm 22 to be a prophecy that is being fulfilled in his life, a prophecy that God’s servant, though seemingly forsaken to his foes, will not in the end be forgotten by his God.

Some writers have claimed that because Jesus says “My God” instead of “Father,” his usual name for God, this shows that a breach in fellowship had opened up within the

Trinity. But why can Jesus not simply quote Psalm 22:1 without changing it to fit his own idiom? Furthermore, as one evangelical Old Testament scholar points out, “In the

Psalms ‘my God’ is equivalent to ‘my Father.’”8 Jesus himself uses both expressions together in his post-resurrection appearance to Mary Magdalene: “I am returning to my

62 Cor 5:21 7O’Donnell, 62 (the cry of dereliction); 63 and 71 (the Pauline paradox). 8Willem A. VanGemeren, “Psalms,” in Frank E. Gaebelein, Gen. Ed., Expositor’s Bible Commentary Vol. 5 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 200. Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”9 Jesus was just as much in communion with his Father on Good Friday afternoon as he was on Easter Sunday morning.

Regarding 2 Corinthians 5:21, the word translated “sin” is better translated “sin offering” in this case, as the NIV margin renders it. The original language of Leviticus

4:32-34 uses the same word (hattat) to mean both “sin” and “sin offering.” When the

Levitical passage was translated as part of the Septuagint, the Greek word hamartia was substituted for hattat for both “sin” and “sin offering.” Therefore it is only natural that

Paul should use the word hamartia in 2 Corinthians 5:21 to picture Christ as a spotless lamb sacrificed as a sin offering.10 If Christ’s nature actually had become sinful, then his conduct on the cross should have expressed that sinfulness, for Christ himself said, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.”11 Instead, 1 Pet

2:20-23 testifies that Jesus left his followers an example of sinless suffering. Indeed, the united witness of the New Testament is that Jesus was and is “holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners,”12 yet able to be a sympathetic advocate and priest on behalf of sinners because he has fully experienced the torments of temptation.13

9Jn 20:17 (NIV) 10Material on 2 Cor 5:21 is summarized from research presented in “Did Christ Actually Become Sin?,” a module taught by Gale W. Finney, M.A., M.A., M.Div., in his Spring 1996 Biblical Hebrew course at Kentucky Mountain Bible College. Cf. Harper Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985), 9, footnote on Gn 4:7. This interpretation has roots in the ancient church: cf. Thomas C. Oden, The Justification Reader (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002), 61. 11Mat 7:18; cf. Mk 7:20-23 12Heb 7:26; cf. Thomas C. Oden, The Word of Life, Systematic Theology: Volume Two paperback ed. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 254-60. 13Heb 2:10-18; 4:15, 16; 5:7-10; 1 Jn 2:1. Some theologians see Christ as becoming sinful not on the cross but at his Incarnation. Thus Thomas Torrance claims that Christ assumed human flesh in its fallen, guilty and godless state, then atoned for, sanctified and healed his own sin-ridden humanity by means of unbroken obedience to God (Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, revised ed. [Colorado Springs: Helmers & Howard, In short, the Bible does not support the idea that atonement was made for humanity’s sins at the cost of a strain or fracture in the interrelationships of the Trinity.

The fellowship of Father and Son in the Spirit seen in Christ’s baptism and prayer life14 does not alter at his death. Indeed, a crucial New Testament passage plants the Cross at the heart of the triune life of God: Hebrews 9:14 states that Christ “through the eternal

Spirit offered himself unblemished to God.” Jesus himself asserted, “The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.”15 Jesus’ logic holds together God’s pleasure and his presence. If by his self-sacrifice as a sin offering

Jesus pleased his Father, then the Father must not have left his Son alone. The Father’s outrage at sin is not turned against his crucified Son; rather, the wrath which the whole

Godhead shares against sin16 reveals itself on the Cross.

A Solution: The Plea for Pardon

What, then, is the relationship of the Trinity to sin in the Atonement? How did the

Cross reconcile God and humankind? In what sense did Christ “bear our sins” or “take away the sin of the world”?17 Another of Jesus’ sayings while on the cross provides a clue: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”18

1992], 39, 40, 63). Not only is this position contrary to Scripture, as cited above; it was also condemned as heretical by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451 (Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church, Galaxy Ed. [New York: Oxford University Press, 1947], 69-71. 14Baptism: Mat 3:13-17 and parallels. Prayer life: Lk 10:21, 22. 15Jn 8:29 (NIV) 16Richard S. Taylor helpfully cites Isa 5:25 and Mk 3:5 as proof of the mutual anger of Father and Son against sin. Taylor, God’s Integrity and the Cross (Nappanee, Ind: Francis Asbury Press, 1999), 75. One might also cite Jesus’ cursing of the fig tree and cleansing of the temple as examples of righteous anger in action. 17See Isa 53:6, 12; Jn 1:29; 1 Pet 2:24. 18Lk 23:34 These words of Jesus are first of all an act of intercession. Christ bore the people’s sins just as the saints of old had borne the sins of their people. Jeremiah carried in his heart his people’s punishment:

My sorrow is beyond healing, My heart is faint within me! ...For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken; I mourn, dismay has taken hold of me.... Oh that my head were waters And my eyes a fountain of tears, That I might weep day and night For the slain of the daughter of my people!”19

Daniel, Ezra, and the author of Lamentations all bore Israel’s sins before God, vicariously including themselves among the sinners for whom they were interceding.20 The same burden of sin that weighs down the sinner with guilt, weighs down the saint with compassionate concern.

The vicarious bearing of sin in intercession involves both identification with and substitution for sinners. Its twofold nature displays itself most clearly on the merely human level in the lives of Moses and Paul. In the days of the Old Covenant, Moses seeks to, in his own words, “make atonement for [Israel’s] sin” of rejecting God’s covenant for a golden calf. He does so by praying for his nation, and his prayer is remarkable: “But now, if You will, forgive their sin – and if not, please blot me out from

Your book which You have written!”21 Under the New Covenant, the Apostle to the

Gentiles reflects on Israel’s mass rejection of the Messiah and vows, “For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my

19Jer 8:18, 21; 9:1 20Dan 9:4-20; Ezra 9:5-15; Lam 3:39-50. Note that when the high priest went into the presence of God to make atonement for the people, he bore the names of the tribes of Israel on his shoulders and over his heart (Exo 28:9-12, 29, 30). What the high priest did symbolically, the great intercessors of the Old Testament did in actuality. 21Exo 32:30, 32; emphasis mine. kinsmen according to the flesh.”22 In both cases, the man of God involved speaks of preferring to be cut off from God for the sake of his people’s salvation.

This godly impulse toward identification and substitution finds its fulfillment in the work of Christ. Isaiah had described a servant of God who carried the punishment of sins not his own, who “bore the sin of many,/ And interceded for the transgressors.”23

The early church applied this prophecy to Jesus’ life and death.24 These biblical data set a trajectory toward a theory of the Atonement which views Christ’s reconciling work as one of perfect intercession for sinners. In the Incarnation, the Son of God identified with humanity in general and with the Jewish people, the covenant people of God, in particular by being “born of a woman, born under the Law.”25 At his baptism, he stood in solidarity with repentant sinners and received a rite for the forgiveness of sins he had not committed.26 This pattern of identification climaxes in the Cross, where Christ “was numbered with the transgressors”27 and crucified as a criminal among criminals. Not only did Christ identify with sinners, but he also presented himself as a substitute for sinners. He voluntarily became a curse in order to deliver humankind from the curse under which it lay due to sin.28 He was willing for his humanity to be cut off from God by death, as if such a severance were possible, in order the reconnect the rest of humanity to God. The sin of the world was never actually imparted to him; his own human will was never a moment in defiance of the will of God. Still, he suffered from and for all the

22Rom 9:3; emphasis mine. 23Isa 53:12c; see the entire chapter. 24See, e.g., Mat 8:17; Acts 8:25-35. 25Gal 4:4 26Mat 3:13ff and parallels; on Christ’s baptism as foreshadowing his death, see Word of Life, 240. 27Isa 53:12b 28Gal 3:13; Christ’s becoming a curse does not mean he endured separation from God; rather, in Christ, God took his own curse on himself and absorbed its destructive effects. world’s multiplied moments of willful defiance, carrying them in his heart.29 Only a heart not fallen in on itself and preoccupied with self-interest could be large enough and free enough to carry all the sins of the world. Thus because Christ is the only sinless human being, only he could perfectly intercede for humankind, vicariously bearing sin not his own. Yet because he was a human being, he could sympathetically intercede for his fellow creatures, identifying with them as only one who is himself subject to temptation can do.30 Since death is the terminal result of sin, Christ had to die in order to fully identify with sinners and substitute his own death for theirs. It was through that ultimate identification and substitution that the perfect intercession was answered and forgiveness of sins granted to the world.

Jesus’ prayer on the cross, therefore, was secondly an act of forgiveness. The twin drive toward identification and substitution found in intercession may also be found in the dynamics of forgiveness itself. True forgiveness does not mean excusing the offense or merely forgetting about it. True forgiveness means counting the injury done as the penalty required, the harm done as the harm due. Old Testament law mandated that

29Mat 8:16, 17, which applies Isa 53:4 to Jesus’ healing ministry, provides a useful analogy to the problem of the relationship of Christ to sin and sinners. When Jesus healed, 1. the sick person recovered. Jesus did not merely represent healed, whole humanity before the Father for the sake of the poor invalid; rather, there was an actual change in the state of the sick one. But 2. Jesus is not recorded to have fallen ill himself, even though Matthew says that he was carrying the people’s diseases. If the spiritual healing offered through Christ’s work is anything like the bodily healing he provided, then a pair of points parallel to the ones above follows: 1. An actual change occurs in the life of the one who receives the benefits of salvation. Christ does not merely represent Christians before God without really healing their souls from sin. 2. Although he carried the sin of the world, Jesus did not actually become sin, sinful, or a sinner any more than he became illness, ill, or an invalid when he carried the diseases of those he healed in Mat 8. 30Heb 2:18; 4:15-5:3; compare Paul’s holy identification with his churches: “[T]here is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern?” (2 Cor 11:28b-29; cf. NIV on v. 29b: “Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?”) the penalty required be equal to the injury committed: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.31 Instead of demanding an eye for an eye, the injured party who forgives reckons her lost eye as if it were the offender’s eye which by rights should be lost. The party already harmed by sin acts in mercy to substitute that harm for the harm due to the guilty party, thus identifying with the offender. As Charles Williams has written, in forgiveness “the injured bears the trouble of another’s sin; he who is forgiven receives the freedom of another’s love.”32

To apply this understanding of forgiveness to Christ: the Atonement is not merely the basis of God’s forgiveness; the Atonement is God’s forgiveness, God’s ultimate act of forgiving enacted on the stage of history. The Cross is objectively what all forgiveness is subjectively: the bearing of another’s sin, the forbearing from retaliation (even though justice allows it), and the offering of peace to the offender. Because of the humanity of

Christ, God could objectively bear the penalty of sin, which is death.33 Because of the deity of Christ, the forgiveness offered through the Cross is universal: God the final

Victim and Judge of all sin has forgiven the sin directed against him. It is not that the wrath of the Father is turned against the Son on the Cross; rather, the wrath which both the Father and the Son share against sin is turned back on the Son and satisfied in the bearing of personal offense which is forgiveness. In Christ’s forgiving the world that killed him, the Father forgave the world.

The Atonement: Why the Son?

31Exo 21:24; Deut 19:21 32Charles Williams, The Forgiveness of Sins (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1984), 88. 33Cf. Gen. 3:3, 19; Ezek. 18; Rom. 6:23a. God’s forgiveness of sin is “most decisively proclaimed and enacted”34 in the work of his Son. But why is it the Son who is sent? Why does the Father not incarnate himself and suffer rather than putting his Beloved through the pain? The following lines suggest possible answers.

If indeed the Father is the source of the Trinity, it may be impossible or unwise for him to take on flesh, veiling his power and glory or giving them up to such a degree that he must depend upon the Son and the Spirit in order to use them. To adapt an ancient analogy of the Trinity: sunlight (the Son) may be refracted, diffused, or concentrated, but the sun itself (the Father) cannot be. The Apostle Paul’s words are suggestive of the Father’s absolute and unvarying transcendence in relation to the world:

God (who in this context is clearly distinguished from Christ) “lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.”35

Furthermore, the universe was made through and for the Son, who is also God’s

Image and Expression to creation.36 The Father does nothing relating to creation without the Son: through the Son he created, and through the Son he redeems and will judge. The

Son is not relieved of the privilege and responsibility of being God’s Representative to the cosmos when the cosmos rebels. Instead, as the Father’s Representative he enters the world, unites with created flesh, and becomes the exemplar of the obedience and glory to which creation is called. He who had always obeyed the Father now learns and teaches obedience through suffering under fallen conditions.37 As God’s Son, he images the destiny for which humankind was created, that is, the destiny to be children of God. By

34L. Gregory Jones, Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 101. 351 Tim. 6:16 (NIV) 36Jn. 1:1-4, 10, 11; 1 Cor. 8:6; Eph. 1:9, 10; Col. 1:15-17; Heb. 1:2, 3a 37Heb. 2:14-18; 4:15-16; 5:7-9 specifically rejecting Christ (as opposed to rejecting the Father or the Spirit directly), the world rejected the Prototype of its destiny.38

Lastly, it may be that God’s sending his beloved Son ensured that the worst sin of which humanity was capable would be forgiven. It was the Father who ultimately had to forgive the world’s sin, as shown by the fact that Jesus deferred that final judgment of mercy to his Father.39 If the nature of God is other-oriented, self-giving love, then the worst offense for the Father to forgive would not be a trespass against himself but against

Another: the Son whom he loved. Thus the Apostle Paul sees himself as “the worst of sinners” because he had blasphemed and persecuted Christ through his opposition to the early Christians.40

The Christian Practice of Forgiveness

As followers of Christ, believers are called to echo and embody the Atonement through their own acts of intercession and forgiveness, bearing in their hearts the sins of others while seeking grace for the offenders, whether inside or outside the church. A further note on the practice of forgiveness is in order, however. To be forgiven does not mean to be excused from all accountability. Instead, retributive punishment (getting what one strictly deserves) is replaced by corrective discipline (getting what one needs in order

38For the thought of these last two sentences I am indebted to John J. O’Donnell, who writes, citing Eph. 1:4, “God’s goal in creating the world was always christological.... Hence our place in God’s eternal purposes is christological. In this context sin is not just a moral failure or the breaking of a commandment. Sin is the refusal of Sonship in Christ. Sin is the human No to Sonship in the Son.” O’Donnell, The Mystery of the Triune God (Mahwah, N.J: Paulist, 1989), 70. 39Lk 23:34. 401 Tim 1:13-16 (quotation from v. 16); cf. Acts 9:1-5; 22:4-8, 19, 20; 26:9-15; 1 Cor 15:9. As for the so-called “unpardonable sin,” blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Mat. 12:31, 32 and parallels), see Thomas C. Oden, Life in the Spirit, Systematic Theology: Volume Three paperback ed. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 22-23. In comparison with sin against Christ, sin against the Spirit does not offend God more but does affect the sinner more (by cutting him/her off from saving grace). to change for the better). Forgiveness frees one from the court of justice only to enroll one in the reform school of mercy. As Richard Taylor points out, God heeded Moses’ intercession and did not annihilate Israel after she sinned with the Golden Calf, but God did discipline her with a plague.41 The church offers accountability as well as forgiveness. Within her walls, the newly-forgiven believer learns to live like Christ. The church is thus the workshop of the Holy Spirit, who labors to bring people to Christ’s forgiveness and to embody forgiveness in interpersonal relationships.42 As long as one lives under Christ’s discipline as mediated by the Spirit (and normally embodied in the church), one continues to receive the benefits of God’s forgiveness.

What, though, if one refuses to repent and receive forgiveness, whether divine or human, whether initially or on an ongoing basis? In Jesus’ parable of the unmerciful servant, the servant who had been forgiven yet refused to pardon another servant received the same punishment that he had just escaped by being forgiven.43 Although God in

Christ and those who imitate Christ express proactive forgiveness, the one who will not accept loving correction will be liable to retributive punishment. The God who reconciled the world to himself on the Cross44 is the same God who, in A.D. 70, judged

Jerusalem for her rejection of Messiah.45 The God who wishes all people to be saved46 will yet send the impenitent to hell.47 Likewise, while Christians may not express

41Taylor, 11, citing Exo. 32. 42Jones, 129 43Mat 18:21-35 442 Cor 5:19 45Lk 19:41-44; 21:20-24 461 Tim 2:3, 4; 2 Pet. 3:9 47Cf. Mat 25:41-46; Jude 4-7, 13; Rev 20:11-15 vengeance in their private lives,48 yet government officials have a duty to retributively punish offenders.49

Conclusion: Foundations of Intercession and Forgiveness

In his excellent study of forgiveness, L. Gregory Jones catalogues three foundations for a Christian understanding of forgiveness which apply as well to intercession: the eternal life of the Trinity, the act of Creation, and the tragedy of the

Fall.50 God has existed from eternity as the loving, mutual self-giving of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the Creation, this self-giving reaches beyond the boundaries of the divine life as God wills communion with that which is not he. As the image of God in the world, humankind is created for communion with him, among themselves, and with the rest of creation. Yet this complex of loving relationships is unraveled by the presence of sin. Communion degenerates into competition, self-giving into selfishness.

The doctrines of the Trinity and Creation reveal that God is, and the world is meant to be, self-giving. The doctrine of the Fall recounts why it is that, in a world shattered by sin, such giving must turn into forgiving and interceding. Intercession and forgiveness are not intrinsic to the life of God per se: the Persons of the Trinity do not bear any burden of sin for one another. Rather, intercession and forgiveness are the specific forms which love assumes when confronted with the mutant reality of evil in creation.51 For Christians, the form of vicarious sin-bearing is best seen in the incarnate

Son of God, Jesus Christ, and especially in his Atonement. By imitating her Lord, the

48Cf. Rom 12:17-21 49Rom 13:1-5; 1 Pet 2:13, 14 50Jones,112-18. The following paragraph summarizes his more extended discussion. 51On the continuing intercessory work of the Trinity, see Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25; 9:24; 1 Jn 2:1 (the Son); Rom 8:26, 27 (the Holy Spirit). church expresses the self-giving love which is the very life of the Godhead and restores fallen people to participation in the image of the Trinity.

APPENDIX: THE SHADOW OF THE ALMIGHTY

Abandoned— a moldering old house, forgotten now and rotten from the weary course of years, its barren rooms, once filled with life and motion, haunted by a dusty, deathly stillness.

Abandoned— a nameless newborn in a refuse bin, wailing in the dimness of a nameless back-street alley.

Abandoned— a brutalized and bloodied man hanging on an upraised cross at the one location ever truly Godforsaken: Calvary.

Or was God absent at that anguished hour? When, centuries before, King David's son hung from a tree, was pierced and slain for his own sins,* * = 2 Sam. 18:9-15,33 the King wept long and longingly cried out, "My son, my son!" Within his heart, was David not there with his dying child? And was the darkness which befell the land while the Christ was on the cross not in fact the shadow of his Father's vast and silent presence?

Here is confidence and comfort for our hour of deepest need: God's silence does not signify his absence; never does a son or daughter suffer but the Father's near at hand. In the black night of travail God will deliver— not from pain, perhaps, but, like a midwife, he will oversee the birth of moral good from the agonizing labor of all those abandoned to his love. — E. Jerome Van Kuiken

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bettenson, Henry, ed., Documents of the Christian Church, Galaxy Ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1947

Grenz, Stanley J., and Roger E. Olson. Twentieth-Century Theology: God and the World in a Transitional Age. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity, 1992.

Jones, L. Gregory. Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.

Lucado, Max. No Wonder They Call Him The Savior. Portland: Multnomah,

Lindsell, Harold. Harper Study Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985.

Oden, Thomas C. The Justification Reader. Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002. ______. Life in the Spirit, Systematic Theology: Volume Three paperback ed.

San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.

______. The Word of Life, Systematic Theology: Volume Two paperback ed.

San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.

O’Donnell, John J. The Mystery of the Triune God. Mahwah, N.J: Paulist, 1989.

Taylor, Richard S. God’s Integrity and the Cross. Nappanee, Ind: Francis Asbury Press, 1999.

Torrance, Thomas F. Torrance. The Mediation of Christ, revised ed. Colorado Springs: Helmers & Howard, 1992.

VanGemeren, Willem A., “Psalms,” in Frank E. Gaebelein, Gen. Ed., Expositor’s Bible Commentary Vol. 5. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991.

Williams, Charles. The Forgiveness of Sins. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1984.