Forgiving 70 times 7 and the Atonement of Christ

[This is part two of a two-part post (scroll down or click here for part one) dealing with the atonement and objections raised by others to the ideas of substitution and satisfaction.]

About five or so minutes into a 2006 interview, on the seemingly now defunct (as is everything else Emergent) “The Bleeding Purple Podcast”, Brian McLaren said the following to Emergent interviewer Leif Hansen:

The traditional understanding says that God asks of us something that God is incapable of Himself. God asks us to forgive people. But God is incapable of forgiving. God can’t forgive unless He punishes somebody in place of the person He was going to forgive. God doesn’t say things to you—Forgive your wife, and then go kick the dog to vent your anger. God asks you to actually forgive…. And there’s a certain sense that, a common understanding of the atonement presents a God who is incapable of forgiving. Unless He kicks somebody else. 

To respond:

In Book 1, Chapter 12 of Why God Became Man, the same kind of point is brought up by Anslem’s conversationalist/literary counterpart Boso. Anselm then answers Boso.

Boso: When God teaches us to forgive those who sin against us, he seems to be being contradictory – in teaching us to do something which it is not fitting for him to do himself.

Anselm answers: There is no contradiction in this, because God is giving us this teaching in order that we should not presume to do something which belongs to God alone. For it belongs to no one to take vengeance, except to him who is Lord of all.

Two points to follow:

First, Anselm is correct in basing his answer on Biblical teaching. Deut 32:35, Heb 10:30, and Rom 12:19 all use this phrase (“vengeance is mine, I will repay” says the LORD). And the point of this saying is exactly what Anselm says it is. We don’t take matters into our own hands because it is God’s will and role to do it. We are told to forgive 70 times 7 because we are told to "leave it to the wrath of God" (Rom 12:19). He is judge and He will judge justly. The Jesus of the Scriptures will also be a part of this judgement (see 2 Thess 1:5-10). The cross was God's just judgment on those who have faith in Christ (see Rom 3:21-26).

Second, God didn’t kick just “somebody else.” He sent His own Son as a sacrifice. Jesus wasn’t some puppy dog that God kicked. Jesus was/is God. God did this in first-person. The cross was an action within the Godhead; within the Trinity. The God-Man hanging on the cross was not a third party. Likewise, the One ultimately inflicting the punishment was also not a third party. It was an act within the Trinity.

McLaren’s view, and those who hold it, is not only a case of ignorance and missing the point; it raises questions about Christology. Calling Jesus a third party brings serious questions regarding an overall view regarding who Christ is and therefore who God is.
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As a final note: Sometimes I can't tell if McLaren is sincere or if he is just stuck in the rebelling-against-my-white-upper-middle-class-past-evangelical-experience mindset which seems so prevalent in his writings. What is clear from his writings is that he despises the God of Scripture, (for example in a recent book calling a God who would send a flood “hardly worthy of belief, much less worship"). But because others who are sincere have this kind of question, I found it worth while to try to answer.

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