Book Review: The Justifying Judgement of God

Justyn Terry, The Justifying Judgement of God: A Reassessment of the Place of Judgement in the Saving Work of Christ (Paternoster, 2007), 228pp (with thanks to Paternoster for a review copy)

How to preach the doctrine of atonement?  This is the big question which Justyn Terry begins with. Terry presents a crisis in preaching about the atonement.  Surveying a number of recent sermons and books from  courses on Christian basics he finds often that atonement is mention in passing and where dealt with usually with problematic trivial illustrations. What does emerge are four key images: sacrifice, victory, redemption and justice. These are presented as independent of one another liked the facets of a diamond.

Having provided a limited overview of preaching on the atonement, Terry explores six different books by British theologians (save one) from the 20th century of the doctrine of atonement: Hastings Rashdall, Gustaf Aulen, F. W. Dillistone, Frances Young, Paul Fiddes and Colin Gunton. For the reader looking for how theologies of atonement developed in the last hundred years this is really useful. Terry outlines the strengths and weaknesses of each. He is most favourable towards the work of Colin Gunton (perhaps not surprising as Colin was Terry's teacher and at one point supervisor) and wants to build on Gunton's argument, showing how the metaphors of victory, justice and sacrifice relate to one another. Terry's problem with too many theologies of atonement is that he finds in each the 'underlying assumption that these are essentially independent interpretations of atonement with minimal interconnection' (p.17) and so these multiple images or metaphors make it appear 'that humankind needs deliverance from many different and apparently unrelated problems’ (p.43). Terry wants to find one paradigmatic metaphor to which the others relate. (Incidentally, Steve Holmes' recent book on penal substitution, The Wondrous Cross, introduces the term 'stories of salvation', which 'paint pictures of what God has done that illuminate one or another facet of that great work' (Paternoster, 2007, 121) which I guess Terry would also want to challenge.)

In order to find this one paradigmatic metaphor first refers to PT Forsyth's suggestion of the perfect obedience of Christ and then secondly to Karl Barth's argument for the judgement of Christ (found in Church Dogmatics IV/1). Again because the book is based on a PhD these are excellent chapters on both Forsyth and Barth for the reader who wants to get to grips with these important theologians.

Through his reading of Barth, Terry makes the case for judgement being 'the paradigmatic metaphor for atonement, with victory, redemption and sacrifice as subordinate metaphors to it' (p.171).  The implications for preaching is that a sermon which considers the atonement in terms of the judgement of God. Terry argues that 'such an emphasis on judgement promises to restore iron to the anaemic blood of much contemporary

gospel preaching. An account of atonement centering on the justifying judgement of God is able to face with due seriousness the world as it is, with all its potential for good and all its propensity towards evil. It can provide the vocabulary to describe how the ever urgent need to root out corruption and establish righteousness, to bring down the proud and raise up the humble, is met in Jesus Christ' (p.212)

Terry builds a convincing argument and there is no doubt in my mind that too much preaching on the atonement is unsatisfactory. However, I'm not sure we can speak of one biblical paradigmatic metaphor for atonement, although Terry makes a powerful theological argument for judgement. My questions are does Terry give enough weight to the role of the Spirit (a criticism that is often asked of Barth) and how do we understand Paul's 'in Christ' language? How does Christ's atonement affect us? Here I think, judgement is helpful, but I would want to include the language of participation, we participate, by the Spirit, in the death and resurrection of Christ (I find Douglas Campbell's description of atonement in Paul very helpful [see the relevant chapters in A Quest for Paul's Gospel]).

This is an important book, that at its heart is concerned for coherent and faithful preaching, that goes beyond the trivial, the sentimental and emotive so often found within the church. This is a useful book which examines recent theologies of atonement, presenting their strengths and weakness, that serves as a good introduction to issues of atonement. This is a challenging book which recovers the importance of judgement and argues for its central place in the doctrine of atonement. It deserves to be widely read.

Comments

[Ben Myers]

"There is no doubt in my mind that too much preaching on the atonement is unsatisfactory" -- yes, and it's even worse when there's too much "satisfaction"!

[Jason Goroncy]

Andy. Many thanks for bringing this book to my (our) attention. It sounds like one that I must read. Sadly, so few engage with Forsyth these days.

Jason

PS. You may wish to update the URL to my blog on your sidebar to http://cruciality.wordpress.com/

[andy goodliff]

Thanks Jason - I had updated my RSS feed but not my blogroll.

[Johnny Ramirez]

Andy,
This is an excellent blog which I found through Amazon.

Thanks for your great review of "The Theology of John Zizioulas: Personhood and the Church" which I can't afford. Ironically enough I could afford, and am looking forward to reading, "Being and Communion" by the man himself which was quite affordable.

Well keep up the good work!
-johnny