I’m told that there’s a movement among Anabaptists which accepts substitutionary atonement while simultaneously minimizing the Bible’s teachings on non-resistance. Some people who are moving toward a “Protestant” understanding of the atonement—namely penal substitutionary atonement—are also moving away from non-resistance in favor of evangelical just war theory or more aggressively militant views. Military activism and substitutionary atonement have typically cohabited in Protestant evangelicalism. When one buys a movement’s theology he tends to buy its ethics, whether or not they belong together.
As we explored in the previous part of this article, non-resistance and substitutionary atonement belong together logically. When a person accepts substitutionary atonement he ought to be led to a self-sacrificing, non-resistant ethic. Non-resistant love applies in the Christian what Christ models on the cross. So then, those who are moving toward Protestant theology and simultaneously moving away from love, self-sacrifice, non-resistance and so forth are not moving toward Scripture. Though they may be moving toward Scripture in one area, they are moving away from it in another.
This results from accepting systems and traditions rather than making the Bible the ultimate referent. It’s easier to trade one tradition for another instead of doing the hard work necessary to understand what the Bible has to say. But we need to live with our minds on and our Bibles open, not merely absorbing a system with its strengths and pitfalls but instead subjecting everything to the authority of Scripture.
We need to get our doctrine from God and not from people. Certain faith traditions may have some things right while missing other things. Some teach justification by faith, but without necessary applications. Some teach substitutionary atonement, but don’t model sacrificial love. In Anabaptism, we emphasize obedience to Christ’s commands while neglecting the great indicatives of the gospel—all that God has accomplished for us in Christ, things which are true of us if we are in Christ and not contingent on our performance. We need all of Scripture, not just the parts that support our preferences and preconceptions.
As we study the Bible we may indeed be led to understand the atonement in ways that have historically been associated with Protestant evangelicalism. But it does not correlate that political or military activism should logically come along with Protestant-like views of the atonement. Rather, substitutionary atonement leads us to understand biblical love as self-sacrificing, doing good to others and blessing them even when they don’t deserve it—and yes, even when they are our enemies. It is inherently illogical to accept substitutionary atonement while also taking up arms and using political and military force. Militance does not aid the gospel of Christ. Militance murders the gospel.
While it’s wrong to blithely swallow the entire Protestant system, it is also wrong to reject biblical aspects of Protestant/Reformed thought because we think those concepts (atonement, justification, etc.) necessarily correlate with just war theory, political activism, pedobaptism, etc.. We need to think biblically, not just systematically. Healthy theology is not developed by accepting Protestantism warp and woof, nor by rejecting the whole cloth. Biblical authority must overshadow any system or tradition.
It is wrong on the one hand to accept the entire Protestant package and assume that substitutionary atonement and military activism belong together. Yet on the other hand, it is inherently illogical to deny substitutionary atonement yet champion non-resistance. Christ’s substitutionary death is the very model of non-resistance. If we trade substitutionary atonement for some other view, we remake the gospel and redefine biblical love. The essence of non-resistance is a willingness to suffer rather than harm, to die rather than kill. That is poignantly manifested in Christ’s death. He, Lord of all, King of all, and Judge of all, had every right to eternally damn His enemies for their insurrection. We all, co-rebels with Adam, deserve eternal judgment for our willful sins against our God and Creator. Justice permits—even demands—that we die for our actions. But Christ instead joins us in our humanity (though not in our sin), lives the life we should have lived, and dies the death we should have died. He shows non-resistant love, suffering rather than causing us to suffer, dying rather than sending us to our deaths. Those who are in Christ are saved from the consequences of their sins. Jesus shows us what it means to love our enemies.
So then, those who deny substitutionary atonement but tenaciously hold to non-resistance are living in a house built on sand. The house may stand for a while, but the foundation has crumbled to dust and it’s only a matter of time before the house crashes down. Christus Victor (in its modern form) and Ransom Theory provide no compelling basis for non-resistance. They are devoid of the very logic of non-resistance love.
This in part results from lopsided Bible-study. When we zero in on certain portions of Scripture, sometimes we misplace them in the greater biblical picture. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount teachings are monumental and imminently practical. But they don’t stand alone. If we think the sum total of non-resistance is contained in Matthew 5, we miss the foundation on which the edifice is built. That is to say, the real logic of non-resistance is seen in Christ’s atoning death, a theme which runs as a bloodline throughout the New Testament. We must not attempt to enforce the application of Matthew 5:44 (love your enemies) without the doctrine which undergirds and compels it. Christ died for those who did evil to Him. That’s us! We were His enemies. He has loved us this way, and He asks us to follow Him by showing others the same kind of love. But the application makes no sense without Christ’s redemptive work on the cross, which is rightly understood in the light of all Scripture. We need to use the whole Bible and not just the parts we like.
Substitutionary atonement and non-resistance are logically linked. The doctrine of substitutionary atonement leads to the ethic of sacrificial love. Or we could say that sacrificial love—expressed in non-resistance—is the logical application of good atonement theology. Our choice to suffer rather than cause others to suffer, to refrain from using our power and our rights to harm others—this is modeled after Christ, who suffered for His enemies to redeem them to Himself.
Non-resistance is the ethical application of the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. These hang together. If you reject substitutionary atonement, you reject the biblical rationale for non-resistance. If you accept substitutionary atonement—realizing that Christ died for you so you could live—you will be propelled toward non-resistance. When Christ calls us to follow Him, and to love as He has loved, He has this in mind. We love as he loved. What does that look like? We turn the other cheek, entrust ourselves to the One who judges justly, and overcome evil with good.
Good thoughts.