The Absurdity Of Insufficiency in the Light of the Cross - The Solas Matter: SOLA GRATIA

The Absurdity of Insufficiency in the light of the Cross

On the Absurdity of a Sufficient-but-Not-Efficient Atonement

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Stand, for a moment, at the place of scourging. Do not avert your eyes. A man is tied to a post—stripped, exposed, utterly without defence. In this case, He is not merely a man. He is the eternal Word of God made flesh, the second person of the Trinity itself in human flesh, the One who spoke galaxies into existence, the One before whom seraphim veil their faces and cry Holy, Holy, Holy. The One before whom mighty angels capable of single handedly destroying armies numbering in the tens of thousands, bow before and shout accolades of praise to – this is the “man” tied to the whipping post. He is about to be brutalized beyond recognition. By the time it is over, His appearance will be “marred more than any man – beyond human semblance” according to Isaiah (Isaiah 52:14). He will endure all of this with redeeming purpose – there will be nothing abstract or merely possible or potential in His suffering – it will be horrifically actual – and its results will likewise be not merely potential or possible, but actual and accomplished. Two Roman lictors – professionally trained torturers – take their positions. Each holds a flagrum – a short-handled whip fitted with multiple leather thongs, their ends embedded with jagged bone and lead. They begin…mercilessly. Their job is not merely to inflict pain but to scourge the body in the process.

No one knows for certain how many lashes He endured. Jewish law required no more than 40 lashes, but not with a flagrum, with a “regular” leather whip. But these were Romans, not Jews and were not subject to that law nor to that style of whip. Dozens and dozens of times they struck His entire body from His shoulders to His feet. Each strike initially impacts like a rock causing immediate soft tissue, deep bruising. The more lashes He receives – and there would undoubtedly be overlap in the same areas – His skin tears open and the lashes now cut into the muscle underneath. The ends of the whip rip through subcutaneous tissue, exposing the raw underlayer of a body. Truly, Isaiah’s description would be fulfilled in the most horrifically literal way! Ancient historians who witnessed Roman scourging describe victims whose veins, muscles, sinews, and entrails lay open to the horrified gaze of onlookers. Many never survived it. Upon hearing the sentence of scourging, those ancient historians record that hardened criminals came undone emotionally at the thought, filled with dread and horror and awful anxiety at what was to come. This was not mere punishment. It was methodical, state-sanctioned, barbaric destruction of the human body—administered to the Author of life itself.

Before the scourging, they had already beaten His face with fists and rods. They had mercilessly plucked out sections of His beard. They had blindfolded Him, struck Him, and mocked Him: “Prophesy! Who hit you?” After the scourging, they had woven a “crown” or “cap” of thorns from a regional thorn bush—and driven it onto His skull with blows from a reed. Blood ran into His eyes, His beard, His mouth. The shock, blood loss and dehydration that follows such torture would be immense. That He survived this leg of this particular “race” was itself nigh miraculous. That He was able to stand – let alone walk – after enduring such brutality is almost at the point of defying logic – but He was no mere man. He has an ability no one else has ever or will ever have – He can choose the exact moment of His own death – and for this reason, can endure more pain not less, than is possible for any other person. After all of this, they nailed His shattered body to a rugged, not nicely sanded Roman cross, where He hung for six hours in a form of suffering so unprecedented that the Latin language had to invent a word to describe it: excruciatus—“out of the cross.” From where we get the word “excruciating.” The Romans created a new category of agony that had no prior name, because they had created the agony itself. Now, a grotesquely disfigured, pulverized man impaled by spikes to a rough hewn cross, His fatigued body distending in ways that make His bones dislocate, hangs and suffers – and all of this is still not enough – because the soldiers and the Pharisees continue to mock Him.

Now hear what the synergist says about all of this.

In the light of all of this – along comes the synergist (salvation by free will not sovereign grace alone) who says that this suffering—the scourging, the thorns, the nails, the full weight of the Father’s wrath against sin poured out upon the only sinless man who ever lived—was not enough in and of itself to secure salvation for every person it was endured for – in fact multitudes it was endured for may and will still perish. Something else must be added to it – not from the Incarnate Lord who endured such horror nor the thrice-holy Father who required such a price – but from a wretched sinner.

It was ‘sufficient’, they concede – sufficient in some abstract, theoretical, hypothetical sense. Sufficient the way a cheque is sufficient even if no one ever cashes it. Sufficient the way a medicine is sufficient even if the dying patient refuses to take it. But not ‘efficient’ – not until the sinner actualizes that suffering for themselves. And this sinner who they claim holds the power of veto is at the moment of decision, spiritually dead in trespasses and sins, blind, hostile to God, unable to submit to His law. The synergist insists the sinner is not regenerate until after they produce faith in this suffering, “accept it” and thereby subjectively actualize its objective benefits. The unregenerate sinner holds the executive executive power of Veto here. From the graveyard of their own darkened understanding, corrupted moral center, limited reason and fallen will, they alone decide to subjectively activate or actualize it. So, the infinite God by His own power and will endures the most horrific suffering imaginable to make an infinitely valuable payment – but makes it contingent on the finite veto of the sinner it was endured to save.

Is this in any way – by any standard – reasonable, credible or accurate?

Read that again. God Incarnate, endured actual torture so horrific that it should and most likely would have killed any other man before the first nail was driven, then added 6 more inhuman hours of agony so immense a new word was invented to describe it; He now sits in a cosmic holding pattern—waiting for “permission” from the sinful creature to do what the Creator intended it to do by means of that torture. The cross, on this scheme, is not a triumph. It is a mere proposal. It is not an accomplishment – it is an mere offer. A divine hand extended that may, in the end, be extended in vain for billions. The Son of God was scourged, pierced, and crushed—and at least in theory – it might save no one. It all depends on us – utterly fallen, ruined, corrupted in and by sin – in a single, devastating word “dead in trespasses and sins.” This is what free will /synergism theology reduces down to.

This is not theology. This is absurdity dressed in pious language.

Consider the sheer disproportion.

On one side of the scale: the voluntary, substitutionary suffering of the second Person of the Trinity no less, sustaining His physical life by His divine will which enabled Him to experience more pain and trauma than any man – as Isaiah said. The God/Man purposely allowed His physical form to experience greater—not lesser—pain, surpassing all natural limits of death that ordinarily would have taken His life much earlier. However, because He is the author of life, He alone determined the precise moment of His own death—an ability unique to Him and possessed by no other person. Why so? Because bearing in His body the full penal, substitutionary weight of divine justice against every sin of every soul for whom He died, He had to endure until the end. Not merely the end when physical life could endure no more and finally just gave out on its own – not even close. But until the very last drop of the cup of the Father which the Father had given Him to drink was consumed. Only then would He allow His physical life to expire – not one millisecond prior!

On the other side: the “decision” of a fallen human sinner – “a wretched man” that Scripture describes as enslaved, blind, dead, deaf and at enmity with the very God whose grace is supposedly free to accept or reject with a simple choice. And who at the moment of decision is not yet regenerate, thus, yet “dead in their sins,” still “a slave to sin,” still “at enmity with God” – openly hostile to Him. The Son of God endured all He did to then leave it up to one in such a state. The synergist says it is the second – from the wretched sinner – not the first from the infinitely worthy eternal Son, which is the determining factor. That the scale tips not on the side of the eternal Word in human flesh’s unthinkable agony, but on the side of the sinful creature’s choice.That the transaction which shook the cosmos, darkened the sun, and split the temple veil from top to bottom remains incomplete—pending ratification from the wretches utterly contaminated by sin below.

If this is true, then the Father watched His Son brutalised, broken, and slain—and at least in theory, it may all have been for nothing. The Son may have endured the full fury of the Father’s wrath against sin and failed to save a single soul. Per synergistic theology – this was at least theoretically possible! Sure, the Father foreknew many would believe and be saved most of them will admit – but this does not solve the enormity of the problem because they insist all this was not endured only for the those the Father foreknew would be saved, but also and equally for all those the Father knew would perish! In this view, the Triune God – the Father who required the price, the Son who paid every agonizing drop of it to the uttermost, the Spirit who alone regenerates, illuminates and empowers the heart to see know and believe – remains at this point ultimately nothing more than a spectator; a posture that, whatever its intentions, leaves Him waiting upon the sinful creature’s ‘permission’ to finish what began in Gethsemane, progressed to the scourging, and culminated in the horrors of Calvary itself.

No. A thousand times, no! “It is finished!” was not a prayer request. It was a thunderous declaration of accomplished fact. It reverberated through the corridors of eternity. It shook the giant pearl gates of heaven itself. It echoed off the streets of gold so pure it is transparent. It resounded to the very emerald throne 0f the living God Himself – who in hearing those words was satisfied – meaning His holy and righteous indignation against sin which deserved His righteous wrath was satisfied. His justice required a payment. It could not be swept under the carpet. Payment must be made – His holiness and justice demanded it and to deny that would be to deny His own immutable nature. So, in His wisdom and mercy, He devised a plan whereby He Himself would “provide a lamb”. The Hebrew language will permit a nuanced but powerful change in the sentence when Abraham responded to Isaac’s question “where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” It will allow the reading “God will provide Himself the Lamb” not merely “God Himself will provide the lamb.” The declaration of accomplished redemption the eternal Logos spoke the moment before He “gave up” His own spirit, hushed mighty archangels. It silenced the cherubim and seraphim. It shook the foundations of the nether realm to its very foundations so terribly the gates of hell itself were dislodged by the power of it. Then the eternal Son fell asleep in the arms of His Father as He uttered the practical equivalent of a child’s calm, trusting bedtime prayer – “Into Your hands I commit My spirit.” With that, He bowed His head and died – at the moment of His choosing, not the moment when the laws of physics and the limitations of the body demanded death.

Conclusion

The Lamb of God by all of this did not merely make salvation possible. He saved His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). Every lash had a name written on it – those the Father would give Him from every nation, tribe and tongue (John 6:37, 44, 65; 17:2, 20-24; Rev 5:9). Every thorn, every nail, every drop of blood accomplished “to the uttermost” the redemption of every soul the Father had given to the Son before the foundation of the world (Rom 8:33-34; 1 Peter 1:2; Eph 1:1-11; 2 Tim 1:9; 1 Cor 2:7). Not one of them will be lost. Not one drop was wasted. The cross did not create a possibility. It secured an inevitability!

To stand at the foot of that cross, to see the bones exposed through flayed skin, to watch the Son of God writhe in unimaginable agony enduring all He did and then to say, “Yes, but it depends on whether I accept it”, is not humility. It is the most breathtaking arrogance ever clothed in the language of devotion I can even imagine. It takes the most horrific act of self-giving love in the history of the universe and subordinates its efficacy to the veto power of the very rebels it was designed to save. This is manifest absurdity not sound doctrine. Faith “in His blood” was irrevocably tied to the merits of the cross per Romans 3:25. Meaning only those who believe – hence trust in – the cross as their sole basis of acceptance before God receive its benefits, the scripture no where teaches faith is the result of human production – wisdom, will, effort. Rather, “Flesh and blood did not reveal this you but My Father in heaven” (Matt. 16:17); Paul said faith in Christ came “with” the grace of God (1 Tim 1:15); Luke said “God opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul” (Acts 16:14), and said of those Apollos ministered to that “they through / by grace believed” (Acts 18:27); Jesus repeatedly emphasized that coming to Him in faith was the result of the Father’s action – what the Father does and grants (John 6:27, 44, 65; 17:2, 20-24) and explicitly affirmed that faith in Himself was “the work – lit. deed, act, action, accomplishment – of God” (John 6:29 – for a deeper dive into John 6:29, I recommend the reader consider “Digging Deeper” and “The Work of God is This” on this site).

“SO THAT no one may boast, it is BECAUSE OF HIM that you are IN Christ Jesus”

— 1 Cor. 1:29-30

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Soli Deo Gloria

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