Why Charles Spurgeon is Wrong: On the Atonement and God

I just read this over at the Pyromaniacs, from Phil Johnson's weekly practice of posting quotes from his teacher, Charles Spurgeon. There are some things that Spurgeon writes and preaches that are edifying, but I am afraid the following will be representative of something that might only be half-baked; or maybe not baked at all. The concern I have with the following quote is the concept of God that must be present in order for Spurgeon to write what he does; let's take a look at that right now, and then pick it up afterward with a brief comment:

[O]h! my hearers, if you are trusting in the unconditional mercy of God, you are trusting in a myth. Has someone buoyed you up with the thought of the infinite goodness of God, I would remind you of his infinite holiness. Hath he not declared that he will by no means spare the guilty? No debt due to God is remitted unless it be paid. It must either be paid by the transgressor in the infinite, miseries of hell, or else it must be paid for him by a substitute. There must be a price for the ransom, and evidently, according to the text, that price must be a soul, a life. Christ did not give his body merely, nor his stainless character, nor merely his labors and sufferings, but he gave his soul, his life, a ransom. Oh! sinner, Almighty God will never be satisfied with anything less than thy soul.

"... Has someone buoyed you up with the thought of the infinite goodness of God, I would remind you of his infinite holiness. . . ." 

Here is a classic example of how a classic usage of Divine Simplicity can run awry; wherein the modes of God's attributes are played off against each other as if there is a schism in God's actions towards his creation (and I think without proper nuance thus implicating God's being ... even though Divine Simplicity is intended to thwart my concern). Anyway, unlike Spurgeon's usage of this, I think a proper Christian Trinitarian construing of God's life is one that grounds all of God's activity from his interpenetrating life of self-giveness one for the other (the Father, Son and Holy Spirit all living in koinonial 'fellowship' one with the other ... it is this kind of life that shapes His holiness [or which is His holiness], His justice, His mercy, His creating etc.). If this is the case we never concluded what Spurgeon has about God's holiness somehow working against or trumping God's goodness; these aren't competing realities. God's life is loving grace to begin with; everything else is butter after that! Meaning, God's wrath and justice must be understood to only come within his very life; which again is love, full of grace and truth. Spurgeon is wrong on this point.

"...  No debt due to God is remitted unless it be paid. It must either be paid by the transgressor in the infinite, miseries of hell, or else it must be paid for him by a substitute. There must be a price for the ransom, and evidently, according to the text, that price must be a soul, a life. . . ."


Here we have, even for the Baptist, Spurgeon, the lingering effects of Covenant Theology; such that (to be crude), the atonement is framed in a purely forensic and monetary mode. So that Jesus in the Incarnation and Atonement becomes nothing more than the instrument or Divine debit card by which God purchases the elect for himself; allowing him at that point (once the demands and the conditions of the Law have been met) to love his brand new people, but not until these conditions have been met. Jesus then becomes subordinated and abstracted from God's life, placing a rupture between God in eternity and Jesus in creation-time; Jesus becomes who he is dictated to become by creation itself.

I could say more, but on this Good Friday, it grieves me to think that folk accept what Spurgeon (and others like him) has to say about such things uncritically. I think this could be devastating to the Christian's daily walk and spirituality 'in Christ'.