Chapter XIV – The Purpose of Christ: Substitution or Inclusion?

[Christ] is the Image of the invisible God, Firstborn of every creature, for in Him is all created, that in the heavens and that on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones, or lordships, or sovereignties, or authorities, all is created through Him and for Him, and He is before all, and all has its cohesion in Him.

And He is the Head of the body, the ecclesia, Who is Sovereign; Firstborn from among the dead, that in all He may be becoming first, for in Him the entire complement delights to dwell, and through Him to reconcile all to Him (making peace through the blood of His cross,) through Him, whether those on earth or those in the heavens.

The reconciliation of all depends upon the creation of all. Therefore, any doctrine that denies Christ’s antecedent relation to creation cannot sustain the evangel’s universal scope, and cannot grasp the secret of Christ as revealed in Colossians 1.

Colossians 1:15-20 does not explicitly refer to sin, evil, or the like. This is because it was never Christ’s job to introduce these elements to the story; such was God’s task.

As we covered in chapter two of God’s Timeline, sin was first introduced through the disruption of the world. We will not review the literal event of the disruption (Gen. 1:2, 2 Pet. 3:5-6,) but it will play a role, here and in other parts of the study.

From the moment creation “missed” the mark of righteousness, the creation of all in and through the Son has been strained, and the creation of all for the Son has been called into question. “Estrangement” has been the effect of the disruption of the world, and the most prominent argument has become: what now? What will God do with the creation that has missed? There are other discussions – is God in control of those who missed, for example – but at some point in our lives, we must look toward the future, instead of the past, and begin to meditate on the object of creation.

We do not wish to “insert” the disruption of the world into our present passage. We believe there is merit for prefacing the topic, because it directly contrasts the “headship” of Christ within this present secret administration (cf. Eph. 1:4 – “DOWN-CAST” – Eph. 1:10 – “HEAD-UP.”) We mention it here because, as we know, a background of sin and death is the perfect foil to the evangel of righteousness and life. It is the necessary implication when the cross is mentioned – for, if sin had not entered the world, then there would be no reason for Christ to save and reconcile it.

It is the duty of the Son to annul the acts of the Adversary (1 John 3:8.) The Adversary’s immediate role is to bring down. Christ’s immediate role is reactive – to rectify. In assuming these roles, the irreverence of creation is developed with a view to commend this Just Image. This is seen on its smallest scale with mankind (Rom. 3:5-8,) but we are merely a demonstration of the grander scale of the plot among the celestials.

Sin’s development is only crafted to teach us the character of this Image. Therefore, regardless of the estrangement we have endured because of sin, it cannot permanently revoke the action that has already been committed – the creation of all in the Son – and the effectual responsibility of the Son as the Firstborn – to serve as a Ransom for all.

Substitution

We have thus, in brief, presented the doctrine of the inclusive salvation at Golgotha. Not one is exempt from the effects of Christ’s accomplishment. One cannot snip the umbilical cord from creation, to propose themselves as some independent arbiter apart from their Maker and His Representative.

This doctrine is combatted by most with the doctrine often titled “Substitutionary Atonement.” This is Christendom’s proposed “method” of salvation, which they draw from their adulterated texts and poor reasonings. The theory proposes that Jesus Christ died on the cross as a voluntary substitute for sinners. He had taken upon Himself the full punishment, guilt, and penalty of human sin. It is called a “full penalty payment” by the Moody Bible Institute. Conversely, He is meant to give His righteousness to the sinner.

The contrast between the two appears inconsequential, but we may inspect each of them closely. “Substitutionary Atonement” proposes Christ stands instead of sinners as a discrete replacement, bearing what was due to them, so that they need not bear it. In contrast, the Inclusion doctrine proposes that Christ stands as the One in Whom all is created, so that what He does as Head impacts all vitally united to Him. Therefore, Christ is indeed Representative of the human race, but not substitutionary in a transactional, legal-commercial sense of the term.

This is not a comprehensive refutation of substitutionary theory. We will share a brief criticism of the doctrine from a beloved brother, but we wish primarily to compare the two so as to emphasize the creation of all in the Son, and demonstrate that alternative proposals discount the universal scope of Christ’s cross, as presented in Colossians 1:18-20. Meanwhile, no intentional mischaracterization of the substitutionary theory is being offered, and we will correct ourselves on any point, whenever it is brought to our attention.

We must also note that we are going to relate the substitutionary theory, in many ways, to the “Non-Existence” and “Trinitarian” doctrines. To clarify, only the orthodox Trinitarian view explicitly pronounces Substitutionary Atonement as integral to its doctrine. They believe that “only God can pay the penalty for sin, but He must partake of human nature to pay for human beings” (Gregg R. Allison.)

Faustus Socinus meanwhile opposed the Trinitarians at almost every turn, and proposed an entirely different method through which Christ sacrificed Himself. He called it the “Example Theory,” and argued that Christ’s death was not a necessary satisfaction of divine justice or a payment for sin, but rather an example of obedience and a demonstration of God’s mercy, intended to inspire human repentance. This theory is hardly relatable to any in Christ, who have come to realize that human repentance is not a pre-requisite to salvation, nor does the evangel teach that we are justified by Christ’s obedience, but by an impartation of Christ’s faith.

This part of the study will face more Trinitarian dogma than Socinian dogma. Any mention of the Socinian view as presented within our favorite task force is meant to draw a parallel between the Trinitarian and Socinian claims. We mean to show that the Socinian arguments point greatly toward this substitutionary theory, and the reasonings can be applied to either view (as opposed to our stand on the matter.)

A Brief Debunking of the Doctrine, in Three Parts

We quote the following from our beloved brother “Saint David,” another student of the concordant text with various studies on Substack. In these three short pieces, Saint David foundationally debunks the “Substitutionary Atonement” theory.

Substitutionary Atonement operates off of one assumption:

Part One: A Holy God must punish

This is false. No one gives to God anything first, that God might owe them in return. No one first gives ‘sin’ to God first, that God might ‘owe’ them punishment. God is under no obligation toward His creation except what He has said He will do. The doctrine’s first mistake is tying God’s hands with sin, as though Christ had to die, as though death were the only way God could address sin; as though it were unrighteous for God to do anything else.

First rule: God can do what He wants.

Second rule: nothing we have done has bound God’s hands.

Obviously, the death of Christ is what God and Christ planned and wanted to do – before there was sin to address (Is. 53:9-10, 1 Pet. 1:19-20.) It follows that Christ’s death was not principally conceived as an answer for sin or an outlet for wrath. God, if He wanted, could have established hand waving as the ‘atonement’ for sin! God is not obligated to anyone with regard to the function of His creation and its course through time – whether He were “just” or not.

Yet the religious may retort, “This may be true, but God can’t sin!” This is true – but He did usher in sin as a means of contrastively revealing Himself. If sin were so disagreeable to God that it could not exist in His presence, then it would not exist at all. God’s disagreeableness with sin remains a temporary presentation, for our benefit. Our stubbornness gives pretext for His mercy.

Part Two: Christ stood in our place, and took the penalty for our sins

The results of Christ’s death shows that He neither stood in our place, nor took the “penalty” for our sins (Rom. 3:25 reads sin effect, and is mistranslated “penalty.”) Christ is not our “substitute.” Christ did not do what was required or expected of us. None of us were expected to die for the sins of the world, nor were we capable of the faith and obedience necessary for the crucifixion. It is the result of religious delusion to believe that we were supposed to do what Christ did. Christ was specially commissioned by His Father to do what He did. This also indicates that the primary concern in Christ’s death was not human misbehavior. Rather, it concerned God’s will and intention to reveal Himself. Human misdemeanors are a means to an end – not some reactive energy God has had to combat.

Furthermore, if Christ’s death was meant to take on the penalty for our sins (which all would agree is death – Rom. 6:23,) then why are believers still dying? This produces an insoluble problem, reliant on turning off your brain, or seeking loopholes in God’s actual stated methods (or, trying to disprove divine declaration for the sake of becoming right.)

Christians kick the can with this one by claiming “eternal torment” is the punishment for sin. Of course, Christ did not take on eternal torment for us. He did, however, die for our sakes. Either way you slice it (eternal torment or otherwise,) Substitutionary Atonement fails to square with the scriptures. Why? Christ did not take on their imaginary penalty for sin, and what He did experience for our sakes, we still yet experience: the process of death.

Part Three: The Motive, or: Christ’s death satisfied the necessary wrath of a holy God

This is where the distinctions between “Substitutionary Atonement” and “Christ’s death for our sakes” sets in. To the S.A. believer, the primary concern of Christ’s death was the offering of an opportunity to humanity to use Christ as a shield against God’s wrath.

This framework utterly destroys its true significance. If God was so opposed to sin and sinners, why offer a way out to begin with? Their answer: “His love!” Yet if God “so” loves us, why should we need to “escape” His wrath at all? Why must an innocent person suffer the ‘penalty’ of the guilty? Is that not unjust?

To the Christian, Christ’s death accomplished nothing in itself. This is a crucial realization, for it displays their god’s commitment to his wrath. So enthralled is he with his ‘holiness’ that he is willing to discard the effort of Christ to inflict wrath anyway, upon the sinners Christ died to save. To them, ‘the glory of god’ is the motive. This, quite contrarily to their point, is not a god committed to his glory, nor the glory of his son.

Therefore, such a framework twists the love of God. The evangel becomes, not an unconditional decree of the success of God’s love (Rom. 3:21-8:39,) but a conditional demand upon the sinner to perform the proper righteousness required to obtain a relationship with God. Their good news is, “do or suffer.” Indeed, in their framework, Christ stands as substitute only for the righteous, who are yet required to do what they were required to do prior/apart from Christ’s death.

The truth remains that Christ’s death concerns God’s love. Like with the death most experience, Christ’s death does not prevent wrath. Sure, a few will be spared of it as an exhibit of His grace, but many more will experience it (Rom. 1:18-2:16.) Though this seems to validate their premise, that ‘Christ’s death accomplished nothing,’ that is only because they see God’s wrath as opposed to Christ’s death, rather than a facilitating step toward its realization. They see God as loving, but just – as if these are two opposing facets of His character. However:

For Christ, while we are still infirm, still in accord with the era, for the sake of the irreverent, died. For hardly for the sake of a just man will anyone be dying: for, for the sake of a good man, perhaps someone may even be daring to die, yet God is commending this love of His to us, seeing that, while we are still sinners, Christ died for our sakes. Much rather, then, being now justified in His blood, we shall be saved from indignation, through Him. – Romans 5:6-9

Though it remains that this text concerns believers, it is true that those vessels of dishonor will not always be so. The indignation of God is eventually terminated as more are justified, on the basis of His accomplishment in Christ’s cross for all. Christ’s death was not to prevent or spare humanity from wrath. How could any of Christ’s acts be opposed to the Father? Rather, it was to reveal God’s love.

Likewise, Christ will be unveiling God’s indignation. Why? Because He is tasked with unveiling the Father, not to the undoing of His own commission, but to the fulfillment of it. And therein lies the point. God is not reacting to, or demanding anything of, humanity (Acts 17:25.) Rather, He is displaying Himself to humanity in Christ (2 Cor. 5:19, Rom. 3:26.) This is why Christ died – so that God could be displayed in His resurrection.

Accordingly, all the needs of humanity, whether it be righteousness, peace, or life, are supplied in Christ’s death, entombment, and rousing. If the evangel is true, there remains nothing for us to do – not because Christ is our substitute, but because Christ died for our sakes, One for all brought through Adam, and we were included in Him.

For Our Sakes

Christ died for our sakes – not instead of our sakes. In English, this distinction can be hardly understood without mocking. But in Greek, the difference could not be clearer. There are two distinct prepositions representing the terms “for” and “instead.” “For,” in its various contexts (as “Christ died for our sins,”) is huper, and may be translated “for the sake of,” or “on behalf of,” in its every occurrence. Passages such as Luke 9:50, John 10:11, Rom. 8:26, 2 Cor. 13:8, Eph. 3:1, and many more verses which contain huper would not bear the ‘substitutionary’ or ‘equivalent’ quality that modern theology has thrust upon it.

The term “instead” is anti (such as “anti-Christ.”) Unlike huper, it is the only term that would be used if Christ were “taking the place of” us. Therefore, when Christ is said to die for our sakes, we do not need to assert that this means Christ dies instead of our sakes. Such a claim is found nowhere in scripture, yet it is the principle claim that must be given by the text if the modern orthodox interpretation is to be considered.

Number of People – Quantity of SinS

When directly comparing the inclusion of all in Christ to the alleged substitutionary sacrifice, we are confronted with two vital questions:

1)    Number of people. How many people are saved by Christ, under the framework of each doctrine?

2)    Quantity of sins. How does this sacrifice cover the amount of sins committed, under the framework of each doctrine?

We have already presented the answers to both questions in regards to inclusion, and its premise and conclusion are simple. “Salvation comes through the solitary sacrifice of our Saviour since all were created in Him.” Since Christ is accountable for the sins of the race, Christ alone can cover all sin through His righteous, unblemished sacrifice.

How does Substitutionary Atonement answer these questions? There is an immediate issue, given the basic description of the doctrine above – one which denies the Pauline structure we will now expound upon. Let us begin with the first question. How can one Man take the place of so many? Most advocates of this theory will insist that it is not about a numerical equivalence, but concerns Christ serving as a Representative of the race.  Yet numbers are exactly what must be insisted when phrases like “in our stead” or “in place of us” are brought to the fore. Christ, for all His glory, is one Individual. He does not duplicate Himself. “Representation,” as we have seen, comes about because of the inclusion of all in Him, He being the Firstborn of every creature. Thus this answer cannot be given while maintaining “substitutionary” anything.

We may illustrate Substitutionary Atonement’s lack by surveying Paul’s arguments when relating Adam to Christ. When Adam transgressed, his penalty was that he would begin to die (Gen. 2:17, 3:17-19.) This death was transmitted to all mankind (Rom. 5:12.) Therefore, we also sin. We are bound to our ancestor’s penalty. If Adam had managed to reverse that penalty, then we would have been born without death’s transmission.

The first Adam, then, impacts the entire race because of our inclusion in him. Adam did not act as a substitute for each of us in sin.

This pattern should not be lost in a comparison. The above process (elaborated on in the Romans study,) finds its direct parallel in the superabundant success of Christ. God makes these two so similar because we cannot see, visually, one half of the parallel. Christ’s side of the parallel can rationally be imagined in our brains because Adam’s side is conceptually comprehensible.

Thus we see the main comparison. As Adam carried all humanity within himself, so Christ first carried all creation within Himself. Adam’s one act impacted us all, though we have not sinned in his likeness. So too, Christ’s one act impacted us all, though we have not been obedient in His likeness. So Paul argues in 2 Cor. 5:14, saying–

If One died for the sake of all, consequently all died.

The clear fact: one can only impact all, or even the sake of all, if they are vitally united to the race by creation, as the text clarifies with the first Adam. Since Christ also had the race included within Himself by creation, then any action He takes to nullify Adam’s must also eventually impact all creation. All can be seen in Him at Golgotha, not because one substitutes Himself for many, but because one has all included in Him at the cross.

Son of Mankind

At the end of the previous chapter, we made a few hypotheticals in order to compare Adam to Christ. We needed the hypotheticals because, apart from the body adapted to Christ (the “form of a slave,” Phil. 2:7, Heb. 10:5,) there is no balanced comparison that could be drawn between them that would not limit Christ and His accomplishment. Therefore, we wish now to contrast the two, instead of compare them.

Many times in the four accounts, Jesus is called the “Son of Mankind.” This is a title. It is not solely a literal affirmation of His race, but in every occurrence attests to His relationship to Adam, and thus the entire race which stemmed from Adam. He had received this mastery by inheritance, in regards to humanity, at His terrestrial birth. Adam was created soilish and corruptible. His body was formed with a “sin here” clause! Christ, in contrast, was born sinless – and thus was far superior to Adam in every way. All that was Adam’s (apart from sin) was Christ’s, when He was born, by way of His sinlessness. There was no action that Christ needed to commit in order to prove His sinlessness to the One Who already knew He was sinless.

Because Christ lacked sin, the authority Christ held far transcended Adam. Adam had failed as the “kinsman redeemer” of the race, and could not govern properly. Instead, the world, with Adam at its helm, descended into evil and chaos (Gen. 6.) It was thus Christ’s responsibility, because of His flawlessness from the beginning, to enact what Adam could never have done.

While on earth, Jesus had the authority to pardon sins (Matt. 9:6, Mark 2:10.) He had a mastery over concepts such as the sabbath (Matt. 12:8.) He came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10.) As the Son of Mankind, He suffered, died, was entombed, and was roused. He will return again in the glory of the Son of Mankind to rule this earth. Thus, all judgment is imparted to Him (John 5:27.) Every member of the race will thus stand before Him and give an account of every deed.

In these handful of references to the phrase “Son of Mankind,” then, we are told far more than some affirmation that “Jesus is a Man.” No man who originated in Adam’s lineage could be loosed from the bonds of sin (as was inadvertently argued by Liam, as quoted in chapter 8.) The uses of this phrase are meant to convey a deeper relationship to the first Adam, the first man (Hebrew would say, “Son of Adam.”) Jesus’ right to pardon sins, hold sway over the sabbath, seek and save the lost, and sacrifice Himself to bring those under sin’s jurisdiction to His own, is because of their creation in Him – not their resurrection.

Adam brought the race under sin’s rule. He did not transmit sin, but death (Rom. 5:12.) Christ, who plays the role of “Adam’s Creator,” as the Firstborn of every creature, was not infected with sin or death. He watched the descendants of creation fall in line with sin’s view and activity. He alone in the universe is able to cope with sin. Until the cross, Christ knew no sin within Him (2 Cor. 5:21.) Yet this very premise enabled Him to become a sin offering, on the cross (ibid.) This is His first step in repudiating (“UN-PLACING”) sin at the conclusion of the eons (Heb. 9:26.)

The premise on which Christ’s success at the cross for all hinges is, then, the inclusion of all in Himself. Sin entered into the world through one man. This one man is a “type.” Christ is the Anti-type – righteousness and light and life slowly infect all mankind (Rom. 5:18.) We all endure sin’s penalty because of one sin. Thus also, we will enjoy the fruits of obedience because of one award. The penalty of sin is temporary, in accord with the weakness of Adam. Yet, because of Christ’s sinless nature since His inception before this world was, and His deep connection with all, therefore all will enjoy infinite, permanent life in accord with the superabounding, excessive satisfaction that Christ’s death, entombment, and rousing brings through righteousness.

All of this is foundational moving forward, to say that Christ’s “title” as the Son of Mankind, and the office He assumed as the Son of David, and, as we will discuss in a moment, even His sinless life on earth, is not enough by itself to debunk substitutionary atonement. Only when these fleshy aspects of Himself are related to prior creational relationship can the cross overshadow all creation.

Quantity of Sins

While we are alluding to the fifth chapter of Romans, and the comparisons/contrasts made therein, let us quote A.E. Knoch once again on the subject:

“Adam’s act is to Christ’s act as Adam’s effects are to Christ’s effects.

Adam’s act is to Adam’s effects as Christ’s act is to Christ’s effects.

Christ’s effects are to Christ’s act as Adam’s effects are to Adam’s act.”

The above argument is satisfactory, and aligns perfectly with our preceding argument. Paul’s argument is not built upon “Adam sinned, therefore Christ was punished,” but upon “Adam did A and it led to B, and Christ did X and it led to Y.” In other words, the relationship is not “the crime necessitated an equivalent penalty transfer,” but “one man’s act, by inclusion, consequentially impacted all his progeny.”

We can only gain a true estimate of Christ’s success by the inspired logical method. When we compare and contrast Adam’s failure and impact with Christ’s success and impact, we may finally grasp a structure of the full picture. Adam consumed the forbidden fruit – an act concerned solely with satisfying his own desire (Gen. 3:5-6.) Christ, in contrast, endured the suffering of the cross – an act concerned solely with the satisfaction of others, and the welfare and education of all His progeny. The spirit of God’s withdrawal from His Son is an incomprehensible suffering (imagine the reverse – from being a believer, always having this intimate relationship with God, to enduring the spirit of God’s exit from your life!)

Christ’s sacrifice, then, infinitely surpasses Adam’s in quantitative value (His permanent impact relative to Adam’s temporary impact.) The same number of men are impacted because Christ is the relative Source of creation, as Adam is the relative source of mankind – yet Christ’s suffering surpasses the totality of human suffering stemming from Adam’s act. Human sin is trivial in comparison to the blessings stemming from the cross of Christ. For as great as all of our sufferings are, their collective impact on the entire universe is comparative to a dent on a fender. Christ’s goal was far more substantial, since the inclusion of all includes those in the heavens, and thus begins to repudiate their sins as well (Col. 1:16.)

Such an act – one that will paint sin as a distant fever dream, and transfers our greatest enemies into the most intimate recesses of our heart, from One that successfully accomplishes all He sets out to do – is well worthy of the greatest consideration. Consider the relationship between Adam’s pleasure and Christ’s suffering, then, under the above framework from Paul:

1.    Adam’s pleasure is to Christ’s suffering as all human suffering is to all blessedness through Christ’s sacrifice

2.    Adam’s pleasure is to all human suffering as Christ’s suffering is to all blessedness through Christ’s sacrifice

3.    All blessedness through Christ’s sacrifice is to Christ’s suffering as all human suffering is to Adam’s pleasure

If the quantity of sins were any measure of the quantity of suffering required to answer them, then Adam’s fleeting pleasure could never stand in proportion to the oppressive misery it imposed on the race. The efficacy of the cross does not depend on matching each sin with an equivalent unit of suffering, but on the dignity, relation, and headship of the One acting. His suffering was not a “pain equation,” but the responsibility of the Lord of all creation.

Paul’s argument therefore does not ask us to calculate equivalent “penalties,” for the apostle is weighing the representative efficacy of two acts and the scope of their resulting consequences. God gives His Son as the redeeming means by which His own are reclaimed. God pays with His Son; He does not replace His Son with ourselves. Christ’s one righteous, self-sacrificial obedience was foreknown, and promised a far greater outcome before Adam’s self-serving transgression could ever be imposed. If these simple dynamics were taken into consideration, the theologian’s forced legalism in Romans 5 would become the laughingstock of the eon.

The (Not So) Socinian Issue

Without an understanding of the first half of the parallel, we cannot grasp the second half. Sin is intentionally ushered in and out in similar fashion so as to commend the logical sensibilities of the faithful. The point is that sin is foreknown by the One Who dispels it; patterns indicate structure and planning.

Your average Socinian admittedly has little stake in this issue. As mentioned before, they subscribe to the “Example Theory,” which is problematic because it discounts the premises for the evangel, in Rom. 3:21-26. Therefore, they will not have agreed with any of these points, for reasons which do not relate to our present topic. It is striking. then, that the modern ‘Non-Existence of Christ’ position tends to undermine the very logical foundation Paul gives for Christ’s salvific role in Romans 5. That foundation, we have argued, is made explicit in Colossians, with a view to the reconciliation of all: Christ is the beginning of creation, and therefore is the Kinsman Redeemer, the Firstborn of all creation, and has the responsibility to save all.

Yet the problem stands. If One is born into the race with no prior connection to the race, then all simply cannot be included in Him. If He is elected at that time, then He can only affect, at best, His immediate progeny. Without Christ’s antecedent relation to creation, the entire logic of representation, headship, ransom, and later universal reconciliation collapses.

He fails as a Correspondent Ransom. The term “ransom” means to loosen one, most often from vain behavior. The term “correspondent” stems from the prefix anti, that the full term is “INSTEAD-LOOSener.” This is not a mere “payment,” but the rightful act of a Redeemer (“LOOSener”) to reclaim what is His. With no relation to humanity’s creation, He is not reclaiming His own, but the effect of an external arrangement. In that case, His relation to mankind is appointed, not intimate or intrinsic, and paints Christ as an ex-machina as opposed to the natural progression of the structured presentation God gave with the first head.

He fails as Representative, and Head. He would not represent humanity properly, for He more than “sinless” to be a suitable sacrifice. Being a sinless “part” of the race is not the same as including the race by creation in Him without a foundation. Christ begins to exist only at His birth, then He can only enter the race as one member within Adam’s line, and not as the Origin, Image, and Firstborn of creation. He would be One descendent within the ruined race – not the One in Whom the race originally stood.

If Christ is truly one of us, as in, He is 100% human, then He has no authority to save, since He, too, faces impending death. Even if He were some sinless man, due solely to being begotten by God in Mary’s womb, He still has no premise on which He can save! He would be living, and spared of judgment (for who needs correction when you are already right?) But this does not save anyone else, nor give Him the authority to do so, nor give God a proper justification for appointing Him as such. Adam was placed under Sin’s reign in careful and structured order; the reversal of that order would have to occur through corresponding and superior “headship,” or Sin would rightly claim such a trick as a blatant encroachment upon her territory, and God’s just quality would again be called into question.

Arguably the biggest issue with the “Non-Existence” of Christ at creation, then, is that it admits the premise for the theory of Substitutionary Atonement almost as well as the Trinitarian does. By the nature of their claims, Christ could not have had all included in Him at their inception. They must argue from the negative: “Christ did not have all included in Him at the beginning.” To claim that Colossians 1:15-17 is “metaphorical” or “metonymical” is meaningless; such a claim distorts the effectual verses 18-20. Yet this argument discards the creation of all in Christ, and therefore admits the only remaining alternative.

To clarify: we do not believe that this sect does believe this alternative. We are simply saying that some form of substitution – even if Paul’s message of justification were its center – is the only conclusion to a lack of “inclusion” of all in Christ. One may argue that Christ can still justify under the premise of the “Non-Existence” sect (hence we give it more attention than the Trinitarian, by rebuking within, and not without,) but His cross cannot save all.

Of course, those of this sect have claimed that the cross impacts all, yet cannot logically connect their conclusion to “inclusive” soteriology without conceding that Christ could, in fact, have been the beginning of creation, so long as the “emptying” of Philippians 2:7 enabled Him to be a valid sacrifice.

The conclusion we state, then, is not conceded by our opponents, we understand. We are assured that, no matter their contradictory statements, they do not believe that Christ’s cross is a substitutionary atonement, but the Head of all dying for all. They have the emotional sensibility to feel this to be true; it is the manner in which God operates that eludes them, for if they were, they would not calumniate the glories of our Lord. Yet it is this calumny which provokes us; we insist that the doctrinal points considered, both in this study and in the broader work as a whole, are well worthy of consideration, for, if we were wrong, we would wish for them to be sharpened by the strongest arguments possible, as opposed to the weakest.

In God We (Really) Trust

We are blessed to look at scripture in a way unique to every other period of time. Never before have we had the ability to examine the text with such harmonious unity. To coin the peculiar phrase from the non-existence sect, believers have “emptied themselves” of poor exegesis as textual criticism via an objective “concordant” method for nearly 100 years, now. Some antiquated and Reformation teachings have thus been found true, and others found false. Our job as believers is not to become so emotionally enamored with a belief that we cannot logically relate it to all of the facts in the text.

But the uniqueness is more than this. We are blessed, through the Greek’s facts, to truly view life from God’s position, and not ours. To God, salvation was planned before sin ever entered the scene (1 Pet. 1:20, Eph. 1:4.) Sin has never been able to compromise God’s purpose for every individual, and has only served to form a background for God’s love and characteristics to shine forth. To quote Knoch once more, “[God] would surely provide for [sin’s] control and conquest before it was allowed to play its part. This was done when all was in the Son of God’s love.”

Indeed, then, the cross attests to the beginning of the reconciliation of all first created in Him. This depiction is crafted by a Placer, worthy of the title. The loss of any by unjustified and uncalled reasonings – whether intentional or otherwise – is repugnant to our spiritual senses. Any doctrine, whether an unjust conclusion or invalid premises, which leaves room for the dissatisfaction of God’s desire and will, must be squashed, first and foremost.

The precious blood of Christ was foreknown before the disruption of the world (1 Pet. 1:19-20.) When we reflect on both truths – the foreknowledge of Christ’s sacrifice and Christ as the Origin of creation – we must realize that God gave us everything, right at the start. He had a way through the tunnel before we ever crossed into its shadow. Before there was ever a need for salvation, God provided sin’s solution.

He has only ever swayed the fate of all mankind through two men (Rom. 5:12-19.) He has first created all in and through the Son – to ensure the reconciliation, the peace, of all creation and the Creator (Col. 1:15-20.) He then puts all mankind in Adam – to ensure the sin, the estrangement, of all creation from the Creator (Rom. 11:32.) Mankind’s inclusion in Adam brought them into death. Yet Adam’s inclusion in the Son ensures his eventual life. Ergo, God is the Saviour of all mankind.

The most critical aspect, then, is the relationship we thus see between God and those He is saving. He has never been absent from His progeny. He has maintained a close and patient plodding with creation, at its most detestable, because He loves. Through Christ, He demonstrates an affection for all living things, a true heart for all in the heavens and on the earth since their beginning. Without this depiction, creation does not have the bond to the Image of the Father at its roots, but from without.

God is love, in creation and reconciliation. At every intermediate stage, He is revealing Himself through His Image. He has assured us before we were lost that we would be won, and this makes all the difference.

- GerudoKing