Modern evangelical’s false understanding of atonement

It is not a good idea to simply present God as an angry God, and Jesus was loving, that He died to pacify an angry God. Berkhof in the chapter of “the moving cause of the atonement” summarizes this idea, which is so prevalent in the modern evangelical circles: “It is sometimes represented as if the moving cause of the atonement lay in the sympathetic love of Christ for sinners. He was so good and loving that the very idea that sinners would be hopelessly lost, was abhorrent to Him. Therefore He offered Himself as a victim in their stead, paid the penalty by laying down His life for transgressors, and thus pacified an angry God.” This basically summarized the belief generally held and preached among the evangelical churches. Berkhof points out the danger of this view: “ In some cases this view prompts men to laud Christ for His supreme self-sacrifice, but at the same time, to blame God for demanding and accepting such a price. In others it simply causes men to overlook God, and to sing the praises of Christ in unqualified terms. Such a representation is certainly all wrong, and often gives the opponents of the penal substitutionary doctrine of the atonement occasion to say that this doctrine presupposes a schism in the Trinitarian life of God.” (367)

Berkhof emphasizes that the moving cause of the atonement resides in the good pleasure of God, that “Christ himself is the fruit of this good pleasure of God.” (see Gal. 1:4, Col. 1:19-20)

The assumption of a schism in the Trinitarian life of God is a “monstrous idea”, says Berkhof. He quotes David Smith, author of In the Days of His Flesh: “It (the penal theory of satisfaction) places a gulf between God and Christ, representing god as the stern Judge who insisted on the execution of Justice, and Christ as the pitiful Savior who interposed and satisfied His legal demand and appeased His righteous wrath. They are not one either in their attitudes toward sinners or in the parts which they play. God is propitiated; Christ propitiates; God inflicts the punishment, Christ suffers it; God exacts the debt, Christ pays it.” This is a misunderstanding for which we Christians are at least partially responsible for singing and speaking as if Christ, rather than the triune God, were exclusively the author of their salvation. The Bible teaches us that the triune God provided freely for the salvation of sinners. The Father made the sacrifice of His Son, and the Son willingly offered Himself. There was no schism but the most beautiful harmony between the Father and the Son.