Today we are still very much affected by this kind of rationalistic thought because of the influence of the Enlightenment. What was originally supposed to be liberating (through reason we could break free from the dogma of authority) has now largely turned into a dogma itself - an unquestioned "common sense" told to us from the "expert authorities" from above, where the only thing real is the material and the only way to approach life is through rationalistic "scientific" thought. In this spiritually oppressive environment the things that give life meaning and depth, that make us truly human and move us deeply are thought of polemically as "emotional" and "superstitious". Science today has itself long since moved beyond this limited way of seeing the world, and thankfully as people move beyond outdated enlightenment scientism there is a new openness to the "things of the heart" emerging. In our postmodern era people resonate with the concept of story like never before. Thus the first century church's drama of Christus Victor as a way of understanding the cross is suited to this generation like no other. Perhaps we can even understand in some ways better today then they could. But there is at the same time a sense of detachment and relativism in the air of postmodernism. The task therefore is to understand the story as a "meta-narrative", as our "Story" with a capitol S. Allowing through story for the transcendent absolute to break into a limited relativistic perspective. To break away from the limited confines of the modernist rationalism and the post-modernist relativism towards a "theology of the heart". This concept of meta-narrative and story will be covered in the end of Part 3 but I want to strongly emphasize as you read through this paper that the main goal is not to par one rational theology of the cross against another, but to switch from understanding the cross in the terms of a rational systemized transaction, and instead encounter it in terms of passion and depth - a theology of the heart.

In Satisfaction-Doctrine's system God is seen primarily as "judge", and since a judge must be impartial, and detached, this judicial image was projected onto God and we saw God's kingdom in these legal terms. This is the opposite of the image of God that we see reflected in Jesus. Jesus is not impartial but passionately defends the voiceless and the marginalized; he shows us that God is not distant

Satisfaction-Doctrine takes the love out of the cross, and turns it into a calculated legal transaction.

and detached but here - Emanuel: "God with us" - close to the broken hearted, deeply caring about us. So the first problem with the Satisfaction-Doctrine is that since it sees life exclusively through a legalistic framework, it takes the love and the relational aspects out of the cross (which are absolutely essential to its understanding) and turns it into a calculated legal transaction. Reason-based rather than revelation-based. Rather than letting the revelation of who Jesus is as revealed in Scripture revolutionize our understanding of who God is, Satisfaction-Doctrine takes a medieval understanding of justice and projects this man-made image onto God.

Ironically, as we will see in this section, even in its attempt to champion justice, Satisfaction-Doctrine does not present a biblical picture of what justice is about, but a legalistic medieval one. Biblically to "bring justice" does not mean to bring punishment, but to bring healing and reconciliation. Justice means to make things right. All through the Prophets justice is associated with caring for others, as something that is not in conflict with mercy, but rather an expression of it. Biblically, justice is God's saving action at work for all that are oppressed:

The way that we "administer justice", the Prophets tell us, is by encouraging and helping the oppressed. In contrast to what the Satisfaction-Doctrine says, God's justice is not in conflict with his mercy, they are inseparable. True justice can only come though mercy

If we want to understand the concept of justice as the writers of the Old Testament did, then we must see it as a "setting things right again". Thus when Christ comes, the way that he brings about justice is through mercy and compassion. Notice how in this next verse Christ does not bring justice with a hammer, but with a tenderness that cares for the broken and the abused.

The way that God brings about justice and "leads it to victory" is through acts of compassion - sheltering the "smoldering wick", and the "bruised reed". And what does Christ "proclaim to the nations" to bring about this justice?

The justice that Jesus ushers in, the righteousness he brings, have to do with God pouring his love out on us, with God showing his compassion for the lost and the poor. With God meeting us in our need and liberating us from sin and oppression. With "setting things right" - that is what biblical justice is about. There is no dichotomy between a "God of justice" in the Old Testament and a "God of mercy" in the New. There is no split in God's character. God has always been a compassionate God, a God of love. Jesus reveals who God is and who God has always been. Justice is about mercy. Justice comes through mercy and always has.

An additional problem in our understanding is a worldly understanding of mercy as being the same as blind leniency. So we have a "judgement" which takes sin seriously and desires to get payment and punishment versus a "mercy" which wants to just say it is all fine and nevermind. This is of course neither a biblical picture of mercy or of justice. Mercy biblically is rooted in the idea of compassion and is not about closing your eyes in some form of denial, wishing that there was no conflict, but just the opposite: Compassion means truly seeing through the eyes of another and suffering with them. Jesus had mercy on sinners not because he was denying their sin, but precisely because he did see. The New Testament Greek word for compassion literally means to "have your guts wrenched". It agonized Jesus to see people like this. It tore him up inside. And because of that compassion he longed to bring them justice, to release the oppressed, heal the afflicted, and forgive the condemned. Like mercy biblical justice is rooted in compassion and is a desire to see things made right, to see relationships restored, to see broken lives mended, to see hurtful people come to their knees in repentance and be made new.

There is a biblical concept of "judgement" or "wrath". Jesus warned frequently that the people were calling judgement on themselves and called them to turn (repent) from the course they were on. Judgement or wrath is the consequence of sinful or hurtful action. It follows from sin like falling is the consequence of jumping off a cliff. Paul writes in the Romans that "the wages of sin is death". The wage, the thing you get as a result, what you have coming to you, is death. "but the gift of God is eternal life". God who is a God of love (compassion) and justice (making this right) desires not to see us die, but to give us life. God desires to break us out of the vicious cycle of consequence and to therefore bring about justice - to make things right again, to restore us to where we where meant to be. Not by saying that it is of no consequence that we are bleeding and broken, but by taking us out of the treadmill of death, by liberating us from the tyranny of hurting and being hurt. That is what biblical justice is all about. It is not in conflict with compassion, it is rooted in compassion.

Despite man's concoctions of what justice "ought to be" the biblical picture of justice is about making things right again, about restoration, about liberation. In the biblical paradigm death is not what "justice requires", rather death is the enemy that justice conquers through the cross (1 Cor 15:25-26,54-57). Man's picture of justice is to put people in prison; Jesus' vision of justice was to release the captives from their prison (Luke 4:18) We need to get away from narrow man-made concepts of justice and understand the godly life-giving justice that God sent Jesus to bring about. We need to stop seeing justice as the world does and see it as God does. This will require a major paradigm shift in our thinking.

We should not take our human concepts of earthly justice and try to cram what God did through the cross into that small understanding, but rather let Jesus and the cross show us what God's radical and liberating justice is really about.

This is not to say that sin is not a real problem. There is real evil and profound hurt, injustice, cruelty, and oppression in our world. People are trapped in the vicious cycles of abuse, hurting and being hurt. Everything is definitely not fine. It is crucial that we not whitewash over evil. When Scripture talks about bringing justice by defending the poor, it also means that the oppressors are in some serious trouble. Jesus did not pull any punches when he confronted the hypocritical and oppressive religious authorities of his day. One of the main reasons that the Satisfaction-Doctrine

people have the mistaken notion that the only alternative to its legalistic view is to deny the reality of sin. It is a false dichotomy of law vs. anarchy, while the entire concept of grace is left out of the picture.

is so widespread is that people have the mistaken notion that the only other alternative to its legalistic view is the liberal tendency to deny the reality of evil and the blackness of sin. They see it as an either-or situation: either one accepts the legalistic paradigm of Satisfaction-Doctrine or one denies the problem of sin altogether. It is a false dichotomy of law vs. anarchy, while the entire concept of grace is left out of the picture.

And exactly this is the problem: while the Satisfaction-Doctrine attempts to take sin seriously, in the end it fails to take it seriously enough because it deals with sin through a legal system instead of though grace. Because of its legal paradigm it only deals superficially with sin and can do nothing to really reform it inwardly. Punishment does not reform, it hardens. Compassion is what reforms a heart. God loves us while we are his enemies and it is this radical love which breaks the hard shell of our calloused hearts: "it is God's kindness that leads us to repentance". (Romans 2:4) Moreover, to say that God is satisfied by a payment does not take into account the gravity of sin's hold on us, of the blackness in our hearts, the reality of the real hurt there. A legal acquittal cannot heal a broken and hardened heart. Only love can do that.

It is crucial to understand that Satisfaction-Doctrine when it approaches the cross from a purely judicial perspective is not attempting to address these inner issues of reform and transformation. A legal theory, by its very nature, cannot address these things. From a legal framework the purpose of this "satisfaction" is not to heal us or restore us inwardly, but is rather a mere legal-social function: to satisfy society. It does nothing to reform or liberate the heart from the bondage of sin, but instead makes a public statement of: "See how bad that was? Now you have to pay for it". In this legal mindset one pays the court a fine for a wrong done and the judge is then "satisfied" with this punishment and is able to declare everything settled. The demands of justice are declared satisfied; case closed. But does this punishment really make anything better? Does paying a fine undo the hurt that was done? It is never the intent of a legal theory to affect us inwardly; it is only a legal transaction. It does nothing to fundamentally change the human heart, nothing to make things right in the sense of biblical restoration and renewal. Thus the Satisfaction-Doctrine, although it prides itself on facing the gravity of sin, in fact treats sin superficially without dealing with its roots. Satisfaction-Doctrine addresses society's need for punishment, but does not address the sin lodged in our hearts.

This problem has traditionally been dealt with by separating the concepts of "justification" and "sanctification". Justification is understood as our being declared "justified" (declared not guilty) and then we begin the process of sanctification (inner change). Justification is understood in legal terms whereas sanctification, since it deals with inner healing, is understood in more relational ones. But in this switching of paradigms midstream the whole concept becomes very awkward and unnatural. Questions arise, like: "how can God declare me sinless when I still

Love from God is not based on who we are but on who God is. We are justified by God's love, not by law. Likewise sanctification comes through living in God's love.

sin?" A much better paradigm for understanding all of this is an entirely relational one. Just as in printing, type on a page that is "set in place" is referred to as being "justified" so also justification in our lives involves a positional change where we are brought out of darkness and into God's family. God takes us out of a world of hurt and hurting, out of our estranged state, and brings us into his family, reconciling us with life. We are not erroneously declared "innocent" , or "good" , but declared "loved by God" . And as Paul asks, if God has accepted us, who can condemn us? Who can separate us from that love? (cf. Ro 8:31-35) This love from God is not based on who we are but on who God is. We are justified (set right) by God's love, not by law. Likewise, sanctification comes through God's love - as we live in his love, that love helps us to learn to love others and ourselves too. Understood in this relational paradigm justification is a change of identity, a positional change of who we belong to. We are no longer slaves to sin, but are liberated out of that estranged identity, redeemed, bought back, and now belong to God. Thus understanding the concept of justification by grace in Paul's epistles from this relational framework fits much better with the entire thrust of his writing and terminology, whereas from a legal perspective the terms quickly become confusing and problematic.

A second problem with Satisfaction-Doctrine's

In a legal paradigm like Satisfaction-Doctrine it is assumed that the society itself is beyond question, thus the entire social dimension of sin is lost. Rather than Christ liberating us from the powers as Christus Victor says, we were to be brought back under the authority of the powers

focus on a purely legal paradigm, is that sin is seen as something exclusively individual. Only we as individuals can sin by stepping out of bounds of the system and its rules, but that system and those rules remain beyond question. Society and the world go unquestioned because they represent the perfect standard. Thus sin on a societal level - the corruption of authorities, corporations, communities, cliques, nations, and church - is institutionalized and justified because the "authorities" and the system must be right since they represent the standard one can transgress from. The truth is, the fall has imprisoned and warped us, but it has also imprisoned and warped our society and systems as well. Christ came to break sin's hold over both us and our world, bringing all of life under the lordship of Christ both individually and corporately.

While conservatives tend to focus only on the individual aspects of sin and liberals tend to focus only on a societal aspect of sin, the Biblical model addresses sin both from an individual and societal level: We live in a fallen world with fallen systems and oppressive "powers and rulers and authorities" that are opposed to God's kingdom of love and justice. The church's mission of social justice thus means seeking to help the "poor" - that is people who have fallen under the grips of these oppressive systems, and working to reform our systems into the image of God's kingdom. That reform and liberation is not just about opposing a "worldly" inhumane society and systems however, but also about taking responsibility for our own complicity in those systems. This may be by our repenting of our taking advantage of power to selfishly lord over others, or it may be by our repenting of our acceptance of the inhuman role of the victim and taking hold of our humanity again - "dying to" the hold these worldly systems have over us, and through a change of allegiance being brought into God's care and rule. These concepts will be discussed in detail in Part Three, but the key point here is simply that in a legal paradigm like Satisfaction-Doctrine, since it is assumed that the society itself and its rules are beyond question,

As you can see there are a lot of problems with the Satisfaction-Doctrine which has come to be the dominant view today, both in the orthodox Protestant and Catholic church. But it wasn't always this way. The dominant view of the early church, of the Church Fathers, and of Scripture is not the Satisfaction-Doctrine which was a theory developed a thousand years later, but instead is a view known as Christus Victor. It is about how Christ is victorious over the powers of sin and death and frees us from their bondage through the cross. It focuses on the struggle between the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed and the forces of the Domination System and its deluding and oppressive captivity. Thus it is a view of atonement (literally "at-one-ment" reunion, reconciliation) that speaks not only of our personal reconciliation, but also of the reconciliation of the powers and systems we live in.