Claims 15 and 16 are discussed in part 67 of Mr. Vendredi's atonement series.
Claim 15: “His eyes too holy to look upon sin, God judges Christ, turns His back on Christ, and drives Christ out of the godhead.”
Mr. Vendredi, as always, breaks this claim down into smaller bits.
Part 1: “His eyes to holy to look upon sin god judges the crucified Christ.”
This makes no sense because Christ was not guilty of sin. How can God judge Christ if he is not guilty of sin?
The answer is because Christ takes our sin upon him and becomes a curse and bears the penalty for sin not that he is actually guilty of sin or a sinner. The wages of sin is death. Christ suffers and dies on the cross while bearing our sins. But this has been dealt with previously and there is no need to go further.
Part 2: "God turns his back on Christ."
This is not true at all because Jesus testifies otherwise.
John 8:28: Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
John 8:29: And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.
John 16:32: Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
The oft quoted cry of Christ:
Matthew 27:46: And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
is really just a literary device Christ was using to alert his hearers that he meant to whole of Psalm 22 and not merely the opening line. It would be incorrect to divorce the introduction to Psalm 22 from the rest of it. When one only reads the first line one gets a suffering servant abandoned by the Father. when one reads the entire Psalm one gets a suffering servant still in communion with the Father.
Besides this Jesus quotes Psalm 31:5.
Luke 23:46: ¶And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
Good objections all and as this is not a defense of penal substation but a display of the paucity of Mr. Vendredi's arguments I will only bring up one counter-argument which he overlooks.
When Christ reads from Isaiah in Luke 4 he only reads half the passage.
Luke 4:17: And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
Luke 4:18: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
Luke 4:19: To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
The whole of the passage in Isaiah is as follows:
Isaiah 61:1: The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
Isaiah 61:2: To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
Isaiah 61:3: To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.
Actually there is more to it. But we see Christ only quoting the first part and then sitting down and declaring:
Luke 4:21: And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
How can this be when he neglected to read the whole passage? How can one part be fulfilled now and the other part not be fulfilled now? I would suggest the same interpretation with Psalm 22. Christ's being abandoned by the Father is fulfilled in his hour of despair on the cross. Later with the resurrection and the spreading of the Gospel the latter half of the Psalm is fulfilled.
Part 3 of this claim says: "Christ is driven out of the godhead."
Mr. Vendredi rightly derides this as blasphemous. The Father and the Son are one undiminished unity. The Father does not change. The Son does not change. Therefore there is never a time when the Father and the Son are not one undivided unity. Therefore the Son could never not be a part of the godhead.
Claim 16 “As the perfect unblemished offering Christ fulfils and obviates the entire Old Testament sacrificial system once and for all.”
In actual fact the only part of the sacrificial system the Christ fulfils is the Passover lamb. All the other sacrifices serve either as anti-Egyptian iconoclasm, punishment of the Aaronic priests, or punishment of the rank and file isrealite.
John 1:29: ¶The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
John 1:36: And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!
John 19:14: And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!
I Corinthians 5:7: Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
Clearly Christ full fills the sacrifice of the Passover the purpose of which is to destroy Satan.
Exodus 12:12: For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.
Previously Mr. Vendredi has said that the primary purpose of the Passover sacrifice was to destroy the creator gods of Egypt. It was iconoclastic. At no point then, which was discussed in part 61, did Mr. Vendredi bring up Christ as being prefigured in the Passover. So why is he brining Christ into the picture now? He is contradicting himself.
The second part of this critique of claim 16 is a long argument attempting to prove that Christ cannot be the scapegoat and that he also cannot symbolise any of the other sacrifices. Christ is a lamb, not a goat. There is a ram sacrificed on the day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, but a ram is an adult lamb and Mr. Vendredi is not aware of Christ ever being likened to a ram. This is both Biblical and taxonomical illiteracy which afflicts even big name Christian radio personalities.
It would seem that Athanasisus is also afflicted with the same Biblical and taxonomical illiteracy.
For thus the patriarch Abraham rejoiced not to see his own day, but that of the Lord; and thus looking forward 'he saw it, and was glad.' And when he was tried, by faith he offered up Isaac, and sacrificed his only-begotten son— he who had received the promises. And, in offering his son, he worshipped the Son of God. And, being restrained from sacrificing Isaac, he saw the Messiah in the ram, which was offered up instead as a sacrifice to God. The patriarch was tried, through Isaac, not however that he was sacrificed, but He who was pointed out in Isaiah; 'He shall be led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers he shall be speechless ;' but He took away the sin of the world. And on this account [Abraham] was restrained from laying his hand on the lad, lest the Jews, taking occasion from the sacrifice of Isaac, should reject the prophetic declarations concerning our Saviour, even all of them, but more especially those uttered by the Psalmist; 'Sacrifice and offering You would not; a body You have prepared Me;' and should refer all such things as these to the son of Abraham.
If Mr. Vendredi had read the story in Genesis 22 aright then he would not be making such an egregious mistake as saying Christ is never likened to a ram.
Next we are told that the atonement school wrongly identifies Christ with every animal sacrificed by the Aaronic priests. In the Old Testament there are references to goats, bullocks, calves, rams, pigeons and turtledoves, and even flour as being sin offerings. The New Testament nowhere likens Christ to a goat, a bullock, a pigeon, a turtledove, a ram, a calf, or a handful of flour. The only sacrificial animal to which the New Testament likens Christ is a lamb.
First of all the iconogprahy and tradition of the Church arrests Mr. Vendredi's nonsense right in its tracks. The Gospel of Luke and Luke the Evangelist but sometimes one of the other Gospels and Evangelists have always been represented as a calf or bull or ox.
Luke the Evangelist, the author of the third gospel account (and the Acts of the Apostles), is symbolized by a winged ox or bull – a figure of sacrifice, service and strength. Luke's account begins with the duties of Zacharias in the temple; it represents Jesus' sacrifice in His Passion and Crucifixion, as well as Christ being High priest (this also represents Mary's obedience). The ox signifies that Christians should be prepared to sacrifice themselves in following Christ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Evangelists
The association of the four living creatures with the four evangelists originated with Irenaeus in the 2nd century. The interpretation of each creature has varied through church history. The most common interpretation, first laid out by Victorinus and adopted by Jerome, St Gregory, and the Book of Kells is that the man is Matthew, the lion Mark, the ox Luke, and the eagle John. The creatures of the tetramorph, just like the four gospels of the Evangelists, represent four facets of Christ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TetramorphSecondly, and most importantly, Mr. Vendredi's arguments are dismantled in the book of Hebrews, particularly in chapter 9. It would be too much to quote the entirety of Hebrews 9. So let's just quote a few passages.
Hebrews 9:6: Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God.
Hebrews 9:7: But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people:
Hebrews 9:8: The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing:
Hebrews 9:9: Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;
Hebrews 9:10: Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.
Hebrews 9:11: But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;
Hebrews 9:12: Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
Hebrews 9:13: For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
Hebrews 9:14: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Just two chapters back Christ is called a priest not after the order of Aaron but after the order of Melchisidec. Yet here we see the author of Hebrews comparing Christ and his work to that of the high priest of the Aaronic priesthood on the day of atonement, Yom Kippur. As Aaron entered in once a year with the blood of bulls and goats, Christ enters once into the holy place and offers his own blood. This holy place is heaven.
Hebrews 9:24: For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:
It is in Hebrews 9 and 10 that Christ is compared to being a goat, bullock, and ram. Hebrews 13 also gives us this comparison of Christ with animals being sacrificed without the gate.
Hebrews 13:11: For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.
Hebrews 13:12: Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.
Hebrews 13:13: Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.
This reference to an animal being slain without the camp is to the red heifer of Numbers 19.
Numbers 19:1: And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,
Numbers 19:2: This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke:
Numbers 19:3: And ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest, that he may bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face:
The book of Hebrews explains how the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament is fulfilled in light of the sacrifice of Christ. How Mr. Vendredi misses this entirely is anyone's guess. If he wants to prove that the sacrifice of Christ does not fulfil the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament then he will have to stop taking a wooden literal approach, like he accuses so many of doing, by telling us that Christ is the lamb and not the kid of God and instead properly exegete the book of Hebrews especially chapter 9. What the death and resurrection of Christ accomplishes and fulfils is so much larger and manifold then Mr. Vendredi would have us believe.
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