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The Protestant Concept of the Atonement:

Against the foregoing Catholic teachings on appeasement and divine honor stands the Protestant concept fostered by Martin Luther and John Calvin. In brief, it is their fundamental misunderstanding of the atonement which led to a false teaching about salvation, subsequently fomenting the Protestant Reformation and leaving today's Protestants with a hopelessly warped understanding of Christ's suffering and death. It is the very reason that Matthew Anger, in his recent column on Gibson's movie for the Seattle Catholic, writes:

Consider that for centuries a hallmark of Protestantism was its effective iconoclasm against the mystery of the Crucifixion. The Corpus of Christ was removed, leaving a barren cross, which has since become a ubiquitous item of agnostic jewelry. Gone was the penitential symbolism of the redemptive suffering of the Messiah.

Anger goes on to say that, as opposed to Protestants, Catholics "pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, we have Passion Week at the end of Lent, and perform the Stations of the Cross (the original, pre-movie version of The Passion)," showing that their very lives center around Christ's excruciating sufferings. As one reviewer of Gibson's movie stated: "Suffering is so integral to atonement theory that in interviews, Gibson interchanges the phrases 'the Crucifixion' and 'the sacrifice.' From his vantage - and that of the shapers of Christian doctrine - there is no other way to understand the cross."

That is because Catholic theology is basically a theology about suffering. Everything from the atonement of Christ, to our concepts of the communion of saints, Mary, the treasury of merit, intercessory prayer and fasting, victim souls, stigmatists, indulgences, purgatory, the Mass, justification, sanctification, etc, is all concerned with suffering and what it does to appease God and preserve His honor so that His blessings and grace can flow to us. No amount of suffering is wasted in Catholic theology. Every ounce is pressed into service for the saving of souls. Understanding the nature of physical suffering and the God who requires appeasement and honor (which Gibson's film seems to have grasped at least on an elementary level), is the cornerstone of all Catholic theology. Without it, nothing else in Catholicism will make sense. Protestants, by and large, have little room for suffering in their soteriology, at least not in the vicarious sense. They may use their individual suffering to grow, or may wish it all away with health and wealth TV gospels, but they would never think of it as meritorious toward saving a soul or appeasing God.

Luther's and Calvin's theory of the atonement held that Christ's physical suffering was incidental. The real suffering, they claimed, came from a spiritual punishment which began in the Garden of Gethsemane and ended up as the equivalent of an eternity in hell. The reason? Luther and Calvin believed Christ's passion was a legal payment for sin, otherwise known as "penal substitution." Since Protestant theology believes salvation is forensic, then the atonement must be a legal transaction. Hence, as God requires the legal payment of eternal damnation for sin, Christ had to undergo its legal equivalent, while his physical suffering was of little consequence.

In his commentary on Psalm 22, Martin Luther held that Christ, as God and man, literally entered hell to sustain God's wrath, suffering the tortures of the damned.⁽¹⁰⁾ Similarly, interpreting the clause "he descended into hell" in the Apostles' Creed, John Calvin writes:

But we must seek a surer explanation, apart from the Creed, of Christ's descent into hell...If Christ had died only a bodily death, it would have been ineffectual. No - it was expedient at the same time for him to undergo the severity of God's vengeance....For this reason, he must also grapple hand to hand with the armies of hell and the dread of everlasting death....By these words he means that Christ was put in place of evildoers as surety and pledge - submitting himself even as the accused - to bear and suffer all the punishments that they ought to have sustained...No wonder, then, if he is said to have descended into hell, for he suffered the death that God in his wrath had inflicted upon the wicked!⁽¹¹⁾

Part and parcel with the Protestant concept of "penal substitution" is the idea that the Father punished Christ because Christ, by divine design, actually became the essence of sin. Since Christ was laden with sin, God had to reject Him, and punish Him as if He were an eternally damned sinner. This understanding comes from their innovative interpretation of 2 Cor 5:21 ("he became sin for us"), whereas all the patristic exegesis before them understood the clause as referring only to Christ becoming a "sin offering," not sin itself, even as the corollary passage, Romans 8:3, stipulates.⁽¹²⁾ In fact, for Catholic theology, it was precisely the fact that Christ was totally without the stain of sin, whether personally or vicariously, that He was able to offer Himself as an appeasing sacrifice. A victim laden with sin, even if it were only vicarious, could never be a propitiatory sacrifice, which is precisely why Luther repudiated the idea of propitiation and Catholic theology altogether. The two theologies could not be any further apart.

Having been confronted with the distorted views of Luther and Calvin, quite appropriately does the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia state:

...The second mistake is the tendency to treat the Passion of Christ as being literally a case of vicarious punishment. This is at best a distorted view of the truth that His atoning Sacrifice took the place of our punishment, and that He took upon Himself the sufferings and death that were due to our sins.⁽¹³⁾

Not surprisingly, it was Luther's misunderstanding of the atonement that led him to view the Mass - which in Catholic theology is a re-enactment of the atonement - as the greatest abomination ever perpetrated on mankind. He writes: "No other sin, manslaughter, theft, murder or adultery is so harmful as this abomination of the popish Mass."⁽¹⁴⁾ Not surprisingly, Luther is totally adverse to the concept of appeasing God. He writes:

He who sacrifices wants to appease God. But he who wants to appease God regards him as wrathful and merciless; and he who does so does not expect grace or mercy of Him, but is afraid of His judgment and condemnation. But he who is to approach the sacrament profitably must believe and trust entirely that he has a gracious, merciful God who loves him so dearly that of His own free will He gave His greatest and dearest treasure.⁽¹⁵⁾

Luther held that only faith alone, not suffering, moved God to act. If this is not the case, Luther says, "do we not become unsure as to whether our sacrifice is acceptable to God?"⁽¹⁶⁾ It is the same reason Calvinism's Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 80, calls the Eucharistic sacrifice "a cursed idolatry."

The Council of Trent on the Atonement:

Against all this bluster, of course, is the Council of Trent - the greatest dogmatic council with which God has ever blessed the Catholic Church. The Council states Christ "made satisfaction for us to God the Father" (DS 799), and "Christ Jesus Who has satisfied for our sins" (DS 904), but never teaches that Christ paid a full eternal penalty for sin. Logically, if He had, then God would have no right to punish anyone in hell, since He could not, in justice, exact two eternal punishments for the same sin.

The connection between the Mass and Calvary is so profound, so identical, that when one listens to Trent's words about the Mass, he is listening to the echoes of the meaning of Calvary. Session 22, Chapter 2 put it this way:

In this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. Therefore, the holy Council teaches that this sacrifice is truly propitiatory, so that, if we draw near to God with an upright heart and true faith, with fear and reverence, with sorrow and repentance, through it 'we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.' For the Lord, appeased by this oblation, grants grace and the gift of repentance, and he pardons wrong-doings and sins, even grave ones.

What you find at Trent is the notion of "propitiation" and "appeasement," the very opposite of the forensic atonement offered by Luther and Calvin. For Trent, and all the Tradition prior (which Trent merely crystallized), the atonement was a personal sacrifice made voluntarily by the Son in an effort to appease the Father's wrath against mankind, preserve His honor among angels and men, and persuade Him to once again open the doors of mercy.

The Latin Mass and the Atonement:

There is no better portrayal of the principle of appeasement than in the Traditional Catholic Mass, and it is the very reason why it will never cease, despite the attempts of the post-conciliar church to have it die a natural death. Listen to these rich words - words which drip with honor and sacrifice to a Holy God.

The prayers before Mass include such statements as "To adore Thee and give Thee honor which is due to Thee...to appease Thy justice, aroused against us by so many sins, and to make satisfaction for them."⁽¹⁷⁾

The Confiteor says: "We beseech Thee, O Lord, by the merits of Thy saints, whose relics are here, and of all the Saints, that Thou wilt deign to pardon me all my sins."⁽¹⁸⁾

The Offertory states: "Accept, O Holy Father, Almighty and Everlasting God, this unspotted Host, which I, Thine unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, to atone for my countless sins, offenses, and negligences..." and "We offer unto Thee, O Lord, the chalice of salvation, entreating Thy mercy that our offering may ascend with a sweet fragrance in thy sight..." and "may our sacrifice be so offered this day in Thy sight as to be pleasing to Thee, O Lord God" and "this sacrifice which is prepared for the glory of Thy holy Name," and "Receive, O Holy Trinity, this oblation which we make to Thee in memory of the Passion...the them let it bring honor, and to us salvation."⁽¹⁹⁾

In the Orate Fratres we plead: "Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Father Almighty."⁽²⁰⁾ Notice here that we cannot demand that God be appeased, but we humbly hope that it "may be acceptable." That is because God's mercy is completely personal and voluntary, not a legal remuneration He gives as if He were legally required to do so.

In the Secret we pray: "Sanctify, we beseech Thee, O Lord our God, by the invocation of Thy Holy Name, the Sacrifice we offer..." In the Canon we pray: "We, therefore, humbly pray and beseech Thee, most merciful Father...to accept and to bless these gifts, these presents, these holy unspotted Sacrifices, which we offer up to Thee..."⁽²¹⁾

In the prayers at Consecration the priest says: "We beseech Thee, O Lord, graciously to accept this oblation of our service...that we be rescued from eternal damnation..." and "Humbly we pray Thee, O God, be pleased to make this same offering wholly blessed, to consecrate it and approve it..."⁽²²⁾

The prayers after Consecration say: "And now, O Lord, we...do offer unto Thy most sovereign Majesty out of the gifts Thou hast bestowed upon us, a Victim which is pure, a Victim which is holy, a Victim which is spotless...Deign to look upon them with a favorable and gracious countenance...we humbly beseech Thee, almighty God, to command that these our offerings be carried by the hands of Thy holy Angels to Thine Altar on high, in the sight of Thy divine Majesty..."⁽²³⁾

Suffice it to say, the Latin Mass is saturated, from beginning to end, with the theme of sacrifice, propitiation and appeasement which is offered to God the Father so that His wrath against our sins will be abated and that His tender mercies will flow to us. I dare say that, without the daily offering of the Catholic Mass throughout the world, God would have no choice but to destroy it immediately for its sins. It is only through the propitiatory offering of the Mass that God is appeased enough to allow the world to go on existing one more day. This also means, of course, that if the Mass is ever taken away, time on earth will be over. Unfortunately, the Antichrist may have something to say about that in the future (cf., Dan 8:11-13; 11:31; 12:11).

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