Is the Nicene creed supportive of Reformed Theology?

DialecticSkeptic said:

I think the root of Wesleyan soteriology distancing itself from penal substitutionary atonement is found in its anthropological commitments, which grew organically into the softening that you’re seeing in the likes of Wilson’s Methodist Theology.

Although Wesley inherited the language of substitution and satisfaction from Anglicanism and Reformed orthodoxy—his sermons repeatedly affirmed that Christ bore our sins and satisfied divine justice—he always treated the atonement practically rather than metaphysically. The “how” of the atonement was never systematized; his primary theological center was therapeutic: God’s grace restores holiness of heart and life. The cross demonstrates love toward us, removes our guilt, and opens the way to sanctification. Wesley’s soteriology is structured by an anthropological and synergistic order of salvation. For him, salvation is chiefly a transformation of the self in holiness. This inevitably relocates the emphasis of the cross, from a focus on how Christ’s death satisfies the penalty of sin to how the cross releases transforming grace. It becomes less about Christ and more about us.

It also shifts the atonement from a Christ-centered forensic transaction to a man-centered universal provision. Because Wesleyan theology is Arminian—universal atonement, resistible grace, conditional perseverance, etc.—it cannot sustain a forensic, definite, and complete atonement. The moment one affirms that Christ fully bore the penalty of all sin, either universalism or limited atonement follows; in order to avoid both, Methodism subtly redefined the work of the cross from accomplished redemption to provision for possible redemption. That is why later Methodist theologians lean toward moral-government or exemplarist accounts of the atonement.

By the time of Wilson’s Methodist Theology, the denomination had absorbed a century of liberal revisionism. The penal-substitutionary and satisfaction motifs had been quietly displaced by relational, therapeutic, and incarnational metaphors. The assumption was that such legal imagery belonged to a bygone “forensic” paradigm inconsistent with modern sensibilities.

So, you’re right: Modern Methodist theology often cannot explain why the cross actually saves. The cross at best reveals love or inspires moral renewal, but there is practically nothing about how it effects reconciliation. That absence is the predictable outcome of its man-centered soteriological commitments: once salvation becomes cooperative, the atonement becomes exemplary or governmental rather than substitutionary. Although Wesley never denied substitution or satisfaction, he did subordinate them to the transformative aim of holiness—a collapse that was inevitable once penal substitution ceased to have explanatory primacy.

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DialecticSkeptic said:

I am Reformed, so penal substitutionary atonement, of course.



I do accept nuance. I think they can be complementary, illuminating different facets of one mystery. However, as I said earlier, these different motifs flow from and through penal substitution—without which the Reformation doctrine of justification collapses.

Taken together, these models are complementary lenses: juridical (substitution), cultic (sacrifice), cosmic (victory), ontological (recapitulation), and relational (participation). Conflict arises only when a model denies the core biblical claim that Christ’s death objectively reconciles sinners to God. Within a Reformed framework, penal substitution functions as the doctrinal center, and the others orbit around it as explanatory dimensions of the same redemptive act.



It can, but only if misunderstood. Christ satisfied divine justice by fulfilling the law’s demands through perfect righteousness and bearing the curse (active and passive obedience, respectively), but that does not nullify the law; rather, it changes the believer’s relation to it. The law ceases to condemn, but it still commands and guides.

As an aside, a man of God I greatly respect once put it to me this way: For unbelievers, the law demands what the person must or must not do. For believers, the law promises what the person will or will not do (as he becomes ever more like Christ). For believers, “you shall not steal” is no longer a demand but a promise. I sort of liked that. For those in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells, that is surely the case.



I believe the motivating force for good works is the Spirit dwelling within us through union with Christ. For example, “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Php. 2:13). “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10). We walk in what has already been preordained, so to boast in our obedience would be to boast in what originated in God. By regeneration, the Spirit implants new affections, reorients the will, and conforms us to Christ’s image. Good works are not human supplements to grace; it is the operations of grace itself within us. Thus, our obedience is the manifestation of divine life in human agency.

Sin originates in us; righteousness originates in him. Or, as Augustine put it, “When God crowns our merits, he crowns his own gifts.” We don’t commend ourselves to anyone for our good works, especially not to God; rather, we thank God for our good works. Because the Spirit has united us to the Son, we obey the Father as sons, not as slaves. Christ’s obedience becomes both exemplar (we follow the pattern of his self-giving love) and energy (his life within us compels and enables that pattern). This is why Paul says, “The love of Christ controls us” (2 Cor. 5:14). The motive is transforming grace and gratitude, not coercion.

As unbelievers we loved sin and hated God; as believers we love God and hate sin—and our hatred for sin deepens as our love for God grows.



Oh, I have a somewhat unique view on that point (consistent with what I’ve been saying here). It might not be appropriate to discuss it in this thread. Briefly, I find myself contemplating the judgment not as anthropocentric but within the broader eschatological glorification of Christ. The thought that drove this contemplation was, “What if the judgment seat of Christ is not a human-centered award ceremony?” After all, our good works is that which the Spirit has wrought in union with Christ.

What if the judgment of believers is a vindication of grace, and the judgment of the wicked is a vindication of justice? In the believer’s evaluation, Christ is vindicated as gracious in saving sinners to the uttermost and as faithful in completing the good work begun in them. As for the condemnation of the wicked, Christ is vindicated as just (in condemning sin) and as true (in his warnings).

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