An old clay oil lamp from Nazareth, Israel.  Photo credit: Olivia Armstrong.

Messages and Essays on Clement of Rome

Penal Substitution vs. Medical Substitution: A Historical Comparison An analysis of the atonement theology ("medical substitution") of early church theologians, including Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyons, the Odes of Solomon, Justin Martyr of Rome, Melito of Sardis, Tertullian of Carthage, Methodius of Olympus, Athanasius of Alexandria (paper in progress to include later theologians, bishops, and councils)

The Writings of Clement of Rome

Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 16 quotes the Greek LXX version of Isaiah 53.  The significance of the Greek LXX, in comparison with the Hebrew Masoretic and Dead Sea Scrolls, is that it more clearly understands Isaiah 53 as a medical substitutionary atonement text. 

For Christ is of those who are humble-minded, and not of those who exalt themselves over His flock. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Sceptre of the majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of pride or arrogance, although He might have done so, but in a lowly condition, as the Holy Spirit had declared regarding Him. For He says, Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We have declared [our message] in His presence: He is, as it were, a child, and like a root in thirsty ground; He has no form nor glory, yea, we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness; but His form was without eminence, yea, deficient in comparison with the [ordinary] form of men. He is a man exposed to stripes and suffering, and acquainted with the endurance of grief: for His countenance was turned away; He was despised, and not esteemed. He bears our iniquities, and is in sorrow for our sakes; yet we supposed that [on His own account] He was exposed to labour, and stripes, and affliction. But He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we were healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; [every] man has wandered in his own way; and the Lord has delivered Him up for our sins, while He in the midst of His sufferings opens not His mouth. He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before her shearer is dumb, so He opens not His mouth. In His humiliation His judgment was taken away; who shall declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth. For the transgressions of my people was He brought down to death. And I will give the wicked for His sepulchre, and the rich for His death, because He did no iniquity, neither was guile found in His mouth. And the Lord is pleased to purify him by stripes. If you make an offering for sin, your soul shall see a long-lived seed. And the Lord is pleased to relieve Him of the affliction of His soul, to show Him light, and to form Him with understanding, to justify the Just One who ministers well to many; and He Himself shall carry their sins. On this account He shall inherit many, and shall divide the spoil of the strong; because His soul was delivered to death, and He was reckoned among the transgressors, and He bare the sins of many, and for their sins was He delivered. And again He says, I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All that see me have derided me; they have spoken with their lips; they have wagged their head, [saying] He hoped in God, let Him deliver Him, let Him save Him, since He delights in Him. You see, beloved, what is the example which has been given us; for if the Lord thus humbled Himself, what shall we do who have through Him come under the yoke of His grace?

Greek LXX Isaiah 53:11 says God would “justify” the Servant by resurrection after his sin-bearing - which is absolutely remarkable as a theological statement. Calling Jesus “justified” would be unthinkable if “justification” means benefiting from Jesus being a penal substitute in the atonement. For how could Jesus himself benefit from his own atoning work? Was he a sinner whose sins needed to be punished? Others are justified, but Jesus is not.

However, in the Early and Eastern atonement theology of medical substitutionary atonement, it is perfectly appropriate for ‘the Servant,’ Jesus, to be the Justified One. In this understanding, Jesus accomplished something intrinsically and internally to his own human nature, curing and completing it by the Spirit of God. Jesus became the Justified One according to the logic of the Sinai covenant story, where circumcision of the heart by the Spirit (Rom.2:28 - 29; 8:4; 10:4; Dt.30:6) is equivalent to restoration from exile (Romans 4:13; Dt.30:1 - 6), life out of death (Romans 4:17), justification (Romans 4:25), and resurrection (Romans 4:25; 5:10; 5:12 - 6:11). These are metonyms for each other linked in Old Testament biblical narrative and prophetic hope – Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel especially. They call attention to different facets of God’s solution to the Fall and human sinfulness in Christ. Thus, not just Clement of Rome, but the Odes of Solomon and Cyril of Alexandria call Jesus ‘the Justified One’ (Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians 16; Odes of Solomon 17:2; 25:12?; 31:5; Cyril of Alexandria, Fragment Romans 3:185; see Donald Fairbairn, “Justification in St. Cyril of Alexandria,” edited by Matthew Baker and Todd Speidell, T.F. Torrance and Eastern Orthodoxy: Theology in Reconciliation, p.138 - 139). 

The Greek LXX rendering of Isaiah 53:10 is notably more medical-ontological than the Hebrew Masoretic rendering, which demands a view of “justification” based on participation, not forensic “imputation.” I find it possible, even probable, that the phrase, “And the Lord desires to cleanse him from his blow” (NETS) or “wound” (Brenton’s) in LXX Isaiah 53:10 refers to the sin-bearing process in its totality. In other words, the “blow/wound” is not simply the death-blow of the crucifixion, arguably also because Jesus gave up his life and spirit on his own accord (John 10:18). It is the “blow/wound” the Servant shares with Israel, the wound inflicted upon humans by Adam and Eve via the human nature we inherit from them. It is the “blow/wound” all the Israelites and heirs of David understood by personal experience especially given the exile. Said again: The “blow/wound” is not simply the crucifixion or the death of Jesus; and it is not a “blow/wound” inflicted by God, but by Adam and Eve. It refers to what God wanted to heal, first in Jesus as the Servant, because God “justifies” him (v.11b), which is again theologically remarkable as a statement strongly suggesting the fallen human nature view of the Incarnation, and then in us by his Spirit. 

Elsewhere, I have addressed the difference between the Greek Septuagint and the Hebrew Masoretic/Dead Sea Scroll versions of Isaiah 53:10a; see Isaiah's Understanding of Sacrificial Animals. In short, I do not favor one over the other, and I assume that Jesus of Nazareth would have been raised to know both variants. I find them reconcilable if we examine Isaiah’s own intertextual dependence on the Jewish sacrificial system from the Pentateuch, particularly the role the sin-bearing sin offering played throughout the annual calendar in bearing the sinfulness into God and far away from the people; see God Acted Like a Dialysis Machine. 

The Greek LXX Isaiah 53 cannot support penal substitution, which has profound implications connected to “justification” and “election.” If the legal-penal view of atonement is true, then Jesus cannot be the beneficiary of his own atoning work, and “justification” could only be a legal imputation, or declaration, that God’s retributive justice was “satisfied” on the crucified Jesus. However, if the medical view of atonement is true, then Jesus can and must be the first beneficiary of his own atoning work of healing his human nature, and “justification” can only indicate our active participation in him, as Jesus heals us by his Spirit. Said differently, God’s “election” of Jesus as “the Beloved Son” is the grounding for us to share in his status as “elect.” That grounding is Jesus’ humanity and Davidic kingship.

God in Christ is, thus, not only “the just and the justifier” as in Romans 3:26, but also the justified, as in Romans 3:4 and 4:25. In the New Testament, the word “justification” has narrow and broader meanings, depending on context. It has a narrow meaning related to the grounds on which a person can be considered to be participating in the “circumcision of the heart” and “restoration from exile” on the other side of the Sinai covenant. It also has a broader meaning related to truthfulness: He who is “justified in His words” (Romans 3:4) is truthful in the sense of having been faithful to His own promise in the Sinai covenant, because he justified the human nature he took on by cleansing it of sinfulness as a human, from within our humanness, which was what God said He would do and what the prophets hoped God would do.

In chapter 49:6, Clement writes:

“Because of the love that he had for us, Jesus Christ our Lord, in accordance with God’s will, gave his blood for us, and his flesh for our flesh, and his life for our lives.”

Clement’s compact comment at the end of 49 is commonly accepted as an “atonement” statement. Taken by itself, the comment might affirm penal or medical substitutionary atonement. Given the preceding discussion about Clement’s reliance on the Greek Septuagint version of Isaiah 53, however, there can be no ambiguity. Clement must mean that Jesus offered himself in a medical-ontological movement of healing all of his own human nature as both flesh (body) and soul, for all humanity, to invite all humanity to share in his healed, God-soaked, God-drenched new humanity. Thus, the atonement is universal in scope and intent, but medical in nature, and residing in a synergistic framework where each person’s choice for or against Jesus is the decisive factor of how they will experience Jesus. The atonement, in Clement, is neither penal in nature, nor does it reside in a monergistic framework that would, by logical necessity, lead to a universalism with certainty, or a limited atonement reposing in a hidden divine decree by which God would only love some, not all.

Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians. On Election and Atonement.

Because Clement uses phrases like “the elect” or “those chosen by God,” I offer a more extended analysis.  Does this mean that Clement was a “compatibilist” on the interplay between God’s will and human wills?  Does Clement attest to a monergist view like the later Augustine?  Or John Calvin, who supplemented Augustine’s monergism with the notions of divine retributive justice and Jesus’ “satisfaction” of that attribute for “the elect” in a penal substitutionary atonement? Absolutely not! The analysis below helps answer the question of what Clement means when he calls his audience “the elect of God.” 

Clement and the other elders at Rome address the Corinthian Christians as “the elect of God” in their introduction:

“The church of God which sojourns at Rome, to the church of God sojourning at Corinth, to them that are called and sanctified by the will of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, from Almighty God through Jesus Christ, be multiplied. Owing, dear brethren, to the sudden and successive calamitous events which have happened to ourselves, we feel that we have been somewhat tardy in turning our attention to the points respecting which you consulted us; and especially to that shameful and detestable sedition, utterly abhorrent to the elect of God, which a few rash and self-confident persons have kindled to such a pitch of frenzy, that your venerable and illustrious name, worthy to be universally loved, has suffered grievous injury.”  (Clement of Rome, Epistle to the Corinthians 1)  

This is the first of twelve times he uses this word.  Clement uses it as a title of present incorporation and participation without an absolute future guarantee individually.  Clement repeats this phrase immediately afterwards, reminding the Corinthians of their earlier faithfulness when, “Day and night you were anxious for the whole brotherhood, that the number of God’s elect might be saved with mercy and a good conscience.” (2)  Clement’s note of uncertainty, “might be saved,” by itself, could be read as a rhetorical flourish nevertheless meaning logical inescapability.  Is that what Clement intends? 

Clement refers to “the elect” as a category of persons that requires their active participation.  He warns the Corinthians against envy, citing negative biblical examples (3 - 4), then the apostles Peter and Paul as positive examples of those who resisted envy (5).  To those two apostles are to be included as examples a “great many of the elect” (6).  Clement then urges repentance (7 - 9), faith and hospitality (10 - 12), humility and obedience to God (13 - 18), and peace (19 - 20).  Clement then highlights the stakes, which are in the framework of human being and human becoming.  He says, 

“Take heed, beloved, lest His many kindnesses lead to the condemnation of us all. [For thus it must be] unless we walk worthy of Him, and with one mind do those things which are good and well-pleasing in His sight” (21). 

Clement is evidently comfortable speaking of “election” as a status that might be lost (22).  That is surprising for those who would seek to make Clement into a proto-Calvinist.

How does this experience relate to the character and nature of God?  God still has only one face, the face of love, and not two faces, as Clement says,

“The all-merciful and beneficent Father has bowels [of compassion] towards those that fear Him, and kindly and lovingly bestows His favours upon those who come to Him with a simple mind” (23).  

For Clement, God’s very nature is mercy and goodness.  This must mean that God will act in such a way as to restore His creation.  Thus, Clement calls their attention to the resurrection and the rewards for the people of God (23 - 33).  God is “faithful in His promises, and just in His judgments. He who has commanded us not to lie, shall much more Himself not lie; for nothing is impossible with God, except to lie” (27).  

Clement therefore warns the Corinthians not to be slothful (34 - 35), urging this:

“Let us therefore earnestly strive to be found in the number of those that wait for Him, in order that we may share in His promised gifts.  But how, beloved, shall this be done? If our understanding be fixed by faith towards God; if we earnestly seek the things which are pleasing and acceptable to Him; if we do the things which are in harmony with His blameless will; and if we follow the way of truth, casting away from us all unrighteousness and iniquity, along with all covetousness, strife, evil practices, deceit, whispering, and evil-speaking, all hatred of God, pride and haughtiness, vain glory and ambition” (35).  

Various readers have accused Clement of sliding into moralism because of statements like this.  For instance, Scottish Reformed Presbyterian Thomas F. Torrance said, in his doctoral dissertation in theology, first published in 1948 as The Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1996), that there was a sharp falling away from the apostles in the second generation of Christian leaders such as Clement of Rome.  Torrance later moderated his own view, in Theology in Reconstruction (1965), and Divine and Contingent Order (1981), but nevertheless thought the apostolic fathers allowed moralism to eclipse their view of divine grace.  However, Torrance assumes Augustine’s monergism rather than the synergism of the Greek fathers, and expected to find formulations of divine grace inflected in the monergist key.  Torrance also neglects the theme of human desires and its significance to understanding human nature and personhood.  

Clement is referring to the formation and direction of our desires, and not just deeds - although deeds are vitally important as actions by which we form and direct our desires, in partnership with God.  Earnestly seeking things that please God and casting away from us evil desires, beginning with covetousness, are formative of the human, as God intended the human to be and become.  Clement is referring to our human becoming.  He is not referring to meritorious deeds by which we score points on a score sheet in God’s mind.  The urgency relates to matters internal to us as human beings and human becomings.  Thus, Clement says, “All things are open before Him, and nothing can be hidden from His counsel” (36).  God sees into us, which is why we must “forsake those wicked works which proceed from evil desires” (28).  Clement insists that we must engage our desires, from which flow our deeds.  This will be significant to understanding Clement’s language of “election” and participation in Christ.

Clement then draws on Deuteronomy 32:8 - 9 to indicate that his understanding of being part of God’s “elect” people is present incorporation and participation.  He uses the term “elect” as modeled by how the Old Testament used the term “chosen people” for Israel:

“Let us then draw near to Him with holiness of spirit, lifting up pure and undefiled hands unto Him, loving our gracious and merciful Father, who has made us partakers in the blessings of His elect. For thus it is written, ‘When the Most High divided the nations, when He scattered the sons of Adam, He fixed the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God. His people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, and Israel the lot of His inheritance.’ [Deuteronomy 32:8 - 9] And in another place [which is likely a conflation of various passages, the Scripture] says, ‘Behold, the Lord takes unto Himself a nation out of the midst of the nations, as a man takes the first-fruits of his threshing-floor; and from that nation shall come forth the Most Holy.’” (29)

God sets forth a category of persons, therefore, and specific, individual persons are invited into it.  This is consistent with Clement exhorting the Corinthians to maintain their position in this category:

“Seeing, therefore, that we are the portion of the Holy One, let us do all those things which pertain to holiness, avoiding all evil-speaking, all abominable and impure embraces, together with all drunkenness, seeking after change… Let us cleave, then, to those to whom grace has been given by God. Let us clothe ourselves with concord and humility, ever exercising self-control, standing far off from all whispering and evil-speaking, being justified by our works, and not our words.” (30)  

“Let us cleave then to His blessing, and consider what are the means of possessing it. Let us think over the things which have taken place from the beginning. For what reason was our father Abraham blessed? Was it not because he wrought righteousness and truth through faith? Isaac, with perfect confidence, as if knowing what was to happen, cheerfully yielded himself as a sacrifice [Genesis 22:6 - 10]. Jacob, through reason of his brother, went forth with humility from his own land, and came to Laban and served him; and there was given to him the sceptre of the twelve tribes of Israel.” (31)

“Whosoever will candidly consider each particular, will recognise the greatness of the gifts which were given by him. For from him have sprung the priests and all the Levites who minister at the altar of God. From him also [was descended] our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh [Romans 9:5]. From him [arose] kings, princes, and rulers of the race of Judah. Nor are his other tribes in small glory, inasmuch as God had promised, Your seed shall be as the stars of heaven. All these, therefore, were highly honoured, and made great, not for their own sake, or for their own works, or for the righteousness which they wrought, but through the operation of His will. And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (32)

Clement’s handling of this category, “the elect,” actually relates us all the way back to Abraham and through the actual “chosen people” of history.  Why is this?  Because God “blessed” Abraham in the pivotal promise to bless him and all families of the earth in him, also making them a blessing to restore God’s original creational blessing to the world (Gen.12:1 - 3).  Clement thinks in terms of the biblical-historical narrative.  

This narrative mode corresponds with his use of the term, “justification.”  “Justification,” to Clement, is not simply about the individual and God.  It concerns a relational decision, concerning to whom we are joined:  “Let us cleave, then, to those whom grace has been given by God.”  Naturally, then, “justification” can be said to be “by our works, and not our words” (30).  Since justification ultimately rests on the work of Jesus Christ and his calling, we “are not justified by ourselves… by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men” who have shared “that faith.”  Likely, Clement is thinking of all those people who have shared the faith of Abraham.  Abraham believed that God would restore His creational blessing of life to the world, including to himself and his wife Sarah, which took the form and theme of “life out of death” in a biological-reproductive sense as they partnered with God to conceive Isaac despite their old age, and “life out of death” again in a personal, physical sense as Abraham believed God would physically raise Isaac from the dead despite Abraham slaying him, even reducing his body down to ash as a burnt offering.  Clement likely has all this in mind given his mention of the sacrifice of Isaac (31) amidst his stirring and extended vision of bodily resurrection (23 - 33).

After an extended appeal to unity in the church body, including to the appointed leaders (33 - 45), Clement uses the term “elect” four times in a warning dense with Scriptural quotations.

“Such examples, therefore, brethren, it is right that we should follow; since it is written, ‘Cleave to the holy, for those that cleave to them shall [themselves] be made holy.’ And again, in another place, [the Scripture] says, ‘With a harmless man you shall prove yourself harmless, and with an elect man you shall be elect, and with a perverse man you shall show yourself perverse’ [Psalm 18:25 - 26]. Let us cleave, therefore, to the innocent and righteous, since these are the elect of God. Why are there strifes, and tumults, and divisions, and schisms, and wars among you? [James 4:1] Have we not [all] one God and one Christ? Is there not one Spirit of grace poured out upon us? And have we not one calling in Christ? [Ephesians 4:4 - 6] Why do we divide and tear in pieces the members of Christ, and raise up strife against our own body, and have reached such a height of madness as to forget that we are members one of another? [Romans 12:5] Remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, how He said, ‘Woe to that man [by whom offenses come]! It were better for him that he had never been born, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my elect. Yea, it were better for him that a millstone should be hung about [his neck], and he should be sunk in the depths of the sea, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my little ones’ [Matthew 18:6; 26:24; Mark 9:42; Luke 17:2]. Your schism has subverted [the faith of] many, has discouraged many, has given rise to doubt in many, and has caused grief to us all. And still your sedition continues.” (46)

Clement’s language of election is intriguing here, but by itself indeterminate for the purpose of distinguishing between competing claims. Suffice to say that the remainder of Clement’s letter demonstrates that he is not an Augustinian-Calvinist on the matter.

Clement exhorts the Corinthians to love one another, calling them to re-read Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, quoting from it, and providing more examples of what love entails (47 - 55).  Within this section, Clement reflects on love, including the statements that the elect of God in the past, those chosen of God, were made perfect in love:

“Let him who has love in Christ keep the commandments of Christ. Who can describe the [blessed] bond of the love of God? What man is able to tell the excellence of its beauty, as it ought to be told? The height to which love exalts is unspeakable. Love unites us to God. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love bears all things, is long-suffering in all things. There is nothing base, nothing arrogant in love. Love admits of no schisms: love gives rise to no seditions: love does all things in harmony. In love all the elect of God were made perfect; without love nothing is well-pleasing to God.  In love has the Lord taken us to Himself. On account of the love He bore us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His blood for us by the will of God; His flesh for our flesh, and His soul for our souls.” (49)  

“Let us pray, therefore, and implore of His mercy, that we may live blameless in love, free from all human partialities for one above another. All the generations from Adam even unto this day have passed away; but those who, through the grace of God, have been made perfect in love, now possess a place among the godly, and shall be made manifest at the revelation of the kingdom of Christ… Blessed are we, beloved, if we keep the commandments of God in the harmony of love; that so through love our sins may be forgiven us. For it is written, ‘Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not impute to him, and in whose mouth there is no guile.’ [Psalm 32:1 - 2; cf. Romans 4:7 - 8] This blessedness comes upon those who have been chosen by God through Jesus Christ our Lord; to whom be glory for ever and ever.” (50)

Clement may be drawing from Hebrews by speaking of “being made perfect” (Hebrews 11:39 - 12:2) and Jesus’ statement of love making his disciples “perfect,” since God is perfect on account of Him loving those who do not love Him (Matthew 5:48).  A few paragraphs later, Clement will name Jesus as “the beloved Son, through whom You instructed, sanctify, honour us.” (59)  I will explore this below.

Clement does something absolutely remarkable by quoting Psalm 32 here.  He quotes the same passage that the apostle Paul did in Romans 4:7 - 8.  This passage is what Lutheran and Reformed supporters of divine retributive justice and penal substitutionary atonement believe supports their claim that Paul, generally, and Romans, especially, teaches “forensic imputation of righteousness” and “forensic justification.”  Clement, however, believes that if God does not impute sin or sinfulness to people, it is based on our participation in “the harmony of love,” or simply, “love.”  How Clement can say this is another matter which I will explore below.  It is one indication, though, that Clement could not possibly believe in “forensic imputation.”  This is actual participation.

Clement then brings together his most explicit call to the seditionists to repent (56 - 58) with his most explicit commentary on the identity of Jesus Christ (59).  His understanding of “election” is deeply intertwined with both.

“Let us, therefore, flee from the warning threats pronounced by Wisdom on the disobedient, and yield submission to His all-holy and glorious name, that we may stay our trust upon the most hallowed name of His majesty. Receive our counsel, and you shall be without repentance. For, as God lives, and as the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost live — both the faith and hope of the elect, he who in lowliness of mind, with instant gentleness, and without repentance has observed the ordinances and appointments given by God— the same shall obtain a place and name in the number of those who are being saved through Jesus Christ, through whom is glory to Him for ever and ever. Amen.” (58)

“If, however, any shall disobey the words spoken by Him through us, let them know that they will involve themselves in transgression and serious danger; but we shall be innocent of this sin, and, instant in prayer and supplication, shall desire that the Creator of all preserve unbroken the computed number of His elect in the whole world through His beloved Son Jesus Christ, through whom He called us from darkness to light [Acts 26:18; Colossians 1:13], from ignorance to knowledge of the glory of His name, our hope resting on Your name which is primal cause of every creature — having opened the eyes of our heart to the knowledge of You, who alone rests highest among the highest, holy among the holy [Isaiah 57:15], who layest low the insolence of the haughty [Isaiah 13:11], who destroyest the calculations of the heathen [Psalm 2:1 - 3 paraphrase], who settest the low on high and bringest low the exalted; who makest rich and makest poor [1 Samuel 2:7], who killest and makest to live [Deuteronomy 32:39], only Benefactor of spirits and God of all flesh, who beholdest the depths, the eye-witness of human works, the help of those in danger, the Saviour of those in despair, the Creator and Guardian of every spirit, who multipliest nations upon earth, and from all made choice of those who love You through Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son, through whom You instructed, sanctify, honour us. We would have You, Lord, to prove our help and succour. Those of us in affliction save, on the lowly take pity; the fallen raise; upon those in need arise; the sick heal; the wandering ones of Your people turn; fill the hungry; redeem those of us in bonds; raise up those that are weak; comfort the faint-hearted; let all the nations know that You are God alone and Jesus Christ Your Son, and we are Your people and the sheep of Your pasture.” (59)

Here, Clement confirms he understands “the elect” to be incorporative and participatory, in an explicitly synergistic, not monergistic, understanding of the relationship between God and humans.  This may be the high theological point of Clement’s letter, as he weaves together several themes and motifs that he has built thus far.  After this, he directly addresses both the seditionists and the faithful concerning how to mend the schism in Corinth.

This chapter is the only place in the letter Clement refers to Jesus Christ as “beloved Son,” and he does so twice here.  Arguably, Clement does so for multiple reasons.  First, Clement names Jesus “beloved Son” because that title has an important biblical history that is highly relevant to understanding the term “the elect” and who is signified there, and how.  God called Israel, “My firstborn son” (Exodus 4:22) to bestow on them a garden land inheritance.  God then called the Davidic king, “My son” at his coronation as king (Psalm 2:7) to bestow on him the inheritance of the Gentiles.  The Old Testament, therefore, attributed “sonship” to the “chosen people” as Israel and “chosen one” as King David.  The term indicated a special relationship with God and also a special inheritance from God with an invitation to join the community.  God named Jesus as “beloved Son” at his baptism (Matthew 3:17; Luke 3:22) and his transfiguration (Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35), indicating that Jesus was the true Israelite and true heir of David.  In Luke’s transfiguration account, God even names Jesus, “My Chosen One,” or “Elect One,” which corroborates Matthew also naming Jesus this title when he quotes Isaiah to do so:  “This is My Servant, my Chosen One” (Matthew 12:18; cf. Isaiah 42:1).  Time and space do not allow us to explore Isaiah’s vision of the “Servant” in Isaiah 40 - 55, which adds much to the development of these themes and titles.  Needless to say, in the New Testament, and arguably also in Clement of Rome, “Beloved Son” is another way of saying, “the Elect One.”

Second, Clement’s previous use of the biblical narrative strongly suggests that he approaches the “doctrine of election” in a historical-narrative mode involving the synergism of God’s will and human wills.  Clement retraces the covenant community as “the elect” community stretching back to Abraham and thus through ancient Israel (29 - 32).  Clement also called King David, “the elect David” on account of his kingship (52), whereby God established the dynastic kingly office around which God re-constituted Israel.   

In Clement, as in the Bible, election is an unfolding historical process, involving the decisions of God and people in synergism, not monergism.  In the Exodus, God “elected” a “firstborn son,” but both Jews and Gentiles needed to choose to belong to it.  Jews needed to believe the signs and follow Moses’ instructions at Passover.  By marking their doorways with the blood of the “firstborn son” equivalent of the Passover lambs, they declared that they were entering into the life of the “firstborn son,” that is, the people of Israel.  Gentiles, too, joined.  A “mixed multitude” joined Israel in the Exodus (Exodus 12:38) and ostensibly became part of their corporate life and “sonship” observing the Passover feast (Exodus 12:14 - 27, 42 - 51).  Some indications exist, however, that Gentiles joined the Israelites before that.  For example, Caleb, who was, along with Joshua, one of Moses’ two chief lieutenants, was later identified with the tribe of Judah but was ethnically a Kenizzite, a Canaanite (Numbers 32:12; Genesis 15:19).  From its inception, the corporate nature of “Israel” contained an invitation to join the community - a vision which expanded under David.  

The “election” of David required a human process in Israel to maintain its “election” as the people of God.  God “elected” David when He instructed the prophet Samuel to anoint him to be the future king (1 Samuel 16).  Then, over the course of many years, the people of Israel had genuine agency and free will over the question of whether to acknowledge David’s kingship (1 Samuel 18 - 2 Samuel 5).  Jesus, as “the Elect One” and “Beloved Son,” would later claim David’s kingship and also re-constitute Israel in a similar way, also inviting the Gentiles.

Third, Clement’s atonement theology reinforces his understanding of election.  Clement quotes the Greek Septuagint version of Isaiah 53, though he does not comment further on it (16).  But this usage is quite striking in its own right.  Greek LXX Isaiah 53:11 says God would “justify” the Servant by resurrection after his sin-bearing - which is absolutely remarkable as a theological statement.  Calling Jesus “justified” would be unthinkable if “justification” means benefiting from Jesus being a penal substitute in the atonement.  For how could Jesus himself benefit from his own atoning work?  Was he a sinner whose sins needed to be punished?  Others are justified, but Jesus is not.  However, in the Early and Eastern atonement theology of medical substitutionary atonement, it is perfectly appropriate for “the Servant,” Jesus, to be the Justified One.  In this understanding, Jesus accomplished something intrinsically and internally to his own human nature, curing and completing it by the Spirit of God.  For Jesus to be the Justified One must also mean that he was and is the Elect One. For more on Clement’s atonement theology and use of Greek LXX Isaiah 53, see above.

Fourth, Clement’s language of “perfection by love” also finds its grounding and goal in “the Beloved Son,” Jesus Christ.  Clement shows that his rich discourse on love in 49 - 50 was theologically predicated on “the Beloved Son,” Jesus Christ, in 59.  Clement said, “Love unites us to God [and] in love all the elect of God were made perfect” (49).  To repeat: 

“Let him who has love in Christ keep the commandments of Christ. Who can describe the [blessed] bond of the love of God? What man is able to tell the excellence of its beauty, as it ought to be told? The height to which love exalts is unspeakable. Love unites us to God. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love bears all things, is long-suffering in all things. There is nothing base, nothing arrogant in love. Love admits of no schisms: love gives rise to no seditions: love does all things in harmony. In love all the elect of God were made perfect; without love nothing is well-pleasing to God.  In love has the Lord taken us to Himself. On account of the love He bore us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His blood for us by the will of God; His flesh for our flesh, and His soul for our souls.” (49)  

“Let us pray, therefore, and implore of His mercy, that we may live blameless in love, free from all human partialities for one above another. All the generations from Adam even unto this day have passed away; but those who, through the grace of God, have been made perfect in love, now possess a place among the godly, and shall be made manifest at the revelation of the kingdom of Christ… Blessed are we, beloved, if we keep the commandments of God in the harmony of love; that so through love our sins may be forgiven us. For it is written, ‘Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not impute to him, and in whose mouth there is no guile.’ [Psalm 32:1 - 2; cf. Romans 4:7 - 8] This blessedness comes upon those who have been chosen by God through Jesus Christ our Lord; to whom be glory for ever and ever.” (50)

Who, indeed, can describe the blessed bond of the love of God?  But why a bond?  Because it existed eternally long before us.  As the Son, he receives the love of God the Father in the blessing of the Spirit.  And as the Incarnate Son, he faithfully loves the Father by the Spirit, which healed our humanity over the course of his faithful life, death, and resurrection.  The incarnate person of Jesus Christ embodies that “perfection of love.”  On the basis of the divine relationship which God extended into our humanness in the person of Jesus, which made that divine relationship into a divine-human relationship, “Love unites us to God” (49).  Jesus, “the Beloved Son,” invites us to share in the love he receives from the Father in the Spirit and gives to the Father by the Spirit.  If and when humans respond with faith towards Jesus, and become “the elect” in him, we share and participate in his experience as “beloved.”  

Clement’s compact comment at the end of 49 is commonly accepted as an “atonement” statement.  Taken by itself, the comment might affirm penal or medical substitutionary atonement.  Given the preceding discussion about Clement’s reliance on the Greek Septuagint version of Isaiah 53, however, there can be no ambiguity.  Clement must mean that Jesus offered himself in a medical-ontological movement of healing all of his own human nature as both flesh (body) and soul, for all humanity, to invite all humanity to share in his healed, God-soaked, God-drenched new humanity.  Thus, the atonement is universal in scope and intent, but medical in nature, and residing in a synergistic framework where each person’s choice for or against Jesus is the decisive factor of how they will experience Jesus.  The atonement, in Clement, is neither penal in nature, nor does it reside in a monergistic framework that would, by logical necessity, lead to a universalism with certainty, or a limited atonement reposing in a hidden divine decree by which God would only love some, not all.  

Clement’s use of the phrase “those who have been chosen by God” at the end of 50 is not a description of God’s monergistic action, implying that God chose others to be damned and not saved.  Rather, Clement uses “chosenness” to first designate Christ as “the chosen one” -- as shown by the phrase, “through Jesus Christ our Lord” -- and then only secondarily to indicate who is “in the chosen Son.”  In his closing, Clement says, 

“May God, who sees all things, and who is the Ruler of all spirits and the Lord of all flesh — who chose our Lord Jesus Christ and us through Him to be a peculiar people [1 Peter 2:9; Titus 2:14] people — grant to every soul that calls upon His glorious and holy name, faith, fear, peace, patience, long-suffering, self-control, purity, and sobriety, to the well-pleasing of His name, through our High Priest and Protector, Jesus Christ, by whom be to Him glory, and majesty, and power, and honour, both now and for evermore. Amen.” (64)

This “chosenness in the chosen one” is a designation of who is participating in the covenant community in history and, perhaps even at the time, bearing witness to God’s love in Christ to the world:  “to the well-pleasing of His name.”  That designation is manifested by participation in love - the love of the Father-Son relationship, and the horizontal love shared by those who are “in the Beloved Son.”

A final note on Clement’s literary style and rhetoric in this letter: Clement, in my view, is not a moralist. He is at the very least attempting to be a biblical theologian, reasoning from the biblical texts. Claims like those of T.F. Torrance, that Clement has allowed concerns of moralistic behavior to eclipse the doctrine of God’s grace, appear to me unfounded. Torrance’s own monergism, an inheritance from Augustine, Luther, and Calvin, interferes with a proper appreciation of the synergism of the Greek fathers, among whom Clement is.

But perhaps one other factor can be considered: Clement’s literary organization and rhetorical style. Perhaps Torrance and others expect a Pauline structure similar to Romans and Ephesians. In Romans, “theology” broadly about Jesus’ death and resurrection comes first, in Romans 1 - 11, and “practice” follows, in Romans 12 - 15. In Ephesians, “theology” broadly about Jesus’ death and resurrection comes first, in Ephesians 1 - 3, and “practice” follows, in Ephesians 4 - 6. A theological prior commitment to monergism might lend itself to readers desiring a literary organization of that type. However, in that regard, Clement’s letter to the Corinthians is organized in reverse, as it were. “Practice” is heavily weighted in 1 - 57, even to the point where the “atonement theology” passages of 16 and 49 are immediately applied to “practice,” “theology” is heavily weighted in 58 - 61, and “closing” is 62 - 65. I have profitably read the letter in reverse order.

But Clement’s letter has a precedent: Paul’s own First Letter to the Corinthians. In Paul’s letter, which Clement beseeches the Corinthians to read again, “theology” is most heavily concentrated in chapter 15, the famous passage on the resurrection. Each of the four prior sections of 1 Corinthians, the section on unity in the corporate body (1:10 - 4:17), the section on the individual body and sexual conduct (4:18 - 7:40), the section on the corporate body and matters of eating (8:1 - 11:1), the section on the corporate body and worship (11:2 - 14:40), is shot through with language anticipating the fifth section on the resurrection of the body (15:1 - 58). There is a clear buildup of interconnected threads in each of the four sections of 1 Corinthians 1 - 14 which combine to open up to the rich vista and vision in 1 Corinthians 15. The whole letter is a tapestry of great beauty, where Jesus Christ and his bodily resurrection are placed squarely at the center of the biblical narrative itself as well as the moral imperatives concerning one’s individual body and the corporate body of the church. Only if we call the apostle Paul himself “a moralist” in 1 Corinthians can we fault Clement’s letter for the same, one generation later.

Perhaps what we now call the Greek patristic doctrine of synergia requires this literary order and organization when discussing the future.  For if our experience of the bodily resurrection in the future depends on our partnership with God in the present, then what better way to organize the content?  And if the Corinthians’ experience of relationship with Christ and the rest of the church in the future depends on their partnership with Christ and the rest of the church in the present, in this case, Clement and those in Rome, then what better way to organize the content?  Both Paul’s and Clement’s letters to the Corinthians, which address similar problems and urge similar responses, strongly suggest that synergia, not monergia, is theologically true.  If so, as I have argued, then the Augustinian-Calvinist interpretation of “election” must be false.

Sources of Atonement Theology

These resources explore the foundation of “Medical Substitution” as the best understanding of the Bible, and the original understanding of the church. There are also links to books, web articles, etc. from representatives of the three broad Christian traditions.