atonement penal substitution

THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENTLECTURE THREE:

PENAL SUBSTITUTION

Today:

Quiz over Schreiner (The Nature of the Atonement)

and Chapters 1-3 in (Justification: Five Views).

15 min. Presentations over Schreiner and Horton.

Penal Substitution + The Debates Surrounding

Justification.

Discussion:

Schreiner, Penal Substitution.

Introductory Chapters in Justification: Five Views.

Horton, Traditional Reformed view of Justification

Penal Substitution:

How Does Substitution differ from Satisfaction?

- Penal Satisfaction (Anselm): Focusses on

restoring God’s Honor by paying the Debt for sin.

- Penal Substitution: Focusses on assuaging God’s

Wrath by taking the Punishment for our sin.

Penal Substitution Explained: The punishment we

deserved was laid upon Jesus…thus the cross

displays God’s justice (punishing sin) and his love

(forgiving humans).

Penal Substitution: (In Church

History)

Martin Luther:

MARTIN LUTHER(1483 - 1546)


History)

Martin Luther:

- Luther celebrates multiple metaphors for Atonement

(especially Christus Victor)

- Among these is something close to Penal

Substitution

Martin Luther (On Gal. 3.13; LW 26:280)

When the merciful Father saw that we were being

oppressed through the Law, that we were being held

under a curse, and that we could not be liberated from

it by anything, He sent His Son into the world, heaped

all the sins of all men upon Him, and said to Him: "Be

Peter the denier; Paul the persecutor, blasphemer, and

assaulter; David the adulterer; the sinner who ate the

apple in Paradise; the thief on the cross. In short, be

the person of all men, the one who has committed the

sins of all men. And see to it that You pay and make

satisfaction for them."


History)

Martin Luther:


(especially Christus Victor).

- Among these, something close to Penal Sub.

John Calvin:

- Calvin adds an emphasis upon divine wrath.

Calvin gives what is likely the first fully developed articulation

of Penal Substitution.

JOHN CALVIN(1509-1564)

John Calvin (Institutes, 2.15.6; 2.16.11)

God in his capacity as judge is angry toward us. Hence

as expiation must intervene in order that Christ as

priest may obtain God’s favor for us and appease his

wrath.

[Yet, lest we misunderstand…]

We do not, however, insinuate that God was ever

hostile to him or angry with him. How could he be

angry with his beloved Son, with whom his soul was

well pleased? Or how could he have appeased his

Father…if He were hostile to himself?


History)

Martin Luther:


(especially Christus Victor).

- Among these are Penal Satisfaction / Substitution.

John Calvin:

- Calvin adds an emphasis upon divine wrath.

- Christ appeases divine wrath, but the Father is

never “angry” at the Son per se.


History)

What happens between Anselm (11th c.) and

Luther/Calvin (16th c.) to bring about this shift

from Penal Satisfaction to Penal Substitution?

- “The Magna Carta” (1215)

‣A “Royal” Change - the Law looms larger, even

than the King.

THE MAGNA CARTA “THERE ARE SOME THINGS EVEN KINGS CAN’T DO…”


History)

What happens between Anselm (11th c.) and

Luther/Calvin (16th c.) to bring about this shift

from Penal Satisfaction to Penal Substitution?

- “The Magna Carta” (1215)

‣A “Royal” Change - the Law looms larger…

‣Some versions of “satisfaction” might now appear

like trying to bribe a judge.

‣With Luther and Calvin, the Law looms very

large.


History)

John Owen:

JOHN OWEN(1616 - 1683)

PURITAN THEOLOGIAN


History)

John Owen:

- Christ suffered the exact punishment that humanity

deserved.

- Uses analogy of commercial transaction.

- “For to make satisfaction to God for our sins, it is

required only that he undergo the punishment due

to them; for that is the satisfaction required where

sin is the debt.” (Works of John Owen, 10:266).


History)

Jonathan Edwards:

JONATHAN EDWARDS(1703-1758)

‘AMERICA’S GREATEST

THEOLOGIAN’

Jonathan Edwards: (Satisfaction for Sin)

It is requisite that God should punish all sin with infinite

punishment; because all sin, as it is against God, is

infinitely heinous, and has infinite demerit…and so stirs

up infinite abhorrence and indignation in him.

Therefore, by what was before granted, it is requisite

that God should punish it, unless there be something in

some measure to balance this desert; either some

answerable repentance and sorrow for it, or some

other compensation.

JOHN WESLEY + CHARLES WESLEY

(1703-1791) (1707-1788)

The Wesleys:

Guilty I stand before thy face

On me I feel thy wrath abide

’Tis just the sentence should take place

’Tis just - but Oh! thy Son hath died

For me I now believe he died

He made my every crime his own

Fully for me he satisfied

Father, well-pleased behold thy Son

Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists,Written by Charles, edited by John

CHARLES HODGE(1797-1878)

PRINCETON

THEOLOGIAN

CONSERVATIVE

CALVINIST

Charles Hodge: (Systematic Theology)

God cannot pardon sin “without a satisfaction to justice,

and He cannot have fellowship with the unholy.” His

justice “demands the punishment of sin.”

“They were divine inflictions. It pleased the Lord to

bruise him. He was smitten of God and afflicted. These

sufferings were declared to be on account of sin, not

his own, but ours. …They had, therefore, all the

elements of punishment, and consequently it was in a

strict and proper sense that he was made a curse for

us.”


History)

Jonathan Edwards / The Wesleys:

Charles Hodge:

John MacArthur:

- “God was punishing his own Son as if He had

committed every wicked deed done by every sinner

who would ever believe.”

Mark Driscoll:

‣https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IPvV-hNY_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IPvV-hNY_4

Penal Substitution: (Critiques)

Greg Boyd: A Critique of Penal Substitution.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOE3hWRWrqc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOE3hWRWrqc


Critiques of Penal Substitution:

1. Why must God punish in order to forgive?

- Faustus Socinus (1539-1604), Hugo Grotius

(1583-1645): If this is possible for Christians,

should not God be able to do so?

- Green and Baker:

BAKER / GREENA CRITIQUE OF CERTAIN

PENAL SUBSTITUTION

MODELS.




- Socinus (1539-1604), Hugo Grotius (1583-1645):

If this is possible for Christians, should not God

be able to do so?

- Green and Baker: God’s ability to love is

limited by something outside God—an

abstract concept of “justice.”




- Key texts:

Romans 6.23: For the wages of sin is death…




- Key texts:

Romans 3.25: God presented Christ as a sacrifice of

atonement…He did this to demonstrate his righteousness,

because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed

beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his

righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and

the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.




- In his justice, God determines to condemn evil.

- There is no forgiveness without “penalty”:

‣Even to“forgive”(without retribution) is to

endure a kind of punishment; it is to take the

wrong inside oneself, and absorb the blow.

‣God does this.



2. How does punishing the Innocent help the

Guilty- How is that just!?

- Abelard’s Critique—Would not the cross enflame

God’s wrath at humans all the more!?

- Key Text: 2 Cor. 5.21—

‣T.F. Torrance on this text

2 Corinthians 5.21

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that

in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

T.F. Torrance:We can only be aghast at this—nor have we any

adequate categories in which to construe it. But it is clear

that unless something like that did indeed happen, the

death of Christ as utterly substitutionary lacked reality or

actuality. How are we to understand that?

(Atonement, 126)




Guilty (And, How is that just!)? (3 Responses)

1.Christ freely lays down his life: The cross is

not forced upon a helpless victim.

2.God is Trinity: Father is not “doing something”

to Son; God is “doing something” for us.

3.Christ is the True Adam (Imago Dei)

(Torrance on the Vicarious Humanity of Christ).

Contra

Low

Christolog

y

Contra tri-

Theism

Contra Mod.

Individualism

T.F. Torrance (Atonement, 127.)

In the incarnation of the Word, Christ became the

‘proper man’ as Luther called him, the true man…[and]

because all mankind consist in him, he is the only one

who can really represent all men and women from the

innermost centre and depth of human being. He came

then, not only as the creator of our race, but as the

head of our race, for in him the whole race consists

(Col. 1.15-20).

It was thus that Christ, true God took upon himself our

flesh and became true man, and as such made

atonement.

T.F. Torrance (Atonement, 127.)

In the incarnation of the Word, Christ became the

‘proper man’ as Luther called him, the true man…[and]

because all mankind consist in him, he is the only one

who can really represent all men and women from the

innermost centre and depth of human being. He came

then, not only as the creator of our race, but as the

head of our race, for in him the whole race consists

(Col. 1.15-20).

It was thus that Christ, true God took upon himself our

flesh and became true man, and as such made

atonement.

Two Thoughts:

(1) The stress is more on “representation” than “propitiation”

(2) This allows Christ’s entire life/death/resurrection to

function as “Atonement”




Guilty (And, How is that just!)? (3 Responses)

Christ is the True Adam (Imago Dei)

- Here, recapitulation provides the grounds for a

proper view of penal substitution—or rather

“representation”.



3. Does the the NT teach propitiation (i.e. that

God’s wrath must be vented/assuaged)?

- C.H. Dodd (1931): The means of atonement is

“expiation” (cancelation of sin), NOT “propitiation”

(diversion of God’s wrath).

‣At issue: the proper translation of hilasterion

‣ “Wrath” for Dodd is merely the natural

consequence of sin (i.e. it is depersonalized)





- Leon Morris (more recently D.A. Carson,

Schreiner) argue in favor of Jesus as a

“propitiation.”

- Key Text (once again): Romans 3

Romans 3

25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of

atonement,[hilasterion] through the shedding of his

blood—to be received by faith.

He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because

in his forbearance he had left the sins committed

beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate

his righteousness at the present time, so as to be [1]

just and [2] the one who justifies those who have

faith in Jesus.

The key may lie in examining how ‘sacrifice’ / ‘blood’ stands

in relation to ‘wrath’ elsewhere in the Bible (Read Schreiner,

81-82)





- Critics are right to caution against confusing

YHWH with an emotionally explosive pagan

Deity (see Ezek. 18.23).

“Have I any pleasure in the death of

the wicked, says the Lord God?”





- Critics are right to caution against confusing

YHWH with an emotionally explosive pagan

Deity (see Ezek. 18.23).

- Some (careless) Penal Substitution articulations

fail here.

- Yet…[Murray / Pippert quotes]

John Murray

It is one thing to say that the wrathful God is made

loving. That would be entirely false. It is another thing

to say the wrathful God is loving. That is profoundly

true.

Becky Pippert (Hope has its Reasons)

Think how we feel when we see someone we love

ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we

respond with benign tolerance as we might toward

strangers? Far from it. . . . Anger isn’t the opposite of

love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.

God’s wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled

opposition to the cancer of sin which is eating out the

insides of the human race he loves with his whole

being.





- Conclusion: Much hangs on how we define

God’s wrath in distinction from (yet not total

opposition to) human anger.



4. Does this engender further abuse of the

“innocent” by sacralizing suffering / wrath?

- Beverly Harrison / Carter Heyward: Penal

Substitution “represents the sadomasochism of

Christian teaching at its most transparent.” God

plays the role of the sadist who willfully inflicts

punishment, and Jesus embraces the character

of the masochist who willingly suffers it.





- Darby Kathleen Ray: “Romantic visions of a

martyred Savior function in many cases to keep

victims of abuse in their death-dealing

situations…Jesus’ death becomes the example

of perfect self-sacrifice that believers ought to

emulate…and this kind of theological idealization

can perpetuate victimization.”





- A Response:

‣Only if we disbelieve in the Trinity and the

Deity of Christ.

‣Actually, history may show that the Christus

Victor view is more prone to produce

“conquest” and “violence” (e.g. Constantine)



4. It was largely absent for the first 1500 years of

Christian history.

- This is somewhat true, and it should caution us

against over-prioritizing the model.

- Yet this does not disprove the model, if the Bible

teaches it.

๏Sidebar: Why do you think Penal Substitution

ceased to be as powerful after, say, 1800?



4. It was largely absent for the first 1500 years of

Christian history.

๏Sidebar: Why do you think Penal Substitution

ceased to be as powerful after, say, 1800?

Steve Holmes, ‘The Wondrous Cross’

1. A move from the Age of Logic (Enlightenment) to the Age

of Feeling (Romanticism).

2. The destruction of a robust doctrine of sin/guilt/shame.




2. Why does punishing an innocent help the guilty

(how is that just!)?

3. Does the the NT teach propitiation (that God’s wrath

must be vented/assuaged)?

4. Does this engender further abuse of the “innocent”

by sacralizing suffering / wrath?

5. Largely missing for first 1500 years of the church.

Penal Substitution: (Positive

Proposal)

Scripture seems to require some form of Penal

Substitution:

- “Death” is the penalty for sin:

Romans 6.23: “the wages of sin is death”

Ezekiel 18.20: “the one who sins shall die”


Proposal)


Substitution:

- Israel’s sacrificial system involved some form of

substitution (reckoning sin to the sacrificial victim)

Lev. 16.21: He [Aaron] is to lay both hands on the

head of the live goat and confess over it all the

wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their

sins—and put them on the goat’s head.


Proposal)


Substitution:

- Isaiah 53: Shows how the ‘Servant’ takes our

punishment, suffering, “iniquities”


Proposal)


Substitution:

- Isaiah 53:

4 Surely he took up our pain

and bore our suffering,

yet we considered him punished by God,

stricken by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

- 6


Proposal)


Substitution:

- Isaiah 53:

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to our own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.


Proposal)


Substitution:

- Galatians 3.13:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming

a curse for us

Bird’s Argument (‘Justification’, 137):

(1) Deut. 27.26 threatens curse to all who do not keep the Law.

(2) No one keeps the Law (thus all deserve curse).

(3) Yet (Gal. 3.13) Christ becomes a curse for us.


Proposal)


Substitution:

- Yet… we must not go beyond Scripture in over

“emotionalizing” / “anthropomorphizing” this reality.

Some Cautions regarding Penal Substitution

(from people who affirm it!)


Proposal)



- Hans Boersma (Violence, Hospitality, & the Cross)

1.Beware an overly “juridicized” articulation

• Too much emphasis upon balancing the scales

of punishment / justice.

• What Edward Irving called “The Stock

Exchange Deity”


Proposal)




2.Beware an overly “individualized” articulation

• Concerned only with individuals, and not with

systemic / structural problems.

• Christus Victor helps to balance this…


Proposal)




3.Beware a “de-historicized” articulation

• Importing too much of our cultural context (i.e.

justice is about punishing the guilty, satisfying

the honor of the feudal lord, etc…).


Proposal)



- Bruce McCormack (Emphasize Triune Unity):

“The proper meaning of “penal substitution” is that

the penalty that God as Judge willed to be the

consequence of human sin is a penalty that God

himself (the triune God in the person of the Son)

takes upon himself…The triune God pours his wrath

upon himself…he “drinks it to the dregs.” And in so

doing, vanquishes its power over us.”


Proposal)



- Kevin Vanhoozer (Guilt, Goats, and Gifts)

Place the emphasis on excess, not exchange.

Kevin Vanhoozer

The gift of Jesus’ death is itself excessive. No

economic or external constraint coerced God to give

himself for us. No economy mandates that God return

our evil with a greater good. In the final analysis, what

exceeds the confines of theory is nothing less than the

searing white heat of God’s holy love…God pours

himself out for us, not in an economic exchange, but in

an excess of justice and love. God did not merely

compensate for human sin; he did more. He did not

simply make up sin’s deficit; he destroyed it. The New

Testament, of coursel knows this “excess” by its proper

covenantal name: grace.


Proposal)



- Kevin Vanhoozer (Guilt, Goats, and Gifts)

Place the emphasis on excess, not exchange.

Penal Substitution:

Questions / Discussion:

atonement penal substitution

Education

dopenal substitution

penal satisfaction anselm

church historymartin

church historywhat

divine wrath

john calvin institutes

assuaging gods wrath

multiple metaphors