One more reason why I can't be Southern Baptist

True.

 

My comment is to the fact that while aspects of substitution and propitiation (with God's wrath on sin) abound throughout history the articulation of Christ's work within the context of retributive justice, with divine justice having to be met by the expenditure of wrath, with God cursing Christ and being wrathful to him on the Cross is foreign to the Christian faith until the 16th century.

This was not how the Early Church viewed Christ bearing our sins, not how those like Justin Martyr (who was just shy of recapulation) viewed Christ as suffering by God's design at the hands of Jews for the human race.

I am not going to try to prove a negative as it is up to you, if you disagree, to demonstrate the current version of PSA which we are discussing existed prior to the Reformation.

I don't mean someone somehow implied with a hint, a wink, and a nod. I mean you have to show through their works (statement and context) that this version of PSA lived before the Reformers breathed into it life.

I don't hold their views, but you don't get to hijack history to support your theories.

So go early and pick one. Justin Martyr Who do you think believed that God cursed Jesus by being wrathful to Him on the cross Martyr? You choose and start the thread Justin. I've no preference on which one we start with Justin Martyr.

 

Here is one of my favorite early quotes on the topic (actually, it is the entire section):

"And when the Spirit of prophecy speaks from the person of Christ, the utterances are of this sort: I have spread out My hands to the disobedient and gainsaying people, to those who walk in a way that is not good (Isaiah 65:2). And again: I gave My back to the scourges, and My cheeks to the buffetings; I turned not away My face from the shame of spittings; and the Lord was My helper: therefore was I not confounded: but I set My face as a firm rock; and I knew that I should not be ashamed, for He is near that justifies Me (Isaiah 50:6. And again, when He says, They cast lots upon My vesture, and pierced My hands and My feet. And I lay down and slept, and rose again, because the Lord sustained Me. And again, when He says, They spoke with their lips, they wagged the head, saying, Let Him deliver Himself. And that all these things happened to Christ at the hands of the Jews, you can ascertain. For when He was crucified, they did shoot out the lip, and wagged their heads, saying, Let Him who raised the dead save Himself (Matthew 27:39)." (Justin Martyr, First Apology, Ch. 38)

Here's a couple more:

"For next to God, we worship and love the Word who is from the unbegotten and ineffable God, since also He became man for our sakes, that becoming a partaker of our sufferings, He might also bring us healing." (Justin Martyr, Second Apology)

“Just as God commanded the sign to be made by the brazen serpent, and yet He is blameless; even so, though a curse lies in the law against persons who are crucified, yet no curse lies on the Christ of God, by whom all that have committed things worthy of a curse are saved. For the whole human race will be found to be under a curse. For it is written in the law of Moses, ‘Cursed is every one that continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.’ And no one has accurately done all, nor will you venture to deny this; but some more and some less than others have observed the ordinances enjoined. But if those who are under this law appear to be under a curse for not having observed all the requirements, how much more shall all the nations appear to be under a curse who practice idolatry, who seduce youths, and commit other crimes? If, then, the Father of all wished His Christ for the whole human family to take upon Him the curses of all, knowing that, after He had been crucified and was dead, He would raise Him up, why do you argue about Him, who submitted to suffer these things according to the Father’s will, as if He were accursed, and do not rather bewail yourselves? For although His Father caused Him to suffer these things in behalf of the human family, yet you did not commit the deed as in obedience to the will of God.”(Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho)

 

Oops....if memory serves we only have these 3 works of Martyr. I guess we can take him off the list fairly easily. You did well staying away from Martyr.

Who's next, @thatbrian .... Eusebius?

You pick. I'm game.

 

The problem is that the ECF do not mention Penal Substitution Theory. They mention passages and biblical ideas that others articulated into Penal Substitution Theory. Those ideas are true. Those passages are true. It is what Penal Substitution Theory does with those passages that sets the theory apart from other theories.

The problem in this area is simply poor scholarship. Some (some who should know better) extract comments from earlier writings and provide a new context to the authors in order to "prove" a false conclusion.

For example, some will look at the fact that Christ bore our sins in His flesh, suffered and died for us, took upon Himself the wrath that was due man, and died on our behalf as a proof that Penal Substitution Theory was a well known doctrine. But this is reading into the text. What the ECF's do with those biblical truths is what demonstrates they did not hold to the theory you advocate (e.g., Origen with his payment to Satan; Martyr's focus on the physical death and it's implications to the human race; Irenaeus Recapitulation view....even William Tyndale's scapegoat theory).

The theory which we call Penal Substitution Theory does not only hold that Christ died for us so that we would escape the wrath that is to come. It holds that divine justice is retributive, that on the cross the Father was wrathfully punishing Jesus in our place as being guilty for our sins. This part (which is critical to the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement (PSA) is not present in anything we know of prior to the Reformation. PSA is Thomas Aquinas' theory of atonement reformed.

As a grad student this was one of my passions. Studying the works of the ECF's is interesting and rewarding. But we should never try to conform early works to our own agenda. They reflect the thoughts, worldview, and ideologies contemporary to their world. I can't stand when people get inventive with history.

Once you understand this you can appreciate the value of historic theology and can see not only how each generation addressed its own issues but also how some doctrines developed and were influenced by others.

 

I see Luther's view as more in line with the substitution theory already in place. Luther seems to have concentrated more on the results of Christ's work than on theories of atonement.

I believe that the reason his position appears to be a combination of PSA and Christus Victor is that he took what was already there (in Satisfaction/Substitution) and ran with it. He never deals with God punishing Christ retributively (simple punishment) but seems to lean towards Thomas Aquinas' acceptance of "satisfactory punishment".

The reason I believe this is how Luther expresses Christ's death as "outweighing the sin and wrath" that was against us based on Christ's ontological being (his divinity; his merit). This looks more like Aquinas (who took reformed Anselm's theory from honor to merit).