Featured The Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement

I don't see PSA there, and neither did Clement of Rome. Your view is akin to claiming to see airplanes in the first millennium.

 

The reason Westerners see PSA in scripture when it is not there is because they see scripture like Calvin and Luther -- with a Western mindset that is foreign to scripture and the early church. In other words, they are interpreting scripture without the context in which it was written.

That's why none of them have ever been able to meet my challenge to show me where scripture says Jesus paid the penalty for our sins, 'cause it ain't there. Neither are the other PSA distinctives, as you have also rightly pointed out.

If people would only study the period of time in which PSA arose, they would see why it arose then: Calvin and Luther lived in a legal, juridical age and place, and that's how they interpreted scripture -- according to the context in which they were living, and also because they were the offspring of Romanism, not the Eastern Church.

Context in scripture interpretation is crucial, but many in the West are not aware of where their views have come from, or why.

It is 100% undenaible scriptural, scholarly, theological, historical fact that PSA is not in scripture or the early church or the church of the first millennium, or the first 1500 years A.D.

PSA is basically an outgrowth of Roman Catholicism, taking Satisfaction and expanding it, making it even more legalist and juridical. It is foreign to the NT.

 

https://therebelgod.com/AtonementFathersEQ.pdf

Claiming to see PSA in the NT and early church, and the Fathers, is akin to claiming to see airplanes in the first millennium.

 

In the other thread you also posted this;

These errors will be investigated once again as well as the last response, later this afternoon.

 

Roman 3:21-26.
God's righteousness was manifested and witnessed by the law and the prophets. (Connection with the Old Testament shown)
Verse 22. Our connection to it through faith.
Verse 24. Our justification is connected directly to our redemption in Christ Jesus.
Verse 25. Propitiation in His blood and our connection by faith.
Verse 26. Shows that this was necessary for God to forgive sinners and still be just.

The problem is that I think those verses do show PSA even if that was all there was to go on. You don't. Even the wrath is there if you are willing to let propitiation be propitiation and not change the meaning of it.

 

His physical death by itself would have accomplished nothing for us!

 

For those who contend that various Church Fathers taught PSA: Besides the links that I have already posted that refute this claim, I'll add this to also prove otherwise: The official teaching of the church for the first 1000 years -- East and West, Greek and Latin -- was Ransom/Christus Victor. To claim that the Fathers taught PSA is to claim that they taught a doctrine that was unknown and thus not taught in the church as a whole. If any of the Fathers had taught PSA, they would have been considered heretics by the church. But they did not and were not. They could not have taught something that had not been invented yet. PSA was inconceivable to the early church and the church of the following centuries. Ransom/Christus Victor was replaced by Anselm 1000 years later, and his Satisfaction Theory fit right in with the feudalistic society in which he lived. See, context again. Just as Calvin's and Luther's context caused them to interpret atonement as Penal Substitution. But neither of these was the context in which the apostles wrote the NT or the early church interpreted it. That's why PSA was unknown in scripture and the early church, and the church of the first millennium. And the same is true for all the other much later atonement theories developed in the West.

The Fathers did not teach PSA. To claim they did is to read them with a Western, juridical, legalist mindset -- the same mistake some make in interpreting the Bible, which is an Eastern book about Eastern religions -- Judaism and Christianity. The Christianity taught in the West after the first millennium could be said to be "another Christianity".

 

And that is one more danger of PSA and other similar theories. It compartmentalizes and isolates the atonement from the incarnation and resurrection.

 

No, our hope is to be in that old rugged Cross!
That is where the plan of salvation was accomplished in full!

 

NO, None who hold to psa stated that jesus died spiritually, as that would mean must be born again, and would be preaching Word of faith heresy!

 

Who among any of the reformers held to it as you posted it?

 

The Cross is where and how any of us were able to get saved!

 

Hello ntchristian. Thanks for contributing.
However, you make a variety of claims without any Scripture or other evidence (quotations from the ECFs or councils) to back them up.
You say that the official teaching of the Church for the first 1,000 years was Ransom/Christus Victor. What Papal edict or Council can you quote to show that this is the case. Where exactly was Penal Substitution anathematized?

Now everyone believes in Christus Victor. Who believes in Christus Loser? But in what sense did Christ triumph? If He simply rose from the grave, that's true, and great, but how does it help guilty souls under condemnation for their sins? Are you acquainted with the writings of Gustav Aulen? @JonC says he isn't, but if you are, we could discuss his views if you like.

Ransom Theory comes with Origen, whose teachings on the subject include God paying a ransom to Satan, and has the demerit of God being involved with fraudulent activity. But even Origen comes to Penal Substitution when he considers Romans 3:26. ''In the most recent times, God has manifested His righteousness and given Christ to be our redemption. He has made Him our propitiator.... for God is just and therefore could not justify the unjust. Therefore He required the intervention of a propitiator, so that by having faith in Him those who could not be justified by their own works might be justified.' [Commentary on Romans]
So to Origen, the cross is the place where God's justice is satisfied. Christ has accomplished a work of propitiation that turns away judgment. However, this will not always be the case. Origen continues, 'When the day of judgement comes, [God's righteousness will be revealed for retribution' [ibid] So ransom, expiation and propitiation are drawn together, with propitiation front and centre. The judgment of God for unrighteousness is borne by another, Jesus Christ. His death deals with sin and ransoms the believer from captivity.
In his Commentary on John, Origen quotes from 1 John 2:1-2: 'We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins...........who blotted out the written bond that was against us by His own blood, so that not even a trace of our blotted-out sins might still be found, and nailed it to His cross.....'
Whatever else Origen may have believed, it is clear that he understood that Christ had propitiated the Father and the sins that were against us are blotted out and nailed to the cross. How was this done? By His own blood. Penal Substitution.