Featured God's Two Pictures of the Atonement in the Sacrifices

Is this Penal Substitution Theory?

For the statement in the law, 'Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree,' Deuteronomy 21:23 confirms our hope which depends on the crucified Christ, not because He who has been crucified is cursed by God, but because God foretold that which would be done by you all, and by those like to you, who do not know that this is He who existed before all, who is the eternal Priest of God, and King, and Christ.

Justin Martyr

 

Is this Penal Substitution Theory?

And the Lord indeed ransomed him from the angelic powers which rule the world — from the spirits of wickedness, from the darkness of this life


This did Isaiah before him likewise perceive, when he declared: And the Lord has delivered Him up for our offenses. In this manner He forsook Him, in not sparing Him; forsook Him, in delivering Him up. In all other respects the Father did not forsake the Son, for it was into His Father's hands that the Son commended His spirit. Luke 23:46 Indeed, after so commending it, He instantly died; and as the Spirit remained with the flesh, the flesh cannot undergo the full extent of death, i.e., in corruption and decay.

Tertullian

 

Whence neither can the Lord be forsaken by the Father, who is ever in the Father, both before He spoke, and when He uttered this cry. Nor is it lawful to say that the Lord was in terror, at whom the keepers of hell’s gates shuddered and set open hell, and the graves did gape, and many bodies of the saints arose and appeared to their own people. Therefore be every heretic dumb, nor dare to ascribe terror to the Lord whom death, as a serpent, flees, at whom demons tremble, and the sea is in alarm; for whom the heavens are rent and all the powers are shaken. For behold when He says, ‘Why have You forsaken Me?’ the Father showed that He was ever and even then in Him; for the earth knowing its Lord who spoke, straightway trembled, and the veil was rent, and the sun was hidden, and the rocks were torn asunder, and the graves, as I have said, did gape, and the dead in them arose; and, what is wonderful, they who were then present and had before denied Him, then seeing these signs, confessed that ‘truly He was the Son of God’.

Athanasius

 

Yet, I suppose, you will arm yourself also for your godless contention with these words of the Lord, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me ? Perhaps you think that after the disgrace of the cross, the favour of His Father’s help departed from Him, and hence His cry that He was left alone in His weakness. . . . Your irreverence blinds you to the natural relations of cause and event: not only does the spirit of godlessness and error, with which you are filled, hide from your understanding the mystery of faith, but the obtuseness of heresy drags you below the level of ordinary human intelligence.

Hilary of Poitiers

 

Of the same kind, it appears to me, is the expression, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” It was not He who was forsaken either by the Father, or by His own Godhead, as some have thought, as if It were afraid of the Passion, and therefore withdrew Itself from Him in His Sufferings (for who compelled Him either to be born on earth at all, or to be lifted up on the Cross?) But as I said, He was in His own Person representing us.

Gregory

 

Here is one from John Chrysostom Penal Substitution theorists like to quote:

Seest thou how great His earnestness that the bond should be done away? To wit, we all were under sin and punishment. He Himself, through suffering punishment, did away with both the sin and the punishment, and He was punished on the Cross.

Here is what they leave out:

To the Cross then He affixed it; as having power, He tore it asunder. What bond? . . . This bond then the devil held in his possession. And Christ did not give it to us, but Himself tore it in two, the action of one who remits joyfully.

 

The ruler of darkness could not approach the presence of the Light unimpeded, had he not seen in Him something of flesh. So, as soon as he saw the God-bearing flesh and saw the miracle performed through it by the Deity, he hoped that... if he could take hold of the flesh through death, then he would get hold of all the power contained in it. Therefore, having swallowed the bait of the flesh, he was pierced by the hook of God: thus the dragon was transfixed by the hook.

Gregory of Nyssa

 

Except this is only a part of the quote. And we all agree on that part. It is the rest (what I already quoted) that shows it is not Penal Substitution Theory "in embrio".

In love the Ruler took us to Himself. Because of the love He had towards us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His blood for us by the will of God, His flesh for our flesh, His life for our life'

We ALL agree Christ died for us - His flesh for ours, His life for ours. But that is not Penal Substitution Theory.

You are reading these writings as you read Scripture. . . Filling in what you think are blanks, what you think is taught but not written, what you thi I they should have written.

And you are wrong for doing so.

 

The devil was conquered by his own trophy of victory. The devil jumped for joy, when he seduced the first man and cast him down to death. By seducing the first man, he slew him; by slaying the last man, he lost the first out of his snare. The victory of our Lord Jesus Christ came when he rose, and ascended into heaven; then was fulfilled what you have heard when the Apocalypse was being read, "The Lion of the tribe of Judah has won the day" (Rev. 5:5)

The devil jumped for joy when Christ died; and by the very death of Christ the devil was overcome. He took, as it were, the bait in the mousetrap. He rejoiced at the death, thinking himself death's commander. But that which caused his joy dangled the bait before him. The Lord's cross was a trap for the devil: the bait which caught him was the death of the Lord.

Augustine

 

And in order that He might set the human race free from the bonds of deadly transgression, He hid the power of His majesty from the raging devil, and opposed him with our frail and humble nature. For if the cruel and proud foe could have known the counsel of God's mercy, he would have aimed at soothing the Jews' minds into gentleness rather than at firing them with unrighteous hatred, lest he should lose the slavery of all his captives in assailing the freedom of One Who owed him nothing.

Thus he was foiled by his malice: he inflicted a punishment on the Son of God, which was turned to the healing of all the sons of men. He shed righteous blood, which became the ransom and the drink for the world's atonement.

Leo the Great

 

Penal Substitution Theory is the theory of Atonement that holds God punished Christ (or our sins on Christ) instead of punishing us, that Christ experienced God's wrath so we would not, that God separated in some way from Christ on the cross, that God must punish sins in order to forgive sinners.

I agree that Christ died for us, His flesh for our flesh, His life for our life.

That does not mean I believe Penal Substitution Theory.

 

I understand that is what Scripture means to you. But it does not matter what Scripture means to you. It matters what Scripture means.

You have been carried away by vain philosophies to the extent you are blind to what is written in God's Word concerning this issue.

My point is not that the ECF's are an authority. My point is they did not believe Penal Substitution Theory. They DID believe Christ was forsaken to suffer and die. But they DID NOT believe the passage in the context that this was Christ suffering divine wrath.

Just as you read into the ECF's what was not there, so also do you read into Scripture.

I believe Christ died for us, His flesh for our flesh. You say that means I believe the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement correct, that God punished Christ instead of punishing us.

You are wrong.

Like the ECF's I do believe Christ suffered punishment for our sins. But this was not God punishing Christ instead of us. This was Christ chastening the flesh (to borrow from Tertullian), for all flesh must die. This was Christ laying down His life willingly to suffer the inflictions of this world (to borrow from Justin Martyr).

I did not quote from every ECF because I did not need to in order to prove your folly. You are wrong. You rape history to support a mythology.

 

I may in a bit. I work tonight, and if we are not busy (I don't think we will have much going on) I may.

I didn't because I have already established that you are incorrect. You have been drawn away from Scripture by vain philosophies to the extent you are blind to God's Word on this topic. Showing what those I have quoted really taught (by their words) demonstrated that you have been thumbing through history, cherry picking what you think supports your theory, ignoring the rest.

You treat Scripture in the same way.

Yet this is what Hilary of Poitiers said of your view:

Your irreverence blinds you to the natural relations of cause and event: not only does the spirit of godlessness and error, with which you are filled, hide from your understanding the mystery of faith, but the obtuseness of heresy drags you below the level of ordinary human intelligence.

I believe he is correct on this point - you are blinded, trapped in the philosophies you have chosen to accept.

 

This proves you cannot discern what you read.

Nobody said 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?' to mean 'My God, My God, you haven't forsaken Me'

BUT that is what you read into what is said.

The ECF's and Scripture simply say you have misunderstood the passage.

 

This is false.

I agree with the Justin Martyr quote. That is what I have been claiming for a decade, with you rejecting it tooth and nail when I say it.

But this is not the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement.

Nobody is rejecting penal and substitution in the Atonement.

It is the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement that is wrong (the false doctrine that God punished our sins laid on Christ instead of punishing us).