Featured 5 Biblical Corrections to Penal Substitution

No, the definition of substitution is not "expiation." Expiation means the removal of sin or guilt.

Jesus' death does far more than ours, but it is clear from Scripture that we are called to participate in Jesus' death. To die WITH Christ and IN Christ

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die"


Mark 8:34-35 - “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

That's not substitution.


Mark 10:39 - “The cup that I drink you shall drink; and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized.

That's not substitution.


John 12:23-26 - “ The one who loves his life loses it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also."

That's not substitution.


1 Peter 2:20 - For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps…

That's not substitution.


1 Peter 4:1-2 - Since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.

That's not substitution.


Galatians 2:20 - I have been crucified (co-crucified) with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

That's not substitution.


Philippians 1:28-30 - For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.

That's not substitution.


Philippians 3 -
"...that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

That's not substitution.


2 Corinthians 1:5 - For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.

That's not substitution.


2 Corinthians 4:10 - We are always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

That's not substitution.


Romans 6:3-7 - Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.

That's not substitution.


Romans 12:1 - Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

That's not substitution.


Hebrews 13:13 - So, let us go out to Jesus outside the camp, bearing His reproach.

That's not substitution.

 

What are you trying to prove with Romans 6:23 and Ezekiel 18:4? Neither of those texts show that we owe God a debt of punishment.

 

This is how the sacrificial system works:

When a person sins, he becomes corrupt, and he therefore threatens to pollute the surrounding community and environment with his corruption (In a sense, he becomes dead, and therefore threatens to pollute the community with death). There are two options to get rid of the corruption: (1) cut off the corrupt person from the community through exile or execution, or (2) purify the person from corruption. The agent of purification given by God is the shed blood of an innocent sacrifice. There is something about the innocent blood that reverses, cleanses, heals, covers over, purifies or undoes the corruption in God’s creation. This is why the priests would sprinkle all of the holy objects with blood in order to purify them. As Jewish scholar Robert Alter says, “blood has a purifying function, serving as what Jacob Milgrom calls a “spiritual detergent.” (The Five Books of Moses. P.778) In fact some scholars vigorously argue that the offering generally designated as a “Sin Offering” in English translations is better translated “Purification Offering.”(The Five Books of Moses. P.556, IVP Old Testament Commentary). It is important to realize that after an offerer would slay his sacrifice, he would be completely covered in blood. If blood is a purifying agent for corruption, that corruption would definitely be washed away!

The sacrifice does NOT suffer the wrath of God in place of the offerer as a substitute. Furthermore, God’s motives for carrying out His wrath or restraining His wrath are different. In the Bible, God’s motive for exercising wrath is to purify and protect His good creation, not simply to carry out a legal duty to punish, or defend His honor. His goal is to “destroy those who destroy the earth (Rev 11:18)” in order to protect the earth and its inhabitants. God’s reason for withholding wrath from the offerer is not that He has exhausted His wrath on a substitute, but that the corruption His wrath would eliminate has been purified, and so His wrath is no longer necessary. The offerer’s avoidance of wrath is secondary to the offerer’s transition from a state of corruption to purification, and by analogy, from a state of death to a state of resurrection.

Furthermore, if a ritual sacrifice was supposed to communicate vicarious punishment, we might expect that the priest or another third party, as representative of God’s justice, would be the one to slay the sacrifice to demonstrate God’s wrath punishing the animal instead of the sinner. But this is not what happens. It is always the sinner himself that slays the sacrifice, before the anointed priest sprinkles the blood and arranges the pieces.

In every sacrifice, the offerers/sinners slay the sacrifice. Take a look at the list:


In a Burnt Offering (Lev 1:5, 1:11) the sinner slays the sacrifice.

In a Peace Offering (Lev 3:2, 3:4, 3:13) the sinner slays the sacrifice.

In a Sin Offering (Lev 4:4, 4:14, 4:24, 4:29, 4:33) the sinner slays the sacrifice.

In a Guilt Offering (Lev 7:2) the sinners slays the sacrifice.

On the Day of Atonement, the sinners (represented in the priest) slay the sacrifice.

In the Ordinance of the Red Heifer (Num 19:3) the sinners slay the sacrifice.

In the Passover (Ex 12:6), the sinners slay the sacrifice.

In the Declaration of Innocence (Deut 21:4) the elders who could be charged with sin slay the sacrifice.


That is 15 examples - a lot of data, representing nearly every sacrifice. There is a clear pattern here. The priest only slays the animal if it is a corporate sacrifice, in which he sums up the congregation in himself; he is the community of sinners. And he only does this after slaying a sacrifice for his own sins. The priest slays the animal as a representative of sinners in need of redemption, not as a representative of the one offended by sin or of the justice system.

As N.T. Wright notes, “the old idea of sin being transferred to the sacrificial animal seems not to work either; sacrificial animals had to be pure, and the one time that sins are clearly placed on an animal’s head the animal in question (the second goat on the Day of Atonement) is not sacrificed, but driven off into the wilderness. (N.T. Wright. The New Testament and the People of God. P.274.)

 

If I go to the grocery store WITH my wife, do I go to the grocery store as her substitute? Yes or no?

The passages are clear that in order to be saved, we need to die (and rise) WITH Christ. And that is a LOT of biblical data I threw down.