5 Biblical Corrections to Penal Substitution

[JonC]

The OP uses definitions of PS that I have never heard, additionally, made reference to only one passage of scripture which didn’t really apply to the atonement, as far as I can tell, and didn’t address any passages used by proponents in support.

I do believe God punishes sin. To say Christ suffered “justly” is not something I would consider part of PS. I think PS states Christ died for us, not instead of us. I don’t see PS as saying Christ payed a debt to anyone with His death though I understand some songs say similar things.

peace to you

The reason Penal Substitution holds that Christ was justly punished as our substitute is they believe Christ's suffering came from God as a just punishment for sins laid upon Him.

Penal Substitution also holds that Christ paid our debt, and our debt in full, to God. The idea is that all of our sins were laid on Christ, and when He died the punishment for those sins were poured upon Him (this, according to Penal Substitution, was God acting justly against sin).

But when we consider these theories of atonement we have to recognize that individuals often hold parts of a theory, or mixtures of theories.

For example, Augustine believed a mixture of Ransom Theory and Recapitulation the best way to view the Atonement.

I would think there are many who claim Penal Substitution while rejecting some of its doctrines. In churches these doctrines are typically taught in bits and pieces (they are assumed and delivered in sermons and song).

 

[37818]

I am unaware of any Atonement theory that reject that the soul that sins must die.

Any and all who hold to unconditional immortality of the soul.

 

[JonC]

Only to those ignorant of the law.

No, not ignorant of the law. The difference is whether one believes the Old Testament law established the New Covenant law or that the New Covenant established the Old.

Some of us take a more literal view of Scripture than many will allow (even believing that Christ established and fulfilled the Law rather than came in subjection to the Law).

 

[JonC]

Any and all who hold to unconditional immortality of the soul.

That would be assuming they held your definition of "soul" in the passage (and my post).

 

[37818]

That would be assuming they held your definition of "soul" in the passage (and my post).

How do you see two different definitions of the soul?

 

[Arthur King]

Obviously, no. But if you go to the grocery store FOR your wife, you most certainly go as her substitute.

This refers to our union with Christ, and by no means contradicts the doctrine of penal substitution; indeed, it is an integral part of it.

I can go to the grocery store WITH and FOR my wife. But I cannot go to the grocery store WITH and INSTEAD of my wife. The NT consistently describes Jesus dying WITH and FOR us. This excludes INSTEAD (which is what you need for substitution).

 

[Arthur King]

I don't think this is correct. The central problem with mankind is that we are sinners. Whatever solution is offered must deal with that. 2 Corinthians 5:21 is the solution. Christ, the sinless One becomes sin for us and pays its wages, and His perfect righteousness is imputed to us.

"Christ pays sins wages." Anyone who has ever had a job knows this makes no sense. Wages are not something that we pay; wages are something we earn. If you think this distinction does not matter, then go ahead and ask your employer to change the word “wages” to “debts” on your paychecks from now on and see how it works out. Owing and earning are opposite sides of the economic metaphor. Thus, we do not owe death to God. We earn death for our sin. I’ve heard some preachers today quote the popular Tom Hanks movie “The Green Mile” when a character says, “We each owe a death, there are no exceptions.” But that is just not what the Bible says. The Bible says we have all earned death. And we all justly receive the death we have earned when we suffer our sin’s consequences in this life and finally when we physically die. Our suffering and physical death is not a payment to God for our sin, and does not atone for our sin. Our atonement is in this: Jesus has voluntarily interceded to receive the wages of our sin along with us by suffering and dying on the cross. But he, being without sin, has received these wages undeservedly and unjustly by the hands of sinners. Justice therefore demands that these wages be taken back, and that Jesus’ suffering and death be undone, reversed, hence Jesus’ resurrection.

The Bible never mentions any such thing as a debt of punishment, yet according to penal substitution, the payment of humanity’s debt of punishment is a (the?) central meaning of Jesus’ death on the cross. penal substitution is thus formulated to fulfill a priority of justice that simply does not exist.

2 Corinthians 5:21

Many scholars, from the early church and today, including many who support penal substitution, argue that the phrase "the Messiah became sin" means that "the Messiah became a sin offering." A sin offering is a ritual in which a guilty sinner slays an unblemished sacrifice so that the innocent blood shed would purify the offerer of his guilt and sin. This is what happens at the cross, when sinners put to death the unblemished Messiah, but his shed blood purifies sinners from their sin.

Furthermore, NT Wright's argument is very helpful on this verse: In the second part of the verse, the phrase “the righteousness of God” does not mean “the righteousness of Christ,” which would refer to the Messiah/Son’s legal status of righteousness. The “righteousness of God” refers to God’s covenant faithfulness to bless all nations through Israel. When Paul says, “we become the righteousness of God,” he is saying that the people of God, the Church in Christ, has become an outworking, demonstration, and manifestation of God’s faithfulness to His covenant promises. Paul is not talking here about the imputation of Christ’s legal status of righteousness to us.

If Paul is talking about a demonstration or manifestation rather than an imputation in this second part of the verse, it follows that he is doing the same thing in the preceding half of the verse, in which he says “God made him who knew no sin to be sin”. Paul is not saying that our sin or guilt was imputed to Jesus, but that the sinless man Jesus was made into an outworking, demonstration, and manifestation of our sin. This certainly describes the cross. The cross is the greatest sin in human history, in which all sin against God and all sin against Man are inflicted upon the God-Man Jesus Christ. No sin that any of us has ever committed is greater than the sin we committed when we crucified Jesus. The worst aspect of any one of our sins is that it contributed to the death of God’s Son. On the cross, Jesus was made my sin. He was made into a demonstration of every human’s sin. Why? So that through Jesus’ resurrection, God would show His faithfulness to his covenantal promises to restore the earth from sin’s destruction.

So here is a paraphrase of the verse: God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be made a manifestation of sin on our behalf, so that we sinners could, in Christ, become the manifestation of God’s covenant faithfulness. As NT Wright says, “God made [the Messiah] to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might embody God’s faithfulness to the covenant.” (Paul and the Faithfulness of God p.20)

 

[canadyjd]

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.)

I appreciate the (long) response and it will take some time to digest. I have noticed a couple of things.

1. The OT sacrifices you mentioned are for sins committed in ignorance. There is no sacrifice for the “sins of the high hand” which are intentional. David refers to this in Psalm 51.

2. Your claims of death by sinning and corruption and then cleansing, purification, by sacrifice are vague and I didn’t see any mention of the person being “purified”. I do see mention of atonement.

I will look for passages that state the offering serves the purpose of purification instead of atonement, but so far, I’ve only seen reference to atonement.

So, I guess we are back to definitions. What does atonement mean in OT and NT?

peace to you

 

[Marooncat79]

Wages are what you earn

we earn hell and death due to our sin


Those are our wages

 

[Arthur King]

Wages are what you earn

we earn hell and death due to our sin


Those are our wages

Agree. And Jesus suffers death unjustly, so that justice would enact the reversal of his death in his resurrection. Justice is satisfied in the resurrection as the divine reversal of the unjust human verdict. This is why Peter says that Jesus, while suffering unjustly, “kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly.” Jesus fully trusted that the just judge would reverse the unjust judgment. Jesus' innocence and unjust death requires that justice enact the reversal of death via his resurrection. On the cross, Jesus suffers all of our sin’s destruction as an injustice, so that justice will be satisfied by the restoration of all things through the power of His resurrection. Jesus dies under the unjust judgment of humans, and is raised by the just judgment of God.

 

[37818]

. . . Himself to Him who judges justly.” Jesus fully trusted that the just judge would reverse the unjust judgment. Jesus' innocence and unjust death requires that justice enact the reversal of death via his resurrection. . . .

Utter nonsense.

Matthew 16:20-23, ". . . Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. . . ."

1 Corinthians 2:7-8, ". . . But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. . . . "

 

[Arthur King]

Utter nonsense.

Matthew 16:20-23, ". . . Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. . . ."

1 Corinthians 2:7-8, ". . . But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. . . . "

Are you saying that God cannot ordain unjust events?

 

[JonC]

How do you see two different definitions of the soul?

The word "soul" can mean physical being, spirit, or inner being (I find it is most often used as the latter....what we would call one's heart).

There are more than two different meanings (depending on whether one holds man as a dichotomy or trichotomy of parts).

The issue here is you are comparing two different words (one from Matthew and one from Ezekiel).

The soul that sins must die is from Ezekiel 18:4 and means "person". That word is also translated as people, man. It is not referring to the inner part of our being.

You are looking at a Greek word in Matthew. That is the word from which we get "psyche" (our heart, innermost part of our being, who we are).

 

[JonC]

Agree. And Jesus suffers death unjustly, so that justice would enact the reversal of his death in his resurrection. Justice is satisfied in the resurrection as the divine reversal of the unjust human verdict. This is why Peter says that Jesus, while suffering unjustly, “kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly.” Jesus fully trusted that the just judge would reverse the unjust judgment. Jesus' innocence and unjust death requires that justice enact the reversal of death via his resurrection. On the cross, Jesus suffers all of our sin’s destruction as an injustice, so that justice will be satisfied by the restoration of all things through the power of His resurrection. Jesus dies under the unjust judgment of humans, and is raised by the just judgment of God.

I agree. And this I perfectly illustrated (and foretold) in Psalm 22.

 

[37818]

Are you saying that God cannot ordain unjust events?

No.
John 10:17-18, ". . . Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. . . ."

 

[37818]

The word "soul" can mean physical being, spirit, or inner being (I find it is most often used as the latter....what we would call one's heart).

There are more than two different meanings (depending on whether one holds man as a dichotomy or trichotomy of parts).

It would seem we do disagree on the meaning of the soul. And my view is a trichotomy view. And I hold the human soul is mortal. And the death of the body does not kill the soul. And immortality of the soul is conditional on having eternal life.

 

[Arthur King]

No.
John 10:17-18, ". . . Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. . . ."

I am not sure how anything in this verse, or anything in what you have said, refutes the notion that Jesus died unjustly. Jesus willingly suffered an unjust (undeserved) death.

1 Peter 2:18-25, for one example, explicitly states that Jesus' death was unjust.

 

[Aaron]

Scripture please

peace to you

If one of you commits a sin by unintentionally defiling the LORD's sacred property, you must bring a guilt offering to the LORD. The offering must be your own ram with no defects, or you may buy one of equal value with silver, as measured by the weight of the sanctuary shekel. You must make restitution for the sacred property you have harmed by paying for the loss, plus an additional 20 percent. When you give the payment to the priest, he will purify you with the ram sacrificed as a guilt offering, making you right with the LORD, and you will be forgiven. Leviticus 5:15-16 NLT

If you have sinned in any of these ways, you are guilty. You must give back whatever you stole, or the money you took by extortion, or the security deposit, or the lost property you found, or anything obtained by swearing falsely. You must make restitution by paying the full price plus an additional 20 percent to the person you have harmed. On the same day you must present a guilt offering. Leviticus 6:4-5 NLT​

 

[JonC]

It would seem we do disagree on the meaning of the soul. And my view is a trichotomy view. And I hold the human soul is mortal. And the death of the body does not kill the soul. And immortality of the soul is conditional on having eternal life.

I also hold a trichotomy view

Anyway, by your interpretation every person who sins must experience a death of their soul.

This really doesn't have to do with Penal Substitution, except that Penal Substitution does not believe the soul (using your definition) that sins must die as it holds that the sins were transferred to Christ (who did not sin) so that the soul that sins will not die (a direct contradiction of Ezekiel 18).

 

[canadyjd]

There is the sin offering, and its guilt (i.e. 'trespass') offering. The sin is the transgression, the guilt is the debt that is incurred.

If one of you commits a sin by unintentionally defiling the LORD's sacred property, you must bring a guilt offering to the LORD. The offering must be your own ram with no defects, or you may buy one of equal value with silver, as measured by the weight of the sanctuary shekel. You must make restitution for the sacred property you have harmed by paying for the loss, plus an additional 20 percent. When you give the payment to the priest, he will purify you with the ram sacrificed as a guilt offering, making you right with the LORD, and you will be forgiven. Leviticus 5:15-16 NLT

If you have sinned in any of these ways, you are guilty. You must give back whatever you stole, or the money you took by extortion, or the security deposit, or the lost property you found, or anything obtained by swearing falsely. You must make restitution by paying the full price plus an additional 20 percent to the person you have harmed. On the same day you must present a guilt offering. Leviticus 6:4-5 NLT​

Ok, so the guilt offering for unintentional sins was considered payment of a debt. Thank you

Are there any passages that describe Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross as a guilt offering, or say He paid a debt? Certainly He didn’t die only for unintentional sins, did He?

I know scripture uses the term “ransom”. How does that apply here? Not as a guilt offering, but as a sort of purchase price… but from whom? The sin master? The death master?

peace to you