Featured Isaiah 53 doesn't support penal substitution

And then p. 242, in footnote 6. I think I missed that page number in my reply. Apologies.

"God acted justly in punishing him, for he saw him as guilty by virtue of his union with those whose sins he bore"

 

But see how on both these points, you are drifting away from analysis of the Scripture at hand to ask (1) "who else teaches this?" and (2) "But my experience in life is this...". Neither of these things are Scriptural exegesis. They are tactics to avoid the passage at hand.

Yes, future punishment does exist, but that is not our central problem. Our problem is that we are already dead in trespasses and sins. We are already children of wrath. Future punishment is a continuation and confirmation and final execution of wrath that has already been pouring out.

-Prior to being saved, were we dead in our transgressions and sins? Yes or no?
-Prior to being saved, were we children of wrath? Yes or no?
-Has the wrath of God been revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness? Yes or no? (see Romans 1)
-Has our world been subjected to futility, yes or no? (see Romans 8)
-Are we consigned to physical death? Yes or no?
-Is physical death a punishment for sin? Yes or no?

How does Jesus die in place of people who are already dead?
Why do you still physically die if Jesus died in your place?
I Jesus was punished in your place, why do you suffer any Genesis 3 curses?

Your opinion that the world is a pretty groovy place is not what Paul lays out in Ephesians 2:1-3.

The problem is we were dead in sin.
The solution is we were raised in Christ.

 

Yes, we are all guilty of sinning against a holy God. But this has greater problems than the punishment it deserves. If God never lifted a finger to punish sin, sin itself would still plunge sinners into destruction and misery. To not believe this is to be moral relativistic about God's created order, to have a low view of God, and a low view of sin.

God already has been pouring out punishment on sin. God exiled from humanity from paradise and His presence, subjected creation to futility, cursed us with toil, consigned us to physical death. The wrath of God has been revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. Prior to being saved, we were children of wrath.

Animal sacrifices - when a person sinned, they became corrupt, and threatened to pollute the community with corruption. They needed to be exiled or executed to get rid of the corruption. Or, an animal without blemish could shed its innocent blood to purify the sinner from corruption, thus averting (propitiating) the need for the sinner to be exiled or executed.

No, Jesus died with us (we have been crucified WITH Christ) and Jesus died unjustly, for he alone was innocent. His unjust death alone merits the reversal of death via his resurrection. Thus, we who are dead in sin, if we participate in his death, will participate in his resurrection, and receive the reversal of death we so desperately need.

Again, notice how your attempt at a salvation narrative has zero reference to the resurrection. Yours is a resurrectionless gospel foreign to the New Testament.

 

Biblical morality is that which violates God's created order. In Genesis 1, God looks at the creation and "SAW that it was good."

Creation has an intrinsic moral structure. Sin is to violate that moral structure, fundamentally by idolatry, replacing the Creator with created things (see Romans 1). No law of God can be broken without disorder in Creation.

And you have lots of other questions to answer.

What do you see as the distinction between "moral" and "cosmic"?

 

I am not following this response at all. What is your point in bringing up Psalm 23 and Song of Solomon and the Miracle at Cana?

Overall, I am just not getting any defense that Jesus dies instead of us rather than with us, or that Jesus' death is just rather than unjust.

I've heard "sin deserves punishment," which is not a point that is at all disputed by any side of this debate.

When someone sins against me, they do not burden me with the obligation to punish something. If someone gouges out my eye, I am not burdened with the obligation to gouge out someone's eye. They deserve punishment, but that punishment can be averted in many cases by an apology, that is, their death and resurrection through confession and repentance.

Similarly, the wrath that is upon us and still to come can be averted by dying and rising with Christ through confession and repentance.

Just as the wrath due to a sinner in the OT sacrificial system could be averted by their purification from the sacrificial offering. Their corruption was purified, and so exile or execution was no longer necessary to purge their corruption from the camp.

 

"I was just giving examples of the common grace and joys we all share..."

Penal substitution claims that Jesus suffers the wrath of God in our place for our sins as our substitute, so we don't have to suffer that wrath. This does not fit with the biblical description of the condition of humanity: Since Adam, we are exiled from Paradise and the Presence of God, consigned to physical death, under the Genesis 3 curses, in a world subjected by God to futility, filling the earth with corruption, we are dead in our trespasses and sins, indeed we are born children of wrath. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness.

These are all biblical descriptions of the condition of humanity - that the wrath of God has ALREADY been pouring out. You going to the country club does not change what the Bible says. Since the the very beginning with Adam. The hope of humanity is not avoiding God's wrath - it is too late for that. We are in a world that is already under His judgments. The hope is not avoiding death. We are already dead. The hope is resurrection from death. The New Testament has no interest in the resurrection-less gospel of penal substitution.

Sure there is common grace. There were violins playing while the Titanic was sinking. And there is a sense in which you could say that our eternal life begins now. But our life at this point is taking up our cross and following Christ. It is the cruciform life. We seek fellowship with the sufferings of Christ and conformity to his death (Philippians 3). Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. Whom the Lord loves, he scourges.

"That is because you are not God and don't have any obligation to rule the universe with justice."

No, the priority of justice is that the sinner is punished, not that the justice system punish something. When we sin against God, we do deserve punishment, but we do not burden God with an obligation to punish that he must purge himself of.

God could just let us rot in our sin forever. That would be perfectly just - to do absolutely nothing while we destroy ourselves in sin.

God needs absolutely nothing from humanity. He needs nothing from us prior to the Fall, and he needs nothing from us after the Fall. To say "God needs to punish me" is just as arrogant as to say "God needs to save me" because in both instances you are saying God needs something from you. He does not.

We forgive because God forgave us. Meaning - he raised us from death. So we can offer our offenders that God raise them from their deadness in sin. Forgiveness is the offer and provision of restoration from a state of brokenness or deficiency.

You give away your basic belief when you say "They deserve punishment". You are right but why did you say that?

Punishment does not exist for punishment's own sake. The purpose of punishment is to stop sin. I punish a murderer to stop him from murdering, to deter others from murder, and to return the sinner's sin upon the sinner's own head (retribution) in a way that will bring him to remorse and repentance. Retribution also has a limiting principle, in which the punishment cannot exceed the damage of the crime committed.

The purpose of punishment is not to restore or repair damage done in an offense. Restitution does that, which is a separate biblical priority of justice.

Dying and rising with Christ has meaning because of what was happening when Christ did this. The judgement for sin was upon him, not us.

You are making absolutely zero sense. Seriously, read back the sentences that you write. If the judgment was upon him, and not you, then you would not die and rise WITH Christ. You would not die - he died so you wouldn't have to. Death is a judgment for sin. You are saying "I went to the grocery store with my wife because my wife went to the grocery store instead of me." No, you can't go to the grocery store with your wife and instead of your wife. You have to choose. You cannot be a married bachelor, nor draw a square circle. Did Jesus die with you or instead of you. Read Galatians 2 and Romans 6 and then make your decision, whether you are with the Bible or not.

 

Why do I care what Torrance says? He is wrong on penal substitution, just like any other penal substitution advocate.

And Karl Barth may be my least favorite theologian. Highly overrated.

I think the problem is that you keep thinking in a circle regarding penal substitution, and asserting that penal substitution is true without really responding to arguments against it, or defending its central claims. You just keep saying "a majority of Baptists believe it."

And I still don't know what your distinction between "cosmic" and "moral" is. You seem to think of morality purely in terms of that which deserves reward or punishment, when a major part of Genesis one is that God as Creator has imbued the Created Order with a moral structure, "and God saw that it was good" and to be in sin is to violate that moral order within creation.

A person cannot break God's laws without disordering themselves, without trying to satisfy their desire for God with something that is not God. This is an inherently destructive act. To not acknowledge this is to fail to have a high view of God as Creator, and to fail to take sin seriously.

Zeus can reward and punish behaviors he does not like. Only the Creator of the universe can say "This is the way I have designed the universe and you in it. To violate that order is to destroy yourself within the very act itself." You are simply not acknowledging God as creator, and sin as a self-destructive, suicidal violation of his created order. You are not acknowledging that when you sin, you are dead already. Notice how Jesus calls the prodigal son, while he is in rebellion "dead." He is not merely deserving of death at some point in the future - he is dead already.

 

No, the animal does not die under the priest or a representative of the justice system. It is always the sinner that slays the sacrifice. The animal does not suffer a divine judicial execution. 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.

When a person sins, they are already dead - this is a key point that penal substitution advocates don't get. They are already dead in trespasses and sins. And so the purification offered by the blood brings them from a state of death to life, from corruption to purification.