Featured Unanswered Questions (Penal Substitution Theory)

It's absurd to suggest death is not a divine judgment. Didn't you ever read Genesis 3? You have painted yourself into a corner to where you must with every reply deny essential scriptures. But we find ourselves thousands of years later and the reality of human life is that we naturally die, we can die because of all kinds of accidents, situations and sometimes by God direct action. We can even die as a martyr and be doing God's will. But originally, it was indeed a divine judgment that we had to die. It's the same with punishment or God's wrath. Sometimes wrath and punishment is done by God directly and some is held up for judgment. There is no falsely equating of anything in penal substitution. You just have to come up with some kind of scenario with which you can extricate yourself from your corner.

I hope you realize that what you are calling stupidity is really God himself acting according to his perfect nature.

 

Yes. I know you are. And if you are referring to penal substitution by that statement you are being unwise.

 

Just to explain what I find difficult to understand let’s review your post 36.

So, you have acknowledged you referred to PSA as “unbiblical”. You also referred to it as “stupid and silly.”

You then claim when others referred to your belief as “unbiblical” it is a “much worse label than you put on PSA”.

So, just to help me understand, how is others referring to your belief as “unbiblical” a “much worse label than you referring to their belief as “unbiblical, stupid, and silly”?

peace to you

 

Suppose you actually link an article where a real Baptist theologian refutes penal substitution and then we can have a reference point to refute or support what he said. That might actually help. We would have concrete arguments on hand to look at rather than these meaningless hypothetical scenarios.

 

I often don’t think you read my posts. You completely missed the point I made.

We are talking passed each other. Time for me to call it a night

peace to you

 

@JonC. Regarding your link to another thread where you list some Baptist theologians who are against penal substitution I feel there needs to be some follow up. It is difficult to find their work readily available but that's neither here nor there and it does not necessarily reflect the quality of their work. However, I found two of the ones you mentioned, Stamps and Emerson actually defending penal substitution against an attack by someone else in a recent article.
Baptist Catholicity and Penal Substitutionary Atonement — Center For Baptist Renewal
What gives and what is this "Baptist-Catholicity" movement anyway? You know what I was asking. Is there really a serious movement among Baptists to ditch penal substitution? The fact is, while some of these guys, being theologians, have expanded explanations of the atonement and like Torrance, go into aspects of Christs death that may or may not be part of the actual atonement, depending on how it's defined - I still am not seeing any serious Baptist attacking penal substitution. So far, I find this article, and I came across an article on an Anabaptist site that was ambiguous but didn't seem opposed to penal substitution and there is of course Torrance, who it turns out is not at all opposed to penal substitution although he is opposed to limited atonement.

As soon as you define it we will.

 

You have a style of scripture interpretation that gets you into trouble. God said that Adam would die if he ate the fruit. That was the divine judgement. What did that look like? Adam and all people became subject to physical death, mortality, injury, accident and violence by men and beasts. So yes, you could say it was a "product" of sin if you want and not be wrong. You are wrong though if you insist that it cannot be a product or result of sin and yet be due to divine judgement.

What you are doing is trying to create a false and absurd scenario to discredit what was said and then debate the scenario instead of the principle. One of the theologians you mentioned earlier was in Africa a few years ago and his wife ended up dying as a result of an auto accident. I'm not saying that God was angry with her when that happened or even that God directly did that to her. But I am saying that her susceptibility to such things, like all of us, is a direct result of divine judgment against sin, both Adam's and our own. It is a false choice to say that my position is either that God killed her in present wrath - or it was just a "product" of sin with no aspect of God's divine judgement.

Here's another example. You can say that God cannot act purely in mercy towards us if he demands payment for sin. But he can. His sending his own son to atone for our sins is the act of pure mercy we are talking about. He indeed is acting towards us in pure, free grace and yet he has revealed that is cost him plenty in that he did not even spare his own son. But you can't seem to hold both thoughts at the same time and instead look at that as a contradiction.

 

Jon. These aren't strange things. They are classic arguments that any student of theology should recognize. Anyone should know that they wrestle with these issues in their own lives even if they aren't interested in theology.

This very argument is expressed by Owen in "The Death of Death in the Death of Christ". And the answer is what I gave. God most certainly can - but the payment is made by someone else. If you admit that it destroys your attack on substitution.

Once again, your bizarre interpretation of scripture makes demands that don't exist. Why would you think that God providing an atonement that saves us from eternal damnation, promises eternal life and fellowship with God, takes away all our sin, and allows us to actually unite with Christ is somehow insufficient if there remains any consequence of our sin in the realities of our earthly lives? Scripture clearly teaches the inevitability of physical death, disease, injury at the hands of violent people, even injury at the hands of God if we persist in disobedience in any area. Not to mention the lives of labor and stress, seeing everything fall apart and degrade, seeing the vanity of all our earthly pursuits, watching ourselves and our loved ones suffer - all this is the result of God's decree at the time of the fall and in fairness to Adam, is validated by the sin in our own individual lives. Once again, you have made up a scenario in your own mind that you deem unfair rather that just going by the massive information to the contrary in God's word.

I would suggest that you, when you get time, go back and read Owen on this. He is known for his argument for particular atonement but the beauty in his work is in explaining what the atonement is. I'm not saying this as if he is the last word but only to suggest that if you want a clear explanation of the penal and substitutionary aspects of atonement, along with all the scripture references in one place you can do no better.

 

If that is not your or Arthur's belief and one of your arguments against penal substitution then it does not apply to you and I don't want to try to pin that on you. But it is not strange. It is one of the arguments raised by those who oppose penal substitutionary atonement and Owen, in his work, states that argument and refutes it. But if you are not going to make that argument then I withdraw it as pertaining to our discussion.

Sin produces death indeed but not as a natural process, or like a chemical reaction or a logical consequence. It produces death because God decreed that it would be so. He did that as a response to the rebellion of Adam and Eve after he had warned them exactly what would happen. God's response and reaction to open rebellion and sin also involves "wrath" so I surmise that this was also involved in the pronouncement upon Adam and Eve. There is a difference between me saying that if you try to cross that lake the ice is too thin and you will break through and you will die and me saying directly to you as your sovereign "I am pronouncing death upon you if you try to cross that lake". I don't know why you are stuck on this but if you don't see the difference I can't help you. So yes, as in your quote, make the AND all caps.

I don't know where you come up with this stuff. "Oh grave, where is thy victory, Oh death, where is thy sting". This is said at all funerals because it is a true promise. But the funerals still happen. We still suffer many of the effects of the fall and yes, all those effects are part of God's judgement. Reams have been written about why we live out a life in these bodies that must die and why we suffer. Now concerning judgement, God expresses some wrath against sin at various times but withholds the final judgement until his chosen time. Reams are written on why this is happening also.

Divine judgement is indeed partially, even mostly withheld or postponed. But the idea that we all die physically as being divine judgement and not being eliminated at the cross is an unavoidable reality because it it observed and it is clearly stated in scripture. We will all die physically, even Christians, because it is appointed to us to do so. But our relationship to death has been changed. Now it is a gateway to everlasting life, and a new spiritual body and perfect fellowship with Christ instead of a bleak abyss with at best nothing beyond and at worst, hell. So an atonement that provides that makes Jesus a partial savior?