Featured Unanswered Questions (Penal Substitution Theory)

I can't speak for Arthur, but it is nothing like my belief or anything I have ever posted.

I agree with you that there are several faulty arguments against the Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement. There are also several faulty arguments for it and against other positions.

That is why I have been asking questions.

I understand the theory. But people here have expressed different understanding of the Penal Substitution Theory. You and Canadyjd , for example, both hold Penal Substitution Theory but you differ in your theories.

It is a mistake to ignore those differences.

I point out some things here for you to consider in order for you to hold and defend the best version of your theory.

As it stands, you have stated that God cannot forgive sins (He can forgive sinners, but not sins as sins must be punished).

I would word that, when I held Penal Substitution Theory, as God forgiving sinners by taking upon Himself the punishment for our sins.

This avoids the faulty opposition of "cosmic child abuse" and acknowledged that God forgives men by punishing sins (removing another obstacle).

You are still left with the fact that Penal Substitution Theory ultimately holds it impossible for God to forgive but this is explained in the propitiation of wrath.

That narrows down the difference in views.

Penal Substitution Theory holds that God cannot forgive sins. God can forego punishing sinners.

Then there will be the issue of punishing sins. If He d cannot forgive sins then sins are not a "things" that can be punished or transfered. To say otherwise is inconsistent.

Then there is the issue of guilt. If God forgives sinners by punishing another then the guilt remains (God is clearing the guilty).

You could go to regeneration or re-creation, but then your position up to that point is obsolete (what was accomplished would have been accomplished regardless).

 

The problem here is you are reading into Scripture and blending two distinct things when it suits your argument but separating them when it does not.

Yes, Penal Substitution Theory as you present it (not as @canadyjd presented it) does make God into a partial Savior. That is it's logical conclusion.

God punishment against sin is multifaceted but includes death. If Christ suffered this in our stead then we would not die (physically). But for some reason God did not accept Jesus' death as our propitiation for that part of His punishment and therefore we have to atone for that portion ourselves by suffering God's punishment of dying.

The sting of death is removed, but not as you are trying to force.

If Jesus died to remove the sting of God's punishment but we are still punished for our sins then He is not our substitute and He has not saved us from anything except the sting of punishment. We are still punished.

There is no way to get around the fact that your view makes Jesus less a Savior and man as atoning in part for his own sins.

 

We can agree on a lot because we are saved by the same Christ through the same gospel. We are brothers in that aspect.

What I am trying my best to do is distill our views to get at where we truly disagree (because we do) and discard those "disagreements" that do not actually exist.

I believe it is best that you and I examine one another's arguments and views for what they are (not what we may think them to be) and challenge one another.

That way there is a mutual understanding, each helps the other to develop a more precise argument, and the disagreement is genuine.


I do believe your position is akin to Owen's.

I agree that people on both sides will argue falsely against opposing views. Some have accused you of holding to a form of "cosmic child abuse", which demonstrates a lack of understanding on their part. Some have accused my position of not needing the cross or not dealing with sin, which demonstrates an extreme lack of understanding on their past as well.

We need to get past the fluff, past the posturing, past the obscuring, and down to the meat of the issue.

Too many just want to play games, fighting for their team rather than truth.



The Classic view also goes to the complete sovereignty of God. That is essential. It does not bind God to justice but rather views justice as an attribute of God's nature (if God decided to forgive based on eating a plumb that would be just....it wouldn't make sense to me, and I don't think that possible, but if it happened it would fit within His righteousness).

So going forward let's look at the differences.

I'll start in a new post

 

I can explain.

IF physical death is God's judgment against sin (you say it is) and IF Christ experienced physical death instead of us Then we would not physically die.

IF we do die then that "punishment" never truly existed, or Christ died needlessly.

 

@DaveXR650

One important difference is how divine justice is viewed.

The classic view considers justice to mean that God punished the wicked for their sins. The reason is that sins cannot be punished apart from the actual person who commits the sin. So the focus is on the wicked. God will not clear the wicked. There are two options - either the wicked are punished or the wicked die to sin and are made into new creations in Christ. God is just and the justifier of sinners.

Penal Substitution Theory takes a different approach. If you have read secular literature from 16th to 17th century then you probably know where I am going (a reviving movement towards crimes being considered crimes against the king, that is "kings peace", retributive in punishment).

The focus of divine justice shifts from the criminal to criminal actions committed. These must be punished not because they indicate a criminal nature, not even because (in a secular sense) of how they relate to a victim, but because they are crimes. And the crime needs to be punished in order to restore the (secularly) "kings peace" as that is what is ultimately offended.

So the focus is on criminal actions (actions against God) rather than the guilty person. As long as those actions are punished the guilty is cleared, even if the guilty completely escapes punishment. Hang the wrong man? Doesn't matter. Justice is served.

We see this when one group has a member killed by another. The victim group demands justice. The guilty group can offer one of their own to be executed even if that one is innocent, as long as the sin is punished.

Ultimately it is retributive justice vs restorative justice (a focus on sin vs a focus on the sinner). But there are areas of intersection.

 

You are right. With my view all men (the lost and saved) die as a wage of sin and Jesus died under that same wage (solidarity with us) even though He did not sin.

That is important because (under my view) God's words eternally stand true. The wages of sin is death. That does not change.

But you are wrong about this being the same problem Penal Substitution Theory has.

The reason is I do not believe God's judgment is physical death. I believe physical death is the wage of sin but God's judgment is on the wicked "on that day" (at Judgment).

Under my view it is appointed to man once to die (physical death as the wage of sin) and then the Judgment (God's divine judgment on the wicked, on the "day of wrath", the "wrath that has been stored until that day").

The problem does not exist with my view because the classic view makes a distinction between physical death and divine judgment.

 

Do you know of a passage stating that one part of God's judgment on sin is poured out on the list and the saved prior to the Day of Judgment and another part is poured out only on the wicked at Judgment?

I ask because it appears we are quickly straying from the Bible with your theory and venturing into trying to save a philosophy.


One problem is you say that death is one part of God's judgment against sin, a part that Jesus suffered, but also a part that we experience.

So Jesus may have suffered a part of God's judgment on sin instead of us but (per your view) Jesus did not die instead of us (we still suffer that part of God's judgment on sin).

Now you also have God punishing Jesus with death but NOT as our substitute. That makes God unjust, inflicting on Jesus a punishment unrelated to judging our sin (as we experience that one part of "God's appointed judgments against sin."

It also means we atone for one part of God's appointed judgement against sin by experiencing death. So Jesus stones for one part and we atone for another.

 

That is because both are not truths to be put into one doctrine (you are combining two things as one).

The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is life.

Death is produced by sin (it is the consequence of sin, what we earn, the curse). It's author is Satan, not God. We earn death by sinning as a wage.

But the gift of God is life in Christ Jesus, in whom there is no condemnation. In Him we escape the wrath to come (this is God's wrath stored up "until that day" to be poured out on the wicked at Judgment).

All men are under the curse. All earn the wages of sin, authored by Satan in the Garden. Christ submitted Himself to being made a curse for us, to "sharing our infirmity", to putting Himself under the wages of sin although He had no sin. And He suffered and died under the powers authored by Satan.

But Christ overcame the powers of sin and death through obedience. He fulfilled the righteousness of God, and He inherited the Old Covenant blessings as the Son of Man. He is true Israel, the "Second Adam", the Firstborn of many brethren.

We see this in Genesis 3.

Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.”


The separate things you are combining is the work of Satan (death as a product of sin) and the work of God (the gift of life).

Satan is the one who bruises (crushes) Christ heel.

Christ is the one who bruises (crushes) Satan's head.

Satan authors Christ's suffering and death under the wages of sin, under the curse, by the predetermined plan of God. It is not a fatal blow, for Christ crushes Satan's head, is victorious over sin and death freeing us from its bonds and removing its sting (although we die so also shall we live in Christ Jesus).

Forgiveness is based on Christ's obedience, obtained through repentance.

Then there is God's judgment of the wicked. This is not deciding if they are guilty (they are already condemned) but an exercise of judgment (passing the sentence). This is at Judgment. Those who have by faith been made new creations in Christ are not condemned. They have died to sin, they no longer have a mind set on the flesh. They are, in Christ, righteous based on His righteous (clothed in His righteousness) and are ultimately made like Him.

 

I understand what you are saying here, but I believe that you are relying a bit on presuppositions to apply a specific and narrow definition of the word.

By curse I was referring to “a cause of great harm”. Things that men do are often meant as a curse but God uses it for good. Things that men do often becomes a curse. I did not mean the word in the sense you took it (God or man uttering a curse type of thing).

That was just miscommunication, and my fault for not clarifying as the word has a very broad range of meaning. My apologies on that one.

I would clarify here as well.


Christ was not put under the wages of sin, but submitted Himself to come under the wages of sin. Yes, these were consequences that He did not earn (He is sinless). I would not say that he suffered vicariously or instead of us those wages. That is not correct.

He suffered what we suffer in order to free us from its bondage, to remove its sting. It is solidarity (unity; reconciliation of man and God in the Person of Christ Jesus).

He suffered the wages of OUR sin. This was not in our place (instead of us) but as a representative (what is called “representative substitution”) of man (think “Son of Man”).

I do agree that Christ suffered and died according to the predetermined plan of God and as an act of obedience to God. But this does not mean that it was God who was punishing Christ. When we take it that far we miss the point of the Cross entirely.

I agree and disagree (go figure). We also have to remember that we are talking about the righteousness of God made manifest apart from the Law. Too often we associate divine righteousness with the Law, either as a part of the Law or somehow eternally linked with the Law. But if this is true then God’s righteousness can never stand apart from the Law.

That said, I agree that Christ inherited the blessings of the Old Covenant through His obedience to God (His obedience even to death on the Cross). This is where Adam failed (his disobedience not to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil).

Yes, that is important. Too often in disagreements over atonement things are completely ignored (like that it was God’s pleasure to crush Him, which Scripture also states in Acts as “God’s predetermined plan”.

I have to point out that you are adding to Scripture with this statement. What does the Bible say that Christ’s obedience consisted of?


Does the Bible say “Christ shedding his blood and dying in our place and for our transgressions”? No, it does not. I am not sure that you intentionally made the addition or if you were simply typing off the top of your head.


Scripture tells us that this obedience was Christ emptying “Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death i]">[on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.


This obedience was becoming one of us, “sharing our infirmity”. Nowhere in the Bible is this obedience defined as “Christ shedding his blood and dying in our place and for our transgressions”. Instead Scripture tells us that Christ’s obedience is exactly what I have been describing over the past several threads – this unity or solidarity with man, reconciling God and mankind in the person of Christ Jesus.

On this, I can clarify.

It is true that we do not mention every single thing each time we post in a discussion. For example, you mention here that the Virgin Birth is true. But you did not mention on this thread that it was also important that Christ be born of a virgin. We simply focus on our direct arguments. So I get your point on that and agree. An omission from a post should not be considered an omission in belief or doctrine.

BUT here I have made a conscious rejection of Penal Substitution Theory. The reason is I do believe it a serious heresy. By heresy I do not mean something that excludes somebody from salvation or from being a Christian but instead a serious error and addition to God’s Word that alters what is actually written and revealed in Scripture to be true.

Do I know that Owen considered omitting Penal Substitution Theory to be a damnable heresy? Yes (I did at one time as well). But Owen also considered refraining from baptizing infants (infants of believers) as a damnable heresy. So you and I would be heretics per Owen.

That does not bother me as Owen is not my authority. And, of course, Penal Substitution has been called a heresy by many as well (many Baptists, BTW). So that is neither here nor there. We can both point to men who think the other affirms heresy. What matters is God and God’s Word. That is where I have to stand on that.