Featured The Classic View (just a summary)

I stand by what I said. What you have stated about Jesus did not require Him to come to earth as a human, teach and speak to Israel, or die on the cross. Your view requires nothing be done to appease God's justice.

In your view all we see is God the Father allowing God the Son to be killed for no reason whatsoever.

Jon, the wages of sin, suffered for us, is Jesus substituting for us. It seems you want penal substitution without calling it by that name.

 

If you believe that the work of Christ on the cross provides the sole basis for our redemption...

Yes. Of course I agree. But that does not entail substitution. If I am dead, and Jesus dies so that I can rise with him, then Jesus is the sole reason I am saved, but it is simply false to say that he died "in my place." It is just wrong. We should not say wrong things, especially about the precious truths of our salvation.

The word and the concept of "substitution" distracts from key truths of Scripture and leads to very damaging, soul risking ideas. Cheap grace, the prosperity gospel, easy believism, abstract intellectualism, people putting their hope in this life rather than the resurrection. I have seen it all.

When Jesus says "take up your cross and follow me" and "he who would save his life will lose it" those are central commands and teachings from our Lord and Savior. I am not going to use words like "substitute" that distract from those central commands just because they are popularly used by my favorite tribe or teachers. A substitute would not say those things.

A substitute would say "Lay down your cross and stay put, for I go to be crucified in your place." I have heard sermons preached to that exact effect. "You can hang on to your life because I will lose mine" is what a substitute would say.

Here is a rule: if your theology leads you to expect the words of Scripture to be different than what they are, then your theology is wrong. "Substitution" leads us to expect drastically different words from Scripture out of the mouths of Jesus and Paul than what we actually get. Therefore, substitution language is wrong.

 

Why are you dead? And how is your own sin dealt with? For a true understanding you have to look at that. It's not that you aren't saved if you don't look into it. But if you are purposefully and actively seeking to downplay that it could indicate that you are not saved. That's why I do not put early church fathers into the same camp as the modernists who are deliberately trying to lead people away from confronting their own sinfulness in the message of the gospel. If you are not in that group please don't think I doubt your salvation no matter how you express those truths. But if you are then you are an enemy of the gospel. If you don't want to use the word substitution then stay with "ransom" or "satisfaction". But what we are calling "penal substitution" as explained by the Reformers and the post reformed preachers is the most accurate description we have come up with for Christ's work on our behalf.

 

That is a perfect example. I didn't think anyone else had ever heard of that.

 

Oh yes! Which is why I get so frustrated with the page after page of word meaning discussion. This goes much deeper. I think "ransom" is very close but you would get into another discussion of what does it mean and to whom was it paid. All the other things, recapitulation, Christ as Victor, even moral influence are taught by the same Reformers who insist on penal substitution. And we are entering very holy ground when we start talking about the actual meaning of Jesus shedding his own blood. We dare not risk speaking irreverently or flippantly in a debate. For example, and I can use this because as far as I know everyone on here had repudiated it, but calling this "cosmic child abuse" may be the highest form of blasphemy one could do.

 

...don't you think it odd that it was Jews and not Romans that were convicted of the crime? The Romans were tools, used.

 

'That generation' of Jews was NOT God's chosen people.

 

Why are you dead? And how is your own sin dealt with?

I am dead because of my own sin. My sin will be finally destroyed in my flesh at my physical death (which is a punishment for my sin, see Genesis 3). This is when sin will be "condemned in the flesh" (Romans 8:3), and I will be "set free from the body of this death" (Romans 7:24), for "he who has died is freed from sin" (Romans 6:7). The mechanism of my salvation involves my death; it must, or I will be trapped in my sinful flesh forever, which would be hell.

But this physical death is also a death I die with Christ. I am "co-crucified with Christ." I am "buried with him through baptism into death." I drink the cup that Jesus drinks and I am baptized with his baptism (Mark 10:39). I am under the same sentence of condemnation, but whereas I am under it justly, Jesus is under it unjustly (Luke 23). Jesus' death therefore merits that justice reverse his unjust death, hence his resurrection. Divine justice is satisfied in the resurrection as the reversal of Jesus' unjust death. And because I die with him, I also will rise with him as a new creation.

In his death, Jesus also pays my debt of obedience. My sins (disobedience) are a lack (debt) of obedience, and they contributed to putting Jesus to death. But Jesus voluntarily suffered my sins against himself out of obedience to the Father.

If you don't want to use the word substitution then stay with "ransom" or "satisfaction". But what we are calling "penal substitution" as explained by the Reformers and the post reformed preachers is the most accurate description we have come up with for Christ's work on our behalf.

Why do you and the reformers think that the words of Scripture are insufficient? Why are "redemption" and "ransom" and "restitution" and "resurrection" not good enough? Redemption means payment of a price to free someone from bondage.

Maybe you are adding words to Scripture because you are also adding concepts to Scripture that are not there, and in fact distract from the central truths that are there.

"Substitution" does nothing to add to the words "redemption" "ransom" "restitution" "mediation" "resurrection" "justification" "propitiation" and in fact distracts, eliminates, or contradicts central truths regarding the mechanism of our salvation, ie "he who will save his life will lose it."

 

'That generation' of Jews was the 'seed of the Serpent' that bruised the 'seed of the Woman'. John 8:44

 

He did and he also bore our sins in his own body on the cross. It was out of obedience to the Father, but it was also accomplishing our redemption. This aspect is just as "scriptural" as the idea of a reversal of an unjust death. Penal substitution deals with the scriptures that show God's wrath against sin as well as the cosmic aspects of our redemption. And if you are going to insist on a cosmic justice that demands things happen for it's sake then why would it be difficult to accept the fact that the same cosmic justice demands that God be just as well as the justifier of sinners.

Yes, adding concepts to scripture would be wrong. But all the words we have in our native languages are going to be our attempts a expressing concepts. If Christ bore my sin in his own body on the cross, and it was necessary because of God's will that that be done for my redemption, and the same event is describes as the just for the unjust, then I have done no wrong by using the English word "substitution". By the way, I notice that you use the word "propitiation". I am glad because most of those who oppose penal substitution attack that word first. In fact, as a side note, does anyone know of any theologian who is actually against penal substitution who allows propitiation to stand without wanting to change it to "expiation"?