Featured Punishment in the Atonement

But that is not our punishment. Neither is that the sum of all of the punishment for the elect. Neither is it the sum of all human punishment.

I never denied that Jesus suffered. I never denied that Jesus suffered under the Law. I never denied that the chastisement that fell upon him was for our transgression.

I am saying that Jesus did not suffer our punishment in our stead. Your reply affirms where we agree, but at the same time proves my point.

 

No. Because, as Edwards pointed out, Jesus remained holy, loved by God, and in faith anticipated deliverance. Our punishment emphasizes a hopelessness.

Jesus experiencing the second death nullifies far too much Scripture to be considered.

 

Ironically, my view has stood up for a millennia longer than yours has existed. And the Substitutionary Theory of Atonement stood for over four centuries before your view came on the scene. If anyone should be concerned about their theory being subject to recall should more people read their Bibles, it is you. And as Reformed theology moves more and more to a God centered position (with people like Piper screaming God’s glory and holiness as the object of salvation) I suspect you will see more leaving your view and refining their theology to become more biblical and less centered on man and sin.

I grant that my view of Hell (I believe that Hell is a place of everlasting punishment) dictates my position here. The punishment of Hell is emphasized over and over again as unceasing and everlasting. This is fundamental to Hell (no hope of deliverance), and absent in Christ's experience. They simply are not the same.

But I’m not confusing the location or circumstance of Hell (the Second Death) with what Hell entails as a just punishment for those who do not believe in Jesus Christ. You are minimalizing Hell by ignoring the biblical view that a substantial part of its punishment is its finality. Those cast into the outer darkness have no hope of deliverance, no hope of change, no hope of glory. God is glorified as this Judgment is executed, death and hades are cast into the lake of fire, and evil is no more. And you downgrade the holiness of Christ by claiming He experienced this state of evil, this outer darkness, and there had no hope of deliverance. His cry “why did you forsake me” is, according to your theory, the exact opposite of the same phrase in Psalm 22. Lastly, you diminish the blood of Christ shed for our sins, for our redemption, as an atonement. You reduce the experience of the Son accepting the consequence of sin (physical death) and suffering for our sins to what we would have experienced. You deny Jesus’ divinity, not outright but by definition. What you present is a Christ who either ceased to be God or a Scripture which ceased to be true. Either Jesus experienced Hell as we would have experienced Hell and Scripture is false, or Scripture is true.

 

The doctrine of Hell as presented in Scripture is everlasting. This is the punishment as well, that it does not end (no hope of deliverance).

Your logic is that Jesus experienced spiritual death, the second death, void of the spirit of God (void of life, light, truth), eternally locked in an existence in opposition to God, and eternally separated from God as an everlasting punishment….in about 3 hours. And I am saying that this logic does not work.

Even if Jesus could experience an everlasting punishment in a few hours, and even if Jesus could remain God and remain holy while at the same time being ungodly and unholy, experiencing sin itself, the problem still remains. Scripture presents Jesus as having faith in God, even on the cross suffering in obedience, knowing that God is faithful and would deliver him. The only way that Jesus could experience the hopelessness of the second death even for a moment would be if he abandoned the faith that he held in the Father (which would be a sin).

Unless you are willing to say that Jesus suffered the punishment of those in Hell, experienced the state of no hope for deliverance, was in such a state of despair that he abandoned all faith in God and the promises of God to deliver his Holy One, then the punishment is simply not the same. If you are willing, then Jesus is a sinner who could not have atoned for our sins. And no matter of logic and twisting can make it otherwise.

 

He was forsaken. He was not left alone, but left to suffer. Read Psalm 22 as if it foretold of Christ's experience. The entire Psalm is one of faith and trust in God.

Scripture says God is faithful. God does not abandon the righteous. And God does not lie. That is the basis of my interpretation, not logic. Now you show me a verse that says the Holy Spirit departed from Jesus, and that Jesus was punished with God's hatred. Show me a verse that states Jesus experienced the everlasting despair with no hope of God's deliverance that in a few hours on the cross. Show me where Jesus abandoned faith in God's faithfulness to his promises.

Here is how our basis is different.

I believe that when Jesus cried “My God, My God, why have Your forsaken Me?” that the phrase could not mean several things. It could not diminish His deity. Jesus does not cease being God. The Cross did not divide His human nature from His divine person or destroy the Trinity (God never departed from the man Jesus in this way). Nor does it detach Him from the Holy Spirit. The Son lacks the comforts of the Spirit, but He does not lose the holiness of the Spirit. Jesus knew and trusted in the faithfulness of the Father, by the Spirit, to deliver him from the grave.

Jesus is instead expressing the agony of unanswered supplication (Ps. 22:1-2).

Psalm 22:1 My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.

You take the first part of the first verse as proof that God abandoned Jesus on the Cross. But if you would make it through even this one complete verse, much less the entire passage, you would see your error. This forsakenness is defined: “Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.”

It is not that the Spirit of God has left Jesus (which is impossible), but that the Father is far from his deliverance.

Psalm 22:4-5In You our fathers trusted; They trusted and You delivered them.To You they cried out and were delivered; In You they trusted and were not disappointed.

This is an appeal to the faithfulness of God. To God the fathers cried out, and He delivered them.

Psalm 22:24 For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard.

John 10:30 "I and the Father are one."

These words are not a cry of despair, for this would have been sin. Even here, in the darkest hour the world has known, as Jesus cried out to God and saw no sign of deliverance, there was still the assurance that God was holding him. What was true of Abraham was even truer of Jesus: “in hope against hope he believed”. Jesus did not abandon faith in the promises or deliverance of the Father, for this would be a sin. And Jesus’ eyes are too pure to look on evil (Habakkuk 1:13).

And these passages, not human logic, form the basis of my view. God the Father could not have punished Jesus with the punishment of the second death because God is immutable, there is no change in Him. He could not be made to partake of evil. And this is what would have occurred had the Trinity remained intact while Jesus lost hope in God’s deliverance, lost unity with the Holy Spirit, and became evil (cast from God into “outer darkness”).

Your position is based only on your logic and the first half of one verse prophesying the Cross (or the last half of one verse, ignoring Jesus as fulfilling that passage).