Featured What is Penal Substitution Atonement

So would I. But they only confirmed penal and substitutionary aspects if Christ's work (Christ bearing our sins, our iniquity laid on Him, ect.). None affirm God punishing Jesus with the punishment the lost will experience at Judgment.

Are you a disciple of biblicist/Martin, of your own traditions, or of Christ on this issue? If of Christ, then why can't you provide even one passage proving your view?

Would it surprise you that I can find many specifically proving mine?

 

I see. So now you are changing your story.

At one time you believed that for 3 hours on the cross God withdrew His presence, that Jesus suffered what the lost will suffer in Hell (this separation). You stated that Jesus suffered what the lost will suffer at Judgment (which is this separation from God, called in Scripture the "second death" as death and Hades is cast into the Lake of Fire, eternally separated from God).

If you need for me to provide a link I can.

 

I have an idea. Let's play a game. The Scripture game.

You ask me to provide a passage proving what I believe to be true and I'll ask you to provide a passage proving what you to be true.

I'll start, just to kick things off, by providing my own question and asking you one. Then you answer and ask me.

Q. JonC, you insist that sin and wrath was satisfied not on the grounds of man's punishment but on merit of Christ's own blood. Is there a verse that affirms your idea that we were redeemed through the value or worth of the blood of Christ?

A. Yes, JonC, there are several. One of my favorite places here is Hebrews 10. But 1 Peter 1:18-19 proves that we were "purchased with the precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ". Another passage speaking of the merit or worth of the blood of Christ is Hebrews 9:14: "how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?".

Q: @Yeshua1 , I know that you like to add to this passage the idea that God punished Jesus with the punishment the lost will receive at Judgment for their sins. What passage of Scripture states that the punishment Jesus endured, that "stroke we deserved" but He didn't, was God punishing Jesus with the punishment we would have endured at Judgment?

 

You are mistaken. I am arguing the doctrine and not the person.

My charge is that PSA (a PSA that presents God as punishing Jesus with the punishment we would have received at Judgment in order to satisfy the demands of divine justice) is too humanistic in that at the center is man's punishment and not Christ. Where I've argued that Christ alone, and his blood shed (God giving of Himself) itself satisfies the Law by outweighing the demands of sin and wrath (to borrow from Luther) against the view that Christ's death alone is not enough unless it was due to God punishing Him with the punishment that awaits the lost at Judgment.

And I say the charge stands. This type of PSA is centered on man's sin and not on Christ. It is humanistic, elevating man above God. You may disagree, and I can accept that. But please hold off on the ad hominem charge simply because you disagree with my conclusion. If you want to prove me wrong, why don't you just do so via Scripture? NOT giving me penal and substitution (where we both agree) but show me one verse stating that God punished Jesus with the punishment the lost will receive at Judgment (with Hell) for 3 hours on the Cross. Up to the challenge?

 

Yes, death is inherit. I agree. And just as we will all die because of sin, so also did Christ suffer death. I'm not arguing otherwise. It is through his death, his blood, that we are purchased. I know Jesus died. I know He bore our sins in the flesh, in His body, that He put on sinful flesh, and that He died so that we would have life. I'm arguing against the heresy God punished Jesus with the punishment the lost would have received at Judgment. That's the part that originated outside of Scripture (the part that is a product of what you do with those truths already mentioned, not the truths themselves).

 

Here is your confusion when looking at my view. You don't seem to understand we were under the curse of sin, and we were in need of a Redeemer. Jesus became a curse for us, He took the stroke that should have been ours, paid the penalty of sin (which is death) and was raised again on the third day.

Our disagreement is whether or not God is bound by the Law or if, being the One making the covenant, Christ's death both spells the end of the Old Covenant and the beginning of the New. Scripture affirms this. You don't.

 

This is the source of our disagreement. For you the suffering and death Christ, God laying on Him our iniquity, is not enough unless God punishes Jesus with our punishment. That's the only way you can understand the Law being fulfilled - man's punishment. But even Scripture affirms that the Old Covenant would end with the death of Christ (the Covenant-maker) and the New begin (with His blood). You hold a man-centered atonement, plain and simple.

Ask yourself - when does Scripture (not your opinion) say a covenant ends?

I'm not denying penal substitution. I'm denying that God punished Jesus with the punishment reserved for the lost at Judgment. It's that neo-Atonement that I've been rejecting.

For all of your study you have still missed how Scripture describes covenants, and how this description applies both to the Old Covenant (and the New Covenant) as well as the Cross.

Perhaps your studies were too clouded by your own presuppositions? Yes, that's probably it.

Your heresy (since we're tossing around the term....without offense) is that you believe the Law was salvific in nature and therefore Christ alone is an insufficient sacrifice except God punish Him with the punishment due us individually at Judgment. You look to a man-centered atonement where Christ is merely a vehicle satisfying the demands of the Law rather than the Law Giver ending the Old Covenant and beginning a New.

You are far closer to Rome than Jerusalem.

 

No, because what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk in accordance with the Spirit and not the flesh. Through faith we establish the Law.

You see, the Law was added because of transgressions until Christ came. It is not contrary to God’s promises, but there was never a law given which was able to impart life (if so then righteousness would have been based on law). What has happened, the purpose of the law, was to close mankind under sin so that the promise by faith in Christ might be given to those who believe. Paul affirms this in Romans 11:32 – “For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.”

If the Law was intended to impart life, if even one law was given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would have been based on law. But there was no such law given. You have misunderstood Scripture. The Law is descriptive of man’s sin, not prescriptive of salvation.

The Law is not salvific in nature because no law was ever given that was able to impart life.

 

A part of the problem here is that I believe in a doctrine called “sola scriptura”. What I mean here is that while people may have different opinions and views of a doctrine the criteria about what is orthodox and what is heresy falls to Scripture alone. I also mean that I believe we should strive to draw on Scripture as much as possible when forming our opinions. We should form our theology from Scripture rather than use our theology to interpret God’s Word.

All three of you, @Martin Marprelate, @Yeshua1, and @The Biblicist , say that you affirm sola scriptura yet when it comes to the atonement any opinion in contract to your opinion or theory is heresy. You determine Martin Luther’s conclusion it was Christ’s blood by merit (rather than our punishment endured) that satisfied the demands against us (the position I have been arguing) as heresy not because it disagrees with Scripture but because it contradicts your theory. You determine Martyr’s teaching that Christ became a curse not in God’s eyes but in the estimation of the Jews and died for the human race as a whole as heresy not because it contradicts Scripture but because it disagrees with your theological system.

You deny what you claim by your interaction here. The evidence is in your inability to provide a passage proving your position (not penal substitution but your version of PSA as God punishes Jesus with the punishment reserved for the lost at Judgment).

 

No, I understand completely. The Law lacked the ability to impart life to mankind. It served as a "negative", to shut up all of mankind in sin. That is both its purpose and the extent of what it is able to do.

You can say that the Law reflects God's righteousness, but it was never salvfic. It shows us that we need salvation (if we did not fall short of God's righteousness then we would not need saving....the Law is not saving in nature).

And, while I've never heard the saying about granny sucking eggs, those were not my teachings but Scripture that were educating her in the fine art of egg sucking.