Penal Substitution and the Trinity

On one of the other threads I was accused of ["Damaging the Doctrine of the Trinity"] (as if I could!) by suggesting that Christ was the recipient of the Father's wrath and more especially by suggesting that the Son was 'forsaken' by the Father. There have been amazing textual gymnastics to make Mark 15:34 say the opposite of what it so plainly does.

In the early Church, the reality that there is one God in three Persons (not 'members') was safeguarded by speaking of a single divine 'substance' shared by Father, Son and Spirit. This substance is simply what God is, the thing that makes Father, Son and Spirit divine without implying three deities.

The Lord Jesus tells us that He and His father mutually indwell each other (John 14:11; c.f. also John 10:38; 14:10, 20). The technical term for this is perichoresis. This implies both union and distinction between Father and Son. One of the many problems with polytheism is the idea that different deities may make different demands of people and compete with one another as we see in Homer and Hesiod. Within the Trinity this is avoided, not because they fortuitously happen to agree on most things, but because they must agree, for they are one God. The idea therefore that on the cross the Father inflicts a punishment upon the Son that He is unwilling to bear, or that the Son draws from the Father a forgiveness that He is unwilling to bestow is a non-starter.

But there is also a distinction between the Persons. Without it, it would be ridiculous to talk of a distinct Father, Son and Spirit at all, and it would be impossible for them to relate to each other as separate Persons as the Scripture teaches they do. But if Son, Father and Spirit are all fully Divine and equal in their possession of all the Divine attributes (e.g. holiness, wisdom, truth etc.), what distinguishes them? The answer is their asymmetric in their relationship with each other. The Father is in a relationship of Fatherhood to the Son and the Son is in a relationship of Sonship to the Father. The Son is everything the Father is , save that He is not the Father, the Spirit is not the Son and so forth.

We can surely agree that God's actions reflect His nature. He does what is holy because He is holy; what is god because He is good. Therefore God's nature will be reflected in the actions of each Person of the Trinity and both unity and distinction between the Persons will be reflected in what God does.

So the actions of the Persons reflect their unity. In John 14:10-11, the Lord Jesus teaches that His works are at the same time His Father's works and this is grounded in the Perichoretic Union. In John 5:19, He testifies that 'Whatever He [the Father] does, the Son also does in like manner.' The fundamental unity in their actions mirrors the fundamental union of their Persons.

On the other hand, the actions of the Persons reflect their distinctions. The Bible teaches that the Father sent the Son, and that the Son willingly obeyed the Father (John 10:15-18; Philippians 2:5-9). Father and Son send the Spirit, but the Spirit does not send Father or Son. The work of the Trinity in salvation is outlined in Ephesians 1:3-14. The Three work in perfect harmony to effect their single goal, but their roles are quite different.

In order to represent this unity and distinction between the Persons, Augustine taught that the Father's actions are not without the Son and the Son's actions not without the Father. That seems to work rather well. Augustine affirmed that while the Persons of the Trinity do not perform the same action in the same way, nevertheless they do not act independently of one another-- their respective contributions to any given activity are inseparable.

So it is not meaningless to say that God the Son propitiated God the Father. The same Person is not the subject and object of the verb. Nor does the fact that the Father exacts a punishment borne by the Son mean that they are divided or act independently. Their relationship is asymmetric, but they are mutually and inseparably engaged upon two aspects of the same action with one purpose-- the salvation of guilty sinners while satisfying the justice of the Triune God.

Later, I will expand on how the temporary forsaking of the Son by the Father is not incompatible with the doctrine of the Trinity.

 

I hasten to correct an error. The Spirit 'Drove [Jesus] into the wilderness' (Mark 1:12) in the days of His flesh. However, the Spirit does not send the Father anywhere so the argument of asymmetry holds good. The Son takes flesh; the Father and Spirit do not.

 

I now want to look at the Lord Jesus being 'forsaken' on the cross.
First of all I want to repeat what I said above. We must never imagine that God the father imposed upon the Son any burden that He was unwilling to bear. On the contrary, He declares, "I delight to do Your will, O My God...." (Psalm 40:8; Hebrews 10:7; c.f. John 4:34; 6:38). Nor should we imagine that on the cross, the Son extracted from the Father a mercy that He was unwilling to give (John 3:16; Romans 5:8). On the contrary, on the cross, 'Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed' (Psalm 85:10).

I want now to consider the various references to the Lord Jesus drinking a cup. In Mark 10:38, He asks James and John, "Are you able to drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" Then in Gethsamene, 'deeply distressed and troubled' Mark 14:33), He cries out to the Father, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will but as You will" (Matthew 26:39, 42 etc.), and then in John 18:11, "Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?" It is clear that this cup is something horrific which the Father requires Him to drink. He knows all about it, has willingly (see above) agreed to drink it, but as the cup approaches, He is filled with dread and horror at the anticipation of it. On an night when it was cold enough for a fire to be kindled in the courtyard of the high priest's house (Luke 22:55), the Lord Jesus sweats copiously (Luke 22:44)-- the psychosomatic response of a human to impending trauma.

So what is this cup which the Lord Jesus must drink? The O.T. tells us; it is a cup of judgement and wrath against the wicked. 'For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is fully mixed, and He pours it out; surely its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth drain down and drink' (Psalm 75:8). 'For thus says the LORD GOD of Israel to me, "Take this wine cup from My hand and cause all the nations, to whom I send you to drink it. And they will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them........"' (Jeremiah 25:15-32). As one reads on it becomes clear that this judgement is for the whole world to drink. See also Isaiah 51:17; Ezekiel 23:32-34; Habakkuk 2:16).

So why should the Lord Jesus drink this cup? Mark 10:45 tells us, He came, 'To give His life as a ransom for many;' to drink the cup destined for sinners in their place. "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed {lit. 'handed over.' Gk. paradidomai) to the chief priests and to the scribes; and the will condemn Him to death and deliver [Gk. paradidomai] Him to the Gentiles [lit. 'nations.' Gk. ethnoi], and they will mock Him and scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.'

Now compare with Psalm 106:40-41. 'Therefore the wrath of the LORD was kindled against His people, so that He abhorred His own inheritance. And He gave them [LXX paradidomai] into the hand of the Gentiles [or 'nations'] and those who hated them ruled over them.' So for our Lord Jesus to be handed over to the nations is tantamount to being delivered over to God's wrath. Christ gave His life as a ransom for many, being handed over to God's wrath in the place of many. The ransom is, of course, not money, but a life being given up in death, and pain being suffered in the place of others who would otherwise suffer the pains of hell.

[For much of the post so far I have drawn on Pierced for our Transgressions by Jeffrey, Ovey and Sach (IVP, 2007. ISBN 978-1-84474-178-6)]

So now we can look at our Lord's cry of dereliction. 'Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the sixth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" Which is translated, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"' (Mark 15:33-34).

We will first look at the supernatural darkness that came over the land. There are several places in the O.T. where darkness denotes God's wrath and judgement, especially connected to the 'day of the Lord,' e.g. Joel 2:31; Amos 5:18-20; Zephaniah 1:14-15 and particularly Isaiah 13:9-11 (quoted in Mark 13:24-25). so the darkness indicates the righteous anger of God, but against whom? The Lord Jesus Himself tells us that it is against Himself. 'Then Jesus said to them, "All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written, 'I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered'"' (Mark 14:27). The quotation is from Zechariah 13:7 which makes it perfectly clear that God Himself is the One who will strike the Shepherd. The Lord Jesus was made sin, and God's righteous anger against sin was poured out upon Him instead of us, with His full knowledge and consent.

[To be continued]

 

We now come to the dereliction of Christ. As I have said elsewhere, I cannot accept that "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me" can possibly be read as "My God, My God, You haven't forsaken Me." Nor can I accept that David, who is described as a prophet in Acts 2:30, was actually a false prophet in that he made an error in Psalm 22:1 (c.f. Deuteronomy 18:20-22).

Nor is it a case of 'God forsaking God' any more than God prays to God (e.g. John 17). The Son prays to the Father, although the Father does not pray to the Son, and on the cross, the Father temporarily forsakes the Son. To be sure, we need to be careful here. We must not suggest that the Father was not present at Calvary for the very good reason that He is Omni-present. '"Do I not fill heaven and earth?" Declares the LORD' (Jeremiah 23:23-24; c.f. Psalm 139:7-12). Rather it means that the Son, who had enjoyed the constant and closest possible relationship with His Father, now lacked completely any sense of His presence until the sun appeared once more and He cried, "It is finished!" The Greek word tetelestai can also mean, 'It is paid' (c.f. Matthew 17:14) or 'it is accomplished (c.f. Luke 9:31). In fact, our Lord's cry meant all those things. The ransom was paid in full, reconciliation between Man and God was accomplished, and His suffering was about to be ended.

This forsaking of Christ is an integral part of the atonement. Christ 'is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him.' His is a complete salvation. I shall not be condemned for my sins because Christ was made sin for me. I shall not suffer the pains of hell because Christ has suffered them on my behalf on the cross. I shall not be shut out from the presence of God (2 Thessalonians 1:9) because Christ was shut out from the felt presence of His Father on my behalf.

 

As a Man, Christ could be tempted; as God the Son, He could not give way to temptation. That does not make the temptation any less. You can heat pure gold up to 1,000 degrees and you will get no dross from it; but that does not make the heat any lower.

Not for a second. '....Saying, "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will but Yours be done"' (Luke 22:42).

 

So why was Peter a 'stumbling-block' to our Lord (Matthew 16:23, NKJV margin)? Because in Peter's voice He heard the voice of the tempter; "You don't really have to go through all that! There must be another way." If Christ was not tempted, then Mark 1:13 etc. is false.

You need to make up your mind if He was tempted or not, but I agree that there was no possibility of Him yielding.

Lol. Hebrews 3:18. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are being tempted.'

Christ was Man as well as God. did you not read what I wrote above? It is clear that this cup is something horrific which the Father requires Him to drink. He knows all about it, has willingly (see above) agreed to drink it, but as the cup approaches, He is filled with dread and horror at the anticipation of it. On an night when it was cold enough for a fire to be kindled in the courtyard of the high priest's house (Luke 22:55), the Lord Jesus sweats copiously (Luke 22:44)-- the psychosomatic response of a human to impending trauma.

So? That doesn't stop the anticipation of what was coming being horrific.

Yes, I agree with that.

John 12:27. "Now My heart is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour? But for this purose I came to this hour. father glorify Your Name!" He was tested in all things, just as we are. He knows what it is to contemplate horror and shrink from it, yet press on.

Have a super day, and God bless you too!

 

The two words are synonyms.

My friend, you absolutely have to do so. Otherwise you end up with syllogisms like these:
God does not get tired (Isaiah 40:28).
Christ got tired (Mark 4:38)
Therefore Christ is not God.

God is omnipresent (Psalm 139:7-12).
Christ was not omnipresent (John 11:14-15).
Therefore Christ was not God.

The Lord Jesus Christ was man as if He were not God (Mark 4:38. He was also God as if He were not man (Mark 4:39).

The Father can forsake the Son temporarily, which is what happened. Read through my posts again.

 

If the Lord Jesus was reluctant in some way to submit Himself to the wrath of the Father against sin, then you would be right. But that is not the case; they were not opposed to each other, but in perfect harmony; the Son sweetly submitted Himself to the Father's will. 'Being in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God as something to be held to His advantage, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.'

Is it possible for God to be a bondservant to God? For God to humble Himself before God? For God to be obedient to God even to the point of death? For God to die? Absolutely not! But God the Son did not hold on to His equality with the Father; God the Son became a bondservant to the Father (John 6:38); God the Son humbled Himself before the Father (John 5:30), and was obedient to the Father even to the point of death (John 10:18). And the Son could die.

I know you like a good hymn:

'Tis mystery all; the Immortal dies.
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the first-born seraph tries
To sound the depth of love divine.
'Tis mercy all! Let earth adore!
Let angel minds enquire no more.

There are some things that the Scripture tells us which are hard to understand. Among these is the fact that the Father forsook the Son for a period when He was on the cross. The Scripture tells us very clearly that it was so; let us believe it and praise God for it!