Featured Penal Substitution Gospel

This a quote from Penal Substitution in the Early Church

"The crown jewel of penal substitution in the early church is found in the Epistle to Diognetus."

He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors! (Epistle to Diognetus, 9.2–5).

I read through this quote a few times and I do not see PSA in these words.

 

I really do believe you when you say that. But you have to be deliberately ignoring what is there.
Penal Substitution Theory: The belief that in his death Christ suffered the penalty for our breaking of the law and died as a substitute in our place (penal, involving penalty or legal punishment, from the Lat, poena, punishment, penalty, compensation).
That's from "The Atonement, The Person and Work of Christ". by T.F. Torrance

I could draw it out but I urge anyone to look above and jot down the phrases that match the definitions on a piece of paper and you will see for yourself the parallels. This is especially amazing in that the Diognetus citation was in no way trying to meet any definition because it had not been introduced yet as "penal substitution".

And, don't let those on here who deliberately try to confuse you whenever the term "ransom" is used to make it seem like this is opposed to penal substitution. The ransom is a payment and when it is a payment to God, as Owen puts it in his larger catechism, it falls under penal substitution. Owen says what was paid was His blood and it was to God, not to Satan.
You can disregard that if you also want to take the position that Owen was against penal substitution.

The simple fact is, any time you have the concept of Christ dying for our sins, or shedding his blood for our sins, you have met the definitional requirement for "substitution". If you have this occurring to meet some idea of what God requires for the concept of justice as a result of us sinning or as specifically breaking the law and thus incurring a penalty you have "penal". That is why you have so many claims that this is in the writings of the early church fathers, the Bible, and of course Reformed theologians, Calvinist and Arminian.