Featured 2 Corinthians 5:21 doesn't support penal substitution (continued)

You say "Again, I refer you to Psalms 37:23-25. Perhaps you would like to tell us to what historical incident Psalm 44 refers?"

No idea what you are trying to point out with Psalm 37. Psalm 44 has no definitive historical setting.

My point remains. Language of harsh treatment from God such as "crushing" or "striking" etc is not sufficient evidence of just punishment upon the guilty. It is also used of innocent people suffering unjustly.

Job is another big example. Job uses language of harsh treatment from God all over the place, and yet we know he is a righteous man who is not suffering recompense for a specific sin. We know that Satan is tormenting him (within God's sovereign permission).

Job 6
For the arrows of the Almighty are within me,
Their poison my spirit drinks;
The terrors of God are arrayed against me.

Now you may believe that God is unjust, but I don't. No other person beside the Lord Jesus has ever been sinless; therefore the remarkable thing is that God spares anyone. But the Lord Jesus was and is sinless. Therefore for God to kill Christ would indeed be unjust, except that Christ is federally united to His people

God is not unjust. God sovereignly ordains events in which injustices and sins take place, without himself being unjust.

The Bible consistently uses language of God "crushing" and "striking" people who He has ordained to suffer unjustly.

God struck Christ by ordaining that he would be unjustly murdered by sinful human beings.

No. The Bible wants us to see the death of our Lord as absolutely and totally unlike the death of Abel.

Haha this is a complete misreading of the text. The point is that Jesus, just like Abel, was unjustly murdered and his blood was shed. But Jesus' blood speaks infinitely better than Abel's, because Jesus' blood is infinitely more pure, Jesus being perfectly righteous and divine. Jesus' blood cries out for justice just like Abel's, but cries out infinitely better. Again, all the emphasis is on his blood being pure and spotless.

If you really think this, and it is not just a pathetic attempt at a rhetorical flourish, then you simply have no conception as to what Penal Substitution is.

Uh...this is exactly what penal substitution teaches, and it is in some of its foundational texts - that Jesus' blood is the guilty blood of sinners shed by the just punishment of God. Jesus' death is like Goliath's death on penal substitution - it is the deserved execution of someone who has defied God and offended Him. Take a look at Martin Luther from his commentary to the Galatians.

When He took the sins of the whole world upon Himself, Christ was no longer an innocent person. He was a sinner burdened with the sins of a Paul who was a blasphemer; burdened with the sins of a Peter who denied Christ; burdened with the sins of a David who committed adultery and murder, and gave the heathen occasion to laugh at the Lord. In short, Christ was charged with the sins of all men, that He should pay for them with His own blood. The curse struck Him. The Law found Him among sinners. He was not only in the company of sinners. He had gone so far as to invest Himself with the flesh and blood of sinners. So the Law judged and hanged Him for a sinner.

I am told that it is preposterous and wicked to call the Son of God a cursed sinner. I answer: If you deny that He is a condemned sinner, you are forced to deny that Christ died. It is not less preposterous to say, the Son of God died, than to say, the Son of God was a sinner.

Whatever sins I, you, all of us have committed or shall commit, they are Christ's sins as if He had committed them Himself. Our sins have to be Christ's sins or we shall perish forever.

You are right that there is vast inconsistency in the view here - penal substitution wants Jesus' death to be unjust when it suits them, and just when it suits them, and to be able to bounce back and forth between opposite meanings (Jesus is sinless but guilty, his death is just but also unjust, the blood shed is that of guilty sinners but also of the spotless lamb) whenever they need to in order to make the mechanism work.

Paying a price can be penal (eg. Exodus 22:1). Moreover, our sins are often described as debts (Matthew 6:12, NKJV). If the Lord Jesus pays the price for our iniquities, which He does, that is penal substitution:

Exodus 22:1 describes restitution, which can accomplish the priorities of retribution in the case of stolen goods. But in most offenses, especially grievous offenses, it doesn't work like that.

And the point that penal substitution tries to make is the opposite: that retribution accomplishes restitution, that is, that punishing my daughter's murderer will somehow bring my daughter back to me - which does not work at all.

Yes, Jesus pays our debts. His obedience pays for our disobedience. Sin is a lack (debt) of obedience, and Jesus pays it by his obedience in life and death. The currency paid is obedience, not punishment.

He suffers; we don't.

No, that is completely against the Christian gospel. The Lord Jesus says "Take up your cross and follow me." "He who does not take up his cross cannot be my disciple."

See attached chart.

Isaiah 53:6b. 'And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.' 1 Peter 2:24. 'He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree.'

Right. We killed him. Our sins contributed to Jesus' death. In God's divine jurisdiction of history, He charges us, by our sins, with the death of Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:19 speaks of God not imputing our sins to us, so it seems reasonable to suppose that 2 Corinthians 5:21 refers to our sins, and the guilt of them, being imputed to Him

Our sins are not imputed to us because we are a new creation. The old has gone, and the new has come. We died with Christ. One died for all, therefore all died. There is now no condemnation, because we have died with Christ, and he who has died is freed from sin.

Sin is not some sort of gas to be passed around. "Well gee, if my sin is not imputed to me, then it has to go somewhere, right?" Like it is some sort of liquid that if it is not in this bucket then it has to be in a different bucket.

The larger picture is that the Holy Spirit applies the promise, incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ to believers. The "imputation" of Jesus' righteousness is a part of that, but not the fullness of what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit does not perform the symmetrical action of applying our sinful lives to Jesus. That would make no sense, and in fact destroy his divinity and his sacrifice on our behalf. So don't go there.

I will do future posts on the passover and the offering of Isaac. You are in for not just one treat, but two.