The wages of sin is death.
Yes, and we die. Ergo, we still pay the penalty. It is not substitution.
Physical death, spiritual seperation [sic] from God, and final judgement into hell...
1)
Physical Death.
See above re the wages of sin.
2)
Spiritual Separation from God.
Jesus did not undergo this at any time. To assert such is rank heresy denying His divinity. Therefore, this is not a "substitution" situation either.
3)
Final judgment into hell
Jesus is the Judge at the final judgment, not the judged. He says, "Depart from me." Not "Ok, I'm going there now so the rest of you can stay here." This is not a substitution, either.
It's not, "He ever
dieth to make intercession for us", but "He ever
liveth to make intercession for us." He is not made the Mediator of the New Testament by reason of an unending
death, but by the power of an unending
life. So again: not substitution at all.
The fact of the matter is that
substitution has nothing to do with the atonement. Any "substitutionary atonement" theory (penal or otherwise) is just flat wrong.
Its not just that he died in our place, but that he took upon Himself the full wrath of God that has to be satsified [sic] to ender [sic] justification to us!
Show me in the Scripture where the wrath of God has to be satisfied to render justification to us. Or where God's wrath has to be poured out once kindled. You won't find it there. In fact, you will find that God is quick to have compassion, and He doesn't need blood or death to turn His wrath away -- only humility and obedience.
The only question that comes up is this: Since the vast majority of people pre-Christ were
not humble or obedient, how can God be righteous, having overlooked their sin for so long (winked at it), and not pouring out His wrath on them, choosing patience and forbearance instead?
If all this "wrath of God fully satisfied and propitiated on Jesus" business were actually Scriptural (it's not), there still remains this question: If He took upon Himself the full wrath of God, then why is there yet wrath to come? If the wrath of God was fully satisfied, where is the wrath of the Great Day of the Lord? Why is there any
judgment into hell if God was satiated? Did not Christ die for
all? Or did He only die for
some? Is He the propitiation for our sins only? No, but also for the whole world. So His death and suffering can't be a "substitute" for the final judgment into Hell, because if it is then no one will go to Hell at all, but the Scripture clearly says some will.
We do not suffer as he did though, as none of ours would be to pay off the din debt owed to God for breaking His law!
Scripture does not say anything about the breaking of the law being a debt to God. Rather, the one who is under the Law is a debtor
to the Law, to keep the whole thing.
And even if it is a debt
to God, God is fully capable of declaring a debt forgiven of His own initiative, without some appeasement of pain and suffering. The servant simply had to ask his lord, "Have mercy on me, and I will pay you everything." And the lord forgave the debt. No pain, no suffering, no sacrifice.
The one who said, "Lord, have mercy on me a sinner" -- he went home justified! Quite simple. Again, no pain, no suffering, no sacrifice. Just humility and asking.
They who say that Jesus paid our debt incurred by breaking the Law, and that by this payment we are justified, because (they assume) justification is a matter of keeping the Law perfectly, and He did that for us who could not -- those who say such things are Judaizers, because they are still saying that our justification is a matter of the Law being kept; they are quibbling over who did the keeping, but it's still justification by the works of the Law! To those who say such things Christ is become of no effect; they are fallen from grace.
Rather, by the grace of the Holy Spirit operating in our hearts through faith, we die with Him, for we are baptized into His death, and our bodies are made (with His) dead to the law. This death is still because of sin, and we must still undergo it! (Again we see that this is not substitution at all!)
We all have to die because of sin: however, there is only one place we can die
and receive life in our death: that is, on the cross of Christ in the body of Christ the giver of life, because His blood flowing out from that body -- our body, that is, united with His -- carries away our sins with it.
Thus the sting of death, sin, is removed. The strength of sin, which is the Law, is ended not because "it hits Him and not us", but because in dying with Him we die to the Law, and the law of sin which works in our members dies as well, and we receive His Spirit by which we mortify and put to death the flesh with its law of sin warring it its members, if we walk in Him.
So His death is
not a substitution for our own, but the place where our own becomes filled with His life (for the life of the flesh is in the blood), our sins washing away with/in His blood. His cross and suffering and death becomes a place of refuge for us to hide ourselves:
Isaiah said:
In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious,
["the branch of the LORD" is a title for Jesus -- the Nazarine]
and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely
for them that are escaped of Israel.
And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion,
and he that remaineth in Jerusalem,
shall be called holy [i.e. saints, from the Latin 'sanctus', meaning 'holy']
even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem:
When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion,
and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof
by the spirit of judgment,
and by the spirit of burning.
And the LORD will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion,
and upon her assemblies [i.e. her churches]
a cloud and smoke by day,
and the shining of a flaming fire by night:
for upon all the glory shall be a defence.
And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat,
and for a place of refuge,
and for a covert from storm and from rain.
