Featured Debt vs. Penal Substitution

Disagree.

If you ask the average Christian "what is the teaching of Penal Substitution?"

The answer will probably be "HUH?".

 

The human mind shrinks from the wrath of God in all its ramifications.

 

Both - Payment of debt and punishment.

The whole of the crucifixion speaks of severe punishment, ridicule, contempt and humiliation for violations of law both Roman and Jewish.

Beatings, spat upon, 40 lashes, crown of thorns, nailed "to a tree". A death of agony.

Both are elements of the Propitiation. Full atonement.

 

Relax.

 

According to James White, Modalism is the default belief of the majority of American Christians, but that does not make the Doctrine of the Trinity a 'theory.' Nor is the Doctrine of Penal Substitution relegated to a theory because not everybody agrees with it.

 

Not all these theories are wrong by any means. Christ did pay a ransom (Not to Satan, but to God's justice), Christ did rise as Victor from the grave and the cross should melt our hearts and cause us to repent. But none of them are sufficient unless there is also an understanding that Christ was also receiving on our behalf the rightful penalty for our sins, 'That He might be just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus.'

So it is that one can find some of the FCFs talking about ransom theory at one moment and Penal Substitution the next.

The cross is 'foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling-block to the Jews.' The latter is brought out very clearly in Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho the Jew.'

Trypho recognizes that the Christ must suffer, but he cannot bring himself to believe that He would be crucified, since the OT law teaches that anyone crucified is under God's curse (Deut. 21:23):

'Then Trypho remarked, "Be assured that all our nation waits for Christ; and we admit that all the Scriptures which you have quoted refer to Him. Moreover I do admit that the name of Jesus, by which the son of [Nun] was called, has inclined me very strongly to adopt this view. But whether Christ should be so shamefully crucified, this we are in doubt about. For whoever is crucified is said in the law to be accursed, so that I am exceedingly incredulous on this point. It is quite clear, indeed, that the Scriptures announce that Christ had to suffer; but we wish to learn if you can prove to us whether it was by the suffering cursed in the law' [Sect. 89]

Justin begins by assuring Trypho that Christ was not cursed for His own sins: 'Though a curse lies in the law against persons that are crucified, yet no curse rests on the Christ of God, by whom all that have committed things worthy of a curse are saved' [sect. 94]

'For the whole human race will be found to be under a curse. For it is written in the law of Moses, "Cursed is everyone that coninueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them." And no one has accurately done all, nor will you venture to deny this........But if those who are under the law appear to be under a curse for not having observed all the requirements, how much more shall all the nations appear to be under a curse who practise idolatry, who seduce youths, and commit other crimes' [sect 95]

Then Justin reaches the crux of his argument, where he explains that the reason why our Lord was crucified is that the curse which rested on us for our sin was transferred to Him.

'If then, the Father of all wished His Christ for the whole human family to take upon Him the curses of all, knowing that after He had been crucified and was dead, He would raise Him up, why do you argue about Him, who submitted to suffer these things according to the Father's will, as if He were accursed, and do not rather bewail yourselves?' [sect 95, emphases added]

This amounts to a clear statement of penal substitution. Although Christ was innocent, He bore the curse due to sinful humanity, enduring in His death the punishment due to us. Several others of the ECFs explain this doctrine on the basis of the 'curse' vocabulary of Gal. 3:13 and Deut, 21:23, including Eusebius of Caesarea ('Proof of the Gospel, bk.10, ch.1) and Hilary of Poitiers (Homily on Psalm 53 [actually 53], sect. 13).

 

There can be no reasonable dispute that Christ acted as a legal representative for his people (Rom.5:12-21) as the "Second Adam." In that legal representative position he stood in our place before the Law of God with regard to both the positive and negative demands of the law and there can be no reasonable dispute that violation of the law clearly demands penal wrath that is eternal and substantive in its anguish against those who commit sins. Our salvation is obtained both by, and in the bodily Person of Jesus Christ. His body was prepared for substitutionary atonement (Heb.10) and that atonement was not vacation in Florida but upon an instrument of penalization - the cross. Both Rome and the Jews looked at the cross as a penal instrument against law breakers. God's wrath was poured out upon Christ in the form of legal consequences not with regard to what he personally deserved but with regard to those he represented legally. The same is true with the positive side of the Law. In His on person, in his own body he satisfied all the righteous demands of the Law as a representative person in behalf of his people. His righteousness must be first imputed before it can be imparted and imputation is based wholly upon what Christ did in his own body in our behalf (imputed) and that is the legal basis for what the Spirit of Christ can do in our own body in his behalf (imparted)

 

The idea that there is merely a sin "debt" as opposed to a sin "penalty" is false. Sin is explicitly stated to be a violation or transgression of the Law and death is the legal consequence for violating law and is thus the earned penalty. A mere look at the Levitical laws and the court processes in Israel proves this clearly. What you DESERVE legally is what you EARN legally and that is the PENALTY of the law and it is this manner death is a wage.

 

I put no stock in any Roman Catholic theologians in any era between the 4th and 16th centuries. Just heretics in my opinion. I do not defend my view by traditions ("Church Father's" - meaning Roman Catholic Fathers). Many do on this forum and that is fine - they can have it, have it all.

Nor will I fall into the trap that my position must be tied to the church fathers simply because I use their non-Biblical terms. They coined the terms because they saw those principles in scripture and any believer can glean the same principles in scripture and use those terms or comparable terms or just Biblical terms to defend the same truths. It does not take too much sense to come up with the word "substitution" for Greek terms that can mean "in behalf of " or "for." It does not take too much sense to see a lamb being used in the place of people with regard to a sin offering as their sins are confessed over its head but the lamb dies instead of the people. These things cry out for terms like "penal" and "subsitutionary".

Christ came as a LEGAL representative to satisfy the demands of God's holiness which is given expression (but not its source) through the moral law (Rom. 3:21-22) but finds its ultimate reality in the Person and work of Christ as a substitutionary penal atonement in behalf His people. He is "the lamb" in the sense of taking the place on the divine altar of God's justice in behalf of his people and that act is a penal act as there is suffering as the direct legal consequence in direct connection with the Law of God.

 

God has been dishonored because the very moral nature of God has been offended and that offence occurs in attitudes and acts of disobedience to the appointed divine expression of his moral nature - the law of God as sin is the "transgression of the LAW" of God. The "dishonor" is in relationship to the LAW of God as the divinely appointed expression of His glory and therefore sin is "coming short of the GLORY of God." Man was made "upright" or in keeping with a moral standard and that moral standard is "the glory of God" which again, the divinely appointed manifestation is the Law of God.

 

BTW the Reformers saw that if they attempted to argue for the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone without works on the basis of tradition (church fathers) they could not adequately defend that Biblical truth and that is why they coined the phrase "sola scriptura" as they refused to defend the Bible by tradition. I refuse to enter into Roman Catholic Traditions to support or defend Biblical truths.