I'm sure the Lord will have no problems correcting our faults of reading between the lines.
I think we all have some surprises coming.
I believe we have to lean not on our understanding but on every word that comes from God.
This implies that we do have an understanding. But we suffer from the human condition - we see in part.
My mistake years ago was not that my understanding was the Penal Substitution Theory but that I leaned on that understanding as if it were actually God's Word. I was serious when I said that God yanked me back from the precipice. The danger is not always one's understanding itself but that men have a tendency to be carried away by their philosophies.
In other words, people can hold the same understandings and God will make some stand while others will be carried away. The difference, IMHO, is how we hold our understandings. Do we hold thrm at arms length or are they what we lean on?
Here is a good place to argue and examine our differences. We should always reevaluate our understanding and compare them to God's Word precisely because we know that our understanding is both limited and flawed. We will not understand perfectly in this lifetime, but we can increasingly walk our understanding towards God.
A good way of putting it is a stagnant faith is a dead faith. Not only does faith influence how we live, urge us to actions, move us "from glory to glory", but we increasingly grow in God's Word.
I enjoy learning of other positions, especially how people get from the text of Scripture to their conclusions.
With this topic, it really does not make sense to me that God would transfer our dins from us to Jesus and punish them on Him. I believed it at once, but for the life of me I do not know how. I know why but not how.
In the interest of summary, the following just do not make sence to me
1. That wicked actions we do can be taken from us and put on Jesus.
2. That justice requires sins be punished apart from addressing the one who committed the sin.
3. That punishing the sins of the "old man" that will not be at Judgment is necessary
4. That the Atonement focuses on sin rather than man falling short of the glory of God
Just to name four.
An interesting journey would be to start from the beginning (Genesis) and see our differences. But I doubt either of us would have enough patience. We ain't Job.