Justin Martyr and Friends - Penal Substitution Theory?

[Yeshua1]

Your whole argument comes down to claiming that Christ did not receive the exact punishment that we would if we stand in judgement at the last day. You then proceed to drop "exact" and argue he did not receive punishment at all, as he was not subject to God's wrath but it was his righteousness, his sinlessness that satisfied God. So it is a step by step repudiation of penal atonement as well as a step by step repudiation of a strictly "substitutionary" atonement as you have emptied the term "substitutionary" of any penal position to be in the place of.

However, simply because it is not the "exact" punishment does not mean it was not sufficient punishment and thus still a "penal" satisfaction as proven in my previous post with Isaiah 53:10-11. The Sufficiency of God's wrath in the form of crucifixion and broken fellowship during that three hour period must be measured with regard to who he is as a person versus who we are. Unlike us, he is not merely man but is God the Son. God the Son cannot suffer death of any kind, but the man or human nature can and did. IF you can't see that distinction between his humanity and divinity we just need to drop this whole coversation as it is hopeless. So to deny obvious and immense VALUE between the Son of God taking the wrath of God and sinners who have no positive value in God's sight is ridiculous. Standing before Nicodemus he claimed to be both in heaven and on earth at one and the same time. It should be obvious that his humanity was not in heaven but on earth and the only aspect of his nature that could be omnipresent is his divinity. Again, to deny such a clear distinction is made and must be made is rediculous as it is obvious. The fact that he is God gives him a much greater value than every sinner born and hence, the cross can be sufficient satisfaction due to the value of the Person being the object of judicial wrath. Thus justice would include the differences between who He is and who we are and what would be required to justly satisfy God's wrath against sin and sinners. It is one thing to crucify all the justly condemned sons of Adam but quite another thing to crucify the King of kings, the Creator with regard to the enormity of value one has over the other. Perfect justice would have to take into consideration that enormous difference.

If you reject that! Fine! But your rejection does not deny it is an obvious truth to those who have no hatchet to grind and no doctrine to defend.

Quote all the Catholics and Reformed Catholics you want but tradition has no value in my eyes whatsoever. To claim that secular historical sources are a complete revelation of every day and every group in history may be something you embrace but not I.

In order to have the father accepted Jesus in our stead, as the Sin Bearer, Jesus would have to have kept perfectly the Law as demanded by God, as Jon C agrees with, and yet also MUST have endured and taken the full brunt of the wrath of God towards sins, which as Jesus forsaken by God while upon the Cross.

 

[Yeshua1]

JONC
The perfect law keeping cannot be said to be absent from the scripture;
In fact....there is no gospel if this is not true, this is at the heart of the gospel itself... consider these portions....

Gal4.
4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Rom10
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

The Law demands that the soul who sins must die, and cursed is he who God hangs upon the Tree/Cross, so Jesus was indeed afflicted/smitten of God for our sake, taking wrath of God in our place!

 

[Iconoclast]

The Law demands that the soul who sins must die, and cursed is he who God hangs upon the Tree/Cross, so Jesus was indeed afflicted/smitten of God for our sake, taking wrath of God in our place!

isa42
21 The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable.
In experiencing the wrath .....He paid for our law breaking...He was a law keeper....

38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.

 

[JonC]

JONC
The perfect law keeping cannot be said to be absent from the scripture;
In fact....there is no gospel if this is not true, this is at the heart of the gospel itself... consider these portions....

Gal4.
4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Rom10
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

Lawkeeping itself cannot be said to be absent from Scripture. Neither can the fact that Jesus was sinless and the fulfillment of the Law. So I agree with you to some extent, Brother. That said, what was manifest in Christ is the righteous of God apart from the Law. My objection is towards those who view the New Covenant as being wrought through the Law rather than the Old Covenant being a witness to the New.

I'm not accusing you of this view, but there have been comments made that view righteousness as though it is Christ's perfect Lawkeeping attributed to us and our sin attributed to Him in such a way that He experiences God's punishment towards us and thereby effects forgiveness. What I am pointing out is that this is absent - to the extent it is present in PSA - in Christian theology until the time of the Reformation.

 

[Yeshua1]

Lawkeeping itself cannot be said to be absent from Scripture. Neither can the fact that Jesus was sinless and the fulfillment of the Law. So I agree with you to some extent, Brother. That said, what was manifest in Christ is the righteous of God apart from the Law. My objection is towards those who view the New Covenant as being wrought through the Law rather than the Old Covenant being a witness to the New.

I'm not accusing you of this view, but there have been comments made that view righteousness as though it is Christ's perfect Lawkeeping attributed to us and our sin attributed to Him in such a way that He experiences God's punishment towards us and thereby effects forgiveness. What I am pointing out is that this is absent - to the extent it is present in PSA - in Christian theology until the time of the Reformation.

And the majority of us here are saying to you that Calvin did NOT come out of nowhere with this, he did not invent it, as it was held by Jesus and the Apostles themselves!

 

[JonC]

And the majority of us here are saying to you that Calvin did NOT come out of nowhere with this, he did not invent it,

I agree. He was a lawyer by trade, reforming an already existing Catholic view of sin.

as it was held by Jesus and the Apostles themselves!

You do realize that until very recently no one would have suggested PSA as a theory of such antiquity, and even now most scholars deny the idea. History simply proves otherwise. And again, I reject your appeal to divine special revelation apart from Scripture revealing the mind of Christ and the Apostles.

 

[Yeshua1]

I agree. He was a lawyer by trade, reforming an already existing Catholic view of sin.

You do realize that until very recently no one would have suggested PSA as a theory of such antiquity, and even now most scholars deny the idea. History simply proves otherwise. And again, I reject your appeal to divine special revelation apart from Scripture revealing the mind of Christ and the Apostles.

Jesus saw Himself in the light of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, and Pauline entire justification was rooted intot he OT, correct?

 

[JonC]

Jesus saw Himself in the light of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, and Pauline entire justification was rooted intot he OT, correct?

Yes, the suffering servant passages were about Christ (He even told His disciples He would suffer at the hands of the elders, chief priests and scribes. No, Paul's justification is rooted in Christ, of Whom the OT bore witness.

 

[Yeshua1]

Yes, the suffering servant passages were about Christ (He even told His disciples He would suffer at the hands of the elders, chief priests and scribes. No, Paul's justification is rooted in Christ, of Whom the OT bore witness.

Yes, the suffering servant passages were about Christ (He even told His disciples He would suffer at the hands of the elders, chief priests and scribes. No, Paul's justification is rooted in Christ, of Whom the OT bore witness.

Martin Luther agreed with Calvin, and us!
"But now, if God’s wrath is to be taken away from me and I am to obtain grace and forgiveness, some one must merit this; for God cannot be a friend of sin nor gracious to it, nor can he remit the punishment and wrath, unless payment and satisfaction be made. Now, no one, not even an angel of heaven, could make restitution for the infinite and irreparable injury and appease the eternal wrath of God which we had merited by our sins; except that eternal person, the Son of God himself, and he could do it only by taking our place, assuming our sins, and answering for them asthough he himself were guilty of them. This our dear Lord and only Saviour and Mediator before God, Jesus Christ, did for us by his blood and death, in which he became a sacrifice for us; and with his purity, innocence, and righteousness, which was divine and eternal, he outweighed all sin and wrath he was compelled to bear on our account; yea, he entirely engulfed and swallowed it up, and his merit is so great that God is now satisfied and says, “If he wills thereby to save, then there will be a salvation. (Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 2, p. 344)

"He has snatched us, poor lost creatures, from the jaws of hell, won us, made us free, and restored us to the Father’s favor in grace. Christ suffered, died, and was buried that he might make satisfaction for me and pay for what I owed, not with silver and gold, but with his own precious blood." (Book of Concord, ed. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1959) 414.)

“This is that mystery which is rich in divine grace to sinners: wherein by a wonderful exchange our sins are no longer ours butChrist’s, and the righteousness of Christ not Christ’s but ours. He has emptied himself of his righteousness that he mightclothe us with it and fill us with it; and he has taken our evils upon himself that he might deliver us from them.” “Learn Christ and him crucified. Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say, ‘Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, but I am thy sin. Thou hast taken upon thyself what is mine and hast given to me what is thine. Thou hast taken upon thyself what thou wast not and hast given to me what I was not.'” Martin Luther, quoted in J. I. Packer and Mark Dever, In My Place Condemned He Stood (Wheaton, 2008), page 85, footnote 31.

"I began to understand that 'righteousness of God' ...to refer to a passive righteousness by which the merciful God justifies us by faith...this immediately made me feel feel as if I was born again, a though I had entered through open gates into paradise itself. From that moment the whole face of Scripture appeared to me in a different light...and now where I had once hated that phrase the phrase 'the righteousness of God' so much I began to love and extol it as the sweetest of words"(Luthers Werke, Wiemar Ed. 54.185.12)
"But faith (which we all must have, if we wish to go to the sacrament worthily) is a firm trust, that Christ, the Son of God, stands in our place and has taken all our sins upon Faith His shoulders, that He is the eternal satisfaction for our sin and reconciles us with God the Father." (THE SIXTH SERMON FRIDAY AFTER INVOCAVIT. Volume 2, Works.)

 

[JonC]

Martin Luther agreed with Calvin, and us!
"But now, if God’s wrath is to be taken away from me and I am to obtain grace and forgiveness, some one must merit this; for God cannot be a friend of sin nor gracious to it, nor can he remit the punishment and wrath, unless payment and satisfaction be made. Now, no one, not even an angel of heaven, could make restitution for the infinite and irreparable injury and appease the eternal wrath of God which we had merited by our sins; except that eternal person, the Son of God himself, and he could do it only by taking our place, assuming our sins, and answering for them asthough he himself were guilty of them. This our dear Lord and only Saviour and Mediator before God, Jesus Christ, did for us by his blood and death, in which he became a sacrifice for us; and with his purity, innocence, and righteousness, which was divine and eternal, he outweighed all sin and wrath he was compelled to bear on our account; yea, he entirely engulfed and swallowed it up, and his merit is so great that God is now satisfied and says, “If he wills thereby to save, then there will be a salvation. (Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 2, p. 344)

"He has snatched us, poor lost creatures, from the jaws of hell, won us, made us free, and restored us to the Father’s favor in grace. Christ suffered, died, and was buried that he might make satisfaction for me and pay for what I owed, not with silver and gold, but with his own precious blood." (Book of Concord, ed. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1959) 414.)

“This is that mystery which is rich in divine grace to sinners: wherein by a wonderful exchange our sins are no longer ours butChrist’s, and the righteousness of Christ not Christ’s but ours. He has emptied himself of his righteousness that he mightclothe us with it and fill us with it; and he has taken our evils upon himself that he might deliver us from them.” “Learn Christ and him crucified. Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say, ‘Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, but I am thy sin. Thou hast taken upon thyself what is mine and hast given to me what is thine. Thou hast taken upon thyself what thou wast not and hast given to me what I was not.'” Martin Luther, quoted in J. I. Packer and Mark Dever, In My Place Condemned He Stood (Wheaton, 2008), page 85, footnote 31.

"I began to understand that 'righteousness of God' ...to refer to a passive righteousness by which the merciful God justifies us by faith...this immediately made me feel feel as if I was born again, a though I had entered through open gates into paradise itself. From that moment the whole face of Scripture appeared to me in a different light...and now where I had once hated that phrase the phrase 'the righteousness of God' so much I began to love and extol it as the sweetest of words"(Luthers Werke, Wiemar Ed. 54.185.12)
"But faith (which we all must have, if we wish to go to the sacrament worthily) is a firm trust, that Christ, the Son of God, stands in our place and has taken all our sins upon Faith His shoulders, that He is the eternal satisfaction for our sin and reconciles us with God the Father." (THE SIXTH SERMON FRIDAY AFTER INVOCAVIT. Volume 2, Works.)

You are ignoring or missing the context of Calvin compared to that of Luther. Yes, both are substitutionary satisfying the demands against us. I agree both are substitutionary. If you can not see the difference, however, between Calvin, Luther, and Martyr then I strongly suggest formal study. Your lack of discernment when it comes to history causes me to worry about your discernment when it comes to Scripture.

What you are looking at, brother, is what these people have in common. What I am asking you to consider is what they had different. For example, where John Calvin viewed Christ's atoning work as substitutionary he did so against the sins of individuals; Justin Martyr viewed the atonement corporately, in terms of humanity; Luther looked at it individually but where Calvin provided a context of retributive justice Luther looked to it as a satisfaction by virtue of Christ's merit outweighing the sin and wrath against us.

Only a few weeks ago you even rejected Luther's view in favor of Calvin's. Do you now not even understand the differences here?????

 

[Martin Marprelate]

"But now, if God’s wrath is to be taken away from me and I am to obtain grace and forgiveness, some one must merit this; for God cannot be a friend of sin nor gracious to it, nor can he remit the punishment and wrath, unless payment and satisfaction be made. Now, no one, not even an angel of heaven, could make restitution for the infinite and irreparable injury and appease the eternal wrath of God which we had merited by our sins; except that eternal person, the Son of God himself, and he could do it only by taking our place, assuming our sins, and answering for them asthough he himself were guilty of them. This our dear Lord and only Saviour and Mediator before God, Jesus Christ, did for us by his blood and death, in which he became a sacrifice for us; and with his purity, innocence, and righteousness, which was divine and eternal, he outweighed all sin and wrath he was compelled to bear on our account; yea, he entirely engulfed and swallowed it up, and his merit is so great that God is now satisfied and says, “If he wills thereby to save, then there will be a salvation. (Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 2, p. 344)

That's a great quote! Thanks for digging it out!

 

[JonC]

That's a great quote! Thanks for digging it out!

Yes, it is a great quote. I remember going through the differences between the theories of Atonement when I was in seminary. The reason I mentioned Luther was not that I am Lutheran when it comes to the Atonement (I am not) but that he presents a classic view of the Satisfaction Theory with Christ bearing our sins as if they were His own, His righteousness outweighing our sin and wrath.

I agree that both Calvin and Luther taught a Substitution Atonement. I think this is very obvious when we look at their sermons. BUT I honestly can't believe that you and @Yeshua1 are unable to discern the differences in their teachings - the differences between what many have called Penal Substitution Theory (what Calvin taught) and what many refer to as Substitution or Satisfaction Theory (the already existing view that Luther taught).

If you can't discern a difference then we can't discuss the difference. I don't hold this against you, but I see no other way of putting it. I think you would do well to look at the differences between what these godly men taught when it comes to this topic - not to change your mind about what you believe but so that you can see the distinctions that were of importance within this debate only a few centuries ago.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Yes, it is a great quote. I remember going through the differences between the theories of Atonement when I was in seminary.

It might be a good idea for you to ask yourself if either what you were taught in seminary was wrong, or if you failed to understand it properly. Stop talking about Calvin-- no one is doing so except you-- and read Y1's Luther quote again.

Now, no one, not even an angel of heaven, could make restitution for the infinite and irreparable injury and appease the eternal wrath of God which we had merited by our sins; except that eternal person, the Son of God himself, and he could do it only by taking our place, assuming our sins, and answering for them as though he himself were guilty of them.

That is absolutely clear, pure Penal Substitution. Everyone on the board knows it. You are making a fool of yourself in trying to deny these things.

 

[Iconoclast]

JonC,
Hello JonC

Lawkeeping itself cannot be said to be absent from Scripture. Neither can the fact that Jesus was sinless and the fulfillment of the Law. So I agree with you to some extent, Brother.

So far so good

That said, what was manifest in Christ is the righteous of God apart from the Law.

We know that God is only pure and righteous as that is who He is as God.
I would suggest that Jesus in acting as our mediator ,lived out perfectly as the perfect Image bearer a law keeping in time that we failed to do and thus fall short of the righteousness of God.
True substitution would not be well served if we were just to view as spectators a perfect display of law keeping.
In other words...He does what we could not...on our behalf....He had nothing to prove.

My objection is towards those who view the New Covenant as being wrought through the Law rather than the Old Covenant being a witness to the New.

Law keeping was central to the Old Covenant so much so that the new covenant addresses this as a central feature of it;
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

I'm not accusing you of this view, but there have been comments made that view righteousness as though it is Christ's perfect Lawkeeping attributed to us and our sin attributed to Him in such a way that He experiences God's punishment towards us and thereby effects forgiveness.

I do think that is the exchange spoken of in part...think of the symbolism of the scapegoat....the sprinkling of the water of separation...

What I am pointing out is that this is absent - to the extent it is present in PSA - in Christian theology until the time of the Reformation.

Maybe so...i am not so strong on the historical timelines... I look at them but they do not seem to stick in my head...someone else can help with this.

 

[JonC]

It might be a good idea for you to ask yourself if either what you were taught in seminary was wrong, or if you failed to understand it properly. Stop talking about Calvin-- no one is doing so except you-- and read Y1's Luther quote again.

Now, no one, not even an angel of heaven, could make restitution for the infinite and irreparable injury and appease the eternal wrath of God which we had merited by our sins; except that eternal person, the Son of God himself, and he could do it only by taking our place, assuming our sins, and answering for them as though he himself were guilty of them.

That is absolutely clear, pure Penal Substitution. Everyone on the board knows it. You are making a fool of yourself in trying to deny these things.

I do not deny, as J.I. Packer claims, that the elements of PSA exist throughout history. I am not talking about that. I am not talking about the category you are calling PSA and if you want to include these beliefs into the category that is fine with me. I didn't mean to confuse things by using "PSA".

What I am talking about is not the beliefs that these people agreed upon. What I am talking about is how they are different. While I use the categories we used in seminary, the differences in these people's doctrine are evident in their own writings.

All I am trying to do is look at these differences - how Martyr viewed the atonement corporately and applied to humanity, how Luther saw it as Christ outweighing sin and wrath, how Calvin viewed it within the context of retributive justice (Christ satisfying the demands God's justice held against sin by taking our punishment in our stead). I agree all of these men have much in common (what you call PSA) because they all based their doctrine in Scripture. But they also had differences.

We are running out of time, @Martin Marprelate, and this is unfortunate because we never were able to get to the topic of the OP. I think you may find it interesting and a good study to read the works of these godly men and explore where they departed from each other. Perhaps one day we can even do it on this forum.

 

[JonC]

JonC,
Hello JonC


So far so good


We know that God is only pure and righteous as that is who He is as God.
I would suggest that Jesus in acting as our mediator ,lived out perfectly as the perfect Image bearer a law keeping in time that we failed to do and thus fall short of the righteousness of God.
True substitution would not be well served if we were just to view as spectators a perfect display of law keeping.
In other words...He does what we could not...on our behalf....He had nothing to prove.



Law keeping was central to the Old Covenant so much so that the new covenant addresses this as a central feature of it;
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:


I do think that is the exchange spoken of in part...think of the symbolism of the scapegoat....the sprinkling of the water of separation...


Maybe so...i am not so strong on the historical timelines... I look at them but they do not seem to stick in my head...someone else can help with this.

I also love exploring the themes of the Atonement throughout Scripture. Unlike some here, I do believe that Christ's work cannot be summarized without losing something. We can't point to such and such a truth and say it is the primary focus, or that something else is secondary or merely a footnote in God's plan of salvation. If we were to explain fully the atonement we would begin by reading all four gospels and then continue through Revelation.

So I appreciate not only the broad statements of those like Martyr but also the more refined positions that we saw much later (the Christus Victor position of the Anabaptists, the Satisfaction view of Luther, the Penal Substitution of Calvin). These all bring something to the table, something to look at and consider. Why did these people lean towards one theme or another? What truths were they seeing and how did these truths relate to their experiences? How did Christians, throughout history, contextualize the gospel? These are the questions we can ask in order to learn from the past.

What we see is that God's hand is in the doctrine. God said that He will write His law in our hearts, but there is never the promise that God would reveal via special revelation how to build an accurate context as we try to systematically develop theological doctrine. The truth that Luther held is no less than the truth Calvin held, or Martyr, or even Origen. Truth is truth. Yet all four of those I mentioned had differences in their belief and articulation of Christ's work on the Cross.

My purpose here was to look at these differences. I wish this were possible, but unfortunately @Martin Marprelate and @Yeshua1 cannot get past how they are similar. So we are pages and pages into a thread that can't gain ground. What Martin and Y1 offer is correct, there is a commonality in their positions. And if they want to call it PSA, or Christus Victor, or Substitution....whatever they choose, I suppose....that's fine. I am not trying to get tangled up in definitions. I am trying to discuss the differences in what these people believed.

Maybe I should have started a thread about how they were similar instead of looking at their differences. It would have been useless but probably received better with some of the revisionists we have here.

 

[Squire Robertsson]

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[Squire Robertsson]

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