Justin Martyr and Friends - Penal Substitution Theory?

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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?????

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.