Penal Substitution Atonement (explain and discuss)

[JonC]

Oh please! Do I have to write out the whole of Isaiah 53 every time I post? Of course without the cross there is no reconciliation. That's why Paul wrote, 'For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.'

You need to write what you believed. That is the only way we can know what you believe.

For example, I believe

Jesus grew up before God like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground;
having no stately form or majesty that we would look at Him, nor an appearance that we would take pleasure in Him.

He was despised and abandoned by men,
A man of great pain and familiar with sickness; and like one from whom people hide their faces, He was despised, and we had no regard for Him.

However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore, and our pains that He carried;
Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted and struck down by God, and humiliated.

But He was pierced for our offenses, He was crushed for our wrongdoings; the punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.

All of us, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the wrongdoing of us all to fall on Him.

He was oppressed and afflicted but He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth.

By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off from the land of the living for the wrongdoing of my people, to whom the blow was due?

And His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet He was with a rich man in His death, because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

But the Lord desired to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He renders Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days,and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.

As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, for He will bear their wrongdoings.

Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the plunder with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death, and was counted with wrongdoers; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the wrongdoers.

 

[JonC]

Anyway.....6 pages in just to find out we mostly agree on the definitions of PSA. @Martin Marprelate does not like the one I gave because I have it.

@DaveXR650 does not like that Sproul, Piper, Enns, and Pierced for my Transgressions uses "humanity".

So for @DaveXR650 we will exclude Sproul, Piper, Enns, and Pierced for our Transgressions.

That leaves us with:

On the cross God treated Jesus as if He had lived our lives with all our sin, so that God could then treat us as if we lived Christ’s life of pure holiness

On the Cross God punished Jesus as if He were a sinner. He bore our sins, suffering God's wrath instead of us to satisfy the demands of His law, paying the debt we could not. God looked upon His Son as if He were guilty, standing in the place of sinners, so that He could look upon us as if we were righteous. The just died for the unjust.

The idea that Christ’s death is a sacrifice offered in payment of the penalty for our sins. It is accepted by the Father as satisfaction in place of the penalty due to us.

The doctrine where Christ, as our representative substitute, bore the penalty (punishment) for our sins on the cross, satisfying God's justice and wrath, so believers could be freed from condemnation and justified, meaning He took our place to endure what we deserved. It's an exchange: Christ suffered God's wrath in our stead, securing our salvation through His vicarious punishment, enabling God to be both just and the justifier of the ungodly.


Of these, which ones are PSA (definitions we can use)?

 

[DaveXR650]

@DaveXR650 does not like that Sproul, Piper, Enns, and Pierced for my Transgressions uses "humanity".

So for @DaveXR650 we will exclude Sproul, Piper, Enns, and Pierced for our Transgressions.

No. Those are all fine with me. The main theme of Christ bearing our sin leaves theologians, most of whom were also preachers to wax eloquent as they see fit and come up with a wide range of illustrations to help teach their people. It does not have to be expressed with mathematical precision but is the central core facet of our redemption. It's really not that difficult unless someone really is trying to obscure and confuse the issues.

 

[JonC]

No. Those are all fine with me. The main theme of Christ bearing our sin leaves theologians, most of whom were also preachers to wax eloquent as they see fit and come up with a wide range of illustrations to help teach their people. It does not have to be expressed with mathematical precision but is the central core facet of our redemption. It's really not that difficult unless someone really is trying to obscure and confuse the issues.

I would prefer to choose a definition that most accurately represents the views of PSA theorists on this board. So we can leave off the ones that use "humanity" (as you pointed out, many think it should be "elect").


IMHO doctrine should be expressed with as much precision as possible. With PSA we are already in the realm of individual inspiration as it cannot be defended by the biblical text alone.

So let's use a definition that is percise yet inclusive of others who hold that framework.

 

[JonC]

@DaveXR650

What I was saying about PSA treating sin so lightly is PSA holds that Christ paid (or suffered) the penalty for our sins instead of us in terms of God's judgment as appeasement. Sin is much greater a problem. It is a problem that cannot be appeased. God will condemn the wicked.

 

[DaveXR650]

I would prefer to choose a definition that most accurately represents the views of PSA theorists on this board. So we can leave off the ones that use "humanity" (as you pointed out, many think it should be "elect").

I'll try to see if Craig has a good definition in his book, simply because he is not a Calvinist, and I will see what G. Campbell Morgan said as he also is not a Calvinist. The only real difference as I see it is in the way they might defend penal substitution.

What I was saying about PSA treating sin so lightly is PSA holds that Christ paid (or suffered) the penalty for our sins instead of us in terms of God's judgment as appeasement. Sin is much greater a problem. It is a problem that cannot be appeased.

I don't see how Christ's suffering, with what we have revealed to us about exactly who Christ is, and how Christ's blood as shown in scripture as cleansing from sin, ransom for sin, payment for sin, propitiation for sin, and so on would not be sufficient for our sin but you have your opinion I guess.

 

[DaveXR650]

Here is G. Campbell Morgan, predecessor to Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones at Westminster Chapel in London. He is not commonly quoted nowadays but although a mentor to Martyn Lloyd Jones he was not a Calvinist.
And because of that, as is common with non-Calvinists, his theology is not as systematic but here's what I have:
He's talking about Christ on the cross at the moment he died:
"How in the depth of the darkness the mighty work was accomplished, men will never perfectly understand. Eternity cannot suffice for the unfolding of the dread mystery of the passion, but this is known, 'He bare my sins in His body upon the tree', He stood where man should have stood. The pains of hell that were man's portion, gat hold on Him , and man passes into the light of the heaven which was His by right, and which he brings to him."

Then he goes on, same page, one paragraph later and says this:
"Gazing then in astonishment at the sufferings of Christ I declare them to have been vicarious sufferings, expiatory sufferings, atoning sufferings. They were vicarious sufferings, for He stood in man's place when he suffered. The penalty he bore had no relation to the life as lived. He stood connected with all human sin and failure, and seeing that He bore it, man is delivered from it."

"They were expiatory sufferings. Through what He bore He exhausted human sin, He put it away, He made it not to be. They were atoning sufferings in that through them He has dealt with all that separated between man and God. He has now made possible the restoration of the lost fellowship, and man may henceforth live in communion with Him."

"Thus He has solved the problems first suggested. By the way of the Cross, and by that way alone, God may be just, that is, true to Himself in nature; and justify the sinner, that is place man into the position of one for whom sin is made not to be, and who is therefore clear from guilt".

 

[JonC]

I'll try to see if Craig has a good definition in his book, simply because he is not a Calvinist, and I will see what G. Campbell Morgan said as he also is not a Calvinist. The only real difference as I see it is in the way they might defend penal substitution.

I doubt any definition by a theologian will differ much, regardless of their personal beliefs. PSA is not a feeling about what may be, it is a position.

I don't see how Christ's suffering, with what we have revealed to us about exactly who Christ is, and how Christ's blood as shown in scripture as cleansing from sin, ransom for sin, payment for sin, propitiation for sin, and so on would not be sufficient for our sin but you have your opinion I guess.

Christ's blood does cleans us from all unrighteous. He did ransom us from sin and death. He is the Propitiation for the sins of the world.

But that is not what we were talking about. You are combining a lot to make your position sound more significant. That does not work. Christ's blood shed for us is why we escaoe the wrath to come.

Viewing our sins as something that can be remedied by punishment is making too light of sin. Viewing our sins as something that can be remedied by somebody ekse being punished for them is even worse.

The appeal of Calvinism for many, perhaps you, is that it is the ultimate form of easy-believism in a very simple form. It views sins as nothing significant, something that can be solved by a divine expression on punishment.

 

[DaveXR650]

I have William Lane Craig's book on the atonement in Kindle format but I could not find a specific quote to use as I haven't had the book long enough. In addition, he formats the book by responses to critics of PSA and thus his definitions, much like Owen's tend to ramble as he answers someone.

But if the Youtube I put up works, he gives a concise definition right at the point where I set the video to start so you only have to listen to 5 seconds.

 

[DaveXR650]

Christ's blood does cleans us from all unrighteous. He did ransom us from sin and death. He is the Propitiation for the sins of the world.

But that is not what we were talking about. You are combining a lot to make your position sound more significant. That does not work. Christ's blood shed for us is why we escaoe the wrath to come.

It is indeed what we are talking about. I'm not combining or adding anything. Those are direct quotes.

Viewing our sins as something that can be remedied by punishment is making too light of sin. Viewing our sins as something that can be remedied by somebody ekse being punished for them is even worse.

Ridiculous. It is a further description of what is actually happening with what you just described above, namely this:

Christ's blood shed for us is why we escaoe the wrath to come.

That's describing how he was punished for us so that we could escape the wrath to come.

The appeal of Calvinism for many, perhaps you, is that it is the ultimate form of easy-believism in a very simple form. It views sins as nothing significant, something that can be solved by a divine expression on punishment.

You claimed earlier to have read Owen's "On the Mortification of Sin" and yet you say he was a proponent of easy believism? This is preposterous although I will admit that this was asked in Romans 6:1 and Martyn Lloyd-Jones claimed that if you weren't accused of that occasionally you weren't really preaching the gospel. I have put up a couple of quotes to show non Cal views. I don't know what else to do. Looking at this makes me realize the debt we owe to Calvinists for precise theology even though I don't believe everything they say but if you want clear theology you simply have to read them.