Featured What is Penal Substitution Atonement

The Standard Encyclopedia of Philosopy defines "retributive justice" as follows:

(1) that those who commit certain kinds of wrongful acts, paradigmatically serious crimes, morally deserve to suffer a proportionate punishment; (2) that it is intrinsically morally good—good without reference to any other goods that might arise—if some legitimate punisher gives them the punishment they deserve; and (3) that it is morally impermissible intentionally to punish the innocent or to inflict disproportionately large punishments on wrongdoer.

All three of these definitions simply mean JUST or LEGALLY or MORALLY FAIR consequences fitting the crime. That is one of the primary purposes in giving the Law by God to establish JUST BALANCES and FAIR TREATMENT. With regard to sin the ONLY legally defined JUST consequence is death. Thus, any atonement must satisfy God's JUSTICE against sin. The death of Christ is necessary to satisfy God's justice against sin. However, it is unjust, unfair to require death for the innocent UNLESS they are acting as a LEGAL SUBSTITUTION as prescribed UNDER LAW as seen in the sacrificial system.

Your view of the atonement denies the legal necessity of Christ's death to satisfy the JUSTICE of God against sin.

 

Talk about smoke screen! This post is nothing but a smoke screen. Christ's death is the necessary LEGAL satisfaction against sin! There is no basis for a LEGAL satisfaction against sin IN the person of Christ unless he is acting as a LEGAL substitute for sinners as prescribed under law in the sacrificial system.

 

First, no one, and I mean no one is claiming Christ came to restore the law. Neither did he come to do away or end the law as you claimed either. To "fulifll' means to "COMPLETE" it in the sense of HONORING IT by bringing it to its prophetic completion. Is the law contrary to the promises of God? Paul says "God forbid."

Second, you have been given a passage that explicitly states that God was please to inflict him as a sin offering.

Third, is there a passage that describes God's justice as just justice? That is the meaning of "retributive justice" simply JUST or FAIR consequences or what someone deserves according to Law. You are being totally deceptive by the use of "retributive justice" as that term simply means "JUST" or "FAIR" or morally or legally deserving. What in the world do you think the Law of God is about????? JUST TREATMENT - JUST CONSEQUENCES!

 

Yes, and all who hold to the truth believe that God cannot be Just without punishing sin according to His own just standard as revealed in Scripture. If you no longer believe this you are in serious trouble.

 

Your view is self-contradictory and absurd and any objective reader can easily see that. You are confusing human law with God's law in your definition of "retributive" as though God has a double standard, and has an alternative just option with regard to sin. God is not the author of confusion but your view makes him exactly that. You have him in opposition to His law as though the Lawgiver can violate His own law and thus violate his own righteous standards. The law is legal and to claim that I am interpreting the law in a legal sense is double talk that is absurd as the law can only be interpreted in a legal sense because it is law by nature. You simply don't understand or recognize that the law is nothing more than "love" put in precepts whereas the same Law with regard to God's nature is nothing more than the same law put in principle.

 

"Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief:"

You obviously don't understand God's Law. God's punishment for breaking his law is about JUSTICE not "punishment for punishment sake". God's punishment under law is not about "on the punishment" but on the HOLINESS of God as revealed in His Law. Your view of God's law is warped. Of course divine justice is not on restoration or redemption as that is not the function of God's Law. However, atonement has no meaning apart from satisfying divine justice as an atonement that does not satisfy divine justice against law is no atonement at all.

 

Wrong again! God IS just and that is why his law IS just and therefore divine justice must be retributive or else it is not just or fair. It is the PERSON OF GOD that is offended by sin and it is HIS PERSON that must be satisfied by justice. God not only hates sinners but hates sin so it is not an either or as you imagine.

Let me see if I can follow your train of thought with regard to my position. My position is that the LAW requires justice against sin to be administered in order to satisfy the holiness of God and the lawful way for that to be administered is by the DEATH of the person and so His death is necessitated by my view and yet you image the death of the substitute for my sins is not required by my view???? LOL!!!

I know it must pain you to realize your view denies the necessity of Christ's death to provide satisfaction but that is just the way it is.

 

I don't intend to post on this thread again. I will start a new one in due course. However, I want to make an observation about your debating practice.

A while ago, you introduced a definition of Penal Substitution which no one else had ever mentioned, and demanded that your opponents deny it. Now I observe that you have introduced a new phrase, "Retributive Justice," which again, no one but you (to the best of my knowledge) has ever used, and are accusing us of believing in it.

You are entitled, I suppose, to use whatever form of dialectic you choose. For myself, I would sooner be cross-examined on what I have written than on what I have not.

 

Jesus was the Sin bearer, who took upon Himself the full wrath of God in the stead/place of those sinners that He died for. His death appeased the direct wrath of God, and when Jesus suffered upon the Cross, He endured for that time a separation from the father, felt forsaken, endured and experienced that as all lost sinners will, for how can He die for sinners and not experience as they would if he did not die in their place then?
The soul that sins, it must die, and the father treated Jesus upon the Cross as he will all lost sinners...
You seem to be denying that jesus took active wrath from God, and that he actually experienced what sinners will in judgement for sins.

 

You are making no sense at all! I have placed before you Isaiah 53:6-11 and I underscored two passages to prove that it is God which is inflicting the suffering on Christ "for our sins." I pointed out the words "it pleased him" which you deny.

Your view and definition of "retributive justice" is foreign not only to the scripture but foreign to my view. It exists only between your ears. There is no such thing as atonement where there is no satisfaction of DIVINE JUSTICE AGAINST SIN in behalf of sinners. The Law of God is HOLY and JUST as God is HOLY and JUST and that is the only kind or type of standard provided by the Law of God. Any other kind is purely from your imagination.