I would agree with the scriptures cited and used by both he Biblist and Martin on this issue!
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What is Penal Substitution Atonement
- Thread starter JonC
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So would I. But they only confirmed penal and substitutionary aspects if Christ's work (Christ bearing our sins, our iniquity laid on Him, ect.). None affirm God punishing Jesus with the punishment the lost will experience at Judgment.
Are you a disciple of biblicist/Martin, of your own traditions, or of Christ on this issue? If of Christ, then why can't you provide even one passage proving your view?
Would it surprise you that I can find many specifically proving mine?
I see. So now you are changing your story.
At one time you believed that for 3 hours on the cross God withdrew His presence, that Jesus suffered what the lost will suffer in Hell (this separation). You stated that Jesus suffered what the lost will suffer at Judgment (which is this separation from God, called in Scripture the "second death" as death and Hades is cast into the Lake of Fire, eternally separated from God).
If you need for me to provide a link I can.
I have an idea. Let's play a game. The Scripture game.
You ask me to provide a passage proving what I believe to be true and I'll ask you to provide a passage proving what you to be true.
I'll start, just to kick things off, by providing my own question and asking you one. Then you answer and ask me.
Q. JonC, you insist that sin and wrath was satisfied not on the grounds of man's punishment but on merit of Christ's own blood. Is there a verse that affirms your idea that we were redeemed through the value or worth of the blood of Christ?
A. Yes, JonC, there are several. One of my favorite places here is Hebrews 10. But 1 Peter 1:18-19 proves that we were "purchased with the precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ". Another passage speaking of the merit or worth of the blood of Christ is Hebrews 9:14: "how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?".
Q: @Yeshua1 , I know that you like to add to this passage the idea that God punished Jesus with the punishment the lost will receive at Judgment for their sins. What passage of Scripture states that the punishment Jesus endured, that "stroke we deserved" but He didn't, was God punishing Jesus with the punishment we would have endured at Judgment?
Play the ball and not the man, JonC. You have produced no evidence to justify this cheap shot. As a mod you should be setting an example to the rest of us.
It is unfortunate you can't comprehend the scriptures on this vital issue. As I said your position is oxymoronic. There is no "substitution" in your position because there is no penalty in your position that requires a substitute to satisfy. You can't seem to grasp that the law has but ONE penalty that needs satisfaction. The problem is the penalty not something else needing satisfaction. You can't seem to grasp the simplicity of the cermonial "sin offering" as a clear cut case of penal substitution because of sin which always, always results in the very same definitive conclusion - death. There is but one standard to satisfy and that is the penal consequences of the Law and so there is no "satisfaction" in your theory as you repudiate the very standard which needs to be satisfied. There is no alternative standard, there is no alternative penalty and therefore there is no alternative satisfaction. You empty the atonement of any substantive meaning. You empty it of the very meaning of substitution,and the very meaning of satisfaction as you deny the very judicial nature of the one and only possible conseqeunce that needs satisfaction - death.
It seems that you can't grasp that on the cross, it is the "travail" of his soul being made sin in a judicial substititionary sin that afflicted him in addition to the physical PUNISHMENT of the cross which the Father prescribed (Acts 2:22) as the altar for that "sin offering." Your position is unbiblical and therefore necessarily humanistic, man made tradition and that is what you consistently appeal to - human tradition.
The wording of your question demonstrates you can't grasp the truth of scripture. The Biblical concept of "shedding of blood" is not like a chicken that gives up an egg, but like a pig that gives up his life for you to have bacon. Death is inherent in the concept of "blood" in the Atonement. Death was required by the law as the ONE AND ONLY means of satisfaction. There is no either or as in your theory. Death is the PENAL consequence of violating that standard. There is no either or as in your theory. Penal equals punishment equals death. You just can't seem to grasp this. So your question pits things against each other that are not pitted against each other in scripture. Blood equals death equals penal(ty) equals wrath. His death, His blood, His penal substititionary act is infinite in value because of who he is.
The law does not have a double standard, a double means for satisfying its violation but your theory does because it is humanistic, man centered, man made and unbiblical. You want to imagine that penal substitiutionary atonement originated outside the Bible times simply because of terms, but that is simply your own pure imagination and a straw man argument.
You are mistaken. I am arguing the doctrine and not the person.
My charge is that PSA (a PSA that presents God as punishing Jesus with the punishment we would have received at Judgment in order to satisfy the demands of divine justice) is too humanistic in that at the center is man's punishment and not Christ. Where I've argued that Christ alone, and his blood shed (God giving of Himself) itself satisfies the Law by outweighing the demands of sin and wrath (to borrow from Luther) against the view that Christ's death alone is not enough unless it was due to God punishing Him with the punishment that awaits the lost at Judgment.
And I say the charge stands. This type of PSA is centered on man's sin and not on Christ. It is humanistic, elevating man above God. You may disagree, and I can accept that. But please hold off on the ad hominem charge simply because you disagree with my conclusion. If you want to prove me wrong, why don't you just do so via Scripture? NOT giving me penal and substitution (where we both agree) but show me one verse stating that God punished Jesus with the punishment the lost will receive at Judgment (with Hell) for 3 hours on the Cross. Up to the challenge?
Yes, death is inherit. I agree. And just as we will all die because of sin, so also did Christ suffer death. I'm not arguing otherwise. It is through his death, his blood, that we are purchased. I know Jesus died. I know He bore our sins in the flesh, in His body, that He put on sinful flesh, and that He died so that we would have life. I'm arguing against the heresy God punished Jesus with the punishment the lost would have received at Judgment. That's the part that originated outside of Scripture (the part that is a product of what you do with those truths already mentioned, not the truths themselves).
So we like games do we? So lets play a little question and answer game for our friend Jon.
Q. What satisfies the Law's standard for eternal life and what is its penalty for coming short of that standard?
A. Sinless righteousness satisfies the Law's standard for eternal life (as demonstrated in the conversations Jesus had with the pharisee and rich young ruler) and violating one point of the Law brings one under the condemnation of the law's penalty of death.
Q. Are there other options to either eternal life or eternal death?
A. No.
Q. Is death the PENALTY of violating the law or is there some other consequence?
A. Death is the ONLY prescribed penalty for violating the law.
Q. Can any fallen human satisfy the Law's demands for eternal life or satisfy its penalty?
A. No. That is why it is "eternal" death because it cannot be satisfied by any fallen man.
Q. What is the only possible means that fallen man can SATISFY both demands of the law?
A. By a LEGAL SUBSTITUTE who is both man and God. Man, or else he could not be a substitute for man if he were not a man God, because it would require one who is infinite in nature to act as a substitute for more than one other man and who is eternal to satisfy an eternal consequnce for a multitidue of finite human beings.
Q. What is the nature of this substitution with regard to the Law's demands for satisfaction?
A. It is legally being accepted in the place of, in the position of the unrighteous condemned sinner so that the Law's demands for eternal life and eternal death are LEGALLY satisfied in behalf of the sinner so that he is now in the eyes of the Law sinless and penalty for his unrighteousness paid in full.
Q. What does the Law require to satisfy both demands?
A. Requires sinless righteousness and eternal death or there is no satisfaction as the Law has nothing else that must be satisfied.
Q. Can Christ offer to God something other than what the Law demands for satisfaction of eternal life and eternal death to save sinners?
A. No! There are no other options. His obedience only satisfies ONE HALF of the Law's demands and therefore alone saves no one. That is why Jon's view is not merely a perversion of the atonement but a complete repudiation of it just as "another gospel" is a repudiation of it.
Q. What satisfies the Law's standard for eternal life and what is its penalty for coming short of that standard?
A. Sinless righteousness satisfies the Law's standard for eternal life (as demonstrated in the conversations Jesus had with the pharisee and rich young ruler) and violating one point of the Law brings one under the condemnation of the law's penalty of death.
Q. Are there other options to either eternal life or eternal death?
A. No.
Q. Is death the PENALTY of violating the law or is there some other consequence?
A. Death is the ONLY prescribed penalty for violating the law.
Q. Can any fallen human satisfy the Law's demands for eternal life or satisfy its penalty?
A. No. That is why it is "eternal" death because it cannot be satisfied by any fallen man.
Q. What is the only possible means that fallen man can SATISFY both demands of the law?
A. By a LEGAL SUBSTITUTE who is both man and God. Man, or else he could not be a substitute for man if he were not a man God, because it would require one who is infinite in nature to act as a substitute for more than one other man and who is eternal to satisfy an eternal consequnce for a multitidue of finite human beings.
Q. What is the nature of this substitution with regard to the Law's demands for satisfaction?
A. It is legally being accepted in the place of, in the position of the unrighteous condemned sinner so that the Law's demands for eternal life and eternal death are LEGALLY satisfied in behalf of the sinner so that he is now in the eyes of the Law sinless and penalty for his unrighteousness paid in full.
Q. What does the Law require to satisfy both demands?
A. Requires sinless righteousness and eternal death or there is no satisfaction as the Law has nothing else that must be satisfied.
Q. Can Christ offer to God something other than what the Law demands for satisfaction of eternal life and eternal death to save sinners?
A. No! There are no other options. His obedience only satisfies ONE HALF of the Law's demands and therefore alone saves no one. That is why Jon's view is not merely a perversion of the atonement but a complete repudiation of it just as "another gospel" is a repudiation of it.
Here is your confusion when looking at my view. You don't seem to understand we were under the curse of sin, and we were in need of a Redeemer. Jesus became a curse for us, He took the stroke that should have been ours, paid the penalty of sin (which is death) and was raised again on the third day.
Our disagreement is whether or not God is bound by the Law or if, being the One making the covenant, Christ's death both spells the end of the Old Covenant and the beginning of the New. Scripture affirms this. You don't.
Then stop denying it is PENAL substitutionary atonement as that is the ONLY kind of atonement that provides SATISFACTION as nothing less can. Stop pitting "penal" with "satisfaction" as that is a false contrast.
First, Christ did not provide an atonement for those who go to hell as they pay their own penalty. No double payment.
Second, you are confusing the PLACE of punishment with the NATURE of the punishment. On the cross the NATURE of the punishment was paid in full and he said so "It is finished" or "paid in full."
Third, you don't seem to grasp why the substitute could not simply be another sinless Adam or created human but had to be divine as well as human. Your view of satisfaction does not need a divine substitute only a sinless human substitute.
What a completely absurd conclusion as anyone reading my posts can easily see that I most certainly understand and assert these very things as the basis for why your view is wrong. Your view empty's these truths of their meaning, makes the words meaningless and self-contradictory.
Here is the crux of your heresy and it is heresy. You cannot divorce the Law from this issue as it is the law's standard that man has violated and needs satisfaction. Without the law there is no sin, no condemnation, no fall, nothing to make atonement for, nothing to satisfy. The Law as a principle of righteousness is rooted in the very nature of God in so much that Paul describes it as "the righteousness OF GOD" - Rom. 3:21-22. The principle of the law can be summarized in one word "love" and "God IS LOVE."
This is the source of our disagreement. For you the suffering and death Christ, God laying on Him our iniquity, is not enough unless God punishes Jesus with our punishment. That's the only way you can understand the Law being fulfilled - man's punishment. But even Scripture affirms that the Old Covenant would end with the death of Christ (the Covenant-maker) and the New begin (with His blood). You hold a man-centered atonement, plain and simple.
Ask yourself - when does Scripture (not your opinion) say a covenant ends?
I'm not denying penal substitution. I'm denying that God punished Jesus with the punishment reserved for the lost at Judgment. It's that neo-Atonement that I've been rejecting.
For all of your study you have still missed how Scripture describes covenants, and how this description applies both to the Old Covenant (and the New Covenant) as well as the Cross.
Perhaps your studies were too clouded by your own presuppositions? Yes, that's probably it.
Your heresy (since we're tossing around the term....without offense) is that you believe the Law was salvific in nature and therefore Christ alone is an insufficient sacrifice except God punish Him with the punishment due us individually at Judgment. You look to a man-centered atonement where Christ is merely a vehicle satisfying the demands of the Law rather than the Law Giver ending the Old Covenant and beginning a New.
You are far closer to Rome than Jerusalem.
The Law is salvific in nature (Leviticus 18:5; Luke 10:26-28; Galatians 3:10-14). The reason it cannot save sinful men and women is not because of any lack in itself, but because of sinful man and its inability to change him (Romans 7:12, 22-25; 8:3).
No, because what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk in accordance with the Spirit and not the flesh. Through faith we establish the Law.
You see, the Law was added because of transgressions until Christ came. It is not contrary to God’s promises, but there was never a law given which was able to impart life (if so then righteousness would have been based on law). What has happened, the purpose of the law, was to close mankind under sin so that the promise by faith in Christ might be given to those who believe. Paul affirms this in Romans 11:32 – “For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.”
If the Law was intended to impart life, if even one law was given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would have been based on law. But there was no such law given. You have misunderstood Scripture. The Law is descriptive of man’s sin, not prescriptive of salvation.
The Law is not salvific in nature because no law was ever given that was able to impart life.
A part of the problem here is that I believe in a doctrine called “sola scriptura”. What I mean here is that while people may have different opinions and views of a doctrine the criteria about what is orthodox and what is heresy falls to Scripture alone. I also mean that I believe we should strive to draw on Scripture as much as possible when forming our opinions. We should form our theology from Scripture rather than use our theology to interpret God’s Word.
All three of you, @Martin Marprelate, @Yeshua1, and @The Biblicist , say that you affirm sola scriptura yet when it comes to the atonement any opinion in contract to your opinion or theory is heresy. You determine Martin Luther’s conclusion it was Christ’s blood by merit (rather than our punishment endured) that satisfied the demands against us (the position I have been arguing) as heresy not because it disagrees with Scripture but because it contradicts your theory. You determine Martyr’s teaching that Christ became a curse not in God’s eyes but in the estimation of the Jews and died for the human race as a whole as heresy not because it contradicts Scripture but because it disagrees with your theological system.
You deny what you claim by your interaction here. The evidence is in your inability to provide a passage proving your position (not penal substitution but your version of PSA as God punishes Jesus with the punishment reserved for the lost at Judgment).
All three of you, @Martin Marprelate, @Yeshua1, and @The Biblicist , say that you affirm sola scriptura yet when it comes to the atonement any opinion in contract to your opinion or theory is heresy. You determine Martin Luther’s conclusion it was Christ’s blood by merit (rather than our punishment endured) that satisfied the demands against us (the position I have been arguing) as heresy not because it disagrees with Scripture but because it contradicts your theory. You determine Martyr’s teaching that Christ became a curse not in God’s eyes but in the estimation of the Jews and died for the human race as a whole as heresy not because it contradicts Scripture but because it disagrees with your theological system.
You deny what you claim by your interaction here. The evidence is in your inability to provide a passage proving your position (not penal substitution but your version of PSA as God punishes Jesus with the punishment reserved for the lost at Judgment).
What you seem not quite to understand is that the fault is not in the law, but in us. 'The law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good' (Romans 7:12). The law is only weak through the flesh-- that is through sinful human nature (Romans 8:3).
Just so; but He didn't condemn the law.
Again, exactly so, but that is God's amazing grace towards sinful humans who cannot keep His righteous laws. Please note that I did not say that the law was salvific in intent. I said that the law is salvific in nature. 'The man who does these things shall live by them.'
You are teaching Granny to suck eggs here. See my comments above.
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This is about the most arrogant, supercilious post I have ever read. You are the one who has insisted on dragging Martyr, Luther, Uncle Tom Cobley and all into the discussion, not us. Why? Well you know that better than we do, but maybe it's because you can't answer the case by Sola Scriptura, so like a good Roman Catholic you have brought a few church fathers in to support you. I have only answered you concerning them because what you were claiming for these men isn't so, but frankly, it doesn't matter that these men actually believed in PSA and you are failing to understand them. What matters is what the Bible says. 'Let God be true and every man a liar.' And the Bible teaches Penal Substitution.
No, I understand completely. The Law lacked the ability to impart life to mankind. It served as a "negative", to shut up all of mankind in sin. That is both its purpose and the extent of what it is able to do.
You can say that the Law reflects God's righteousness, but it was never salvfic. It shows us that we need salvation (if we did not fall short of God's righteousness then we would not need saving....the Law is not saving in nature).
And, while I've never heard the saying about granny sucking eggs, those were not my teachings but Scripture that were educating her in the fine art of egg sucking.
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