Saturday 5 October 2019

Examining Penal Substitutionary Atonement

We (Christians) all agree that the death and resurrection of Jesus somehow made atonement for our sins and reconciles us to God. What we all do not always agree on is how exactly the mechanics behind that works. The idea that God poured His wrath on Jesus when He hung on the cross is one of the most common, and fiercely defended theories held to by most in the church. The fancy name for this is penal substitutionary atonement and to some it is not a theory about how Jesus's death saves us but the gospel itself. I'm not convinced at all though. So I will be sharing a few excerpts from my book, Seeing the Cross with New Eyes here in my next few posts to show why I am not sold on this particular view and then, later I will propose something more in line with what I believe the Bible actually teaches.

Who killed Jesus?


Just as a good question can provoke thought and stimulate conversation, so too can a poor one mislead and steer us off in the wrong direction. Today I want to challenge what has been the predominant atonement theory within the Western church for the last five hundred years. I hope that from looking at scripture and asking some different questions that together we might develop a better understanding of the cross.

The atonement theory which I am speaking of is known by the term penal substitution theory (PST) or penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) and goes something like this. Man’s sin was the cause of a divine dilemma and a dichotomy existed between the love and justice of God in that because of His great love, grace and rich mercy, He desired to forgive us for our sins. Yet because He is also holy and just, the wrong that was done against Him could not go unpunished. On the one side of the coin God wants to redeem us while on the other side He needs to condemn us. PST tells us that God solves this dilemma and satisfies both His love and His justice by imputing our guilt onto Christ and Jesus then, in our place, bears the punishment dished out by the Father that we deserved. At the same time, Christ’s righteousness is then credited to us. This transaction is accepted as a full payment for mankind’s sins and satisfies both the wrath and the righteousness of God. The blood of Jesus assuages the anger of God the Father, the penalty for sin (death) has been paid and God can then forgive us and the relationship between man, Father and Son can be restored.

Although an earlier form of satisfaction theory was first developed and can be seen in the work of the 11th Century scholar Anselm of Canterbury, this view as I have described it above is credited to John Calvin in the 16th Century. It quickly gained popularity among the Reformers and went virtually unchallenged in the Protestant church for over four hundred years until the release of Gustaf Aulen’s book in 1931 called Christus Victor. Even today, many people are simply unaware that alternate understandings of the atonement even exist. Calvin’s ideas have continued to be taught through the ages by men like John Owen, Jonathan Edwards and John Piper (as well as by a whole host of people who are not named John). But before I get into what I believe to be a more plausible view of the atonement, let us examine a little more closely some of the reasons that penal substitution crumbles when its foundations are tested.

So what’s wrong with Penal substitution?

Firstly, I would like to raise some scriptural objections against the theory. One of the main ideas with PST is that God, in His holiness, cannot look upon sin. Habakkuk 1:13 is often quoted (in part) which says:-

You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness.

It is even taught that when Jesus cried out on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”, that the Father had momentarily abandoned His Son. Yet this idea already creates a problem for us in that the Bible teaches us that Jesus is exactly like the Father and reveals His express image to us1. Colossians 1:15 tells us that the Son is the image of the invisible God; that means that God the Father is not a little like Jesus, He is exactly like Jesus! So one has to ask, if the Father cannot look upon sin or at sinners, how can Jesus? Is He less holy that He could befriend tax collectors, Samaritans and prostitutes? Technically speaking, if Jesus was too holy to look upon sin, then He would have had to raise Himself from birth and live somewhere isolated from humans. Jesus was even accused in His day of being a friend of sinners2. So which picture of God the Father is true? The one that PST gives us or the one revealed in Jesus? Going back to the Garden of Eden, who was it who hid from whom and who was it who sought the other out? In reality, scripture IS the story of God dealing with and seeking out fallen humanity. Yes, there was a veil that separated God’s manifest presence from people living under the old covenant but that was for their sakes, not God’s. In Luke 15 where we read the parable of the lost son Jesus portrays God as a Father who runs toward his returning son and greets him with kisses and an engulfing hug. This son would have been covered in dirt, the smell of pigs still emanating strongly from his body and clothes, something that would have repulsed Jesus’ Jewish listeners. Even so, the external would have been nothing in comparison to the internal mess the son had made for himself. Yet the father ran to him, he rejoiced and celebrated, not in private but by throwing a party with loud music and food.

So let’s revisit those two scriptures where God appears to turn His head away from His Son and see if we can view them with new eyes in a way that helps us to see things differently. As a reminder, the first verse that I mentioned was Habakkuk 1:13 which said:-

  You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness.

That may seem like a pretty solid case for PST except that it is not what the whole verse actually says, this is the whole of verse 13:-

You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness. Why do You look on those who deal treacherously, and hold Your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he?

The context of Habakkuk 1:13 is around the prophets dismay at what was going on in his day. The wicked were prospering at the expense of the poor and the righteous. Habakkuk was crying out to God asking Him why God who is holy was seemingly sitting by idly and letting this happen. God’s answer to Habakkuk reveals that He was at work all along just not in the way that the prophet might have expected Him to be. In truth, God sees everything; in the opening chapter of Job He even has a conversation with Satan. Verse 6 says that there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD and that Satan ‘also came among them’. If there was anyone you think that God could not look at, it would be him.

The other verse to look at is Matthew 27:46 where Jesus famously uttered the words, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Many believe that the Father briefly turned His back on His Son in the moment that our sins were laid on Him. Jesus becomes the picture of God’s love while the Father becomes the image of God’s justice and wrath. However, if we fail to realize that Jesus was quoting from Psalm 22 when He hung on the cross we are certain to miss the intention behind His words.

David’s Psalm is clearly about Jesus, verse 1 is the sentence that Jesus quoted on the cross, verses 7 and 8 reveal that the Christ would be derided by His enemies which is what we see in Luke 23:35, verse 16 says that His hands and feet would be pierced and verse 18 predicts that lots would be cast for His clothes. It is after verse 18 though that the tone of David’s Psalm turns from one of despair to hope and praise. It is verse 24 in particular that I want to highlight.

“For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; nor has He hidden His face from Him; but when He cried to Him, He heard”.

We can be sure that Jesus knew the rest of David’s Psalm when He quoted the first verse from the cross; including verse 24, many of those around Him would have known it as well. In fact, the very next thing that Jesus uttered was a confident, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit”3. To drive this home, just before going to the Garden of Gethsemane, where He would be arrested, Jesus predicted in John 16:32 that His disciples would all soon leave Him but that He would NOT be forsaken by the Father!

“Indeed the hour is coming, yes, and now has come, that you will all be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet, I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.”

This is why Paul could say that “God was IN Christ reconciling the world to Himself”4. Jesus reflected the Father’s image on the cross just as He did in the rest of His life. One can speculate as to why Jesus quoted Psalm 22 from the cross, perhaps the reality of what was happening reminded Him of David’s words or perhaps He said it to encourage those around Him. Maybe it was simply said to fulfill what was written? Whatever the reason, we can with confidence declare that there were no conflicts of interest within the Godhead at work but rather complete union between Father and Son in every moment just as there always has been. He was not alone because the Father was with Him.
God was actively involved in the redemptive work of the cross.
The idea that the purpose of the cross was to appease the wrath of God could lead one to conclude that the death of Christ primarily satisfied a need in the Father but the Bible tells us a different story. John 3:16 does not say “For God was so angry…” but rather “For God so loved…” This verse tells me that the atonement was about something other than wrath appeasement. It was neither divine child abuse nor the actions of a neglectful parent abandoning His child but rather a rescue mission that the Trinity undertook in order to save as many as would believe. “For God so loved that He killed…”? No, Peter makes it abundantly clear in Acts chapter 2 that wicked men killed Him (Jesus) but God raised Him up5. “For God so loved the world that He gave…”? Yes, He knew what would happen as did Jesus but this was a price that they were willing to pay to bring us back into union with them. 

This is why Paul says that God was IN Christ reconciling the world to Himself6.
Isaiah 50:6-9 tells us a similar story of Father and Son together on the cross:-

I gave my cheeks to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help Me; Therefore I will not be disgraced; therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed. He is near who justifies Me, who will contend with Me? Let us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near Me. Surely the Lord God will help Me

Interestingly, the punishment that Jesus suffered on the cross that we have attributed to God in the penal view of the atonement; scripture not only flips on its head and attributes to man but actually predicts that we would think that it God was doing it! Not only that but we also preach that God hid His face when Jesus cried out while scripture once again says that it was us who hid our faces from Him! Isaiah 53:3-5 says the following:-

He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him; and by His stripes we are healed.

Jesus, speaking to the chief priests and the elders in Luke 22:53 described the crucifixion as “your hour, and the power of darkness”. God in the persons of the Father and the Son is not both the punisher and the punished, the violent and the sufferer, the killer and the martyr. Far from it! He is the Savior and the Lamb, the Afflicted and the Healer, the Martyred one who conquers death and rose from the grave!


In my next post we will continue to explore PSA.

1 – Hebrews 1:3.
2 – Matthew 11:19.
3 – Luke 23:46.
4 - 2 Corinthians 5:19.
5 – Acts 2:23-24.
6 – 2 Corinthians 5:19.

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