Category Archives: Atonement

Objections to penal substitution 4 – justice

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Continuing this series that summarises (in order to commend) material within Jeffrey, Ovey & Sach’s book Pierced for our Transgressions, we reach those objections that assert that the doctrine of penal substitionary atonement violates the principle of justice:-

1. ‘It is unjust to punish an innocent person, even if he is willing to be punished’

According to Tom Smail, ‘the penal substitution theory…must answer the question: How can it be just to punish a righteous man for the sins of many unrighteous people?’…

Objections to penal substitution 3 – violence

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Having considered objections to the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement that are based on appeals to the Bible and to culture, the authors of Pierced for our Transgressions deal with those that assert that the doctrine is an instance of ‘the myth of redemptive violence’.

1. ‘Penal substitution rests on unbiblical ideas of sacrifice’

It was for this reason that C.H. Dodd objected to the translation of hilasterion as ‘propitiation’, for this would be ‘misleading, for it suggests the placating of an angry God, and although this would be in accord with pagan usage, it is foreign to biblical usage’.…

Objections to Penal Substitution 2 – Culture

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According to Jeffery, Ovey & Sach, the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement is sometimes objected to on cultural grounds. Here’s a summary:-

1. ‘Penal substitution is a culturally-determined construct, not a biblical one’

Critics suggest, for example, that it is heavily conditioned by a Roman view of criminal law, and by the pre-occupation in the Western world with guilt-and-punishment ideas about justice.

Response: the fact that penal substitution has been believed and taught over the past two thousand years in many different social and political contexts cast considerable doubt on this objection.…

The excellency of knowing Christ crucified

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John Flavel’s work entitled The Fountain of Life (subtitled, ‘Presenting Christ in his Essential and Mediatorial Glory’) is an absolute treasure.  The first chapter is based on 1 Corinthians 2:2 (‘I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified’).  What follows is a summary.

I resolved – this is his settled, considered, conviction, reached after due consideration of the pros and cons, arguments and counter-arguments.

To know nothing – he does not mean that he despised all other knowledge, but only so far as it stood in opposition to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. …

Objections to Penal Substitution 1 – Bible

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A significant portion of Jeffrey, Ovey & Sach’s notable work, Pierced for our Transgressions, deals with various objections to the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement.  Read the book itself to get the full discussion.  But here, as a taster, is a summary of how Jeffrey et al respond to those objections that cluster around the general complaint that penal substitution is ‘unbiblical’:-

1. ‘Penal substitution is not the only model of the atonement’

Response: true, and no proponent of the doctrine ever said that it was.…

Mark 10:45 – ‘A ransom for many’ – sermon notes

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The 2nd of a pair of sermons on Mark 10:45  “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

If everything that God had ever done was published in newspaper form, what would the main headline be?  If it were possible to compile a list of God’s ten greatest achievements, what would be at the top of the list?  Surely, it is the work that God has done for us in Christ, in securing our salvation.…

Ex 12:1-13 – The Passover – sermon notes

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When you were a child, you probably played with models of various kinds (and if you are a man, you probably still do!): model cars, model trains, model aeroplanes, model houses, model farmyards.  The point of a model is that it provides a simplified and scaled-down version of the real thing.  The story of the Passover in Exodus 12 is not only a remarkable record of the deliverance of the Israelites over 3,000 years ago, but it also provides a 3-dimensional model of God’s way of salvation as achieved by Jesus on the cross of Calvary. …

The centrality of the Cross

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Martin Luther said, ‘There is not a word in the Bible which is extra crucem, which can be understood without reference to the cross.’

And J.I. Packer has written, ‘It cannot be over-emphasised that we have not seen the full meaning of the cross till we have seen it…as the centre of the gospel, flanked on the one hand by total inability and unconditional election and on the other by irresistible grace and final preservation.’

In the New Testament, the cross is:-

  1. the subject of the eternal counsel of God, Acts 2:23.
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Carson on ‘The Lost Message of Jesus’

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Plenty has been thought, said, and written about Steve Chalke and his comments on atonement in The Lost Message of Jesus.  Although N.T. Wright (who endorsed the book) has said that he doesn’t think that Chalke intended to deny penal substitution, Chalke has gone on record to confirm that he did.  (See here for Garry J. William’s reply to Chalke, and here for a penetrating review by Donald MacLeod).

As for The Lost Message of Jesus, D.A.…

Atonement: theories or images?

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One of the less helpful aspects of much theological discussion about atonement is the tendency to talk in terms of competing theories of Christ’s cross-work.  John Stott has a helpful comment about this in The Cross of Christ (p168):-

‘”Images” of salvation (or of the atonement) is a better term than “theories.” For theories are usually abstract and speculative concepts, whereas the biblical images of the atoning achievement of Christ are concrete pictures and belong to the data of revelation.

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