Category Archives: Substitution

Puritans on penal substitution

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In chapter 15 of The Atonement Debate (2008), Stephen Holmes gives an account of British evangelical accounts of the atonement, with special reference to the doctrine of penal substitution.

Holmes argues three points:-

  1. Evangelical preachers and writers have generally insisted upon substitutionary understandings of the atonement, but with much less emphasis on penal substitution.
  2. Evangelicals have usually taught penal substitution as one of a number of metaphors relating to the atonement.
  3. Evangelicals usually accepted penal substitution without controversy until about 1800. 
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How old is the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement?

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It is often thought (and taught) that the early church knew nothing of the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement.  This view seems to have been popularised by Gustav Aulen, in his celebrated book Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement (trans. A. G. Hebert; New York: Collier, 1969 [1931]).  Aulen found mere ‘traces’ of this doctrine in the early fathers.

Many modern opponents of the doctrine of penal substitution tend to follow Aulen uncritically at this point: if this doctrine was not ‘discovered’ until about 500 years ago, how can its proponents claim that it provides an inescapable (possibly central) explanation of what God achieved in Christ?…

Must God punish sin?

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Few Christians are willing to do any sustained thinking about sin.  Of course, evangelical preachers will mention it from time to time.  After all, they need to convince their hearers that they are ‘sound’.  But they will feel under intense pressure from those same hearers to move quickly and as smoothly as possible from anything to do with sin and judgment to a positive and uplifting message about God’s love.

The fact is, that for most modern Christians the doctrine of the love of God has become the one great ‘givens’, the unargued and unarguable axiom. …

Substutionary atonement: a note to preachers

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Critics of the doctrine of penal substitution, as well as a number of its more thoughtful supporters, have commented that the illustrations of it that preachers use are often misleading or even inept.

Tom Smail, for example, says that the story of ‘the judge who pronounces sentence on the criminal and then divests himself of his robe, comes down from his judgement seat and says, “I will bear this punishment in your place” is, in terms of justice, a quite scandalous story.’…

The self-substitution of God

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How can we, who are so deeply unholy and unrighteous, be reconciled with God, who is gloriously holy and righteous?  How can God express simultaneously his holiness in judgment and his love in pardon?

The astonishing, yet scriptural, answer, is, in the words of Cranfield, that

‘God, because in his mercy he willed to forgive sinful men, and, being truly merciful, willed to forgive them righteously, that is, without in any way condoning their sin, purposed to direct against his own very self in the person of his Son the full weight of that righteous wrath which they deserved.’

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‘God is love, and…’

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Steve Chalke’s (and Alan Mann’s) book, The Lost Message of Jesus, is, I suppose, yesterday’s papers telling yesterday’s news.  Published in 2003, it generated more heat than light, and polarised well-meaning people into opposing groups of fans and critics.

It’s all a bit late to be offering a review of the book.  But I suspect that its central point (that ‘God is love’ is all that we really need to know about God, and everything else must be forced through this one filter), is not going to go away.…

Biblical Foundations of Penal Substitution 8 – 1 Peter

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Christ bore our sins in his body, 1 Pet 2:21-25

The suffering of Christ is certainly presented in these verses as exemplary, but this does not exhaust the meaning.  For one thing, there are clear allusions to Isa 53, and to the Suffering Servant from whose sufferings we benefit.  The ‘bearing’ of sins in Isa 53 implies the bearing of punishment.  And the echo of Isa 53:5 in ‘by his wounds you have been healed’ highlight the fact that he suffered so that we might not – substitutionary atonement indeed. …

Biblical Foundations of Penal Substitution 7 – Galatians

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Galatians 3:10-13

The image of the crucifixion at ‘hanging on a tree’ in Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29 evokes the words of Deuteronomy 21:25 – ‘anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse’.

This raises the question, ‘Why would the sinless Christ be curses by God?’  Gal 3:10-13 supplies the answer.

The argument is simple: Jesus bore the curse that was due to others, thereby redeeming them from that curse.  He bore the penalty in our place.…

Biblical foundations of penal substitution 6 – Romans

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Context

Paul teaches in Romans that the universal sinfulness of humankind provokes God’s righteous anger.  This has both a present (Rom 1:18) and a future (Rom 2:5) aspect.

Moroever, Rom 1-3 makes it clear that God’s wrath is personal and active, and not merely the impersonal outworking of some inevitable process of cause and effect, as C.H. Dodd and others have taught.  It is God’s wrath and it is from heaven (Rom 1:18).  It is God’s judgment, Rom 2:5f, 16; 3:5, and God’s verdict, Rom 2:26; 3:7; 3:19. …

Biblical Foundations of Penal Substitution 5 – John’s Gospel

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The Lamb of God

John the Baptist introduces Jesus as ‘the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ (Jn 1:29).  Later, a link is made between Jesus and the lamb sacrificed at Passover.  This amounts to John’s endorsement of the penal substitution categories found in Ex 12.

Deliverance from God’s wrath

In Num 21:4-9, the Lord rescues his people from a punishment he himself had imposed.  John 3:14-18 has a clear echo of this. …