Puritans on penal substitution
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:-
- Evangelical preachers and writers have generally insisted upon substitutionary understandings of the atonement, but with much less emphasis on penal substitution.
- Evangelicals have usually taught penal substitution as one of a number of metaphors relating to the atonement.
- Evangelicals usually accepted penal substitution without controversy until about 1800.