Category Archives: Salvation

Objections to Penal Substitution 2 – Culture

Walking With Giants Posted on by

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.…

Objections to Penal Substitution 1 – Bible

Walking With Giants Posted on by

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.…

Universalism

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Chris Tilling expresses an understandable longing that universalism might, after all, be an option for Christian belief.

‘I used to think that exclusivist was the only option, and anything else, compromise. Now exclusivist makes little sense to me, not because of this or that verse of scripture alone, but because of life, the smile of a baby, the groan of an old man, the death of a precious Hindi old lady who’s served her family all her life, and other bigger issues such as what the death of Christ and his resurrection says of God’s character, why he would create only to send most to hell, why the sending of Christ would seem to damn more to hell than save for eternal life, why God is love if most experience anything but love and forgiveness, why God won’t forgive most as we are commanded to in the scriptures, why God would be so interested in the contents of our minds (our doctrinal beliefs) as central to salvation etc.’

…

The challenge of universalism

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Universalism has become the new orthodoxy for many Christian thinkers and groups.

Yet Scripture teaches the reality, certainty, and justice of hell as a state of eternal punishment for the wicked.

What of those who lack a living faith in Jesus as saviour from the punishment of hell? What about those who never had an opportunity to hear or to respond to the gospel?  Here’s a summary of J.I. Packer’s discussion:-

Christians have given a variety of answers:-

  1. Some maintain that all unbelievers go to hell.
…

Quotes on salvation

Walking With Giants Posted on by

1.  Of all the thousands of deceptive substitutes, a substitute for salvation is the worst.

2.  If you keep rejecting the ‘come’ of salvation, you will have to accept the ‘depart’ of damnation.

3.  There are none so good that they can save themselves – none so bad that God cannot save them.

4.  Calvary is never to be forgotten and never to be repeated.

5.  Nature forms us; sin deforms us; school informs us; but only Christ can transform us.…

Eph 1:3-14 – The doctrine of election – sermon notes

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Following are my sermon notes on the doctrine of election.  This was preached at Holy Trinity Church, Norwich, in April 2006.  The text was Eph 1:3-14.

We have been considering a number of aspects of the doctrine of salvation:

  • Creation – God made us to glorify him and enjoy him for ever.
  • The Fall – through our own disobedience we have become alienated from our Maker.
  • Inability – we are powerless to save ourselves.
  • Redemption – the price has been paid.
…

Justification

Walking With Giants Posted on by

‘To justify’ is a legal term meaning ‘to acquit’, ‘to declare righteous.’ It is the opposite of ‘to condemn’.

Importance

According to the Puritan Thomas Watson, ‘justification is the very hinge and pillar of Christianity. An error about justification is dangerous, like a defect in a foundation. Justification by Christ is a spring of the water of life. To have the poison of corrupt doctrine cast into this spring is damnable.’

J.I. Packer writes that ‘in Scripture, God is ‘the Judge of all the earth’, (Ge 18:25) and his dealings with men are constantly described in forensic terms.…