Theories of Atonement

[Bootstrap]

My friend writes further in response to an inquiry...

Maybe more verses could be brought forward, but these are the ones that occurred to me as I thought about your question, "In what way was Jesus' death substitutionary?".

I think you could add Isaiah 53, Mark 10:45, John 10:11, 1 Peter 2:24, 1 Peter 3:18, 2 Corinthians 5:21, and Galatians 3:13.

[barnhart]

I see substitution scripture related to atonement theory. What is less clear is the angry God part of PSA. I don't even understand it's appeal, what work is it doing? Why would I want to read it into the atonement.

[ohio jones]

I see substitution scripture related to atonement theory. What is less clear is the angry God part of PSA. I don't even understand it's appeal, what work is it doing? Why would I want to read it into the atonement.

It's probably the next logical step from "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by the "Jonathan Edwards is My Homeboy" crowd. But while the New Testament has plenty to say about the wrath of God, it's always directed toward sin and sinners, never toward the sinless Christ. Christ participates in exercising that wrath (e.g. "the wrath of the Lamb" in Rev. 6.16) rather than receiving it.

I can live with "the wrath of God was satisfied" if it's interpreted as propitiation, removing wrath from the sinner without transferring it to Christ.

The quotes upthread from Reformedbros saying that "God killed Jesus" are particularly egregious. Nobody killed Jesus. He laid down his life (John 10:17-18).

[Nomad]

My friend says this further...

I listened with interest and disappointment to Dean Taylor's presentation entitled, "Yes, the Early Church taught Penal Substitutionary Atonement".
In contrast to this claim, the Wikipedia page for "Penal Substitution" says, "It has been generally recognized that only hints of penal substitutionary atonement can be found in the writing of the Early Church, with the most explicit articulations arriving during the time of the Reformation."

How to resolve this apparent discrepancy?
The Early Christians taught that Jesus' life and death accomplished multiple things.
We were in bondage to sin, death, and the devil.
We needed our sins washed away, and to be given the power to live above sin.
Because we were dead in trespasses and sins, we needed to be given spiritual life.
And we needed the power of the devil over us to be broken.

Because we were powerless to do these things, unable to save ourselves, Jesus came and did them for us. Then, he invites us to unite with him. In that union with him, we become members of his body. We "put on Christ". His blood, which is clean, "cleanses us". In other words, uniting to him, being a "member of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones," means that we participate in his victory and share in his qualities, as well as his reward given him by the Father. It is through being united to Christ that we are saved.
So, the fact that Jesus did something on our behalf that we could not do means that he is a "substitute" for us. But there are multiple ways to be a substitute without being a "penal substitute".
Like the scapegoat had the sins of the people confessed on his head, and then he carried them away into the wilderness, Jesus took the burden (heavy load) of our sins upon himself, and took them "as far away as the east is from the west."

In contrast to that perspective, many Protestants teach as their main theory of the Atonement that the way Jesus saves us is that God's wrath came down on him instead of us, God exacted punishment from him so he would not be required to punish us. In fact, they can hardly say anything about the Atonement without saying this.

For example, John MacArthur:
"We must remember, however, that sin did not kill Jesus; God did. The suffering servant’s death was nothing less than a punishment administered by God for sins others had committed...God put his own Son to death? That is precisely what Scripture teaches."--John MacArthur
And John Piper:
In his sermon titled “The Pleasure of God in Bruising the Son,” John Piper affirms:
"Jesus was not swept away by the wrath of uncontrolled men. He was bruised by his Father."
Wyatt Graham, director of The Gospel Coalition, wrote:
"Jesus bore divine wrath at the cross for our sake, and so protected us from it. This act implies that God hates humans since he would have poured wrath upon humans."
Trevin Wax, a writer for The Gospel Coalition as well, argues:
"God killed Jesus. I know that might sound harsh, and it is, indeed, hard to wrap your mind around. But it’s true. God the Father sacrificed his Son. He killed his Son in order to spare us His righteous wrath."
In his sermon, "Jesus sweats blood," Evangelical pastor Mark Driscoll explains:
"See, at the cross of Jesus, there is hatred for Jesus and love for us...on the cross, the wrath of God was poured out on the Son of God. To say it another way, Jesus took the cup on the cross and drank every single drop of the wrath of God, and he endured it. This was physical, emotional, spiritual, mental suffering to a degree that is incomprehensible."
C.J. Mahaney, an evangelical Reformed pastor and former president of Sovereign Grace Ministries, preached:
"Who killed Jesus? The Father. The Father killed the Son….He crushed his son for you! He crushed Him! He bruised him! He punished him! He disfigured him! He crushed him! With all of the righteous wrath that we deserved. That’s what the Father did. So great was His love."
David Platt, evangelical reformed Baptist pastor and former president of IMB, writes:
"Jesus was pulverized under the weight of God’s wrath as he stood in our place...At the cross, God showed the full expression of his wrath."

WHAT!!!
What if the cross was an awful expression of the wrath and sin of man, and the fullest expression ever given of the love of God as he said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"!

The early Christians occasionally said things about Jesus's sacrifice that could be interpreted as harmonizing with a PSA view of the Atonement, such as this statement by Eusebius
"In this he shows that Christ, being apart from all sin, will receive the sins of men on Himself. And therefore He will suffer the penalty of sinners, and will be pained on their behalf; and not on His own."

But notice what Eusebius does not say. He does not say that the mechanism by which this works is God pouring out his wrath against sin on his Son, or God the Father punishing Jesus so that he is not obligated to punish us.
There are multiple non-penal ways to understand this statement. For starters, Jesus literally received the sins of men on himself, as we spit on, mocked, whipped, and pierced him. Jesus spiritually received the weight of all our sins, as he was tasked with carrying them away like taking out the trash. When someone sins against you and you retaliate, sin wins. If you don't retaliate, like Jesus, you absorb sin, and break its power. (Beloved, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.) That's what Jesus did, as he overcame all sin.
Eusebius says, "He will suffer the penalty of sinners." The wages of sin is death. Jesus died. So he experienced what sinners deserve, even though he didn't deserve it. Since he didn't deserve death, death had no power over him, and therefore, he resurrected. Thus, while "suffer the penalty of sinners" could imply penal substitution in the Protestant/Evangelical sense, we would need to establish that by a quote from Eusebius like one of the authors above.
And there is no such quote as this in the Early Church writings.

The collection of writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers and Post Nicene Fathers are vast--28 volumes, occupying about three feet of space on a shelf. Dean Taylor has gone through these and come up with several pages of quotes that are claimed to demonstrate Penal Substitution in the Early Church--and none of them actually does.
Well, almost none of them. There is a quote by John Chrysostom that does have the features of Penal Substitution, in that guilt is transferred from a criminal to a king's son. But this is more a coincidence than Chrysostom's theory of the atonement, as he grapples for analogies to explain what Jesus did.
A few paragraphs before the paragraph about the "king's son", Chrysostom says, God "did not require satisfaction", and in the paragraph about the king's son, he says, "He exacted not justice" This is something that Luther, Calvin, and the rest would never have said. So he must be thinking differently than they.

One quote in 28 volumes! (There are other quotes in Dean's paper that are worthy of attention. I'd like to discuss them all, but that would be too tedious here. But I believe they can all be explained in ways other than supporting Protestant PSA.)


So, "Penal Substitution" refers to a modern Protestant theory of how God saves us. When Dean Taylor says, "the Early Church taught Penal Substitution along with Christus Victor", the result will be that his listeners will say, "Ah, all's well," and will go on cheerfully singing, "'Til on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied." They will relax, satisfied that they are getting Biblical teaching over the pulpit.

I don't think this is a fair way to portray what the Early Christians taught about Jesus' death. Yes, they would have taught that Jesus suffered for sin, because of sin, and on behalf of sin. They would have taught that Jesus offered himself to the Father. Of course he did! "Father, into thy hands, I commit my spirit." Jesus' whole life and death was an offering--on the one hand to us, and on the other hand in obedience to his Father, who asked him to come and bring us salvation. Jesus is also the means by which the Father's favor comes to us. The wrath of God abides on sinners. Jesus' work convinces us to turn from sin. His blood cleanses us. Now, we are in God's favor and not under wrath. So in that sense, the work of Jesus makes God "propitius" to us. That is one way to think about "propitiation", and I think it is the way Origen is thinking when he says that Jesus is "the propitiator not only of believers and the faithful but also of the whole world". Origen appears to think that "propitiation" changes us.

But please don't say, "The early Christians taught penal substitution." The accurate thing to say would be, "The early Christians do not appear to have held to Penal Substitution in the modern Protestant sense."

I am not as old as some on here so my wisdom is somewhat limited. However, I have been around long enough to hear debates like this that appear to be never ending. I can give verses where it appears there is some sort of disconnect in the Godhead taking place between the Father and the Son at the cross. Whether its Isaiah 53, or the Son shouting "My God My God why have you forsaken me..." or Jesus quote (Mt 26:31) of Zechariah 13:7 of the "Lords sword smiting the shepherd" which in turn "scatters the sheep"...your friend will no doubt have a rebuttal with a differing understanding of some of these verses. Everyone has an answer for everything now days and everyone is an expert. Both view can be accused of being "anachronistic"...thats the problem with using the "anachronistic" accusation. Its an empty accusation because all sides would claim they are not anachronistic while accusing the other side of doing so...

If I may be a bit nitpicky as to some of the things your friend insinuated...one quote is this, near the beginning, that gave me pause:

"Because we were dead in trespasses and sins, we needed to be given spiritual life.
And we needed the power of the devil over us to be broken."

I'm not sure "we need the power of the devil". I would also say this might be a turning point between some of the "PSA" approach vs. some who hold to the "CV-only" belief. It appears to me the ones who are CV-only lay a large portion of the blame for sin with Satan while the PSA belief would place the blame for sin more on the individual who sins. Rather than it being a "Jesus vs Satan" thing, its more of a "God vs me-and-my sin" thing. I dont know about some of the language he quoted about God hating the Son stuff...or killing the Son. But I tend to give the speakers the benefit of the doubt and assume they don't mean it in a "child abuse" sense and more in a "atonement/ propitiation" sense.

But thats just me...and no doubt I will be written off as influenced by the Protestants.

[JayP]

Someone wrote God killed Jesus on the cross. Not accurate.
Jesus died when He gave up the spirit. Jesus, as Gid, could have hung there forever if He chose.

And that also speaks to why there is no penal aspect to Christs sacrifice.

Atonement? Yes. Maybe it’s all semantics to some (eventually everything is, right?).

Atoning for sin is quite different from penal.
No wrath wa s poured out on Jesus by God the Father when He was on the cross.
That would be evil. Jesus did nothing wrong.

What I particularly dislike by the focus on penal is that Gods actions at Calvary are driven by mercy, forgiveness and love.
Our focus should be the sacrificial act of Jesus removes the wall between God and us, so we can choose to enter into a full relationship.
He wa snot paying our fine so we can speed on. The highway again.

[GaryK]

If I may be a bit nitpicky as to some of the things your friend insinuated...one quote is this, near the beginning, that gave me pause:

"Because we were dead in trespasses and sins, we needed to be given spiritual life.
And we needed the power of the devil over us to be broken."

I'm not sure "we need the power of the devil".

I read that quote as saying the power of the devil over us needed to be broken and Jesus broke that power by His death and resurrection.

[Nomad]

If I may be a bit nitpicky as to some of the things your friend insinuated...one quote is this, near the beginning, that gave me pause:

"Because we were dead in trespasses and sins, we needed to be given spiritual life.
And we needed the power of the devil over us to be broken."

I'm not sure "we need the power of the devil".

I read that quote as saying the power of the devil over us needed to be broken and Jesus broke that power by His death and resurrection.

Yes. I would put more emphasis on the individual being responsible for their sin and less on Satans power being over us. I'm not saying Satan doesn't have power over us...just that we are under his power by our choice. Not overpowered against our will.

I am being nitpicky. But many times the CV-only people in my area put great emphasis on Christ victory over Satan and his realm (which I dont deny) while trying to make it less about Jesus taking our sin and Gods wrath propitiated.

[joshuabgood]

I see substitution scripture related to atonement theory. What is less clear is the angry God part of PSA. I don't even understand it's appeal, what work is it doing? Why would I want to read it into the atonement.

I think they feel God, to be holy and righteous, must be angry at the sinner for hurting others. Bc a good God would never not be really angry and upset when innocent people are hurt by sin.

Where I get confused though, is how they think it is right then for an innocent, Jesus, to suffer?

Also if Jesus went to the cross so we don't have to, why did he tell us to pick up our cross and follow him? Why would Paul write, die daily.

I can sort of appreciate all the theories, but I like the suffering servant lens the best, that is, in a sense the moral influence theory. When we do what Christ did, and follow him by taking up the cross, we become joint heirs with him, the first fruits of the resurrection of the dead. We have the great hope of sharing in our forerunner's immortality.

Yeah yeah I know...works religion and all that:)

[Ernie]

Here is a good book by Philip Hess, for those who are open to arguments against the PSA view.

Penal Substitution on Trial

www.amazon.com/Penal-Substitution-Trial ... ref=sr_1_1

[barnhart]

I see substitution scripture related to atonement theory. What is less clear is the angry God part of PSA. I don't even understand it's appeal, what work is it doing? Why would I want to read it into the atonement.

I think they feel God, to be holy and righteous, must be angry at the sinner for hurting others. Bc a good God would never not be really angry and upset when innocent people are hurt by sin.

Where I get confused though, is how they think it is right then for an innocent, Jesus, to suffer?

I can see that, maybe it's the idea of retribution in anger that seems immoral. I don't object to the substitution angle since it seems biblical, I Peter three for example.

"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit."

Is morality hinged on making God feel good? It seems capricious.