(This post was originally part of a debate that broke out over at Biblicalthought.com, regarding one of Danny’s posts on the Doctrine of Penal Substitution, which was part of a larger paper on the nature and extent of the atonement [which you can find here on our Blog]. I hope to represent the discussion for you in full. I will give you a bit of background to the sort of objection he presents: Mungo Man is presenting a less careful and diluted version of the 16th century arguments of Faustus Socinus. The Socinians were refuted decisively by none other than John Owen, who was henceforth referred to as the “Hammer of the Socinians.” But, just so we don’t think that Socinus’s thought is a theological aberration that appears only once in history, we’ve decided to post this little clip of Emerging Church leader Brian Mclaren, who essentially says the same thing as Socinus and Mungo Man). Have a listen: Interview
Mungo Man said:
Am I understanding this right? God killed Christ? God (who is Love) killed wisdom (who is Christ). I’m not following this at all.
If God is Love, why can’t he just forgive us of our sins without killing something. It’s pretty barbaric, don’t you think? God’s self-image was so damaged by Adam’s sin; his “righteous anger” (does God get red in the face?), so enraged that he had to kill his only Son.
Is Jesus is asking us to be more mature than His Father? Christ told us to love our enemies . . . but God can’t? He hates with “righteous anger”. I have to pray for those who curse me . . . but God get’s to punish them eternally? And you’re calling that divine justice?
So, Salvation is God working out his own personal issues? His inner conflict of trying to figure out how he can love me?
I’m not feelin’ the love.
Peter Phillips response:
I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity and occasion to defend the glorious doctrine of penal substitution. Recently, I was discussing with Danny the importance of these issues, especially with respect to the Gospel. I hope to show you by the end of this post (or perhaps one more) that you really don’t have good news if Jesus did not die a substitutionary death for his people. Secondly, I want to address some of your objections to this biblical doctrine (I’ve decided to do this second, because it will make more sense after I give you the holistic biblical context).
Why should anyone believe in the substitutionary atonement of Christ? The first and foremost reason is that it is thoroughly biblical. From the Old Testament sacrificial system (which looks forward to Christ’s atonement) to the New Testament teaching (Jesus as the Lamb of God) of Christ’s propitiation for our sins, it is clear that the bible makes the substitutionary atonement of Christ central to its message. When you consider the institution of Passover during the Exodus (see Exodus 12), you plainly see the idea of subsitutionary atonement in view. The peculiar thing about the last plague upon Egypt was—that it was not specific in application to Egypt alone. The 10 plagues were God’s judgment upon Egypt for their worship of false God’s and other abominable practices, and thus, clearly an instance of God’s wrath towards sin and rebellion. However, the last plague is not directed at Egypt alone, but all the firstborns, including the Israelites (because they were caught up in the worship of the false gods of their Egyptian masters—Ezekiel 20:4-10). The only way to avert the wrath of God was to (by faith in God’s promise) slaughter the spotless Passover Lamb and cover the doorposts with blood. Thus, the Passover lamb was propitiatory (it turned away wrath) in nature. God would spare all the people who atoned for their sin in this fashion, but everybody else had God’s judgment fall upon them (death of their firstborns). Thus, the Passover/Exodus account is telling the story of how God always deals with sin and rebellion. He mercifully spares his people from his wrath and judgment, and he delivers them from their oppressive enemies by means of Judgment. One scholar says, “First, by means of the judgment of God there is salvation from the tyranny of the Egyptians. Secondly, by means of the Passover sacrifice there is salvation from the judgment of God. “ Paul picks this theme up in the NT when he states “Christ is our Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7).” Christ died as an atonement for our sins, and in his death he turned away God’s wrath or satisfied his just wrath of God upon sinners (which we rightly deserve). The book of Romans says that “the wages of sin is death” and we have all sinned, thus we all are under the wrath of God’s judgment apart from Christ (Rom. 1-3). If God let people get away with sin and never judged it, then he would cease to be just. A god who is not just is capricious and immoral, but this is not the nature of the God of Scripture. He is just. But, He also loves, and He is love, John says. Here is the love of God, says the Apostle Paul, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8). Why did Jesus have to die for us? because apart from Christ we are all by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3), namely, objects of divine wrath (as sinners who willfully rebel against their creator). In God’s love he sent his Son to be a subtitutionary sacrifice in our place, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.
Eph. 2:1-10 says it nicely:
2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
May I submit to you the proposition, “that you can’t really know the love of God, until you understand his just wrath upon you as a sinner.” He is the ultimate example of suffering love as a willing, innocent substitute for sinful people who deserve justice, but get mercy and grace. That, my friend, is the love of God for His people.
Let me close with a few explicit texts on penal substitution in the NT:
1 John 2:2- “He [Jesus] is the propitiation [turn away wrath] for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
1 Peter 2:24 “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”
This last text is quoting from Isaiah 53, which is all about the Messiah dying in our place as a suffering servant. Another OT idea that is about substitutionary atonement is the Day of the Atonement, which is about sacrifice and substitution to avert God’s wrath upon Israel for sin, and subsequently bring God’s forgiveness. (Lev. 16). The doctrine of Penal substitution is Biblical, and there is no getting around it!
