The Poetry of Penal Substitution

I was reflecting on penal substitution this afternoon and reading that excellent book Pierced for our Transgressions (which, contrary to its critics, and as I have articulated elsewhere, is a firm and robust yet gracious treatment of the heart of the gospel, sensitive to Scripture and tradition, pastorally helpful, and magnifying the love, justice, and truthfulness of the Triune God who saves us), when, in a different book entirely, I came across the following familiar poem from George Herbert, in which he writes of how he, a guilty and unworthy sinner, is shown tender grace and invited to feast with his Lord, because his Lord has faced what he deserved:

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked any thing.

“A guest,” I answered, “worthy to be here”;
Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.”
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
“Who made the eyes but I?”

“Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste My meat.”
So I did sit and eat.

Athanasius - On the Incarnation (2)

For Athanasius, the Incarnation of Christ had a twofold purpose: redemption and revelation. Much of the redemption theme has already been dealt with as part of my series of reviews of Pierced for Our Transgressions, but it bears repetition here.

The place of the Incarnation in redemption is profoundly God-centred. It takes place to resolve the dilemma that the Fall produces. God’s truthfulness must be upheld and so the penalty of death for transgression must be upheld. But God’s goodness must also be upheld and so his creation cannot be undone by sin:

“It would, of course, have been unthinkable that God should go back upon his word and that man, having transgressed, should not die… It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by Him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil; and it was supremely unfitting that the work of God in mankind should disappear, either through their own negligence or through the deceit of evil spirits… Surely it would have been better never to have been created at all than, having been created, to be neglected and perish; and besides that, such indifference to the ruin of His own good work before His very eyes would argue not goodness in God but limitation, and that far more than if He had neer created men at all. It was impossible therefore, that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption, because it would be unfitting and unworthy of himself.” p. 32

This tension between God’s goodness and truthfulness is perhaps something that needs to be recovered and expounded alongside the more usual presentation of the cross as the place where God’s love and justice are shown to be in perfect harmony.

Athanasius then goes on to explain that repentance would not be sufficient to address the prolem because “if death did not hold dominion over men, God would still remain untrue” and it doesn’t address the fundamental issue of human nature being corrupted.

Redemption can only be wrought through penal substitutionary sacrifice, received by faith. Corruption was ‘the penalty for the Transgression’ and so Christ suffered death in the place of sinners. There are hints that Athanasius thought that sex was sinful, hence the need for virgin birth, but his basic argument is sound:

“Taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death in place of all, and offered it to the Father. This he did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, when He had fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. This He did that He might turn again to incorruption men who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by appropriation of his body and by the grace of resurrection.” p. 34

The Incarnation is necessary, because ‘corruption could not be got rid of otherwise than through death; yet He Himself, as the Word, being immortal and the Father’s Son, was such as could not die. For this reason, therefore He assumed a body capable of death, in order that it, through belonging to the Word Who is above all, might become in dying a sufficient exchange for all.’ Here again is the idea of substitutionary atonement. In terms of terminology, it is worth noting that Athanasius uses ‘body’ and ‘human nature’ apparently interchangeably.

Perhaps slightly inconsistently, Athanasius insists on the need for ‘appropriation of his body’ for men to be made ‘alive through death’ yet teaches that through the ‘union of the immortal Son of God with our human nature, all men were clothed with corruption’ as a consequence of the ’solidarity of mankind’.

Sad Division

Things happen very quickly in the e-world. Yesterday afternoon, I was informed of N. T. Wright’s response to Jeffrey John’s denial of penal substitution and Jeffrey, Ovey and Sach’s affirmation of it in Pierced for our Transgressions. Today, I found that people had already posted very helpfully HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE (amongst many other pages, I’m sure). The authors post their own response HERE. Having actually read the book, I ought to add my own two penn’orth, in case anyone out there is still reading this ‘blog and it is helpful for you.

Wright starts by clearly refuting the error that Jeffrey John spoke in his BBC Lent Lecture. He then turns to criticise Jeffrey, Ovey and Sach for their book. He begins by trying to assert that Steve Chalke, notorious for comparing penal substitution to ‘cosmic child abuse’ actually does privately believe in penal substitution, but was only rejecting a caricature. I am not familar with Chalke’s work, but my suspicion is that this is slightly improbable given the clarifications Chalke has apparently made of his doctrine of the atonement.

Wright acknowledges at the beginning of his essay that were he to wright a thousand pages on the subject of the cross, he would barely have scratched the surface. He acknowledges that PFOT is substantial. And yet he nevertheless manages to criticise the authors for not being that exhaustive themlselves. He highlights their lack of coverage of several additional significant Christian writers to the already large number they mention. He also highlights the brevity of coverage of the gospels in their “Biblical Foundations” section. PFOT doesn’t claim to exhaust the Biblical material and seems to me to be faithful to the balance of the whole Bible (after all, the gospels aren’t any more authoritative than any other part of Scripture, are they?). They do aim to produce a work beyond some of the helpful introductions to penal substitution yet still accessible to the lay reader and this they have achieved.

He also criticises the omission of the history of Israel from their account, saying that there is no sense in which the solution to the basic problem of sin begins with Abram in Genesis 12 and that the story of Israel is seen as the divine answer to the problem of Adam. After criticising them for scarcely grasping this foundational framework for the Bible, he dismisses or even overlooks sections where grasp it the authors clearly do.Wright wants to urge the authors to actually read the works of those they are criticising. I want to say the same to him. J, O and S write:

Israel’s exile from the land for breaking God’s law parallels Adam’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden for breaking God’s command. Thus the problem of curse and exclusion from God’s presence is common to all humanity, not just Old Testament Israel. The fact that Israel Adam’s fall is the more tragic given that they ought to have been the solution to it: as Abraham’s offspring they should have been a blessing to ‘all peoples on earth’ (Gen. 12:3), ‘a light to the nations’ (Isa. 51:4). Interestingly, having stated that Christ ‘redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us’ (Gal. 3:13), Paul goes on to explain that he fulfilled this very function, bringing ‘the blessing given to Abraham… to the Gentiles’ (v. 14). PFOT, p. 95

Later, they write:

Jesus was the second Israel, brought out of Egypt as a child just as was the Jewish nation in its infancy (such is the perspective of Matt. 2:15, quoting Hos. 11:1, which in turn reflects on the events of the exodus). Just as Israel endured a period of testing in the desert for forty years (see e.g. Deut. 8:2-3), so also Jesus ‘was in the desert for forty days, being tempted by Satan’ (Mark 1:13). Again, where Israel proved faithless, Jesus was faithful to God’s covenant. PFOT, p. 134

With his stinging rhetoric, Wright labels conservative evangelicals as ‘the new right-wing’, a phrase almost as loaded and pregnant with derogatory connotations as “extremist” or “fundamentalist”, and dismisses PFOT as “hopelessly sub-Biblical”. This is sadly not the first time Wright has turned against those who sincerely want to proclaim the Biblical gospel for the sake of the lost and the glory of God. See HERE for his frankly nasty response to the Covenant produced by a partnership of evangelicals. At a time when evangelicals ought to be standing together for the sake of the gospel, he is unfairly and ungraciously attacking them and my fear is that he will lead those who look up to him to do the same and cause further division. I don’t like to say this, but I am becoming increasingly less convinced that he a friend to those who glory in the Bible’s declaration that Christ died in the place of his people to take the punishment they deserve, who defend that truth against those who would empty the gospel of its power, and who boldly want to proclaim it to our world.

In case you haven’t quite realised yet, I think PFOT is a great book and everyone should read it. It is clear, readable and faithful to what the Bible says and seeks to set the doctrine of penal substitution in the whole Bible story. It will arm the reader against those who would attack it - as I have already remarked, I have encountered no objection that J, O and S have not decisively refuted in this book. I was going to post about penal substitution and the resurrection in answer to Giles Fraser’s vitriolic criticism of conservative evangelicals, another issue in which this book is singularly helpful, but I think I probably ought to stop posting on this book for now and move on to something else. PFOT will help the reader see why it is so vital to hold on to and rejoice in the doctrine of penal substitution, to the praise and glory of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Nothing new under the sun: forgiveness and retribution

“What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already in the ages before us.” (Ecclesiastes 1.9-10, ESV)

Well might that be said about the objections that certain people raise against penal substitution. In the second half of their book, Jeffrey, Ovey and Sach address a number of these, one of which is: “Penal substitution implicitly denies that God forgives sin.” Interestingly, it is precisely this objection which Giles Fraser raises in his vitrolic attack on the heart of the gospel. He remarks, “It refuses to believe that forgiveness can ever be a proper response to sin.”

J, O and S respond by saying that penal substitution does not deny that God forgives sin because it is God himself in the person of his Son who pays the debt we owe. They write:

“God is not like human beings. As Trinity he has both personal distinction and essential oneness. He did what no human creditor could do, even in principle: he received payment by giving himself in the person of his Son to take our human nature and duffer the punishment we deserve. In this way he repaid the debt of all who are in Christ, paving the way for us to receive his forgiveness.” (p. 264-265)

They continue by remarking that one may arrive at the conclusion that God offers forgiveness without requiring repayment by considering certain passages in isolation: they cite the examples of the parable of the prodigal son or the woman in the house of Simon the Pharisee. They remind the reader that these passages must be read “in the context of a gospel that reaches its climax as the Son of Man dies and rises again.”

They point out that this objection is undermined by the OT law, in which forgiveness and atonement go hand in hand, and Psalm 130 teaches simultaneously that with the Lord there is forgiveness and that he will redeem Israel from their sins. Pardon is on offer because a price will be paid.

Fraser’s objection is very close to another dealt with in PFOT, that, “the retributive violence involved in penal substitution contradicts Jesus’ message of peace and love”. He writes:

Debts are to be unilaterally wiped away. It’s what has inspired Christians to campaign for the unilateral eradication of third world debt. Jesus clearly follows this tradition. Not an eye for an eye, but the forgiveness even of enemies. Unfortunately, conservative evangelicals don’t agree with Jesus. They see him as a dangerous liberal. Instead they think all debt has to be paid off in full.

Where Fraser errs is his assumption that whatever human beings are commanded to do precisely mirrors what God does. What he and his fellow objectors fail to recognize is that while the Bible urges us to imitate God in many ways, it does not in every way. There are some things to avoid precisely because God uniquely has the right to do them. This is the case for the exaction of retribution for sinful behaviour. “We should not take revenge,” they write, “not because retribution is inherently wrong, but because it rests with God” (p. 235). They appeal, correctly in my opinion, to Romans 12.17-19 in support of this. Paul writes:

“Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honourable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12.17-19, ESV)

This is yet another example of elevating God’s love and overlooking what the Bible has to say about his justice. They are not two attributes in conflict with one another. They meet perfectly at the cross.

Blood

Giles Fraser writes of conservative evangelicals:

Their message of Good Friday is as simple as it is nasty: sin can only be paid off by blood.

This message, however, is the unambiguous, indisputable message of the Bible. Fraser’s problem isn’t so much with conservative evangelicals as with the Bible, huge swathes of which he finds repulsive and chooses to ignore. At least let him be open about that and acknowledge that we are the ones who are holding on to the orthodox faith, and that he is the one who has departed from and rejects what the Bible plainly teaches. And let us not be afraid to keep the atoning blood of Jesus central to our gospel.

Romans 3.23-25: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forwards as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”

Romans 5.9: “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.”

Ephesians 1.7: “In him we have redemption through this blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.”

Ephesians 2.13: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

Colossians 1.19: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

Hebrews 9.12-14: “He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

Hebrews 9.22: “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

Hebrews 13.12: “So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.”

1 Peter 1.18-19: “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”

1 John 1.7: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.”

Revelation 1.5-6: “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”

Revelation 5.9: “And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

Revelation 7.13-14: “Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

Penal Substitution and the Church Fathers

One of the most encouraging sections of Pierced for our Transgressions is the chapter on the historical pedigree of penal substitution. Clearly the Bible is our supreme authority, and even had the glorious doctrine only been discovered in the Bible in the sixteenth century, we would still be bound by the word of God to believe it. Nevertheless another of the objections raised to penal substitution is that it is mediaeval invention, and it would at least be worrying if something we held to be foundational had gone unnoticed for centuries of Christian thought. Giles Fraser continues the current trend of regarding the heart of the gospel as a sick perversion and writes:

The technical theological term for this nasty perversion of the Easter story is penal substitution. It was dreamt up by Anselm in the 11th century and later added to by Calvin. The argument goes like this: human beings have sinned against God and thus insulted him. Under medieval conceptions of law, human beings must be put to death for insulting so grand and mighty a personage as God. There is a way out, however. In order to escape death they can make some sort of “satisfaction” to compensate God for the insult against him. The problem is, no human being could pay off the size of debt required by so grave an insult as an insult against God. Therefore human beings are doomed. Except - ah, here, apparently is the wonderful bit - God graciously allows his son to take our place, paying off the debt by giving to Jesus the punishment that is properly ours. Thus satisfaction is achieved and human beings are spared hell. Jeffrey John is quite right to think of this as sick.

PFOT shows us that writers of the early church clearly believed and assumed penal substitution, even when it wasn’t the prime focus of their defence, busy as they were defending the Trinity and the person and work of Christ! Many of the examples can be found on the website HERE but one that can’t, and which is perhaps my favourite, is that of Athaniasius, who expresses so well how penal substitution fits into the grand sweep of the Bible and is vital for God to achieve his original purposes for creation, yet uphold his justice and truthfulness. It’s all there - the incarnation, Christ’s death as an exchange and a substitute, and the sufficiency of his death because of Christ’s deity.

It would, of course, have been unthinkable that God should go back upon His word and that man, having transgressed, should not die; but it was equally monstrous that beings which once had shared the nature of the Word should perish and turn back again into non-existence through corruption. It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil… Yet, true though this is…it was unthinkable that God, the Father of Truth, should go back upon his word regarding death in order to ensure our continued existence. He could not falsify himself; what then was God to do? …

The Word perceived that corruption could not be got rid of otherwise than through death; yet He Himself, as the World, being immortal and the Father’s Son, was such as could not die. For this reason, therefore, He assumed a body capable of death, in order that it, through belonging to the Word Who is above all, might become in dying a sufficient exchange for all and, itself remaining incorruptible through His indwelling, might thereafter put an end to corruption for all others as well, by the grace of the resurrection. It was by surrendering to death the body which he had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from every stain, that He forthwith abolished death for His human brethren by the offering of the equivalent. For naturally, since the Word of God was above all, when He offered His own temple and bodily instrument as a substitute for the life of all, He fulfilled in death all that was required. pp. 170-172

This was going to be my penultimate post on PFOT. However, it is a testimony to the thoroughness of its authors that the wrong assertions Fraser makes in his article (which is frankly nasty and spiteful about Evangelical Christians) have been refuted and I feel this should be addressed in future posts, when I have the time.

Union with Christ and Penal Substitution

Apologies for the lack of posting since Monday. Unlike Liam, who has been busy fuelling his new-found Facebook addiction, I have been busy at the John Radcliffe. It is most definitely not an addiction.

One of the objections commonly raised to penal substitution is that it is unfair for God to punish someone else for our sins. Jeffrey John did exactly this in his Lent talk:

And anyway, why should God forgive us through punishing somebody else? It was worse than illogical, it was insane. It made God sound like a psychopath. If any human being behaved like this we’d say they were a monster.

This is one of the objections which Jeffrey, Ovey and Sach so clearly refute in their book and the solution is to be found in the often neglected doctrine of union with Christ. This they consider not only in the section of the book where they examine common objections to penal substitution, but also in the “Theological Framework” chapter.

It is on the basis of our union with Christ that our sins are imputed to him and his righteousness imputed to us. Christ is in us and we are in him, indwelt by the Spirit. He was no innocent third party when he suffered, bled and died on the cross. It was God himself, the Son incarnate as a man, who suffered the just punishment for sins that became his on account of his union with sinners.

Our sin must have been imputed to Christ in the first century AD, but God who is outside time contemplates in advance the union of his people with him and so the imputation of our sins to Christ and his righteousness to us is just, for in God’s mind, the accomplishment of redemption at Calvary and its application to believers at conversion when they are united to Christ by faith and indwelt by the Spirit are a unity.

On the cross, Christ died as our representative and substitute.

Contemporary Western individualism has perhaps obscured the Bible’s teaching on corporate moral responsibility. In Romans 5, Paul teaches that because of the union of fallen humanity with Adam, the guilt and corruption of original sin are imputed to us. There are similar occasions in which people are corporately held responsible for sin in Scripture - Joshua 7 and 2 Samuel 21, as well as occasions where people are corporately blessed as a consequence of the righteousness of others - 2 Samuel 21, 2 Kings 22). Yes, human courts are forbidden to punish the children for the sins of the father, but God’s judgment may and can extend further than ours. Where individual responsibility appears to be taught in contradiction to this, for example in Ezekiel 18, the particular situation and context has to be considered.

The authors point out the implications of the doctrine of union with Christ. If our guilt was not imputed to Christ, then his death was an injustice for he has no guilt of his own for which he was guilty of death. Far from penal substitution indicating that God is insane, psychopathic or monstrous, it is the god of those who deny penal substitution who is unjust. If our guilt was not imputed to Christ, then it remains on us and we are guilty. All then are consigned to condemnation, or God has to violate his justice and holiness and truthfulness in order to pass over our sins. If our sin cannot be imputed to Christ, then his righteousness cannot be imputed to us, and we are left to try and establish a righteousness of our own in which to stand before God. Gone is justification by faith and we are either left, again, in despair, or pride.

Imagine you’re taking a photograph at a large family gathering and everyone is jostling to be at the front. You notice that Grandfather, who has worked hard all his life, who has survived several wars and who has held the family together through difficult times, is barely able to be seen. You beckon to him and say, “Come forward, Grandfather. You’re far too important to be stuck at the back.” In the family photograph of Christian doctrines, let us bring union with Christ towards the front, where it rightly belongs.

Penal Substitution and the Trinity

A reader of this weblog requested that I post something about the Trinity. Jeffrey, Ovey and Sach, in PFOT, capture sharply and Biblically how Trinitarian the doctrine of penal substitution, rightly understood, actually is, and it should warm the heart of every believer.

God the Father gave his Son to save rebellious, God-hating people, knowing that he would be despised and rejected by those he had made, that he would be a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. He spared sinful people from condemnation, death and punishment, but he did not spare his own beloved Son, with whom he was well pleased.

God the Son gave himself, willingly undertaking the task appointed for him by his Father. He veiled his glory in a human body, experienced every temptation we face without succumbing to any, and lived a perfect human life. Yet he took our sin and guilt upon himself and died a cursed death, suffering in his human nature the infinite torment of the wrath and fury of his Father. After three days he was vindicated in his resurrection before being exalted to his heavenly throne. From there he rules his kingdom, awaiting the day of his glorious appearing when every eye shall see him, every knee bow before him, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

God the Holy Spirit, having been sent by the Father and the Son, now works in our hearts through the proclamation of the gospel to convict us of sin, righteousness and judgment, to draw us to Christ in repentance and faith, and so to unite us to Christ that we may share in every blessing he has won for us.

God the Holy Trinity thus turned aside his own righteous wrath against sinful humanity; endured and exhaused the curse of the law that stood against us; cleansed us of our sin and clothed us in Christ’s righteousness; ransomed us from our slavery to sin, the world and the devil by paying our debt, cancelling the devil’s power of accusation against us, and liberating us to live new lives empowered by the Spirit; triumphed over all evil powers by punishing evil in the person of the Son; and reconciled us with himself by removing the barrier of sin and enmity between us; in order that we may stand blameless and forgiven in his glorious presence, credited with the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, as adopted children of God, gazing upon his face for all eternity.

God vindicated his truthfulness by remaining faithful to his promise that sin will be punished; he glorified his name by exalting his Son and placing all things under his feet; and he demonstrated his love by dying for sinners and reconciling to himself those who were once his enemies. (p. 104)

A Timely Book

The Sunday Telegraph carried THIS report on Jeffrey John’s Easter Message for the BBC (HT Alastair via Ros inadvertently). The article reads:

Christian theology has taught that because humans have sinned, God sent Christ as a substitute to suffer and die in our place.

“In other words, Jesus took the rap and we got forgiven as long as we said we believed in him,” says Mr John. “This is repulsive as well as nonsensical. It makes God sound like a psychopath. If a human behaved like this we’d say that they were a monster.”

Mr John argues that too many Christians go through their lives failing to realise that God is about “love and truth”, not “wrath and punishment”. He offers an alternative interpretation, suggesting that Christ was crucified so he could “share in the worst of grief and suffering that life can throw at us”.

This book clearly addresses the issues Mr John raises, explaining why it isn’t monstrous that God can punish another in our place, and why God being “about love and truth” isn’t incompatible with being about “wrath and punishment”. As I continue to review my first print run, first edition PFOT (for my own consolidation, and for the benefit of those poor individuals who haven’t yet been able to acquire it), I shall consider in this post what the book has to say regarding the latter, before considering the former accusation later.

Having shown that the Scriptures clearly teach penal substitution, Jeffrey, Ovey and Sach seek to set the doctrine in its theological framework. They first briefly defend why it is possible to get a “big picture” view of Christian theology, affirming that there are things we can know about God, and that those things we can know about God have important implications, whilst recognizing that we cannot know exhaustively everything about him. They then define penal substitution (a definition which they also make at the beginning of the book): “The doctrine of penal substitution states that God gave himself in the person of his Son to suffer instead of us the death, punishment and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty for sin.” They then expand on this in a gloriously Trinitarian way, which bears repetition in full in its own separate post. It’s worth noting in passing how the Sunday Telegraph article acknowledges, perhaps even unwittingly, that penal substitution is “one of the most fundamental tenets of Christian belief” and is “The Church’s traditional teaching”, which PFOT also seeks to demonstrate, as, DV, I will show in a later post.

The theological framework they set out starts, as does the Bible, with creation, which is significant, because redemption is often referred to as an act of recreation. In creation we see that God’s word is effective and his creation is good, which points us to God’s truthfulness. God makes, and then continues to sustain and uphold his universe. God is actively involved in his world. All things belong to him, making him the rightful ruler, and he has so ordained things that man has limited, delegated and subordinate authority over the creation, not independent from God. The relationship between God and man is loving and personal - he blesses and provides for them - as well as legal - their relationship entails boundaries and laws for mankind. Such a reality, sometimes not comprehended by modern society, is well illustrated by marriage, and is embraced by the idea of covenant which runs throughout Scripture.

The fall is a reversal of God’s plans for creation, a decreation. The serpent denies God’s truthfulness and goodness displayed in the creation, and Eve and Adam disbelieve God’s truthfulness and goodness. The ordered network of relationships God set in place is overturned. The authors then explore the idea of “false faith”: Adam and Eve, like all people, believe in something, only it’s the wrong thing: they believe the creature rather than the Creator. False faith is related to idolatry, it is delusional, darkening our minds, willing and a relational disaster which alienates us from God and one another.

Sin has consequences. God warned Adam about this in Genesis 2:17 when death was threatened. This is certainly physical death, but not just physical death. The promise is, “In the day you eat of it, you will surely die.” The banishment from Eden was an immediate penalty, a kind of death, exclusion from the presence of God, in the sense of absence from the fullness of his blessing. There will be a second death (Rev. 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8), the eternal punishment that comes from God in hell. God’s punishment of sin upholds his truthfulness therefore. To withhold the penalty for sin would be for God not to be truthful. So here is the first reason that Jeffrey John’s comment that “God is about love and truth” not punishment is utterly wrong. Moreover, God has revealed himself a being wrathful and angry at sin, and the instances this occurs in the Bible are legion.

However, God’s truthfulness not only means that God must punish sin, but must also requires him to restore creation in line with his original purposes. The solution is found in Jesus Christ. His work is recapitulation, being the perfect man, succeeding where Adam failed, the sinless, human ruler which creation needs and by which God intended his creation to be ruled. Paul writes of this (1 Corinthians 15:45-49, Romans 5:12-21). Jesus is the second Israel, faithful to God’s covenant, the true Son of David, leading where other kings failed in loving obedience to God. His wilderness temptations in Matthew 4 show Jesus believing in God’s goodness and truthfulness where Adam and Eve didn’t. Moreover, Christ is our penal substitute, bearing the penal consequences of sin, a death which wasmore than just physical, in our place. So for the reason that penal substitution upholds God’s truthfulness, saving people for relationship with himself without going back on his word that sin must be punished, further shows that Jeffrey John and critics like him are wrong. Furthermore, penal substitution is a demontration that all God’s attributes - love, goodness, justice, holiness, truthfulness are all in harmony, and shows that justice is rooted in God’s character.

While some people have suggested that there are other models of the atonement in Scripture, e.g. Christus victor, PFOT shows that penal substitution provides the basis for these explanations. So with Christ’s triumph over evil, we need to consider that the greatest weapon of the devil against us is his power to accuse us before God. Satan appeals to God’s justice, calling upon him to punish humanity as we deserve (cf. Zech. 3). The defeat of the devil must involve the removal of our guilt, which is precisely what happens. Furthermore, “Jesus destroys the work of the devil in believers [sin] by liberating them to live for righteousness and justice (cf 1 Peter 2:24)”. With the idea of the atonement as bringing reconciliation, we need to realise that reconciliation is needed because our sin alienates us from God. There is a legal problem, and the solution is penal substitution, removing our guilt. Christ ransoms in that our sin has brought us under God’s righteous wrath and we deserve his punishment, and Christ pays that price. We under obligation to God and to him the ransom must, and has been, paid.

Special Offer on "Pierced for our Transgressions"

If you haven’t bought this book yet, The Biblical Theology Briefings - beginningwithmoses.org - have a special offer on the book: £12.99 inc. P&P (UK) and £15.99 inc. P&P (international). Click HERE for more information.

Curse as Exile

Also particularly helpful in the ‘Biblical Foundations’ section of Pierced for our Transgressions for helping us consider the atonement in the context of the whole-Bible story is their consideration of the curse as exile. Although the idea that the curse of Deuteronomy 27:26, quoted in Galatians 3:10 was suggested by NPP proponent N. T. Wright, many who renounce the NPP agree with Wright on this, and I have to say I find suggestion entirely convincing and it does justice to the warnings of exile in Joshua 23:14-16 and Deuteronomy 27:15-26, the fulfilment of which is spoken of in Jeremiah 11 and Daniel 9, as the authors report Thomas Schreiner as noting. It also does justice to the fact that when the OT promise home, they do so in terms of restoration of exile, as the book notes. The authors write:

Within this framework, when Paul says ‘Christ redeemend us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us’ (Gal 3:13) he means Christ suffered God’s punishment of exile in the place of his people - and not merely physical exile, as we saw in our exposition of Isaiah 53, but the fullest experience of spiritual alienation in penal death to which physical exile points. In so doing, he redeemed them from this curse by exhausting it in his own body. This understanding of Galatians 3:10-13 plainly entails the doctrine of penal substitution.

At first sight, though, the ‘exile’ reading might seem to imply that only Israel is saved by Christ’s penal substitutionary death. But this is not the case, for several reasons. First, Paul is clear that Gentiles can join the true Israel by faith in Christ. Israel’s history becomes their history, even to the extent that Abraham becomes their father: “There is neither Jew nor Greek… If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise’ (Gal. 3:28-29; cf. Rom. 4:12). Conversely, Jesus warned those Jews who rejected him that they could lay no spiritual claim to Abraham as their father, whatever their ethnic heritage may have been (John 8:39-41). The true Israel now comprises all people, Jew and Greek, who put their trust in the Messiah.

Secondly, we need to remember that the history of Israel takes place within a bigger narrative that begins with Adam, the father of all people. Indeed, Israel’s exile from the land for breaking God’s law parallels Adam’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden for breaking God’s command. Thus the problem of curse and exclusion from God’s presence is common to all humanity, not just Old Testament Israel. The fact that Israel repeats Adam’s fall is the more tragic given that they ought to have been the solution to it: as Abraham’s offspring they should have been a blessing to ‘all peoples on earth’ (Gen. 12:3), ‘a light to the nations’ (Isaiah 51:4). Interestingly, having stated that Christ ‘redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us’ (Gal 3:13), Paul goes on to explain that he fulfilled this very function, bringing ‘the blessing given to Abraham… to the Gentiles’ (v. 14). Both Jew and Greek alike are beneficiaries of his penal substititionary death.

Finally, elsewhere within Galatians itself, the problem faced by Jewish people under the law is set in parallel with the problem faced by Gentiles. The slavery from which redemption was needed was ‘to the basic principles of the world’ (Gal. 4:3), which in verses 8-9 are identified as the idolatrous pagan influences of the Gentile Galatians’ past. However, in verse 5 Paul says it is the law from which we were redeemed. Paul appears to treat these two slaveries together, as one. This in turn implies an identity in the means of redemption: for Christ to bear ‘the curse of the law’ (Gal. 3:13) is also for him to bear the curse due to Gentiles for their idolatry. (pp. 94-95)

Penal Substitution: Biblical Foundations

I have finally finished this superb book (ISBN 978-1-84474-178-6) and we praise the ascended Christ for his gift to his bride of scholars and teachers. We also, of course, thank the authors, Drs. Jeffrey, Ovey and Sach for their labours. I commend this book to all my readers. (Why I bother, I do not know - you will all already have it, or at least have ordered it by now, anyway.)

After setting forth their reasons for writing, the book opens with what I can only describe as a (rightly) meticulous demonstration that penal substitution is taught in the Scriptures, including Exodus 12 and its application by the New Testament to the death of Jesus, from Leviticus 16, speaking as it does of the Day of Atonement, which the NT portrays as being fulfilled in the death of Jesus (with detailed consideration of the meaning of atonement) and Isaiah 53, before looking at the New Testament evidence in the gospel of Mark with consideration of the cup that Jesus drank, John’s gospel, Romans, Galatians and 1 Peter.

The consideration of Galatians 3 is particularly masterful, showing that whether one adheres to its traditional interpretation or the New Perspective on Paul, penal substitution is clearly taught. Their presentation of the traditional case, which I find most consistent with the Biblical testimony, is particularly clear (especially in the way they recognize that Paul was primarily referring to the Judaizers, and not to all people, and then apply it to us all):

According to the traditional view, the Judaizers sought to maintain favour with God by their meritorious observance of the requirements of the Old Testament law. They ‘put confidence in the flesh’ (Phil 3:4); ‘they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish thir own’ (Rom. 10:3); they failed to appreciate that we have been saved ‘not because of righteous things we had done, but because of [God's] mercy’ (Titus 3:5). In short, they were legalists, amd their insistence on circumcision was a symptom of this.

The problem with such ‘works-righteousness’ as a means to salvation, says the traditional view, is that the law required perfect obedience. This is implied by the references to ‘everything written in the Book of the Law’ (Gal 3:10; italics added) and ‘the whole law’ (Gal. 5:3; italics added). Because of sin, no one is able to keep the law perfectly, and thus all who seek to be justified by the law find themselves condemned by it and subject to its curse.

The predicament of the Judaizers in Galatians 3:10 has implications for all people. The Judaizers found themselves under a curse because in choosing the path of legal obedience they failed to appropriate the grace of God in the gospel of Christ (cf Gal 2:21). But if there were no gospel, all of us would be in their position. What means of salvation would there be except our own attempts to jeep God’s commandments? As we tried and failed, we too would find ourselves under the law’s curse…

Given this universal human predicament, Galatians 3:13 constitutes a clear statement of penal substitution: ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse fo the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” ‘ Christ was cursed in our place, and we were thereby redeemed. (pp. 89-90)

Pierced for our trangressions

I am very excited that this arrived in the post today. I know what I’ll be doing this weekend…

Pierced For Our Transgressions

I’m very much looking forward to THIS when it comes out. Here is a selection (and it is only a selection) of what lots of clever, godly Christian men have to say:

This extended declaration and defence of the penal substitutionary view of Christ’s atoning death responds to a plethora of current criticisms, many of them in-house, with a thoroughness and effectiveness that is without parallel anywhere. The book’s existence shows that a British evangelical theology which exegetically, systematically, apologetically and pastorally can take on the world is in process of coming to birth. I hail this treatise as an epoch-making tour de force, and hopefully a sign of many more good things to come.

J. I. Packer, Professor of Theology, Regent College, Vancouver

This book is important not only because it deals so competently with what lies at the heart of Christ’s cross work, but because it responds effectively to a new generation of people who are not listening very carefully to what either Scripture or history says. One of the delightful features of this book is reflected in the subtitle: the authors make no apology for their thesis, but underscore the glory of penal substitution. This book deserves the widespread circulation achieved by corresponding contributions a generation ago - the contributions of Leon Morris, Jim Packer, and John Stott.

D. A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois

Agreement on the nature of the atonement has long been a defining feature of evangelical Christianity. Today, however, all is in crisis. For some time the writings of a number of scholars reared in evangelicalism have eroded, even denied, that the heart of the gospel is to be found in Christ’s penal substitutionary death and his glorious resurrection. But now – inevitably – this view has begun to appear in books written by popular authors who are viewed as contemporary, cutting edge leaders. Sadly, much that is said and written unwittingly repeats what was long ago rejected as unorthodox. In the past, those views irrevocably led – within a generation – to a rejection of evangelical faith; unchecked, they will inevitably do so again. The stakes could scarcely be higher – the very nature of the gospel itself. Pierced for our Transgressions is a courageous, timely, comprehensive and welcome study. It is biblically sensitive and pastorally astute, with the added strength of being aware of where similar false steps in the past eventually led. Here is a sure-footed guide to the message of the cross – and therefore to Christ himself, and ultimately to God the Trinity. It deserves widespread and careful reading.

Sinclair B. Ferguson, Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, South Carolina.

The treatment of the biblical material is in itself worth the price of the book. A model of biblical-theological exposition. They expound the weightiest texts so concisely and so clearly – as they argue for the rugged truth about the rugged cross.

Dale Ralph Davis, Pastor, Woodland Presbyterian Church, Hattiesburg, Mississippi

As I was sitting on a log in the mountains of the Lebanon, my uncle explained to me, a fifteen year old, the gospel. It was the explanation of the cross that struck me and convinced me that I must trust Jesus as my Lord and Saviour. If he had loved me enough to pay the penalty for my sin, then I had to receive him. Since then I have sought to proclaim ‘Christ and Him crucified’ to everyone I can. It is sad that Pierced for our Transgressions has had to be written to defend the very heart of the Christian message, but I am delighted that the authors have produced a warm, biblical, thorough and endearing defence of Jesus’ great work on the cross. Whilst I would want to passionately argue that Jesus died for everyone, I commend this book and its great theme to all. As D. L. Moody said, ‘The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.’

Roger Carswell, Evangelist

Thoroughly researched and documented, cogently argued and presented with great clarity, this is a timely and much-needed restatement of the central biblical doctrine of penal substitution. Its great strength lies in its comprehensive exegesis of the biblical text itself, explaining the positive content and answering its opponents with gracious fairness, but penetrating force.

David Jackman, President, Proclamation Trust, London

Particular/Effectual Redemption (1)

Apologies for the dearth of posts of late: I have been rather busy.

On Monday, I had the pleasure of talking to a student on Cornmarket Street about the Lord Jesus Christ, and he asked a very perceptive question.

“But if Christ died for all people, then aren’t all people saved?”

I was able to tell the young man in question that in fact, I don’t think the Bible does teach that Jesus died for all people, but rather that he died for his follows, all those who would put their trust in him. That seemed to make sense to my interlocutor.

Subsequent to this, and a series of OICCU Mission talks, at which it was remarked that the speaker, Mr. Lee McMunn, preached Calvinistically, I am pleased to say that there has been something of a revival of interest in Calvinism (i.e. Biblical truth) and limited atonement in particular.

Lee McMunn: A Calvinist

This glorious doctrine, which makes perfect sense of the atonement, is often disparaged. It is often said that it is the consequence of elevating logic above Biblical truth. I think not. In this and subsequent posts, I intend to demonstrate that this is a thoroughly Biblical doctrine, to be believed and gloried in by all Christians.

For a helpful introduction to the doctrine of particular/effectual redemption, click HERE for an essay by Dr. J. I. Packer.

1. The Bible makes it very clear that Jesus’s mission was not to save every single human being, nor to make everyone saveable, but to save particular people for the guilty, penalty and power of sin, namely God’s elect, all those who would repent and put their trust in him. For example:

“You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1.21

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… I lay down my life for the sheep.” John 10.11, 15

“For their [i.e. those whom the Father gave the Son, v. 6] sake I consecrate myself.” John 17.19

“Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Ephesians 5.25

2. The Passover, which is a type of Christ’s death on the cross, clearly shows that atonement is made for the people who are being redeemed only, and not all. The passover lamb is representative, proportional and substitutional for the family. None is left over. Any excess is consumed.

“And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.” Exodus 12.10

3. None of the texts stating that Christ gave himself for “all” or for “the world” teach that Christ took upon himself the penalty for all on the cross, if the context is taken into consideration.

4. The Bible teaches that Christ’s death actually achieved something - reconciliation, justification, sanctification and adoption. His death actually procured for all concerned in it these blessings. So if Christ died for all, then all must be saved. Unless you want to go down the route of universalism and say that everyone is saved (against the Bible’s testimony) then you have to have a cross that doesn’t actually achieve anything (against the Bible’s testimony). No, if the Bible is to be believed, then Christ’s death on the cross achieved salvation for all concerned in it, and those concerned are his elect, his people.

My favourite Puritan on the Atonement

Satisfaction for sin, it must be in that nature that hath sinned. Now man of himself could not satisfy divine justice, being a finite person; therefore God the second person became man, that in our nature he might satisfy God’s wrath for us, and so free us by giving payment to his divine justice. The death of Christ, God-man, is the price of our liberty and freedom.

Richard Sibbes, Expositions of St. Paul (= Works, vol. 5), p. 237

Thinking about the Trinity and the Cross

The first word in the title must be borne in mind when reading this post: “thinking”. I am not issuing dogma or presenting the fruit of much deep consideration. I am starting a discussion which I pray will benefit all as we seek to understand the cross, adore our God for it, and preach it to others.

Right, here we go then…

When considering Jesus’ cry of dereliction on the cross, as he suffers punishment in the place of his people and faces the wrath his people deserve, it has recently been presented to me as some kind of temporary disruption in the Trinity, a rupture in the perfect community of the Godhead. I can see how that might serve to magnify in our eyes the cost of sin and our God’s love for us, and that this would be desirable.

But is it quite right?

One big implication of this would surely to be to admit change within God, which is inconsistent with Scripture (e.g. Psalm 102.27, Malachi 3.6, Hebrews 13.8, James 1.17) and which would severly affect whether or not God was dependable. Is this something where we need to remember that in Jesus, we encounter one person in whom are united two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, so that the one person of Jesus relates to God the Father through two natures? In that case, may we then say that it is in his human nature that Jesus is our representative and substitute on the cross and becomes sin for us, and is forsaken by God the Father, but in his divine nature, the perfect life of the Trinity continues uninterruptedly? Or would that be to separate the divine and human natures excessively and drift in the direction of Nestorianism? I do want to maintain that Jesus was working in both natures to effect our salvation, otherwise, there would be no point in the Incarnation.

I do not want to bring myself under the anathemas of the Quiqunque vult!