Theological Reflections: the Penal Substitutionary Atonement

This article is near and dear to my heart.

I have written much on the Penal theory; I would argue that it is the very heart and core of the Gospel.

We had an incident here in 1996 in which a guest speaker taught that the penal theory was incorrect. I had to interrupt him, one of the hardest things I ever had to do in my life. It was very traumatic for me, and caused a conflict that took years from which to recover (both personally and church-wise). But I knew I had to do what I had to do.

My point is that the penal theory has been under attack for some time.

Previous versions of liberalism emerged because of disbelief of Scripture.

The new liberalism (as in the case of many emergents) gives lip-service to the idea of an infallible Bible, but argues that it cannot be interpreted, so one is wrong to draw conclusions from it. That is why you are seeing a denial of the penal theory without another theory replacing it as “correct.”

This, along with open theism, eliminates truth and replaces it with uncertainty. It demolishes but does not construct. And, sadly, what is under attack are the very most important beliefs of our faith.

The issue behind it is Romans 3:11b

no one who seeks God.

Understood is the idea that none seeks the TRUE God. Why? Romans 8:7

the sinful mind is hostile to God

So, since people do not like the true God (except those whom God draws and regenerates), we find the “tares” re-inventing a more desirable God, one who is not bursting with wrath, one who is a victim to the unknown and thus excused from not intervening.

In essence, they may call their God “Yahweh,” but He is not the real Yahweh of the Bible.

I thought the article was great medicine… though not the sort of piece that naturally draws alot of readers. I hope many will take the time to read it and gain some measure of resistance to the erosion of belief that is going on in this area.

Thanks to Dr. Pettegrew and the folks at Shepherds Seminary for sharing it with us.

[Ed Vasicek] So, since people do not like the true God (except those whom God draws and regenerates), we find the “tares” re-inventing a more desirable God, one who is not bursting with wrath, one who is a victim to the unknown and thus excused from not intervening.

In essence, they may call their God “Yahweh,” but He is not the real Yahweh of the Bible.

A very succinct and accurate description.

Thanks Larry!

jt

PSA is hammered in the intermountain West by some LDS apologists as completely incoherent. The Eastern Orthodox don’t like PSA either.

But many of God’s people cherish the fundamental truth. Rejoicing in Idaho.

Dr. Pettegrew hits it out of the park (as usual). What a great reminder on the glorious work of the Lord Jesus.

The substitutionary atonement certainly needs defending; but it is a mistake to overreact and deny what is in fact obvious in Scripture: that there are numerous metaphors with which the atonement is described, and that we therefore impoverish ourselves (as Evangelicals and Fundamentalists have, in my view) by focusing on only one of the models. Tim Keller is right, I think (I believe he cites Murray on this, but I can’t remember) to note that substitution underlies all of the biblical descriptions of atonement, but that they also deal with different aspects and emphases.

The Christus Victor view, for example, did not arise in the Middle Ages but is the earliest well known formulation of the atonement in early Christianity (as Aulen’s classic work shows). Moreover, people are mistaken to not see that just as our cultural and historical location predisposes us towards certain views over others (in the pre-modern world, towards communitarian and cosmic views, in the modern West, individualism and naturalistic views), so too our culture predisposes us to overemphasize truths, the result of which overemphasis is distortion.

Critics of a view tend to see quite clearly -much more clearly than proponents- what is, or can go, or has gone, wrong in a view, and wise proponents of that view will take the criticism seriously. It’s is an extremely widespread and common criticism that the penal-substitionary view is too subjective and individualistic; as a criticism of a particular doctrine, I think this is nonsense. As a criticism of the way it has often been presented and used, I think it is manifestly true, as anyone, who has a decent sense of how alien modern individualism would be in ancient cultures, can see quite easily. The classical view (which has been the one emphasized in Eastern Orthodoxy, for example; see the review I did for SI on Light from the Christian East), in sharp contrast, takes a cosmic view of sin. Now both are accurate and deeply important; sin has individual, social, and cosmic consequences; and redemption has individual, social, and cosmic effects and purposes (hence all creation’s groaning in anticipation). Penal substitution deals only, or primarily, with the individual effects of sin and Christ’s atoning work. But God saves individuals as part of the cosmos he created and is redeeming and will finally and fully redeem; and he saves individuals from the alienation, which locks them into themselves, caused by the fall, placing them into a community, eternal and blessed, which is His body, the Church. And it is through that redeemed people, working in and for the cosmos that, like them, is afflicted by a sure-to-be defeated evil, that he has primarily chosen to communicate his grace to his people and to share the good news of the restoration and renewal of all things to which he calls sinners to particpate in through repentance and faith.

It will have been a great, although historically common error, if proponents of penal-substitution react to their critics by failing to acknowledge 1) what is valid in and motivating the criticisms of their view; 2) what is true in and motivating their critics’ preferred view. It’s too easy, and generally not very helpful, to simply state why someone is wrong (viz. because we’re right). It’s harder, and generally far more profitable and edifying, to understand why they wrong and what we can learn from them.

All people who love the cross of Christ therefore have the more difficult task of defending an important set of teaching, found through the OT and NT, while also acknowledging the way that teaching has been misused to present a distorted and one-sided view of Christ’s atoning work - as if saving individuals from sin was all God was doing in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Sinners are saved in a social and cosmic context, viz. creation, and this context in its entirety is the object of God’s creating and redemptive power. Failure to acknolwedge this is inevitably to distort both the doctrines of creation and redemption. Anyone can tell someone else they are wrong and state why, from their own position, this is so. Few people will seek to understand and learn from those they think have erred. Christians, especially those humbled by the cross of Christ, should be in the latter, not former, group.

Joseph, I can appreciate the “let’s not overreact” kernel of what your saying, but I think evangelicals in general (including many fundamentalists) are more in danger of overreacting to the perceived excessive certainty of the past. The current mood is to favor uncertainty over certainty on just about every point as more intellectually honest, more academically respectable, etc.

To put it another way, the trend these days is to overreact to the possibility of overreaction and thereby just overreact, too—only in a different way.

The times call for crystal clarity on the penal substitutionary nature of the atonement, and an emphasis on that essence of it—though, yes, without denying that the atonement is rich in other “aspects” that Scripture also reveals.

Joseph, you are welcome to interact with the thread on this post:

http://heartissuesforlds.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/let-me-introduce-myse…

Joseph wrote:

It will have been a great, although historically common error, if proponents of penal-substitution react to their critics by failing to acknowledge 1) what is valid in and motivating the criticisms of their view; 2) what is true in and motivating their critics’ preferred view. It’s too easy, and generally not very helpful, to simply state why someone is wrong (viz. because we’re right). It’s harder, and generally far more profitable and edifying, to understand why they wrong and what we can learn from them.

Joseph, I see your point, but I don’t agree with those who advocate other theories for this reason. This claim that they make, namely, that “evangelicals are leaving stuff out” is nothing but a ploy on the part of those who reject PSA. Whatever PSA is, it is foundational. Its critics first seek to ADD to it, then remove it, saving only what they added.

It reminds me of the gay agenda; first, it is, “don’t persecute us.” Then it is, “treat us equally.” Finally, it is “give us special rights and advocate our choice as a good choice.”

I understand the idea of the mimetic aspects of the atonement, etc., and we need to preach them and address them; but the NT is written with the assumptions of the OT. No passage teaches the PSA more than Isaiah 53, and the Torah is filled with the concept.

What critics of the PSA really have trouble with is the WRATH of God. They don’t like a God who is raging against sin and Who is so just that He only forgives when a penalty has been paid. They really do not like that God; and it is that God Who is being replaced with a softer, kinder, weaker version.

To me, that is a clear-cut wheat and tares issue. My reasoning is this; according to Romans 3:10-12, there are none who seek the [true] God. That “true” I am inserting is my interpretation; I believe lost people are religious and do seek a false god or false gods. Only by a supernatural work of grace does someone find the true God appealing. IMO, those are the elect. Those who try to rewrite God are evidencing their lack of true regeneration.

All this to say that adding to our understanding of the foundational is great; displacing it is evil, IMO.

Joseph, I do not disagree with your view, per se, but I am concerned that you are giving them too much weight (and assuming too much sincerity on their part). The PSA is the emphasis of Scripture. Besides addressing other aspects of the atonement, however, I do think we need to further teach the ramifications of the PSA beyond personal salvation and heavenly destinies. We need to address the removal of the curse in the eternal state, our resurrection bodies that result from it, and its focus to highlight God’s character where justice and mercy/love meet.

[Joseph] The substitutionary atonement certainly needs defending; but it is a mistake to overreact and deny what is in fact obvious in Scripture: that there are numerous metaphors with which the atonement is described, and that we therefore impoverish ourselves (as Evangelicals and Fundamentalists have, in my view) by focusing on only one of the models. Tim Keller is right, I think (I believe he cites Murray on this, but I can’t remember) to note that substitution underlies all of the biblical descriptions of atonement, but that they also deal with different aspects and emphases.

The Christus Victor view, for example, did not arise in the Middle Ages but is the earliest well known formulation of the atonement in early Christianity (as Aulen’s classic work shows). Moreover, people are mistaken to not see that just as our cultural and historical location predisposes us towards certain views over others (in the pre-modern world, towards communitarian and cosmic views, in the modern West, individualism and naturalistic views), so too our culture predisposes us to overemphasize truths, the result of which overemphasis is distortion.

Critics of a view tend to see quite clearly -much more clearly than proponents- what is, or can go, or has gone, wrong in a view, and wise proponents of that view will take the criticism seriously. It’s is an extremely widespread and common criticism that the penal-substitionary view is too subjective and individualistic; as a criticism of a particular doctrine, I think this is nonsense. As a criticism of the way it has often been presented and used, I think it is manifestly true, as anyone, who has a decent sense of how alien modern individualism would be in ancient cultures, can see quite easily. The classical view (which has been the one emphasized in Eastern Orthodoxy, for example; see the review I did for SI on Light from the Christian East), in sharp contrast, takes a cosmic view of sin. Now both are accurate and deeply important; sin has individual, social, and cosmic consequences; and redemption has individual, social, and cosmic effects and purposes (hence all creation’s groaning in anticipation). Penal substitution deals only, or primarily, with the individual effects of sin and Christ’s atoning work. But God saves individuals as part of the cosmos he created and is redeeming and will finally and fully redeem; and he saves individuals from the alienation, which locks them into themselves, caused by the fall, placing them into a community, eternal and blessed, which is His body, the Church. And it is through that redeemed people, working in and for the cosmos that, like them, is afflicted by a sure-to-be defeated evil, that he has primarily chosen to communicate his grace to his people and to share the good news of the restoration and renewal of all things to which he calls sinners to particpate in through repentance and faith.

It will have been a great, although historically common error, if proponents of penal-substitution react to their critics by failing to acknowledge 1) what is valid in and motivating the criticisms of their view; 2) what is true in and motivating their critics’ preferred view. It’s too easy, and generally not very helpful, to simply state why someone is wrong (viz. because we’re right). It’s harder, and generally far more profitable and edifying, to understand why they wrong and what we can learn from them.

All people who love the cross of Christ therefore have the more difficult task of defending an important set of teaching, found through the OT and NT, while also acknowledging the way that teaching has been misused to present a distorted and one-sided view of Christ’s atoning work - as if saving individuals from sin was all God was doing in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Sinners are saved in a social and cosmic context, viz. creation, and this context in its entirety is the object of God’s creating and redemptive power. Failure to acknolwedge this is inevitably to distort both the doctrines of creation and redemption. Anyone can tell someone else they are wrong and state why, from their own position, this is so. Few people will seek to understand and learn from those they think have erred. Christians, especially those humbled by the cross of Christ, should be in the latter, not former, group.

PSA is not the only aspect of Christ’s death we should proclaim, but it is the central aspect of His death. As Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach put it in their extremely helpful book Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007):

Penal substitution emerges as a central aspect of God’s redeeming work in Christ, integrating fully with God’s justice and truthfulness, and safeguarding God’s simplicity by preserving the harmony of his attributes of justice and mercy, holiness and love. In so doing, it establishes that justice has a fundamental basis within the character of God.

Penal substitution coheres perfectly with other biblical understandings of the atonement. It sheds light on Christ’s victory over evil powers, explaining in particular how the devil is stripped of his power to accuse. It is the basis of our reconciliation with God, for there was a moral enmity between us and God, and our guilt had to be overcome. In its emphasis that God gave his Son for his enemies (Rom. 5:10), penal substitution deepens our appreciation of God’s love. Finally, it places the theme of ransom in the correct biblical perspective, underlining the fact that we are indebted not to the devil but to God, and it is to him that a ransom must be paid.

Penal substitution integrates perfectly with the doctrine of union with Christ. For as we are united to Christ by his Spirit through faith, our sin and guilt are imputed to Christ, and we are credited with his righteousness and receive all the other benefits of his atoning work.

Penal substitution has a foundational place in Christian theology. It fits right at the centre of the jigsaw to complete a magnificent picture. Here is the story of a God whose word is good and true, who refuses to be unfaithful to himself. Here is the story of a gracious Father, who gave his Son to redeem a sinful and undeserving people. Here is the story of a just and righteous God, who will not pretend that evil is of no account. Here is the story of an all-wise God, who works in all things for the good of his people and to the glory of his name, and penal substitution lies right at its heart. (p. 147-148)

BTW, the authors point to an article by Henri Blocher, “Agnus Victor: The Atonement as Victory and Vicarious Punishment”, in John G. Stackhouse (ed.), What Does It Mean to Be Saved? (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 67-91, as exposing “a number of historical, biblical, and theological shortcomings in Aulen’s work.”

Greg,

I found that book very helpful too!

Joseph:

Corporate solidarity and limited atonement solves all of the problems that you are attempting to address.

[Joseph] It’s too easy, and generally not very helpful, to simply state why someone is wrong (viz. because we’re right). It’s harder, and generally far more profitable and edifying, to understand why they wrong and what we can learn from them.

I’m not sure who you’re talking about here, but I’m quite confident that Dr. Pettegrew understands all the views of the atonement better than anyone here. … and even in this short piece gives us pretty good taste of “understand why they are wrong”

Granted… not much on “what we can learn from them,” but where selectivity is required (in order to be both brief and clear) I’m all for selecting the short case for what Scripture most clearly identifies as the essence of the atonement.

That sort of clarity is what needs to come from our pulpits as well.

Thank you for this great article. It is a strong defense of substitutionary atonement. However, I have to agree with Joseph in that we seem to want to throw the baby out with the bathwater many times in discussing alternative theories of the atonement. I would mostly agree with this statement:

[Larry Pettegrew]

Seemingly the left side of the Emerging Church has been in the forefront of this grave development, though there is no unified agreement in what the correct theory is. In fact, some, in typically postmodern style, seem to be arguing that there really is no one model of the atonement that gets to the essence of Christ’s death on the cross. The value of the atonement might depend on each individual’s understanding.

But if you look, for example, at Mark Driscoll’s book, Death by Love, it is a great example of looking at the truth found in all the various atonement theories, while still upholding a strong view of propitiation and penal substitution. I found Driscoll’s approach to be balanced and thoroughly Biblical while holding to truth found in multiple atonement theories. Larry also points out a clear example of a misuse of the various theories as seen in McLaren’s Book, The Story We Find Ourselves In. Anyway, to me the bottom line is that the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement explains our salvation, and appreciating the other theories helps us explore more in depth the benefits and glory of God’s grace seen in Christ’s death for us on the cross.