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Monday, November 06, 2017

Penal Substitutionary Atonement

One of the most "offensive" concepts in biblical theology is the concept that theologians refer to as Penal Substitionary Atonement. Some call it cosmic child abuse. Some call it a narrow-minded view of God -- "Why does God need a blood sacrifice to forgive?" Others just think of it as too barbaric -- blood sacrifices and all that. All of this is, quite frankly, irrelevant. The only relevant question is does the Bible teach it? I think that much is indisputable.

Look at one place, one passage.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. (Rom 5:8-10)
Okay, now let's examine the words of the concept against the words of the text.

Atonement is the process of making "at one", of removing the walls between two parties, of bringing about reconciliation by repairing the wrong. Now, let's see ... it says in the text that we have been "justified" and "we were reconciled to God". How do these occur? The first is "by His blood" and the second "through the death of His Son." That is atonement -- reconciliation. It's in the text.

"Substitutionary" means "in place of something or someone else". What does the text say? "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us." "For us" means "in our place", "on our behalf", or, "as a substitute for us". It's in the text.

"Penal" refers to paying a penalty, of paying the just price for a violation of a law. Is this one there, too? Yes. There is a penalty for sin. It is "wrath", being "enemies". When it says "we shall be saved" it means there is a price -- the need to be saved. And it says that "we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him." That's paying the penalty. That is satisfying the debt, paying the price.

The question is not, first, "How does that feel?" "Oh," they complain, "it sounds so barbaric, so brutal, so unkind, so primitive." Fine. But is it right? If God's Word teaches it, then how it feels is irrelevant. If it feels wrong, it could be because we have deceitful hearts (Jer 17:9). The trick, then, is to take God at face value and stop trying to make God make us feel good. Accept as truth what God's Word says is true and, once there, you'll find it actually feels pretty good.

20 comments:

Stan said...

Or, we could take this all as figurative. "Christ died for us" does not mean that He actually died on our behalf. "Justified by His blood" does not mean that our justification is in any real sense "by His blood." The reference to "saved from the wrath of God" doesn't actually reference any wrath. "We were reconciled to God" wasn't really necessary because God was already reconciled to us and the suggestion that it happened "through the death of His Son" was purely a figure of speech, just as the notion of being "saved by His life" was. No, no, none of this should be taken in any literal sense.

We are not saved by Christ's sacrifice, His shed blood, His death on our behalf. We are saved because God is a nice God. You know, love, mercy, all that. Never mind that the Scriptures are full (Old and New Testaments) of "blood sacrifice" and "saved by His blood" and "became a curse for us" and all that penal-substitutionary atonement language. Forget all those "expiation" and "propitiation" (Rom 3:25; Heb 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10) kinds of words. It's all just ... wrong.

So, what does the passage mean? Well, it all means ... oh, wait ... I think we just eliminated all meaning from the text. Good. Clears that right up.

Look, either it is true that "Every word of God proves true" (Prov 30:5), or it is not. If we figuratively reimagine Scripture until it is meaningless, it is not true. Eliminating penal-substitutionary atonement is motivated by eliminating the seriousness of sin and the wrath of God in favor of a "kinder, gentler" god who lacks genuine justice in favor of blanket mercy and grace. That's all well and good, I suppose, as long as you don't let the bulk of the Bible texts on the subject get in the way.

Naum said...

I think PSA advocates view the Bible completely through a PSA lens -- odd, that PSA doesn't come into existence until Anselm, "Cur Deus Homo", written in 11C). Indeed, Eastern Orthodox church adheres to Christus Victor theory of atonement (see David Bentley Hart & other scholars).

Some assumptions & presuppositions that trip up this narrow view of atonement:

1. Sin/Salvation -- is about more than individual shortcomings -- it's about the whole devastating human condition; & salvation is not a "get out of hell free" card either

2. Transformation v. Transaction -- the cross isn't a transaction, it's transformation. To view it as a transaction makes following Jesus just like any other pagan religion

3. Justice -- God's justice isn't just punitive/retributive justice -- that's more in the mold of unenlightened middle age (and still a thread that runs in modern nation states) -- it's restorative & distributive, & when you read the Bible, God always backs the underdog

4. Crucifixion -- Men killed Jesus, not God

5. Sacrifice != Substitution

6. "Wrath of God" is not in the original Greek (it's not even in all of the English translations)

Stan said...

If by "it doesn't come into existence until Anslem" you mean "the phrase doesn't", perhaps, but 1) I've offered clear biblical support and 2) the the concept has been around since the beginning. The "Christus Victor" model was offered in 1931, but in terms of Christ being victorious over evil, it is not antithetical, but parallel to the Ransom model; they agree. And the Ransom model is simply the earliest version of the Substitution model.

Most interesting to me, however, is that in all the denials of the PSA concept all I ever see is "No it's not" without offering biblical reasons why it's not or why the Scriptures used to demonstrate it are not actually demonstrating it. The best you offered was "The wrath of God" is not in the original Greek (as if that was the end of the text that confirmed the doctrine). Sure, "of God" is implied; is the argument, then, "wrath" has no source?

Someone somewhere needs to show how none of these verses I offered (and the conglomeration of those I didn't) do NOT say what they appear to say about "atonement", "substitution", or "penal" as I've shown how they do.

Danny Wright said...

You mean because I don't like it, it doesn't sound good to me, it doesn't match the God who I wish was, isn't enough of a reason to reject it? You are being too narrow.

Stan said...

Not willing to just make stuff up myself, I suppose.

David said...

"Salvation isn't a "get out of hell free card"". So, there's something else that must be done to not go to hell? Christ's work was insufficient? Salvation and...?

Transformation for who? You identify these ideas but give such shorthand, I don't know what you mean.

Justice is punishment for a crime. It can be restorative, in say theft. But treason deserves death in any culture.

Men killed Jesus yes, but not without His permission. Even Scripture identifies God as sending His Son to be crucified.

Expanding on these concepts might help to convince someone... And using Scripture to back it up, you know, like Stan did.

Naum said...

Christus Victor didn't arise in 1931 -- it was the atonement theory of the church fathers, and still in the oldest Christian stream, Eastern Orthodox, still hold to this theory of atonement. You can reference a narrow band of theologians to make your case, but church history tells a different story.

Without going into the original Greek, hard to go through this -- as you're just buttressing your stance with English translations, injected with the connotations pre-chosen.

Romans 5:1-11 is a parallel to 1 Corinthians 13 -- laying out a the foundation of a new human order based on a true triangle of love, faith, hope. For Paul, the chief concrete image of agape is self-giving of Christ in the crucifixion -- tou agapesantos me kai paradontos heauton hyper emou

Stan said...

Christus Victor arose in 1931 in the same way that PSA arose in the 11th century. The original atonement theories were the one now called Christus Victor and the Ransom theory. Lying side by side, they do not deny each other, but agree. Christ won by paying the price.

Since you can't provide an explanation as to why all the references to "redeemed", "the blood of Christ", "no forgiveness without the shedding of blood", "died for us", and on and on and on except to say that I'm simply buttressing my stance on English translations, I will simply assume that you will buttress your stance by dismissing all those references. "Romans 5 is a 1 Corinthians 13 parallel" is an interesting (if not incredibly novel) idea, but it still ignores ALL THAT SCRIPTURE.

Craig said...

It seems as though the entity of scripture has a substitutional atonement model of some sort, starting in Leviticus. (Some would argue it starts in the Garden)

David said...

I'm confused. How are Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 13 parallels? Corinthians doesn't reference salvation at all. Romans is about the saving work of Christ, Corinthians about acting in love.

David said...

"as you're just buttressing your stance with English translations". So, does this mean that only those that can understand Greek without translation (even in their head) can't truly understand Scripture? Only people that have Koine Greek as their primary language can truly understand the intention of the author?

Stan said...

I'm baffled, Craig, because to me it seems unavoidable ... from cover to cover.

Naum said...

PSA is a problem inasmuch as it is nothing other than archaic religious ritual sacrificial logic dressed in Christian guise. PSA does
distort the death of Jesus, it turns it into a divine transaction at some level, it requires blood somewhere, somehow, no matter how you slice it or dice it. PSA is not a Christian atonement theory in any sense of the word for it turns the revelation of the Abba of Jesus into one of the old gods. When the god of Christendom is like Molech or Ba’al and less like One who “makes sun to shine and rain to fall on all, both good and evil”, we can be sure that we too, yes, even we Christians, have gotten off course. In this sense, the history of Christendom is no different than that of Israel in her Scriptures.

You say those criticizing PSA fail to comprehend that entering into death, willingly and out of love, is the act of God entering into the fullness of the human condition, including death. But once again, this is out of love: the Son entered into the suffering and death of humans because Father, Son and Spirit love each one of us and want to go down into the depths with us in order to lift us from death into life. The God who does not suffer with us doesn’t know us and becomes the remote God of deism.

Naum said...

"Christus Victor arose in 1931 in the same way that PSA arose in the 11th century. The original atonement theories were the one now called Christus Victor and the Ransom theory. Lying side by side, they do not deny each other, but agree. Christ won by paying the price."

No.

Ransom theory is not PSA. PSA is derived from Ransom theory -- but they're not the same.

And Eastern Orthodox church holds to the Christus Victor model of atonement, just as they did in the Age of the Patristics. If you study hymns, sermons, preaching, documents, etc. Christus Victor is paramount in EO streams, be it Harrowing of Hell, or other liturgical artifacts -- take seriously Christ defeating the powers.

David said...

Are you saying that Christ did not in fact need to sacrifice Himself on the cross is it l order to save us? That it was merely a superfluous act, or just an example of how we should live? If your stance is that He simply needed to experience death as we do, there certainly were other options. He could have lived a full life, teaching more and more people His Truth. But He chose to cut it short for no real gain?

Stan said...

Naum, you make me wonder ... have you read the Old Testament at all? I'm thinking of Leviticus, where God prescribed animal sacrifice for sin every day of the week. "It requires blood somewhere." Yes, that's what it says (Heb 9:22). Scripture repeatedly speaks of God's wrath (Rom 1:18; 2:5; 3:5; 5:9; Col 3:6; 1 Thess 1:10 ... and so on). That's called "penalty" or "penal". Wrath requires appeasement. The Bible word is propitiation (Rom 3:25; 1 John 2:2; 4:10). The problem is justice. The only way to provide justice for the sin we've committed is payment. Christ did that (Rom 3:25-26). He paid on our behalf -- "gave Himself as a ransom for all" (1 Tim 2:6). That's called substitution. He removed the debt (Col 2:14).

Let's see ... Ransom theory ... the theory teaches that the death of Christ was a ransom sacrifice. That is, a price had to be paid and He paid it on our behalf. Oh, yeah, that's what PSA says. The Ransom theorists weren't sure about to whom it was paid, but that there was a price to pay and that He paid it for us is still the agreed upon concept.

Interestingly I've offered a lot of Scripture; interestingly you've offered none. Interestingly I see a continuous concept from Leviticus to the New Testament; interestingly you see God's laws from the Old Testament as making Him out to be "like Molech or Ba'al". I do indeed take Christ's victory seriously; I just have a basis for it -- the price He paid according to so much Scripture -- where you hang onto it in a vacuum.

Naum said...

1. Most Christian leadership (including historical church) fails to understand critique of propitiatory sacrifices in the Hebrew prophets -- that is, they missed the insight that there was a movement away from sacrifice & that God did not want or desire sacrifice (see Psalm 40, Jer 7, Amos 5, Psalm 51, etc.)

2. Many Christians miss the significance of the founding murder in Genesis 4 - a lot of this can be traced to Augustine neo-Platonist lenses & infatuation with sexuality.

3. A lot of Christian thinkers miss Jesus hermeneutic & his selective use of Hebrew scriptures. Hence, the church's indulgence in dualism has seeded theological conflict that continues today.

4. To *propitiate* a God means sacrifice to appease wrath, anger, curses, etc. -- OTOH, to *expiate* sin is to remove it, it looks to the source of sin rather than God as object to be appeased

5. In the NT, Paul inverts the OT understanding of sacrifice so that God is *offerer*, not *receiver* -- Christ is a divine offering to humankind, not a human offering to God.

Stan said...

And in this scenario God is not just.

Bob said...

How may i ask can anyone possible sort out the true Gospel message, if the message is as convoluted and paradoxical as Mr Naum describes it? if Naum"s case is valid, he still has a problem. the problem resides in the fact that the Gosple message cannot be communicated to simple minds such as mine. where do i go to read about the saving message? i guess i can no longer just read the bible, because what is written is to subjective and requires higher education in greek, homiletics, and inside knowledge of the true motives of both the Greek orthodox church and Paula short comings. sounds like a lot of extra stuff..
or maybe ... i can let my five yr old daughter enplaine it.. Daddy, Jesus Died for my sins.
no baby; you see the history of the early church conspired to bring about "an archaic religious ritual sacrificial logic dressed in Christian guise." oh daddy your so silly...

David said...

Not a single one of those points made any sense. 1: If God didn't want a sacrificial system, why did He institute one? 2: I have no idea what murderer had to do with sexuality. 3: So, Jesus negated most of the OT? 4: Except Christ is described as the propitiation for our sins, not the expiator. 5: And just completely wrong. Christ was not an offering to mankind, He was an offering for mankind to God. God is clearly both giver and receiver. He is the one wronged by our sin and He provides the means to our reconciliation.