Penal Substitution

We do not have space to explore the larger foundation on which this interpretation is constructed, but we will take a quick look at the PSA-denying interpretation of the parable. Here are just three basic points:

First, it is a parable. This does not mean that it does not teach theology or doctrine (it does). This does not mean that it is not fully inspired and authoritative (it is). But recognizing the genre is important. This parable is not designed to teach everything about soteriology. We should not be shocked if some things we need for salvation are not mentioned in this story.

Second, this parable is the third in a sequence of parables that all teach the same thing. Critically, Jesus tells these parables because of the attitude of the Pharisees (Luke 15:1-3). The parables are designed to highlight the joy and celebration in heaven that occurs as the lost are found, which establishes a contrast with the hard-hearted (and therefore unlike the Father) Pharisees. Yes, the father in the parable represents God the Father. But the point is his attitude and dispositional stance towards lost sinners: The Father’s attitude is not on the mechanism for atonement!

The shepherd in the first parable didn’t offer a blood atonement for his sheep. The woman in the second parable didn’t offer a blood atonement for her lost coin. The father didn’t offer a blood atonement for his returning prodigal. This may be relevant if any of the three parables were about atonement. But they’re not.

Third, the argument proves far too much. There are many other elements that the parable doesn’t include. For example, there is no Christ at all! There is no Son of God incarnate. There is no resurrection. Are we to believe that sinners do not need Christ as mediator, since the father in the parable embraces the sinner without a mediator of any kind? There is no mention of the Holy Spirit. Are we to believe that we can be reconciled to God apart from the Spirit’s work in our lives?

It is true that there is no blood atonement in this parable, but there is no Jesus, either. Using the same hermeneutical principles as those who use this parable to reject the need of PSA, we can also reject the need for Jesus. One doesn’t need to be a biblical scholar to know that a text is being misread if one can use exegetical principles that end up making Jesus unnecessary for salvation.

Conclusion

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the most popular stories in the Bible, and for good reason. When read it in context, however, we see that it stands as a sober warning to religious hypocrites. But it also stands as an incredible invitation to those who feel their sin: The Father rejoices—as do the angels—when the lost are found and the ones who were dead come alive!

Myth Busting Penal Substitutionary Atonement (substack.com)

https://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/50/50-1/JETS_50-1_071-086_Williams.pdf

In reply to this Socinian argument there is a clear counter-case which implies a quite different construal of the relationship between divine and human justice. The apostle Paul distinguishes sharply the different ways that justice should operate between human beings on the one hand, and between God and creation on the other. At the end of Romans 12 he follows Jesus in teaching that we must not take revenge. This would be the perfect opportunity to point out that we must not because God does not, but in a striking move Paul does the opposite. He explains that individuals must not take revenge precisely because God is going to do so: “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’ ” (Rom 12:19, quoting Deut 32:35). From here Paul moves to argue in Rom 13:1–7 that God has given a limited remit to the governing authorities to implement this final justice in the present time by the power of the sword. Thus Paul denies vengeance in the sphere of relationships between individual people, and at the same time ascribes it to God, who shares it in limited part with the ruling authorities. Where Chalke infers that God would never do what he tells us not to do, Paul argues exactly the opposite. God tells us not to do what he does precisely because he does it. God says, “Do as I say, not as I do,” and justly so, since he is God and we are not.

Or again, specifically on Paul: “Paul does not treat God as the subject and Jesus as the object of the cross.”21 If penal substitution depicted the cross as simply “God as subject, Christ as object,” as Green and Baker characterize it, then it would indeed be problematic. But it does not, and no thoughtful proponent of penal substitution has ever portrayed it in this fashion. Witness John Stott, for example: “We must never make Christ the object of God’s punishment or God the object of Christ’s persuasion, for both God and Christ were subjects not objects, taking the initiative together to save sinners.

The reason that no one thinks of the Son simply as the object of the Father’s action is that the doctrine of penal substitution has been formed within a conscious, mature doctrine of the Trinity. Penal substitution in fact relies on a careful grounding in Augustine’s principle that since the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are inseparable, so they work inseparably

It is of further significance that in the context of Isaiah 52–53 the suffering in question is specifically penal. This emerges at the end of chapter 53 with the use of two expressions: “and he shall bear their iniquities (lBøs}yi aWh µj:nowo[“w')” (v. 11), and “yet he bore the sin of many (ac…n; µyBIr'Aaf}jE aWhw])” (v. 12). The verbnoun combinations in these phrases (and the reversed pairings of lBøs}yi with af}jE and ac…n; with wo[“) are used widely in the OT to describe bearing sin, guilt, and punishment (e.g. inter alia Gen 4:13; Lev 5:17; Num 5:31; 14:34; Lam 5:7). Here, in Isaiah 53, it is evident from the connection with sin and the suffering of the Servant that they have a penal connotation. Thus we find in verses 6 and 10 statements that the Lord willed the suffering of the Servant in a context where that suffering is defined as being penal, and indeed atoning (v. 5). Likewise, in the NT we read that the Father “condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:3) of his Son. There is therefore biblical testimony to the action of the Father toward the Son, specifically in laying iniquity on him and condemning it in him. To state what ought to be obvious: he punished the sin that had been transferred to Christ, not Christ regarded in and of himself, with whom in this very act he was well pleased.

t is also notable that there are patristic examples of the consciously reflective use of union with Christ. Here, for example, is Eusebius of Caesarea, introducing the theme of union with Christ to explain the justice of penal substitution: And how can He make our sins His own, and be said to bear our iniquities, except by our being regarded as His body, according to the apostle, who says: “Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members?” And by the rule that “if one member suffer all the members suffer with it,” so when the many members suffer and sin, He too by the laws of sympathy (since the Word of God was pleased to take the form of a slave and to be knit into the common tabernacle of us all) takes into Himself the labours of the suffering members, and makes our sicknesses His, and suffers all our woes and labours by the laws of love. And the Lamb of God not only did this, but was chastised on our behalf (uÒpe;r hJmΩn kolasqeµÍ), and suffered a penalty (timwrÇan uÒposc∫n) He did not owe, but which we owed because of the multitude of our sins; and so He became the cause of the forgiveness of our sins, because He received death for us, and transferred to Himself the scourging, the insults, and the dishonour, which were due to us, and drew down on Himself the apportioned curse, being made a curse for us. And what is that but the price of our souls? And so the oracle says in our person: “By his stripes we were healed,” and “The Lord delivered him for our sins,” with the result that uniting Himself to us and us to Himself, and appropriating our sufferings, He can say, “I said, Lord, have mercy on me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee.”31 30 John Owen, A Dissertation on Divine Justice, ii. 15, in Works, 10.598 (italics original). 31 Eusebius of Caesarea, Demonstratio Evangelica, x. 1; The Proof of the Gospel (ed. and trans. W. J. Ferrar; 2 vols.; Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2001) 2.195–96. Likewise Cyril of Alexandria: penal substitution: a response to recent criticisms 81 Hence we find even in the early church a thoroughly theological account of the unique justice of penal substitutionary atonement that repudiates the individualism with which proponents of the doctrine are erroneously charged. It is certainly not the case that penal substitution is, as Chalke says, “not even as old as the pews in many of our church buildings.”32

As Henri Blocher noted, the only God capable of achieving what the cross achieved is the God of Trinitarian and christological orthodoxy.[12] The Father sends the Son, and the Son goes voluntarily to the cross. The Spirit empowers the Son to suffer and withdraws at the final moment, only to raise the Son back to life. God does not inflict suffering on an unwilling Son who is sacrificed for a wrath devoid of love, a justice motivated by hatred, and a disproportionate display of divine rage. Nor does Jesus persuade a blood-thirsty Father to be merciful. Rutledge puts it well: “The Son and the Father are doing this [the atonement] in concert, by the power of the Spirit. This interposition of the Son between human beings and the curse of God upon Sin is a project of the three persons. The sentence of accursedness has fallen upon Jesus on our behalf and in our place, by his own decree as the second person”.[13]

This is a precious truth. It gives us the motive for the atonement but not the mechanism. In the context of the parable, the mechanism of atonement is simply not the point. To suggest that the parable’s silence is grounds for dismissing the need for PSA is hermeneutically preposterous. It is time for those who oppose PSA to stop appealing to Luke 15. The parable is simply not intended to be used the way that they are trying to use it.

Let me be clear, I believe that PSA is broadly affirmed in the New Testament.

First, there are Paul’s words in Romans 8, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus … for what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering [peri hamartias]. And so he condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:1, 3). The law was powerless to acquit us from the penalty of sin or to liberate us from the power of sin. God achieved for us justification from sin’s condemnation and liberation from sin’s power by sending his own Son. N. T. Wright comments:

No clearer statement is found in Paul, or indeed anywhere else in all early Christian literature, of the early Christian belief that what happened on the cross was the judicial punishment of sin. Taken in conjunction with 8:1 and the whole argument of the passage, not to mention the partial parallels in 2 Cor 5:21 and Gal 3:13, it is clear that Paul intends to say that in Jesus’ death the damnation that sin deserved was meted out fully and finally, so that sinners over whose heads that condemnation had hung might be liberated from this threat once and for all.[2]

Second, moving to Galatians, Paul writes “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole’” (Gal 3:13, italics added). The logic of Paul’s argument is that the law requires obedience, and it results in curses for disobedience. People who disobey the law, accordingly, fall under the penalty of covenantal curses (Deut 29:20-21). In particular, Jewish contemporaries of Paul associated crucifixion with the accursedness of one who was hanged on a tree (Deut 21:23). The strange fact is that believers are redeemed from this curse because their accursedness is taken away by Christ, who has taken the curse upon himself.[3] Paul tells us here what we are being saved from—the curse. The only explanation is that the Messiah had willingly taken on himself the dreaded curse that rightly belonged to others. Despite some protests to the contrary, I cannot imagine a clearer affirmation of penal substitionary atonement.[4]

Ephesians:

First, let’s separate your moral argument for what the Biblical teaching is (whether you agree with it or not)

This passage is after the crucifixion… but yet, there are STILL sons of disobedience and sons of wrath.

Article 3: Therefore all men are conceived in sin, and are by nature children of wrath, incapable of saving good, prone to evil, dead in sin, and in bondage thereto; and without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they are neither able nor willing to return to God, to reform the depravity of their nature, or to dispose themselves to reformation. Historic Creeds and Confessions, electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Lexham Press, 1997).chap. 33.—men, being by nature the children of wrath, needed a mediator. in what sense god is said to be angry

10. And so the human race was lying under a just condemnation, and all men were the children of wrath. Of which wrath it is written: “All our days are passed away in Thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told.” Of which wrath also Job says: “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.”12 Of which wrath also the Lord Jesus says: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” He does not say it will come, but it “abideth on him.” For every man is born with it; wherefore the apostle says: “We were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” Now, as men were lying under this wrath by reason of their original sin, and as this original sin was the more heavy and deadly in proportion to the number and magnitude of the actual sins which were added to it, there was need for a Mediator, that is, for a reconciler, who, by the offering of one sacrifice, of which all the sacrifices of the law and the prophets were types, should take away this wrath. Wherefore the apostle says: “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Now when God is said to be angry, we do not attribute to Him such a disturbed feeling as exists in the mind of an angry man; but we call His just displeasure against sin by the name “anger,” a word transferred by analogy from human emotions. But our being reconciled to God through a Mediator, and receiving the Holy Spirit, so that we who were enemies are made sons (“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God”): this is the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Augustine of Hippo, “The Enchiridion,” in St. Augustin: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. J. F. Shaw, vol. 3, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1887), 248–249.

15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

By Grace Through Faith

2 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.