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[dexterslab1976]

One doctrine that I have always had a problem with is the Penal Substitutionary Atonement. The God revealed through Jesus doesn't seem to fit the idea of an innocent man,who was tortured and killed, was needed to appease God's wrath. How much blood would this God need to balance the scales of justice? I know that God hates sin and sin must be dealt with but does God need a blood sacrifice to be happy? As Jesus stated, "God desires mercy, not sacrifice." I see that if appeasing an angry God is what was needed, the death of Jesus becomes the main focus of the Gospels. Jesus didn't define the Gospel by his death. He also was forgiving sins and restoring creation before his death and resurrection. I know Penal Substitutionary Atonement is the popular view but it doesn't seem to be in line with what Jesus taught.

I actually have more to add but I wanted to keep this as short as possible at first.

[jimwalton]

You didn't NEED to keep it short, but now you still have thoughts to keep the dialogue going. Thanks for asking. I'll try to be to the point so I don't blabber on too long.

When the Bible talks about atonement, it approaches the subject from a legal vantage point rather than a business one. In a business model we think about balance of trade: for 4 pounds of copper I'll give you 4 pounds of meat. We negotiate and deal, but we at least want equivalency. In business that's a good thing, and only fair, but that's not how we should think about atonement. (When you jokingly [I hope] asked, "How much blood does God need to balance the scales...", you're thinking on this plane of equivalency. Instead, it's a legal matter that's not particularly quantifiable in the same sense. Lindsay Lohan breaks her parole, and so she is assigned to do 1000 hours of community service. It's an attempt to provide some semblance of justice in an arena where quantities are not measurable. The Bible says that our sin separates us from God. Since God is life, that means we are "legally" dead—dead in our sins. But that's not quantifiable. It's a state of affairs. The solution ("justice") lies not in "how many pounds of flesh" or "how much blood is demanded," but in the legal requirements being satisfied (again, not quantifiable) to create justice. As it turns out, the exchange of an innocent life for a guilty one meets the legal requirements demanded by the infraction. (For instance, suppose I owed you a million dollars, and a friend of mine paid it for me. The debt would be satisfied, legally and realistically. You got your money back. But suppose I murdered your dad, and a friend of mine took the electric chair for me. You might think that's not fair, since I got off scott-free, but the legal requirements would have been met: a life for a life.) But that's exactly what Jesus offers: a life for a life. It doesn't satisfy the requirements if someone else on death row, who was supposed to be electrocuted the next day, said, "I'll take the chair for him." Big deal. He's already getting the chair. He doesn't qualify to take it for me, legally. But an innocent person does. I know all analogies fall short if pressed hard enough, but hopefully I'm making the point.)

Here's the way the doctrine rolls down: Humanity willfully rebelled against God, choosing to separate from life. The consequence was death. Death is a state of being for all humanity now. It's not that we're particularly EVIL, but we're born separated from God. Since we're already on death row, so to speak, I can't choose to die for you. I'm sentenced to death already myself. The only way justice can be satisfied is if you pay the penalty for your rebellion, and are separated from life. But if someone else, who didn't deserve to die, offered his life in your place so that you might live, justice is still satisfied. That's what Jesus did. And it's effective for all humanity, just as the original rebellion was effective for all humanity. Now instead of being condemned, you have a legitimate choice, as the prisoner deserving to die: Will you choose to accept the substitution for you and walk away scott free, or will you refuse to accept it, and take the hit yourself? The gift of life from Jesus is a free offer—the debt's been paid, if you will but choose it. But if you don't choose to accept it, don't blame him. It was humans who rebelled, and despite that you were born separated from God, you had every opportunity to be reunited.

Why did it have to be a blood sacrifice? Because in Biblical theology, the life is in the blood. That's all. It's not only a great symbol, but there's an awful lot of truth to it. Why did Jesus have to suffer so bloody much? So that no one could say, "Oh, that was NOTHING. He had it easy. I've gone through far worse." The scales are balanced not by the quantity of blood and gore, but by the act itself. It's a legal, not particularly a quantifiable, transaction. Jesus' act of redemption is a statement of how much he was giving (the pain and torture, his very life) as an act of love (the core of love is sacrifice for another), a way to identify with humanity (we all suffer too), and a legal way to provide atonement for a criminal act (rebellion against a loving and just authority).

Penal Substitutionary Atonement is not what Jesus taught? Mk. 10.45: Jesus said he specifically came to give him life as a ransom for many. When Jesus said, in Mt. 12.7 "I desire mercy, not sacrifice," the context of the conversation was about him being a lawbreaker because he was helping and healing people on the Sabbath. He quoted Hosea 6.6, making the point that ritual is never a substitute for righteousness. His point is that God doesn't give a rip about substitutionary atonement, but that if people think going through the motions is good enough they are sorely mistaken.

This is just a start to the conversation, I know, so talk back to me.

[dexterslab1976]

Thanks for responding.

I would like to start with the Old Testament. One thing to really notice is that God didn’t command the first sacrifice. People took it upon themselves to offer sacrifices. God eventually gave them the Law and set up a system of sacrifice. God’s people were always surrounded by other nations and his people constantly were trying to copy what they did. God was against this because they were supposed to be different from the pagan nations. Sometimes God gave the people what they wanted, appointing a king is just one example. The sacrificial system could be the same. This isn’t what God originally wanted but the people wanted it, especially after being liberated from a culture that offered sacrifices. I agree that Jesus is quoting Hosea 6:6 and that is the point. It wasn’t the sacrifice that God desired but their attitudes. There are several times in the Old Testament that God tells the people that he doesn’t desire or need their offerings. Isaiah 58 mentions that God will redeem the house of Jacob, but not because of their sacrifices. God would redeem them for doing the will of God. Just look at the book of Jonah. An entire community was forgiven based on repentance. It just seems that blood isn’t what God really wanted. You pointed Deuteronomy 12:23 and that God told them not to eat the blood because life is found in the blood but this isn’t about sacrifices. If we read before this verse we see this is about proper dietary laws and what is considered clean and unclean, so the context doesn’t fit what we are talking about

The death of an animal was a sacrifice, especially when it was the best of the herd, but does God really need this blood to be happy? In the Old Testament, there are sins that didn’t need a sacrifice of an animal, and some sins were forgiven before the sacrifice was even made. I have talked to a few rabbis who claim that it was repentance and obedience that God wanted. As in the Day of Atonement the people had to come together with the right attitude, confess their sins, repent and then the sacrifice was made. God would either reject their offering or God would forgive or passover their sins. Even today the Jews believe their sins are forgiven without the sacrificial system being in place.

Another part of the sacrificial system was the laying on hands. The laying on the hands helped the person offering the animal identify with the sacrifice. To identify with the sacrifice was so the person offering the animal would think about their own death and how this could be them. If God didn’t forgive their sins they would be the ones who faced death. This was supposed to get the people to think about how to change their lives so they wouldn’t be cut off from God.

When looking at the death of Jesus as a sacrifice made to appease an angry God, we only seem to focus on his death and resurrection. This ignores what Jesus said the Gospel was, and that Jesus was forgiving sins and restoring the people before his death. By announcing the Kingdom, Jesus was telling the people that God’s Kingdom was at hand and that redemption was here. If God was redeeming his people, then this was taken to mean their sins were forgiven. Redemption and forgiveness go hand and hand. If they are forgiven then they were being liberated. Jesus was restoring creation and forgiving sins before his death, which means the people, were being redeemed before his death. The death and resurrection were very important but it was only one piece of the puzzle. The Gospel has to be taken as a whole. That includes his ministry, death, resurrection, ascension, the giving of the Holy Spirit to form a new community.

Jesus did say he gave his life for ransom, but it never says to whom. Does this mean that God gave his life to God, so God can be appeased? It also said Jesus “bore our sins” or another phrase was “died for our sins.” These can all be taken to simply mean that he either died on our behalf as someone who dies on behalf of an important cause or it could be as a priest offers a sacrifice on behalf of the people. All these phrases could just be metaphors and they all point to the same thing. The metaphors are not what are important but what they point to is. Matthew 8:17 says, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.” This was happening before his death. I also don’t see this was meant to be taken literal since Jesus wasn't full of disease. This is another passage that was pointing to something else, as the phrase “bore our sins” does. This was about atonement, restoring our image, and restoring our relationship with God.

What Jesus did by suffering was show what could happen if we followed his path with obedience. As a result of his obedience, even when faced with death, God will be faithful to his promise and deliver his people from bondage. If we look at Philippians 2:5-11 we see that Jesus was exalted and every knee will bow but what leads to this. In verse 8 we see that Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death “therefore” he was exalted. It was because he became a servant (which is what mark 10:45 points too) and was obedient. Jesus is showing us that if we have faith, and live a life of obedience and repentance we no longer face the wrath of God or the consequences of sin. Jesus lived the perfect life according to the Law and still was crucified, and showed the Law isn't what saves you. He became a curse, completely identifying with us unto death, and that you are free from sin and the bondage of death.. Jesus represented us as a priest or a king represents the people. As he died representing us, so we die in him. As he was restored, so we will be restored if we have faith in him.

The Sermon on the Mount (which points back to Moses and the giving of the Law) showed how Kingdom people were to act, how to live as community of believers. Jesus didn’t say they would have to wait till their sins were forgiven after his death. This was happening now thru his ministry, and this meant redemption and forgiveness has already started. With the parables that Jesus told and his interaction with various people, we see Jesus describing the Kingdom of God/Heaven. How it would spread, what it looks like, what one has to do to enter it. The Kingdom was for people who were redeemed, and Jesus said the Kingdom is at hand and even among you. I know the Kingdom is still yet to be complete but that still doesn’t change that it had already started, and sins were being forgiven before Jesus died on the cross.


With Paul we see that he deals with consequences. For example: when he mentions Adam's sin, Paul is not saying Adam’s sin is imputed to us but that we all deal with the consequences of what that sin brought. When dealing with the death of Jesus, Paul mentions the consequences of his death which brought life. Can the same be said about God's wrath? That when the New Testament mentions God's wrath needing to be appeased, what is really being dealt with are the consequences of God's wrath, which is death? So, the death of Jesus dealt with the consequences of God's wrath, and now we live in Christ? Paul also stated that if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead than our faith is in vain. Since Jesus came to announce the Gospel, his rising from the dead proved that the Gospel had arrived. What Jesus was saying was actually true. Paul could just be summing up the life, death, and resurrection in this verse.

Now all this doesn’t really disprove the Penal Substitution Doctrine but it does bring up other ways to see things. In Scot McKnight’s book, “A Community called Atonement,” he makes a good point that we don’t have to accept just one doctrine. They all could be right if we look at them from a different angle. From reading various views on atonement several authors state the Penal Substitution Doctrine was not even pushed until much later, closer to the middle ages. The majority of the early church seemed to believe that the death and resurrection was more of a victory over death, sin, and Satan. I haven’t researched that enough to know for a fact, so don’t take my word on it

[jimwalton]

Dexterslab, I've asked a couple of others to weigh in on your question as well; I want you to get a good answer. To be totally honest with you (and I always strive to be totally honest), there are different theories of atonement that theologians love to discuss. "Penal Substitutionary Atonement" is only one of them. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia, "Propitiation" as an example:

"Theologians stress the idea of propitiation because it specifically addresses the aspect of the Atonement dealing with God's wrath. Critics of penal substitutionary atonement state that seeing the Atonement as appeasing God is a pagan idea that makes God seem tyrannical (See for example, Stricken by God?, ed. Brad Jersak, Eerdmans: 2007 or Be Ye Reconciled by Paul Peter Waldenstrom).

"J.I. Packer in "Knowing God" designates a distinct difference between pagan and Christian propitiation: "In paganism, man propitiates his gods, and religion becomes a form of commercialism and, indeed, of bribery. In Christianity, however, God propitiates his wrath by his own action. He set forth Jesus Christ... to be the propitiation of our sins." [3]

"John Stott writes that propitiation "does not make God gracious...God does not love us because Christ died for us, Christ died for us because God loves us" (The Cross of Christ, p 174). John Calvin, quoting Augustine from John's Gospel cx.6, writes, "Our being reconciled by the death of Christ must not be understood as if the Son reconciled us, in order that the Father, then hating, might begin to love us" (Institutes, II:16:4). Continuing the quote: "... but that we were reconciled to him already, loving, though at enmity with us because of sin. To the truth of both propositions we have the attestation of the Apostle, 'God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,' (Rom. 5: 8.) Therefore he had this love towards us even when, exercising enmity towards him, we were the workers of iniquity. Accordingly in a manner wondrous and divine, he loved even when he hated us." [4] See http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/calvin/bk ... l#four.htm

"Packer also cites God's love as the impetus that provides Christ's sacrifice for the atonement of mankind and hence the removal of God's wrath. [5] According to Packer, propitiation and the wrath of God that propitiation implies is necessary to properly define God's love; God could not be righteous and "His love would degenerate into sentimentality (without Christ's atonement containing aspects of propitiation).The wrath of God is as personal, and as potent, as his Love."[6]

"Thus the definition of Christian propitiation asserted by Calvin, Packer and Murray holds that within God there is a dichotomy of love and anger, but through propitiation love trumps anger, abolishing it. "'The doctrine of the propitiation is precisely this that God loved the objects of His wrath so much that He gave His own Son to the end that He by His blood should make provision for the removal of this wrath... (John Murray, The Atonement, p.15)'"[7]


I want to comment a little about the "Sacrifice" issue you mentioned. It's true that God didn't command Abel's sacrifice (that is recorded for us), but it does specifically tell us that "the Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering" (Gn. 4.4). Abel's offering wasn't a blood offering, and it doesn't seem to be aimed at atonement, but more likely as a gift. Atoning blood offerings aren't common until the time of the Exodus.

Walton, Matthews & Chavalas say, "There have been many theories about what thinking was represented in the sacrificial system. In some cultures sacrifice was viewed as a means of caring for the deity by providing food. Others saw the sacrifice as a gift to please the god and request his aid. In other contexts the sacrifices have been viewed as a means of entering into relationship with deity or maintaining that relationship. These are only a few of over a dozen possibilities. The history of animal sacrifice is difficult to trace."

There is no notion, however, that God set up the sacrificial system as an appeasing compromise (as with the monarchy). You seem to think it could be the same, but there's no written revelation that even hints at that. The sacrificial system is initiated and established by God to deal with thanksgiving (grain offering; fellowship offering), propitiation (burnt offering, sin offering), and purification (sin offering). God desired the sacrifice, but the point was that the sacrifices were a physical expression of their heart desires for God. God's objections in years later (Isaiah, Hosea) is that practice of sacrifice was used as an act in itself, completely divorced from heart desires and a relationship with God, and that was God's problem with it. "You missed the whole point!" he could have just as well said. Sacrifice by itself, as a disjointed act, was worthless.

The Law was supposed to show people how to live, not how to perform some sacerdotal act that justified them while allowing them to continue to live in sin, rebellion, and disobedience. God's point was atonement AND loving, obedient devotion. Christ, like the OT, preached attitudes (Mt. 5) as well as actions (Jn. 8.46).

I have also talked to a rabbi about The Day of Atonement (Lev. 16). He said to me: "The Day of Atonement was instituted after the defiling of the tabernacle by Aaron’s son’s, Nadab & Abihu (Lev. 10). It is instructed in Leviticus 16. But what exactly is being purified away by the blood? Sin or contamination? It was the contamination of the tabernacle that was being purified, not the sin of the men. The blood—the life force—purifies the 'death' that entered the temple.
Now, Ezekiel talks about 'purification from sin.' Here ritual impurity is equated with moral lapses, perhaps even extending from unintentional sin to intentional sin.
We don’t have to cleanse the temple now with blood, because there is no temple. So there is no reason for blood to be shed for atonement. The blood didn’t atone for sin anyway; it only cleansed from contamination. What atones for sin is good works: 'Good deeds do I require, not sacrifice.'
Yom Kippur is telling the story. And we ask God to forgive our sins and failures. Yom Kippur gives us a sense of hope that relationship with God can be renewed because God forgives us. Our repentance is what atones, and our good works assure it."

Now, see, that's way different from the way we Christians perceive things. It's salvation by works.

You commented that Jesus said he gave his life for ransom, but not for whom. You are no doubt aware of the theological debate surround that subject:

Christ died for the whole world (universal atonement; sublapsarianism)
Christ died for the elect (limited atonement or Particularism, supralapsarianism; infralapsarianism)

As you can see, these discussions get pretty involved, include deep Bible exegesis, and still Christians disagree. There are also different cultural perspectives (guilt cultures like the West vs. shame cultures of the East). So whether or not you subscribe to Penal Substitutionary Atonement is a matter of study, discernment, and prayer.

I hope that helps. I feel like my answer is getting too long. We can certainly talk more.

[John Walton]

SACRIFICE IN THE OT

God often uses that which is culturally familiar in order to accomplish his goals, though he often at least “tweaks” it so that it does not carry the same force. We find that even though sacrifice was common from the earliest times across the ancient world, animal sacrifice was not as common (though never absent), but more importantly, the other ancient cultures did not have blood rituals comparable to the Israelites. The blood rituals were one of the innovations that we find established in the Law. So it cannot be maintained that they just adopted blood rituals from their neighbors.

The issue is not trying to make God “happy”—the point was that sacred space needed to be purified (that is the focus of the blood rituals). Remember of course, that unlike their neighbors, the Israelites were not to consider their sacrifices as food for the gods meeting the needs of the gods. Instead there was a serious cost, a life (life is in the blood) for purifying sacred space from the desecration of human offense. God will not continue living among the people if they have lost or compromised the concept of purity as a way to reflect their holy status. Not every sacrifice was a blood sacrifice, because some sacrifices had nothing to do with purifying sacred space. Those that did include blood rituals of course included repentance so that forgiveness could take place. Qualifying statements about God not desiring blood/sacrifice are bringing out the point that it is not sacrifice per se (a ritual for feeding gods) that interested God—it was living out their holiness that was important. The Day of Atonement provided a reset of the holy status of sacred space to take care of offenses that had been committed throughout the year that had not been remediated.

Forgiveness is the restoration of relationship, and that can happen when the desecrating offense has been cleansed from the temple by the blood ritual. The right attitude is absolutely essential—ritual on its own does not suffice. They are not appeasing an angry God or feeding a hungry God; they are keeping sacred space pure so that God will continue to dwell among them. It does no good to consult with modern rabbis because they have no element in their modern theology about sacred space. Christians do since we are the temple and the Spirit indwells us. The blood of Christ’s sacrifice has prepared us to be receptacles of divine presence.

The blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin, but they could purify sacred space, and when those rituals were performed sacred space was purified and God forgave their sins—meaning that relationship was restored. Those sins had not been wiped from the record, but the effect of the sins on sacred space had been cared for. This was the system that God set up so that he could dwell among his people. This was just a temporary stage in re-establishing God’s presence (see the Bible Story Handbook, by John & Kim Walton, pp. 27-30 for a summary of the whole sequence).

[Bob Walton]

Dexter slab, You are very correct in saying that the idea of penal substitution first appeared in the Middle Ages (Anselm of Canterbury around 1100 in Cur Deus Homo?). You concern, like that of the Reformers 450 years later, was that other theories of the atonement either made God a liar (the so-called "Devil Ransom Theory"), allowed for the theoretical possibility that Christ's death might have accomplished nothing at all (if His death was intended as an example), or, most importantly, implied that Christ's death made salvation possible for all but essentially "left the ball in man's court"—salvation by works. The important point is not the medieval origins of the doctrine, but the fact that it is an accurate reflection of what Scripture teaches. This is obviously and always our greatest concern: We always want to understand what the Scripture teaches.

The last of the three listed above seems to be the direction in which you are leaning; Jewish rabbis are not the only ones who see atonement as the result of human effort.

Your reference to Scot McKnight is telling, though. McKnight is associated with the emerging church movement and, more importantly, "New Perspectives on Paul," from which dexterslab seems to have gotten his view of the atonement, which is anything but orthodox, largely because of its denial of Penal Substitution.

[dexterslab1976]

I really appreciate the responses. They have given me a good bit too think about.

First, I would like to address what Bob Walton stated. I agree 100% that we should aim at getting an accurate reflection of the scripture. The people that hold to the other theories of atonement believe they are reflecting scripture just as much as the ones who believe in Penal Substitution Atonement (PSA). I will admit that I read a lot from the New Perspective scholars. I enjoy the way they challenge the way we look at scripture. I’m not saying I agree with everything they say, but they have the same goal we all should have, and that is getting back to what the original authors meant. I honestly don’t know what they all think about PSA. I have never really liked PSA but I didn’t start reading other ideas until I started looking more into the Anabaptist tradition. I’m not really pushing any other theory, if I seem to be it is by accident, I’m trying to get a more complete picture of atonement.

Jim is right to point out that there is no notion of God setting up the sacrificial system as an appeasing compromise. That was merely a suggestion that was loosely based on that man came to God with a sacrifice before God had set the system itself up. I could be wrong but I don’t think God asked for a sacrifice until Abraham was asked to offer Isaac. This is something I don’t think any doctrine should be based on. I was just merely making an observation.
I would like to look at PSA from the outside. Imagine you are going to church for the first time and you hear a sermon on the cross and what Jesus accomplished. It sounds great but you were a little confused when the pastor mentioned PSA. You are very interested in knowing about this loving God so you approach the pastor afterwards to ask what he meant by PSA.

He states, “PSA refers to the doctrine that Christ died on the cross as a substitute for sinners.” You admit this part does sound like a loving God, but the pastor keeps going, “God imputed the guilt of our sins to Christ, and He, in our place, bore the punishment that we deserve. This was a full payment for sins, which satisfied both the wrath and the righteousness of God, so that He could forgive sinners without compromising His own holy standard.” (Definition is from Theopedia.com)

Someone from the outside might not like what this sounds like. An innocent man was killed, for something others have done to turn back God’s wrath. Going by this definition God seems only able to forgive if something pure and innocent dies. I know this might sound a little overboard, but I don’t think it is. I have heard many people say that don’t want to be part of a religion that not only glorifies a brutal murder, but this is child abuse taken to a whole new level. Of course, this doesn’t mean PSA is wrong, but when people are raised hearing PSA, they will come to accept it as the norm and may not question it as honestly as someone hearing it for the first time.

Now to look at it from the inside. This sacrifice was to satisfy the wrath of God but did it? We still get sick, we still suffer, we still die so the death of Jesus didn’t change anything that we can see right now. We can expect to have some future event where there is a resurrection, but nothing as to what most people see as God’s wrath has changed. As I mentioned earlier Paul deals a lot with consequences so instead of directly diverting God’s wrath we must think of the consequences of God’s wrath which is death and ultimately separation from God. That God’s wrath is letting us be held accountable for the sins we commit. We not only die but we will be will be cut off from the presence of God. In the Garden (I just bought John’s book on Adam and Eve. I will be reading it after I finish Witherington’s commentary on Romans) we have to remember that they did not die directly because of sin. They died because they were cut off from the Tree of Life. They were kicked out of the Garden, no longer able to eat of the Tree, and no longer able to commune with God. This is God’s wrath, and this is what atonement is able to repair. Death is what happens when we can no longer have a chance to get to the Tree of Life, and this leads to being cut off from God. This all could easily be wrong, but I’m trying to look at from another angle, that starts from the very beginning. Jesus was able to make atonement that caused God’s wrath to pass over us, and now we are no longer cut off from the presence of God.

Does God need the death of Jesus to be able to forgive? To me this doesn’t even sound like the God that Jesus revealed, but I don’t want to base anything just on my feelings. I think we only need to look at the Gospels to see this isn’t true. We see Jesus forgiving people of their sins, and we also see the reaction he got for doing this. He was making a claim that he had no right to make, at least some of the people thought he had no right. The Gospels also mention Jesus curing the sick and casting out demons. He was restoring the people, liberating Israel, and doing what God promised would be done in Isaiah. In Matthew 8:17, that I quoted earlier, Jesus bore our diseases and took on our infirmities. I don’t think “bore our disease” means anything was being imputed. The Greek word for “bore” could also mean “carried away” or “lift up.” We probably shouldn’t be looking at this verse in Matthew and say anything was “imputed” as the definition for PSA suggests, but that Jesus “carried away” their diseases (I feel this should also apply to other areas where “bore” is used) What I think is more important is this was all being done and fulfilled before his death on the cross. In Luke 18, we have Jesus answering the question, “What must be done to inherit eternal life?” Jesus did not mention the cross, but gave instructions as to what must be done. Jesus goes much further than the rich man wanted to hear, but the answer didn’t involve the cross. Just before this exchange, Jesus tells the story of a tax collector who was justified because of his humble attitude. These are all things that I have been told to happen because of the cross, yet the Gospels show this before the cross.

I honestly don’t think we can look at the cross and say it is an either/or situation. I think the cross is the answer for several questions at once. Was Jesus telling the truth? Paul points out that if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead then we are still in our sins. I take this to mean that if Jesus didn’t rise, then he wasn’t the messiah that was promised. The Kingdom of God has not come, and Israel was not being redeemed and were still in their sins. Is God a god of love? I think the cross most definitely reveals that God is a god of love. I think the death and resurrection also reveal that death has been defeated. That Jesus is the Tree of Life, made available to everyone, so sin and death will not keep us from God. We will be able to commune with God through Jesus. The cross also revealed our corrupt nature to us. I don’t think God needed the blood of Jesus, but we needed the blood of Jesus to learn that God does forgive and is true to His promise. Jesus took on the punishment and consequences of our sinful nature for our behalf, and revealed that God will pass over our sins. I also know that 1st Peter 2:24 mentions Jesus bore our sins in his body on the cross but if we read before this verse we can see a little bit more of what Peter was saying. He was warning them they might suffer for Lord’s sake, and they needed to remember how Jesus suffered and death was not able to hold him. I think Peter was reminding them of the mission of Jesus that lead to his suffering, on their behalf, so they should be willing to suffer for his sake. I have tried, and probably failed, to cram a lot into this paragraph to hopefully show the Bible uses many different ways to express the same point. That because of what Jesus did on our behalf our sins are atoned for. We will be able to commune with God as Revelation 21 teaches us. I don’t think this was done just because of his death. I think this was done because of His life, death, resurrection, accession, and completed upon His return.

I don’t think PSA is just wrong. I think it needs to be reworded to be understood better, and not from the point of view of the medieval perspective. Greg Boyd says, “What I want to say is not that this theory is wrong…I want to say is that the atonement is so much more than this. If it is so much more than this, then it follows that using “penal substitution” as our guiding term is inadequate and misleads others. At the least it does not provide enough information to explain what one really believes occurs in atonement.”

If we go by the definition of PSA this can cause a lot of people to focus only on the death of Jesus appeasing God’s wrath, all our sins are washed away, and now everything is done. I think we can look at the condition of the church to see that is exactly what happens. PSA sees atonement just in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The mindset of many Christians is that all our sins are washed away because of his death, so nothing else is needed. Now we have a church that does not resemble the Kingdom and Christians who do not reflect the image of Christ. People only focus on the sacrifice and not the change we are supposed to have. I think most of us agree that in the Old Testament God mentioned he didn’t desire their sacrifices and that was due to their wrong attitude. They were only worried about doing the ritual of the sacrifice and not the humble and repentant attitude that came with it. This is the exact same thing that happens when PSA is taught by the definition I mentioned above. People only focus on the sacrifice. They forget the life of Jesus that took up most of the Gospels and they forget Jesus is our King. Atonement should be based on his life, death, resurrection, ascension into kingship and now we are Kingdom citizens.

( I hope I’m not to far off. I don’t have any formal schooling Biblical Studies. I just read a good bit. I appreciate any information that helps to me learn and grow)

[Dennis Jensen]

I wrote the following after only reading your initial question, Dexter. (I'm unsure of proper blogging protocol. Is it okay to call you Dexter?) At any rate, for the time being, these are my initial thoughts. I’ll send my revisions and recantations and additional statements later after I read all of your comments and that of your interlocutors.

Jesus’ death did not appease God’s wrath, it appeased the principle of justice which is intrinsic to the nature of God the Father as well as to that of the Son. The imagery of God blindly pouring out his wrath on his Son, seeing the Son as sin and not seeing him as he really is, good and innocent, is simply wrong. Yes, he became sin for us who knew no sin, and bore the punishment we deserve, but it was the principle of justice that required punishment. It was God’s love that asked justice to come upon himself instead of us, the ones who deserve punishment. Exactly how substitution can occur, we cannot fully say. We can see it intuitively, however. We can see that one may ask to take the punishment another deserves and that there may be some way in the deepest laws of God’s moral nature and moral universe that this substitution may so be diverted from the one person to the other who otherwise does not deserve it. Substitution expresses the depths of the love of God. A pain that only God could bear, a pain that for God would be true pain, God takes upon himself so that we might not have to bear it and might know reconciliation to God. God did not want to bear this pain. This was truly something God would have avoided if he could have. Paul says in Galatians essentially that if there were any other way God could have taken our sin and reconciled us to himself, God would have taken that way to bring us back to himself. So much God wanted to reconcile us to himself that he took this pain upon himself. It was worth the cost to God. This is why John says that God is love. This is God’s deepest and greatest attribute.

The Hebrew Scripture teaches this idea of substitution. The priests would place his hand on the goat to be sacrificed or sent away to die and speak out the sins of the people. The animal’s death was a death that took the people's place, it took the death we deserve by taking the sin we deserve. The suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 speaks of a person who would fulfill the symbolism of the animal sacrifice.

Please get rid of the idea that only Jesus, the Son, endured this pain. All that the Son endured, the Father did as well. I can make no sense of John 3.16 unless this is so. Personally, I don’t believe that God could have freely chosen otherwise. Because of God’s nature, because God is love and because God is absolute goodness, God had to choose to do this. Before God created us, God knew we could fall and that this painful atonement would then be necessary to bring us back to God. It was worth it to God to take this chance. Because God is love, God had to create conscious beings who could relate to God and thus know the greatest of all goods, the good and the joy of knowing God. Love demands that there will be more (as many as possible, I would think) who can know this good, and thus God creates.

Let me take a small sidetrack for those who find the idea of God not knowing something troubling. We should remember that, given a simple foreknowledge view, logically prior to the creation and to God knowing all events that will occur, God had to decide to create such a world. At that point, God did not know what the outcome of Adam’s choice would be and God, in a way, took a chance as to how it would turn out. God did not determine that it would be one way or the other but rather God decided that humans would be free to choose good or evil. (Jim knows that I don’t take a simple foreknowledge view but I include its possibility for those who do.)

You ask, “How much blood would this God need to balance the scales of justice?” I don’t know, but God knows. And God gave as much blood and pain as God needed to give. You say, “I see that if appeasing an angry God is what is needed, the death of Jesus becomes the main focus of the Gospels.” Again, it is not a matter of appeasing an angry God. But appeasing justice does require that death be the main focus of the Gospels. No this was not all that Jesus talked about. But he did speak of his giving his life a ransom for many. He was spoken of as the Lamb which takes away the sins of the world, a direct allusion to the substitutionary death of the animal sacrifices of the Hebrew Scripture. I could cite more passages but I do have to admit that this doctrine did not constitute the bulk of his teachings. But counting statements or passages does not show us what constitutes one’s most important teaching. With the additional teachings of Paul and the other Apostles, we do see that this is the most important of Jesus’ teachings (assuming, of course, that other teachings like that of God’s love and the need to be reconciled to God are seen as a part of this teaching).

You say, Jesus “also was forgiving sins and restoring creation before his death and resurrection.” But God was also forgiving sins and restoring creation a hundred millennia or more before Jesus came. The animal sacrifices did not in themselves remove sin, the writer of Hebrews tells us, but by those sacrifices anticipating Jesus’ future death, they were counted as a means to remove sin. They covered sin in anticipation of the ultimate sacrifice Jesus would make. Adam and Eve could not cover their nakedness by their own efforts. Only the covering of the skin of animals truly covered them in God’s sight. This seems to me to be an obvious allusion to the need for a death to remove the shame of sin. Even those before the time of Christ who had no sacrifice, God “winked at” (Ac 17.30 KJV) or held without judgment until the day they would know about and be able to appropriate Christ’s sacrifice.

Now I need to read the rest of the comments.

[Dennis Jensen]

Just a few more comments looking at your later posts, Dexter. I hope these comments might give some idea as to why people like myself find it impossible to avoid penal atonement. We need to get rid of some concepts it is associated with, but the core must remain. Paragraphs in quotations are from your posts.

The rabbis don’t like the idea of animal sacrifice because they cannot carry out sacrifices any longer and according to the Scripture that means they are still in their sins. So historically they have had to find a way to try to negate the Scriptures which say we need sacrifice. That is why they say only repentance and obedience are needed. The more obvious answer is that the animal sacrifices point to the death of the Messiah which fulfills the animal sacrifices. This keeps the integrity of the passages which say we need sacrifice and those which tell us that sacrifice is no longer allowed since the Temple is gone.

There are no sins that do not need sacrifice according to the Hebrew Scripture. I know you can point to some that don’t seem to need sacrifice, but if we dig a little deeper, I think we can see that they do. Some were forgiven before the sacrifices but that does not mean the sacrifice was not needed. Some can be forgiven in anticipation that sacrifice will still be made. Yes, repentance was always necessary before sacrifice. But the day of atonement today is not kept the way it was originally. One can’t just say that because we can’t sacrifice therefore sacrifice is not needed.

“The laying on the hands helped the person offering the animal identify with the sacrifice.”

I agree.

“To identify with the sacrifice was so the person offering the animal would think about their own death and how this could be them.”

No, to identify with the animal was to see that the animal is your substitute. Laying hands on the animal is a means of saying my sins are placed upon this animal. This is especially clear when we think of the priest speaking the sins of the people upon the animal.

“Matthew 8:17 says, 'He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.' This was happening before his death. I also don’t see this was meant to be taken literally since Jesus wasn't full of disease.”

Jesus’ suffering was suffering that only God could endure. Some speculate that his death involved a temporary metaphysical separation between the Father and Son. Whether truly metaphysical or merely moral, this indicates a death and suffering both the Father and Son endured. So the suffering and death were different and much greater than anything a human might endure. Disease and infirmity were subsumed in his unique suffering. Jesus didn’t have to actually be diseased to bear this suffering.

Dying on our behalf cannot in this context be the same as merely dying for a cause. In the context of a culture which constantly practiced animal sacrifice and had its thinking fully immersed in substitutionary assumptions, “ransom, bearing our sins, dying for our sins, becoming a curse” etc., must have a substitutionary meaning.

“What Jesus did by suffering was show what could happen if we followed his path with obedience.”

But why did he have to die? If no substitution was involved, why would God require obedience to go this far? Wouldn’t this make God an arbitrary moral monster, punishing his Son for no good reason other than that he merely wanted to have the Son to obey or he wanted to see if his Son would obey even to this extreme? I can see that God would want to see if we would obey and cling to God to this degree. We do need to be tested. It is not wrong for God to do this to us so long as God does provide compensation for all undeserved suffering we endure. But God the Father knows what the Son will do already because God knows what God would always do. We need to be tested, God does not. God is not to be tested because God cannot fail to do what is right and good.

“As a result of his obedience, even when faced with death, God will be faithful to his promise and deliver his people from bondage.”

Why? What does his obedience have to do with our deliverance from bondage? Actually nothing. Only substitution makes any sense so as to provide a connection here. Without this we simply have God making an arbitrary and gratuitous promise that if Jesus obeys, everyone else is set free.

“Jesus is showing us that if we have faith, and live a life of obedience and repentance, we no longer face the wrath of God or the consequences of sin.”

But if this is all God wants, he didn’t have to have Jesus “show” us anything by being “obedient unto death”; he could have just told us to repent and obey. His death was unnecessary. Think of the suffering that could have been avoided. Should we think God just likes the idea of bringing about unnecessary and gratuitous suffering?

For your post of 4Ap15:

You may notice already that some of us who accept penal substitution (PSA) disagree with each other on certain points. (For example, I disagree with certain Reformed theologies which say that PSA should not leave the ball in our court, as Bob puts it.) With all that we say we hope that even though you will inevitably end up disagreeing with some of us on some point(s), you will see some core concepts in PSA that you agree with.

I do think that sacrificial atonement for sin is intimated in God’s acceptance of Able’s blood sacrifice over Cain’s non-blood sacrifice as well as in God providing animal skins as covering for Adam and Eve’s nakedness. (I’ve talked more about this earlier.) Leviticus 17.11 says the blood makes atonement in the sacrifices because of the life which is in the blood. Explicit statements like this make it seem very obvious to me that PSA is being taught in these stories in Gen 3 & 4. The statement by the writer of Hebrews that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin, is even more explicit. Blood sacrifice was not a human idea God accepted, it was God’s idea.

I agree that PSA can sound barbaric, unjust, and capricious in some interpretations. It’s like God arbitrarily chose some whipping boy to take our place. That’s why I think it is important to understand that it is God himself who chose to take our punishment upon himself and that there was no other way for God to reconcile us unless he did so. So much God loved us that he was willing to do this.

“This sacrifice was to satisfy the wrath of God but did it? We still get sick, we still suffer, we still die so the death of Jesus didn’t change anything that we can see right now.”

Aren’t you assuming that any suffering in the world is the result of God’s wrath. On the contrary, much suffering occurs, as with Job, as a testing of our will to remain committed to the God who deserves our commitment. Scripture gives other reasons as well. Now in my terminology I would say that Jesus’ death satisfied the principle of justice rather than the wrath of God. Be that as it may, what is important for our purposes is to understand that just because someone is forgiven does not mean God will not still give punishment. Modern Evangelicals are very often unaware of this. Pastors try so hard to think of ways to encourage believers to avoid sin. But this is not easy to do when so many believe that they can sin and God will forgive and they can just begin again where they left off. Speaking to Christians, Paul said that God is not mocked and that what one sows, one will reap. Indeed, we are told that judgment begins in the house of God. A paradigm example might be David. He sinned by committing adultery and murder. He repented when he was exposed by the prophet and God said he was forgiven and would not die. But he still endured horrible punishment for this. I could give several examples from the NT as well. One would be failing to discern the body and blood of Christ in the communion meal. The sin of failing to treat the elements as the body of Jesus brought about sickness and premature death, Paul tells us, yet without actually negating anyone's salvation. So whether we want to say God’s wrath or God’s justice was averted by Jesus’ sacrifice, it was never meant to be understood that punishment in this life would be removed.

Some of these comments are somewhat random thoughts, I know. Write back if you get a chance. I'd love to hear what you think.

[dexterslab1976]

Reply
@Dennis Jensen

I will try to answer some of the main points that you mentioned to hopefully clarify somethings. The issues I don’t address were probably already dealt with in some of the longer comments.

You stated, “I know you can point to some that don’t seem to need a sacrifice, but if we dig a little deeper, I think we can see that they do.” The book of Jonah is about God sending Jonah to warn a nation to repent or they would be judged. They repented and no sacrifice was mentioned. Their reaction to God’s warning and their attitude of repentance is what caused God to change his mind. We can also see cases were Jesus had forgiven people before his death and no sacrifice was required. This leads me to believe that a sacrifice is not always needed for forgiveness. I feel being obedient, humble, and repentant is what God was looking for in these situations.

I don’t see why phrases like: dying for our sins or becoming a curse, must have a PSA meaning. It is the same as someone like Martin Luther, who knew what would happen by challenging the Catholic Church at the time. He knew that his cause might lead to great suffering, possible torture, and death. He was willing to suffer this on behalf of the cause and to shed blood for what he believed to be true. He became a curse before the Roman Catholic Church. He was the representative of that cause, and there are many scholars who argue that “representative” would fit better than “substitution.” I think these different metaphors were being used to suggest the same thing. That Jesus was redeeming Israel. Redemption meant the time was at hand for Israel to be forgiven and their God was coming to set things right. Redemption and forgiveness go together so if one was being done that means so was the other. Jesus was making atonement. He was restoring the image of God, so we could commune with God once again, and this would one day be completed. As Paul said, even creation itself is waiting to be set free from bondage.

You asked why Jesus had to die. I gave a few answers and I don’t see how they make God a moral monster. The answers I gave actually show the opposite. I began by looking at PSA from an outside point of view and how many people who think that if God needs the death of an innocent man to be able to forgive; this would make God the moral monster. You seem to be drawing some conclusions that don’t come from what I stated. You said “God could have just told us to obey and repent.” God did, and in fact that is pretty much the entire Old Testament.

I don’t think God wanted Jesus to suffer. I think it was going to happen because of our sin, and the rejection of what Jesus was saying. To show us a broken system and what would happen if you had faith in Jesus and followed his way, and this is why I think obedience is important when dealing with bondage. God telling Cain to master sin is a good way to see how sin would keep us in bondage. God did not tell Cain to make a sacrifice to be released from this sin. God told him to master it. This would mean that Cain had to change inwardly and outwardly. If Cain was obedient to what God said, then he would be released from bondage. This sin would not be able to master him and he would not be a slave to it. This is a major part of being a disciple. I don’t think God used Jesus for “bringing about unnecessary and gratuitous suffering.” I think suffering happened as a result of our sin, and Jesus died on behalf of our sins. The death and resurrection of Jesus showed God’s love for us, and it also revealed our sin.

I think you misunderstood as to what I think God’s wrath is. I never stated that all suffering is the result of God’s wrath. I was simply narrowing down what is meant by God’s wrath. I mentioned the story of Adam and Eve to show exactly what I think God’s wrath is. Adam and Eve did not die because they sinned. They died because they were banned from the Garden and had no access to the Tree of Life. They were no longer allowed to commune with God, and with no way to eat from the Tree they would die. This is what I call the wrath of God. This is God letting you suffer for the sins that you willing commit which leads to death and separation from God. In John 3 and Romans 2, we can see that wrath is used in comparison to enteral life (by eternal life I don’t mean going to Heaven after you die). We have a separation from God, which is the result of God’s wrath towards sin. Believing in Jesus repairs this separation.

You also have to remember I admitted that PSA isn’t exactly wrong. I think it needs to be reworded and it needs to include more. Atonement needs to include more than just the death of Jesus. This means atonement has to be based on his life, death, resurrection, accession into Heaven, and the spreading of the Kingdom of God. I feel any definition that does not deal with each of these is not an adequate definition. I have already mentioned that the definition of PSA can give non-Christians that wrong idea of God but it can also give Christians the wrong idea of God. I can only go by my experiences with Church, but I know this is probably very wide spread. At the end of many church services I hear an invitation to say the Sinner’s Prayer. All you have to do is say this prayer, believe Jesus died on the cross, and then you are good to go. When preaching on the Gospel, how many preachers go back and mention what Isaiah said, or even what Jesus said? Most people only focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus, and then go straight to Paul. So, much is missed when the sum of the Gospel is just the death and resurrection of Jesus. The sacrifice becomes the only focus, and not the life, accession, or the attitude we must have to live in the Kingdom. God told the people of Israel that he didn’t desire their sacrifice because they only focused on the ritual and not everything else that was supposed to come with it. Christians are doing the same exact thing.