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Debating Penal Substitution
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'Pierced For Our Transgressions'
Quote: ‘Some who believe in penal substitution have replied by pointing out that Christ suffered willingly, or by noting that God gave himself in Christ to suffer in our place. But while these things are gloriously true, neither actually answers the objection. If guilty sinners are acquitted and an innocent third party is punished, then irrespective of his willingness an injustice has been committed, and it is unthinkable that God would do such a thing.
How are we to respond? The flaw in the argument is the unstated premise that Christ is unrelated to the believer, an unconnected third party. This is not true, for believers are in union with Christ — he is in us, and we are in him, indwelt by his Spirit (e.g. John 17:21; Romans 6:5; 8:1; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Colossians 1:27; Philippians 1:1). It is for this reason that the imputation of our guilt to Christ and his righteousness to us, his punishment and our acquittal, are just in the sight of God.’
What's all the fuss about? A Brief Introduction to the Penal Substitution Debate
by Steve Jeffery, Andrew Sach and Mike Ovey (authors' comment on website for the book)
Response: It is well that the authors recognize that punishing the innocent in the place of the guilty is an act of injustice. However, their argument is that Jesus was imputed guilt as a result of His relationship and union with believers.
Yes, believers are in union with Christ — He in us and we in Him. We are made at-one with God, indwelt of the Holy Spirit. It is for this reason we are righteous — covered by the righteous life He gave as a sweet smelling offering and sacrifice for us at the cross (Eph.5:2). An impure offering God will not accept. This ‘oneness’ is the outcome of the atonement Jesus made. We share in His righteousness through faith and consent to the Law of the Spirit in Christ. We are atoned with God — reconciled to God in the righteousness of His Son.
It is not the other way around - that God became reconciled to us and that Jesus became atoned to sinners! For Jesus to have become legally guilty for the sins of believers, He would need to have consented to their crimes. Mere relationship to those who sin does not impart guilt: ‘The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son’ (Ezek.18:20, NKJ). The ‘union’ that is required of one to be imputed criminal guilt is that of complicity in the unlawful acts. Legally and biblically it was not possible for Jesus to have been made guilty for sin. The punishment He suffered was an act of injustice, as the Bible states: ‘His justice was taken away’ (Acts 8:33, NKJ). ‘He submitted Himself to Him who judges righteously,’ Peter wrote (1 Pet.2:23, NKJ). The resurrection was God’s act of justice - overturning the verdict of an illegal court, whilst proclaiming the righteousness of the One who died.
For those who truly repent God promises life, not death — forgiveness and healing, not wrath and punishment. Forgiveness is part of God’s Law; and, when God completely forgives, the beneficiaries are completely absolved from all the penal consequences of all past guilt and sin. In other words, when sinners repent and turn to Christ, condemnation is taken away. God’s response is to forgive, not to punish. The wrath of God remains for those who do not repent; it is not for those who do. Jesus did not die for the sake of the incorrigibly wicked — for whom God’s wrath is justly reserved.
Rather than upholding biblical truth, the doctrine of penal substitution actually contradicts it.
Let's look at 2 Corinthians 5:21: 'God made Jesus sin' - in what sense? How are we to understand Paul's comment? It is not by taking this phrase out of context. This is what the Bible says, so it must be true! It is - no doubt about it, but in what context? Read on:
2 Corinthians 5:21 presents an antithesis: God made Jesus 'sin' that we might become 'the righteousness of God' in Him. Doesn't this show that the 'sin' of mankind became imputed to Christ at the cross?
There is an antithesis in this verse, but one that can easily be misinterpreted if we do not take into account the statement made in that same passage at 2 Corinthians 5:16 and similar antitheses to that expressed in 2 Corinthians 5:21 presented elsewhere by Paul, especially in his letters to the Corinthians. It is the antithesis between truth and error, reality and falsehood, the perspection of God and the view of the world, or 'flesh'. Let us examine this passage again:
Not ... ‘from a worldly point of view'
(2 Cor.5:16, NIV)
'‘So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer' (2 Cor.5:16, NIV). How the world sees us and judges us is different to the way God sees us and judges us. There is a worldly point of view, and there is a godly point of view. In the eyes of God, as true believers, we are righteous because Christ is our righteousness. The world looks upon us differently.
In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote: 'For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of a procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe ...' (1 Cor.4:9, NIV). Who did this? ... God. According to Paul, God had made the apostles to be viewed as foolish and weak: 'the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world' (1 Cor.4:9-13, NIV). There is an outward appearance and an inner reality. God allowed the apostles to go hungry and thirsty; to be in rags and brutally treated; to be homeless, cursed, persecuted and slandered. In the eyes of the world, the apostles were worthless scum. Paul said that they had once regarded Christ in this way–from a worldly point of view (2 Cor.5:16, NIV). Jesus was treated like a common criminal, spat upon, slandered, verbally and physically abused, mocked, scourged, nailed to a cross and left to die. In the eyes of the world, Jesus was sin. The mob had shouted for His death. He was regarded as one who had blasphemed God and who had worked miracles by the power of Satan (Mat.26:65; 9:34). To the Jews, He was despised as one who had wished to usurp authority and to destroy the law given to Moses. To the Romans, He was a cause of disorder. To the world, the apostles were 'the smell of death' (2 Cor.2:16, NIV), but to God 'the aroma of Christ' (2 Cor.2:15, NIV).
On the cross, 'Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God' (Eph.5:2, NIV). Jesus did this for us. This was how Christ presented Himself to God, but this was not how He appeared to the world.
We must not take a verse of scripture out of context. This verse: 'God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God' (2 Cor.5:21), is a verse which must be viewed in the context of the passage, the whole letter, and Paul's related comments in his first letter to the Corinthians and other letters. When we do this, we will not take a worldly view of the cross. In the One whom the world judged as sin we have become the righteousness of God.
Amongst the Corinthians were those who were judging Paul by outward appearance: 'You are looking only on the surface of things' (2 Cor.10:7, NIV). Some people were saying that in person he was 'unimpressive’, that his speaking 'amounted to nothing' (2 Cor.10:10, NIV) and demanded proof that he was speaking for Christ: 'You are demanding proof that Christ is speaking through me' (2 Cor.13:3, NIV). As a way of confirming his calling, Paul chose not so much to speak of the signs of an apostle, which he had wrought amongst them: 'miracles, signs and wonders' (2 Cor.12:12), but of his sufferings in the likeness of Christ (2 Cor.6:4-10; 10:23-29). Paul's concern was not for himself: 'What we are is plain to God' (2 Cor.5:11, NIV), but was for those who were forming worldly and divisive judgmental attitudes. Therefore, just as it is wrong to judge Christ by surface appearance, as He was judged by those without faith, so we must not judge each other.
Man had esteemed Christ as one accursed of God (Gal.3:13), smitten and afflicted by Him–but that was only the outward appearance, the view of the world. The Scriptures agree: Christ, 'through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself unblemished to God' (Heb.9:14, NIV). Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Stephen, the first Christian martyr, told his accusers that they had murdered the 'Righteous One', predicted by the prophets (Acts 7:52). The One murdered was righteous. God's vindication of His Son was the resurrection.
'God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things ... by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross' (Col.1:19-20, NKJ). Paul said: 'God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, (2 Cor.5:19, NKJ). How were we reconciled to God?... 'We were reconciled to God through the death of His Son' (Rom.5:10, NKJ). Therefore, we can conclude, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself through the death of His Son–who offered Himself unblemished to God, through the eternal Spirit, as a fragrant offering and sacrifice. This is biblical and reveals that there was no spiritual separation of the Father and the Son at the time of the atonement.
In reality, far from being the embodiment of sin upon the cross, the Scriptures declare that He died righteous, unblemished by sin and at one with God. Rather than the false perception of the world, Jesus was the pure, untainted sin-offering - that all who believe might be made the righteousness of God in Him - 'THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS' (Jer.23:6, NKJ).
'For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us'
(2 Cor.5:21, NKJ)
An alternative reading of 2 Cor.5:21 renders the word for sin, Gk.: hamartian, as sin-offering (given as a marginal reference in modern translations). This dual interpretation is made possible due to the fact that there is ample precedent for such usage in the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament (notably: Lev.4:32; 5:6, 7, 8, 9) and in the Hebrew, e.g. Hosea 4:8, 'They eat up the sin of My people,' where a single word is used for sin, Hb.: chatta'ah, which can be translated sin-offering. The Greek expression hamartias, meaning sins or sin-offerings, is used in the book of Hebrews in a direct quotation from the Septuagint of Psalm 40:6: 'In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure,' Heb.10:6, NKJ. The word 'sacrifices' has been added for clarity of meaning by translators, but it does not occur in the Greek of either the passage from Psalm 40 or from the letter to the Hebrews. There is no doubt, therefore, that the term was understood to have this application during New Testament times. A modern translation by David Stern renders 2 Cor. 5:21 as: "God made this sinless man be a sin offering on our behalf, so that in union with him we might fully share in God’s righteousness" (The Jewish New Testament).
The dual import of Paul's words in this passage can be understood from the biblical context. It was not the view or judgement of the world that God accepted concerning the sacrifice of His Son. As a sin-offering, Jesus presented Himself as the untainted, pure and perfect offering to God for our sakes, that we, in union with Him, by God's grace might share in His righteousness and thereby have our sins removed.'
The Biblical Revelation of the Cross, Norman McIlwain (p.21-23)
As Isaiah wrote: 'Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted'. This was how Jesus was esteemed by man, but this was not the reality. We need to ask in what sense Jesus bore our sins, griefs and sorrows. There is a deeper and more richer understanding of our Lord's sin-bearing than that so often presented from a forensic 'penal' point of view.
If God can impute righteousness to us, then why not sin to Christ?
It is all about consent. Sin cannot be imputed to Jesus because He never yielded to evil. He yielded His will to the Father. To be attributed sin, one must consent to sin. Those who give their consent to evil without repentance will be condemned with the devil. By consenting to follow Christ in faith, God, in His grace and mercy, judges us righteous in His Son.
If God is unjust in punishing Christ for the sinful, then surely He is unjust in punishing mankind for the sin of Adam?
Regarding Adam's sin ... When Adam sinned, mankind was judged sinful and appointed to die. Was God wrong in His judgement? Certainly not, we are sinful. God, of course, judged correctly. Spiritually, we all answer for our own sins. This is biblical. It is unlawful to punish the innocent for the guilty. Therefore God did not punish Christ.
Justice is not upheld by punishing the innocent in the place of the guilty. You don't need a law degree to see that. It is common sense.
'Hamartia' is used over 170 times in the New Testament to indicate 'sin'. In only one place do translators show it to mean 'sin offering' (Hebrews 10:6). Isn't this usage compelling, suggesting that 'hamartia' can only mean 'sin' and not 'sin offering' in 2 Corinthians 5:21?
It would indeed be a strong argument in favour of the translation of the word 'harmartia' to mean only 'sin' in 2 Cor.5:21, if this usage were all we had to consider. However, to arrive at a clear understanding, we should know how the word was applied in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament - and realize that even the Hebrew word for sin, 'chatta'ah', was translated either as 'sin' or 'sin offering' according to context.
In over 170 instances in the New Testament, the context demands that the word should be translated 'sin'. This is not surprising, for the need to discuss sacrificial offerings relates more to the Old Testament. However, in one passage, Hebrews 10:6, translators have no doubt about the intended meaning: 'hamartias' is translated 'sacrifices for sin' (NKJ) - the verse being a direct quotation from the Septuagint. It can be estimated that almost 80% of the quotes in the N.T. come from the Septuagint - and the letter to the Hebrews, especially, quotes from this version. In fact, it was the Bible most used by Greek speaking Christians and Jews of the first century. In 2 Corinthians 5:21, the context is that of the sacrifice of our Lord, so translators allow the possibility that the meaning can be 'sin offering'.
In the Hebrew Old Testament, the word, chata'aw', which is translated 'hamartia' in the Greek LXX, is also used over 170 times with the sense of 'sin'. Nevertheless, this word is also given the meaning 'sin offering' in 115 places where the context makes this requirement. The word could also be used with both meanings in the same passage, as in Leviticus 5:6: '...for his sin which he has sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin.' This makes possible the dual meaning given to the word 'hamartia' in 2 Cor.5:21 in the translation by David Stern (The Jewish New Testament): 'God made this sinless man be a sin offering on our behalf, so that in union with him we might fully share in God’s righteousness.'
The Apostle Paul, being a very learned Jewish scholar, had full understanding of the dual meanings to be derived from this word; therefore, we should be aware of this also.
'Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children ...' (Ex.20:5) and 'Achan' (Josh. 7): are not these examples of God imputing the guilt of one to another?
Ex.20:5: 'For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me.' This speaks of a household and hate towards God - possibly great grandparents, grandparents, parents and children. Achan died with his whole household. We don't know how many was in this family, but we might reasonably surmise that what Achan did - rebelling with lust for silver and gold - received the approval of his children. Quite likely the family knew what was in the tent, but said nothing and may even have been secretly pleased about it. Just because they were not the ones to take the initial decision, in defiance of God's command, does not mean that they had disapproved of Achan's actions. Nothing is said, but God does not punish the innocent. If such punishment is brought upon the sons and daughters, then the children have been corrupted and complicit in some way in the crimes of the parents, perhaps by following their wrong example. We see that today - criminal activities can run in families. God is just; and if the children are punished for the crimes of parents, then it is because the children are inclined to act criminally in like manner. God knows all. Members of a family are each judged by their own conduct (see Ezekiel 18). Children who are not implicated in the sins of parents and obey God do not share in their guilt: ' "Why should the son not bear the guilt of the father?" Because the son has done what is lawful and right, and has kept all My statutes and done them, he shall surely live' (Ezek.18:19, NKJ).
The Federal Headship of Christ enables Him to be the legal representative of all who are saved through Him. Doesn't this imply that as the Federal Head, He must also be responsible for the sins of those He represents - and so suffer their due punishment?
The principle of Federal Headship in legal terms can easily be understood with reference to company law, where it is sometimes applied. The owners of a company are responsible for actions that happen within the company rules and consent of management. Corporate manslaughter is a good example. However, the company would need to be involved in the action. One employee murdering another in a fit of temper, for example, would not make the owners of the company guilty for the crime. It would have happened without their consent and certainly against company rules. However, drugs manufactured that later are found to cause death would make the company and its owners liable. Guilt would rightly be imputed - because of the company's consent to the manufacture. Consent makes all the difference. God does not consent to sin. Mankind broke the rules - God is not implicated in our guilt.
On the contrary, at the cross, Jesus gave His life in complete righteousness and without any stain of sin whatsoever. Because of this, His offering was acceptable to God and so are we, whose lives are covered by His own. Thus, we are justified by the grace of God - not as a result of our own righteousness, but by reason of the righteousness of God imputed to us in Christ through faith.
R.L. Dabney, the famous Presbyterian theologian of the 19th century, quoted opponents of Penal Substitution as saying: ‘… just government, human or divine, cannot transfer one man's guilt to another who is innocent, under any possible conditions, because punishment loses its moral significance, and becomes cruelty and wickedness as soon as it is transferred from the sinning person to another.’ To this ethical objection, he replied ‘… they set their philosophy above all the authority claimed for God's word.’ (Christ Our Penal Substitute, Ch.8).
According to Dabney, regardless of what we know by moral intuition, the authority of Scripture is paramount and must override all objections of conscience. Nevertheless, the obvious danger of this position is in the misinterpretation and misapplication of Scripture to defend positions or actions that are either completely wrong or, at best, far from the ideal.
Clear examples include Dabney’s own defence of North American slavery; the German reformer Martin Luther’s use of Scripture to support anti-Semitism; and the doctrinal support given by Thomas Aquinas for the Inquisition and the use of the secular arm for the execution (normally preceded by torture) of those supposed guilty of schism or heresy (Summa Theologica, 2-2: 11, 3 & 4). Luther not only preached that the age-long sufferings of the Jews proved God's hatred of them, but went on to advise the Germans to burn down the homes of Jews, to close their synagogues and schools, to confiscate their wealth, to conscript their men and women into forced labour; and wrote, ‘All Jews should be given the choice between either accepting Christ, or having their tongues torn out’ (Concerning the Jews and their lies, 1542). One could also mention the drowning of Baptists in Calvin’s Geneva besides giving many more instances where a God-given conscience and moral intuition within man should have claimed precedent over man’s logic and his interpretation of God’s written word. This is biblical and we are without excuse:
‘Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things contained in the law … show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts either accusing or else excusing them’ (Rom.2:14, NKJ).
So now we have the 'logic' of penal substitution overriding the law of God in the heart of man. The Bible is the authority for doctrine, but we need to be very careful that we do not just rely on our own human logic for its interpretation. The Holy Spirit heightens, not quells, the law of God in man's heart.
'Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen '
(2 Pet.3v18)
© N.McIlwain, 2007
(All rights reserved)
