Contra Penal Substitution
Refuting “Myth Busting” by Micheal F. Bird
Introduction
I discourage anyone who reads this from harassing or belittling this person due to their beliefs. Do I think this belief about the Atonement is detrimental and philosophically incoherent? Yes. Is it against the Christian faith? It is due to bias exegesis, poor knowledge of the original language, and ignorance of patristic tradition. The purpose of this post is to refute the myth-busting claims made by this author.
#1 There is no PSA in the New Testament
This is actually true; there is no PSA mentioned in the New Testament other than poor implications of the text, poor translations, and misconception of the sacrificial system. The problem with PSA is that it lacks the verbatim phrase “God punished His Son”, and it also poses a moral problem by punishing the innocent for another’s sins. The Book of Ezekiel makes this moral assertion: “The soul who sins is the one who will die. A son will not bear the iniquity of his father, and a father will not bear the iniquity of his son. The righteousness of the righteous man will fall upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked man will fall upon him” (Ezekiel 18:20). I have heard some arguments like “Jesus was God, so it’s justified” but such an argument is delusional. Jesus wasn’t just God, but also human, so the argument is incoherent. Another will claim that God is so merciful that He gave His Son to die under His punishment instead of us, so He could forgive our sins. However, this argument also fails because God could simply forgive rather than punish an innocent person in place of sinners, and if God cannot forgive without conditions, then He is not actually forgiving since a debt was paid. If God punishes an innocent person for forgiveness, then He is not morally sufficient to forgive, nor is He practical since He gains nothing from it. It would be evil and stupid for God to punish the innocent when sin does exactly the same thing. Now, here’s the author’s opinions.
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).
This entire passage is not in reference to penal substitution, but to sanctification. Condemnation has always occurred from beginning to end, but not everyone undergoes it, because Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and even Enoch experience justification apart from any bloodshed from the Cross. Those who abide by the example of Christ are justified just as the saints of past abide by it. Being persuaded by faith and love leads to justification.“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (verse 2). The influence of God’s love liberates us from principles that outwork sin and death. This is partly related to sanctification and the resurrection, which is in reference to theosis or “partaking the divine nature” (2nd Peter 1:4). Now, here’s a breakdown: “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh”. The moral law had no extreme impact to truly deter the sinner from their sins, because the moral law (typical of negatives) reminded and emphasized them of their sins, which motivated them back into it as a result. For instance, if one repeatedly tells you not to imagine a red door in mind, you’ll inevitably imagine a red door due to the reminder of negative commands (i.e. shall not). “God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh” God deters sinners from their sins by offering His Son to demonstrate His extreme love and forgiveness to inspire us into a life of righteousness and intimacy with God (Titus 2:11–14). Christ in the appearance of sinful flesh does not mean He was sinful in an ontological sense, or in a literal sense. Instead, it means that Jesus held a physical body just like how sinners have one. God condemns sin through the body, not in the body of an extreme literal sense. Jesus cannot become sin if He is representing the Father to the world on the Cross (2nd Corinthians 5:17-19). In Christ (the Logos meaning Logic), there can be no logical contradictions. God condemns sin by exposing its negative and vile appearance on the Cross. Because God exposes sin as being deformed in appearance, this motivates the human heart to repentance; therefore, this witness of sin shuns evil and turns to the Good. Condemnation is a negative proclamation, and it’s made towards sin, not Jesus. Verse 4 then says, “so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit”. In other words, God sent Christ as a means to deter the sinner from their sins, so that the repentant sinner fulfills the righteous requirement of the moral law. Paul explains how the moral law is fulfilled, “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Galatians 5:14). Paul doesn’t say that Christ must suffer and die in order for the moral law to be fulfilled in us by imputation. As for the sin offering, God uses this primitive form of worship to remind them of the detriment of sin, in order to deter them from their sins (Hebrews 9:14). The slaughter of lambs due to sin symbolizes sin killing the innocent, which is the basic message of the lamb. Jesus did not come to forgive us of sin, or to save us from the literal wrath of God, instead “He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
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.
N.T. Wright might be a scholar, but other scholars and theologians do not hold to his position like John Behr, David Bentley Hart, and even James F. McGrath. Firstly, the Cross is not a judicial punishment of sin, but the death of an innocent man at the hands of sinful humans. The Cross is a therapeutic work to purify the minds of sinners away from their sins, in order to be inspired to be as just as Christ is. The Cross is a revelation of God’s immutable forgiveness and a cleanser for depraved hearts. Secondly, 2nd Corinthians 5:21 makes no mention of Christ becoming sin in actuality, instead Christ becomes the function of a sin offering to deter one from their sins, so that the sinner should become the righteousness of God by sanctification. Let’s read the whole context of 2nd Corinthians: “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again…Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (2nd Corinthians 5:14, 15, 17–19). In the beginning, we have the language of participation, but also the language of dissuading from sin and becoming righteous through Christ’s inspirational works. Then in verse 17, Paul speaks of the former self decaying while the new creation results by Christ, which is implying a moral transformation for the repentant. The apostle mentions that God in Christ reconciled the world to Himself, rather than Paul saying that Christ reconciled the Father and the world to each other. In other words, it was a one-sided reconciliation like the message of the Prodigal’s Son. These verses also state that while God was reconciling the world through Christ’s works, He was not negatively focused on the sins of others, because Christ who represents the Father was expressing forgiveness to them. The Cross is a revelation of God’s forgiveness, but not a causation of His forgiveness for us. If God was in Christ, then He cannot become sin since He represents the Father, and the Father cannot punish Christ if He’s representing His own nature. No one can impute sin on someone who represents the love of God.
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).
The epistle to the Galatians were primarily meant for Jews who took Mosaic observance seriously. He did not intend this to apply to everyone, but to those who willingly obeyed the law of Moses. Christ redeemed them from the curse of the law by ending its reign over them, and by suffering from the consequences of trying to end the Mosaic law. The curses of the Mosaic law didn’t result from God, but rather such things resulted from demonic powers and human influence, which is why Israel suffered oppression from the Satan and hostile armies like Babylon. Christ was not cursed by God’s wrath, but He was cursed by the Satan’s influence over corrupt humans. It is apparent that Christ is a victim of human tormentors, not God. As for obedience to the law, this does not exclude them from the curses of this life; in fact, observing the Mosaic law by stubbornness and rebellion is the reason why the Maccabees suffered a horrendous death. But the abiding of sin is what causes the devil and sin to destroy the sinner. Paul was mostly stating an Antinomian Influence view of the Atonement, which is God attempting to help the Jews be dissuaded from following the Mosaic law permanently. The Jews believed that God was entitled to sacrifices, but God made Himself known by showing us through Christ that He is self-sacrificial and desires a heart of repentance, a spirit of humility (Psalm 51:16–19; Hosea 6:6). To sum up Psalm 51:16–19, David says that God has no pleasure from offerings but in a spirit of humility and repentance, and that offerings will only be accepted by God if they’re offered in the right spirit as intended. But God has no need of ritual offerings or anything brought by us (Acts 17:25). David didn’t say that God required offerings still, but plainly stated that if they expect God to be pleased by ritual, they must offer a righteous spirit.
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.
Now, even if Jesus were cursed to save everyone from the curses of the law, this would not validate Penal Substitution, instead it would classify itself as a Ransom Atonement view in mind. Yes, Christ experienced the effects of sin like abuse, trauma, and death, but nothing relating to God. Now, if Deuteronomy 21:23 is what Paul has in mind, it would not be sufficient to prove Penal Substitution. It’s because Paul himself does not mention Jesus being cursed by God, instead he omits the segment related to God on purpose. Not to mention that the Old Testament tends to conflate and confuse God’s wrath with Satan’s works. 2nd Samuel 24 asserts that God burned against Israel, and that He told David via verbatim to take a census of Israel while 1st Chronicles 21 asserts that it was the Satan that incited David to count a census. In the Book of Job, we have Satan killing his children, but the servants of Job report to Job that it was the fire of God (1:11-16). The Book of Job and Chronicles were texts written in a later period of time, which explains their awareness of Satan’s agency. God doesn’t need to punish sinners, because sin and the devil are their own punishment, but God allows destruction in hopes of the sinner to be purged from their sins and ultimately redeemed (1st Corinthians 5:5). And every person who died on a cross weren’t cursed by God, but by men just as Jesus died on a cross. In other words, Jesus died in a way that appears cursed to us.
Third, looking a 1 Peter, we read “‘he [Jesus] himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed’” (1 Pet 2:24, italics added). In this verse, Peter uses Isaiah 53:4–5 to make the point that Jesus bore the punishment due our sins in his body. He carries our sin away by bearing the brunt of its punishment. In making note of Jesus’s body, Peter underscores the redeeming quality of Christ’s humanity as he suffered unjustly and for those who deserved to suffer as sinners.
Christ bore our sins by enduring our abuse in a symbolic fashion, because Jesus’ tormentors represent us in our fallen condition. He bore our sins by healing or purging our minds from sin, and the basis for “bore our sins” retaining a purgative or healing usage is found in Matthew 8:16, 17. “When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to Jesus, and He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took on our infirmities and carried our diseases.” Because Christ bore our sins by purifying our minds from sin, according to Peter, we died to sin and live to righteousness, which is an expression of regeneration and sanctification. “By His stripes, we are healed” continues the purgative, healing, or deliverance language, but not the legality of forgiveness from God. He makes a false claim: So there you have it, Jesus suffers the penalty of our sin as our substitute on the cross. Ironically, there is no direct verbatim phrase of God punishing His Son, no Greek linguistic support for such, and no evidence among the NT writings for abusing the innocent as a means for so-called justice. So there you have it, Jesus didn’t die to pay any penalty for sin whereas pretend to be a substitute for our sins. Some Christians should stop idolizing this doctrine.
#2 The Central Aspect of the Atonement in the New Testament
We have to recognize here that there are aspects of atonement beyond PSA. These include Jesus’s death as an example (1 Pet 2:21), an act of divine love (Rom 5:8), cleansing from sin (1 John 1:7), a divine victory (Col 2:14–15), and bound up with redemption (Mk 10:45). So while the atonement is not less than PSA there is far more to the atonement than PSA.
The reality is PSA is not a central aspect of the atonement, but rather a 16th century invention formulated by Calvin himself. Even with these supposed verses claiming PSA, I perceive no mention of a God seeking to appease His wrath from a judicial perspective. I perceive these verses in relation to purification, therapy, and one-sided reconciliation, yet there is nothing beyond such. I find it most likely that these verses that the PSA crowd claim from are based on Reformed indoctrination, Reformed translations, bias eisegesis, and even using poor implications from the sacred writings. The central aspect of the atonement is more about therapy for the mind, and restoring one’s mystical communion with God.
What is more, you have to admit that in the Book of Acts, as a digest of apostolic preaching, PSA does not figure at all. Luke focuses more on Jesus’s resurrection and exaltation rather than his death, and there is a single allusion to the atonement where Paul tells the Ephesians about how God redeemed his church by the “blood of his own son” (Acts 20:28).
Let’s read the context of Acts 20: Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” How does God buy the Church through His blood? Christ’s ransom wasn’t some type of legal exchange, but rather a literal exchange. Basically, Christ sacrifices His comfort and life, in hopes of those who witness or hear the Cross should be redeemed from their sins, and turn to God with a pure heart (Titus 2:14). Because God persuaded them to the faith, Paul warns them of individuals who will seek to imprison their minds away from the faith. There’s nothing significant to add in this point until we get into the next point he tries to assert as a fact.
#3 Nobody in Church History Believed in PSA until Calvin
While substitutionary atonement was certainly not the only or even the most popular model for the atonement in the ancient and medieval church, we do find traces of it in many places. For example, among the Apostolic Fathers, Clement wrote: “In love the Master has received us. Because of the love that he had for us, Jesus Christ our Lord, in accordance with God’s will, gave his blood for us, and his flesh for our flesh, and his life for our lives.”
Clement of Rome doesn’t affirm Penal Substitution for three reasons: 1) There is no verbatim phrase of God punishing His Son in the text, instead Clement affirms that Christ offered His life because He died and His flesh because He suffered, in hopes of redeeming our minds back to Himself. This epistle is written with the intent to encourage his audience to depart from sin and cling to virtue based on heroic and saintly examples. 2) Clement doesn’t believe that God requires or needs blood oblations, but instead He claims that God desires confession be made to Him, which requires a spirit of gentleness or repentance (1st Clement 52). 3) Clement asserts that God has no vengeful wrath toward all of His creatures, which cannot mean that God forgave us due to the Cross since God is unchanging according to Hebrews 13:8 (1st Clement 19). God’s forgiveness is not exclusive to His justice; He disciplines the sinner with the aim to purge him from falsehood and redeem him to the truth.
The second-century author of the Epistle to Diognetus expressed these poetic words: “O the sweet exchange, O incomprehensible work of God, O the unexpected blessings that the sinfulness of many should be hidden in one righteous person, while the righteousness of one should justify many sinners.” There is no doubt that this is arguing for substitutionary atonement.
This sweet exchange doesn’t sound like penal substitution, but it sounds more akin to a Ransom theory, or simply a basic assertion of a literal exchange. However, there is still no verbatim thought of God punishing His Son, which is crucial to indisputably affirm PSA as a true dogma, but sadly, we find no evidence again. Mathetes in his epistle to Diognetus also says, “For God, the Lord and Fashioner of all things, who made all things, and assigned them their several positions, proved Himself not merely a friend of mankind, but also long-suffering [in His dealings with them]. He was always of such a character, and still is, and will ever be, kind and good, and free from wrath, and true, and the only one who is [absolutely] good” (Diognetus 8). He also affirms my view: “As long then as the former time endured, He permitted us to be borne along by unruly impulses, being drawn away by the desire of pleasure and various lusts. This was not that He at all delighted in our sins, but that He simply endured them; nor that He approved the time of working iniquity which then was, but that He sought to form a mind conscious of righteousness,…and when the time had come which God had before appointed for manifesting His own kindness and power, how the one love of God, through exceeding regard for men, did not regard us with hatred, nor thrust us away, nor remember our iniquity against us, but showed great long-suffering…” (Diognetus 9). Mathetes affirms that God sought not to appease His own wrath so as to forgive, but to form a mind conscious of righteousness. Now to respond to his quotation: “O the unexpected blessings that the sinfulness of many should be hidden in one righteous person while the righteousness of one should justify many sinners,” which means that Christ conceals one’s sins by rendering them secondary in rank while Christ’s love justifies by leading them to faith, or alternatively, liberates them by making His righteousness through them dominant over their sins, hence, our sinful life becomes hidden because all we see is Christ’s love through us. (The Greek word for justification alternatively means liberation according to Romans 6:7 if one wonders where liberation came from). If this certain interpretation of Mathetes is rejected, then allow me to quote Galatians 3:1–5: “Therefore, since you have been raised with Christ, strive for the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.” In context, Paul speaks of their life being hidden with Christ as a reason why they should set their minds on things above, and he also makes reference to the discipline of rejecting malice works which fits my interpretation of the Epistle to Diognetus. Yes, Paul does mention the wrath of God in verse 6, but not in a literal and vengeful sense. The wrath of God is a metaphor for allowing sin and the Devil to harm sinners, in hopes of them realizing their errors and returning to God for grace (1st Corinthians 5:5; Wisdom 12:27). The wrath of God is always confused and sometimes conflated with the works of the Devil in the Old Testament [not finished yet]. In other words, God does not need to punish sinners, because sin and demonic forces already fulfill this operation.
There is no doubt that this is arguing for substitutionary atonement. Furthermore, in someone like Athanasius, there is a wonderful blend of incarnation, substitution, and victory:
The Word, as I said, being Himself incapable of death, assumed a mortal body, that He might offer it as His own in place of all, and suffering for the sake of all through His union with it, might bring to [negate/nought] him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver them who all their lifetime were enslaved by the fear of death.
Honestly, I perceive no language of penal substitution, but the language of sacrifice and Christus Victor. This is best understood as a therapeutic sacrifice rather than a judicial sacrifice since he mentions: “[He] might deliver them who all their lifetime were enslaved by the fear of death”. He speaks of liberation from the bondage of the works of the Devil, that is, fear of death primarily in this mentioned text (1st John 3:8; Hebrews 2:14, 15; by the way the correct term is nullify the devil in Hebrews rather than destroy). He then says: So the idea that PSA is not in the church fathers can be filed under “R” for “rejected.” I would say otherwise since none of these quotations have proven PSA as taught by the Early Church. It should be filed under “V” for “valid”. Also, the Passover Lamb is a good typology for Christus Victor rather than Penal Substitution. Here’s the illustration: Christ (the Passover Lamb) saves from slavery to Egypt (slavery to sin), from the angel of death (Satan who has power over death), and from death of the firstborn (physical death).
#4 & 5 God Punishing Christ Affirms Hatred of His Son
He makes the assertion that God doesn’t hate His Son or seeks to take vengeance as payment for the forgiveness of sins. I mean, if God imputes sin on Jesus and Jesus becomes sin according to this foolish theory, then why would He not possess hatred of Jesus since He has become sin ontologically? Some Christians (typically Calvinists) would conflate sin with the sinner, and therefore, according to their literal interpretation of Romans 9:13, would affirm that God hates sinners, so then, how would this be different from God hating Jesus due to Him supposedly becoming sin? Sinners punish the innocent, therefore, they hate the innocent. Likewise, God punishes Jesus, therefore, He hates Jesus (the innocent). God punishing Jesus is parallel to the injustice of sin harming the innocent. The author persists in the delusion that having a more nuanced language will somehow render the doctrine more reasonable and sound, but subconsciously, no amount of reforming and splitting hairs will render this doctrine as being rationally intelligent and morally fair. This kind of behavior is similar as to how Calvinists attempt to modify their hard determinism into a more compatibilist understanding. Rather than modify one’s doctrine, one should honestly question its coherency and pursue a superior doctrine of the Atonement.
A persistent criticism of the PSA that it is a form of “divine child abuse.” God saves people only by abusing, torturing, and unleashing his wrath on his innocent son. All human violence begins with and is inspired by this feat of divine violence. Fleming Rutledge laments: “It is not an exaggeration to say that in some circles there has been something resembling a campaign of intimidation, so that those who cherish the idea that Jesus offered himself in our place have been made to feel that they are neo-Crusaders, prone to violence, oppressors of women, and enablers of child abuse.”
I mean, if this doctrine makes so-called false impressions of such an idea similar to child sacrifice or child abuse, then it is either those who teach it are inarticulate, or that the doctrine itself is innately distorted and inevitably unfair. If you’re teaching Christian literalists, then the doctrine serves no edifying power to those individuals.
This pejorative criticism against orthodox atonement doctrine can be deflected by recognizing the triune nature of the atonement. The angry Father does not abuse his Son to appease his wrath against sin. Rather, the Father hands over the Son, the Son willingly goes to the cross, through the Holy Spirit, to make atonement for the sins of the world/elect (delete as preferred).
This exposition of the Cross has no resemblance to Penal Substitution, but rather serves as a generic description of how the atonement happened; however, he makes no attempt to explain how the atonement works in his generic exposition of the Cross. The offering of His Son was not made to Himself, but rather to humans which serves as a one-sided reconciliation as we find in the Prodigal’s Son parable, and even in 2nd Corinthians 5:19.
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”.
The author asserts that God did not inflict punishment on Jesus, yet his quotation of Rutledge mentions the curse of God upon sin, which by the way, was within Jesus. Therefore, by saying that God’s curse was upon sin, that God didn’t punish Jesus, and that Jesus became sin serves as an epistemic contradiction. God didn’t punish sin in Jesus’ body, instead He condemns (aka negatively proclaims) sin by exposing its vile appearance through the suffering of Jesus and the cruelty of fallen humans. If death is a curse from God rather than from sin, and Jesus is a victim of death, then God did punish Jesus according to their theory.
So the New Testament does have a version of PSA. It is there, but it is not everywhere. It is found in church history, but PSA was not exactly the biggest show in town. We should explain PSA properly, in light of the triune economy, rather than, “God hates your sin so much that he’s gonna get revenge on Jesus.”
According to the New Testament and Patristic Fathers, I see no clear and indisputable evidence for any kind of PSA, but rather bias extrapolations, poor translations, and poor understandings of sacrifice. If the many teach PSA as God punishing His Son to appease His wrath, it might just reveal that this is the essence of PSA rather than some triune economy. The only thing I perceive in the biblical text is purgative, healing, deliverance, therapeutic, psychological, and participation language. Amen.
