The Danger of Penal Substitution

The topic of “penal substitution” is an idea that few Christians would think to challenge yet I see three good reasons to: First, it does not align with the overall picture of God in scripture; second, it unknowingly degrades God to a dependent deity; thirdly, it has now become woven into mainstream comprehension of salvation.

         The doctrine of penal substitution says that our sin is so sordid that God in His infinite holiness could no longer stand to have us in His presence.  Never mind the fact that He managed to tabernacle with the Hebrews and it was more to their detriment to come too close to His holiness than the other way around (Exod. 33:20).  Nonetheless, human sin was to the extent that God (while loving us) was also angry with us and desired blood-payment as retribution.  Thus, the solution was for Jesus to enter into the flesh and blood dynamic as our substitute and become a punching-bag of sorts for His Father’s wrath thereby transactionally embodying the payment for our debt.  This is based on the scriptures that say Christ who knew no sin bore our sin, became sin for us and redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming the curse (Isa. 54:12; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13).  

The problem with this interpretation is twofold in that it, first, runs contrary to everything else said about God and imposes a view that believes this is for the purpose of transforming how God views us rather than making the attempt to transform us.  Secondly, we are told that God forgave us our sins upon our repentant confession thereof (Matt. 6:12; 1 Jn. 1:9).   So was our debt paid for us, or did God forgive us by offering full remission of our debt?  They cannot both be true.  Let’s say you are my close friend who stole money from me and I demand repayment, so somebody else pays it for you, but then I say, “You are now forgiven.”  I would expect you to hit me with a dictionary.  However, if you could not repay the debt and apologized and I realized both your sincerity of regret and helplessness to the situation, I could respond with compassion and release you from having to pay it back so long as we work toward building a new relationship/friendship that respects and cares for each other the right way (i.e. reconciliatory forgiveness).

This should raise the question, then why did Jesus die?  Perhaps we should consider one of the more symbolic actions that occurred just prior to the crucifixion, the last supper.  To draw from N.T. Wright, the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) all say the last supper happened on Passover, which actually falls in line with Talmudic records that attest to Jesus’ crucifixion.  Alternatively, John’s gospel says the last supper happened the day before Passover, but this could be an intentional misaligned date so to make a theological point about Jesus dying on the same day as all the other Pascal lambs.[1]  Nevertheless, each gospel account saw a correlation between the Passover and the crucifixion.  Why is this pertinent?  Because the Passover occurred when the Hebrew slaves were being free from the tyranny of Egyptian bondage.  Jesus is making a statement, not that He is equal to the Passover, but more profoundly that He is the new Passover and His crucifixion, like the Pascal lamb, will initiate the new Exodus from a deeper bondage and this Passover will be remembered and retold through His story.[2]

Therefore, we have misunderstood why Jesus died and took our sins onto Himself because we have fundamentally misunderstood the effect of sin as merely being a nasty stain, but in its reality is a ultimately a permanent bondage to a hopelessness and while living in temporary enslavement to the rulers of darkness for the duration of our lives.  In Four Views of the Atonement, Greg Boyd’s view (known as the Christus Victor model) expounds on this by making the case that sin was the human shortcoming which enslaved us, rather than an incident that changed God’s mind in regards to how He felt about us.  To illustrate this, Boyd shows that the one who took ownership of us in our captivity was Satan and he was the one demanding blood all along.[3]

To briefly explain this statement, we often think the animal sacrifice was God’s idea, but this was a practice endemic throughout the ancient world. The Hebrews were clearly doing it prior to any covenants with God. This rhetoric is evident when God puts an end to their making sacrifices to a demon of the ancient world (Lev. 17:7).  So also, the first time a sacrificial offering occurs in Scripture it was not because God demanded it rather Cain and Abel do it on their own volition (Gen. 4).  Again, this suggests a worldview and practice within a fallen humanity that believed sacrificing life was the submissive and even humble thing to do for their god.  However, instead of demanding it to stop, God has a more permanent solution that allows them to keep the cultural practice for a time, but redirects their use of it in a way that will eventually beat evil at its own game.

 

Thus, back to Boyd’s point, it was through Christ’s death that this divine Son and Father used the Son’s sharing in human flesh and blood to defeat Satan and his cohorts who held the power of death over flesh and blood (Heb. 2:14; 1 Jn. 3:8).  This action ransomed humanity and reconciled the entire world back to God in a way that, much like my forgiveness anecdote, understood  human helplessness and in compassion did not count our sins against us (2 Cor. 5:18-19; Col. 1:20-22).  Accordingly, God made the decision to forgive us (Eph. 1:7), offered healing for our sinful nature (1 Pet. 2:24) and empowered us with His Spirit to live in relation with Him again (Rom. 8:2-16).[4]   Therefore, Jesus was not sent to change the way God feels about us because God was always full of love for us; nor did Jesus change God’s view of us because His view of our worth always exceeded what we could comprehend.  Jesus came to release us from a broken situation, broken feelings toward God and each other and a broken view (Luke 4:18). 

So, to my original point, penal substitution is a dangerous idea because throughout the Bible the story is always revealing (both intentionally and unintentionally) a God that does not resemble any of the other deities.  Yet, penal substitution shows an inferior picture of a God who needs His needs met, specifically a need for revenge on those He supposedly loves.  Thank God this is not true.  The real portrait of Israel’s God changed it all by revealing Himself to be the only God who was so self-sufficient that He could operate in mode of redemption, recreation, reconciliation and most wonderful of all invite His subjects as friends to be active participators in it while being effectually shaped by it.  The only satisfaction God and Jesus were aiming for was that of our freedom. 

                       

[1] N.T. Wright. Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Press 1996), 554-555.

[2]Ibid, 558-559.

[3] James Beilby & Paul R. Eddy. Four Views: The Nature of the Atonement (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press 2006), 23.

[4] Ibid.