Penal substitution?
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That’s my understanding as well and in an Apostles Creed study at my church, when we got to that portion reviewed all the ancient beliefs. What you posted is of course the orthodox view (little o
I’d love to share the poem with the group.
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The Atonement theology Lewis incorporates into The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is "ransom" atonement theology. It was very popular in the first thousand years of the Church. Here's a description of that:
“Essentially, this theory claimed that Adam and Eve sold humanity over to the Devil at the time of the Fall; hence, justice required that God pay the Devil a ransom to free us from the Devil's clutches. God, however, tricked the Devil into accepting Christ's death as a ransom, for the Devil did not realize that Christ could not be held in the bonds of death. Once the Devil accepted Christ's death as a ransom, this theory concluded, justice was satisfied and God was able to free us from Satan's grip.”
(Robin Collins, Understanding Atonement: A New and Orthodox Theory)
St. Augustine referred to it as a “mouse trap”; St. Gregory of Nyssa uses a “fish hook” analogy.
St. Anselm directly takes on the idea that there is a problem with this understanding because there is no justice in Christ paying a ransom to Satan who took something that wasn't his to take. His focus shifts us to the "satisfaction" theory of atonement, which is that the debt Christ is paying is obedience to God in maintaining holiness that we have failed to do. It is why the Catechism says that "Jesus substitutes his obedience for our disobedience" and "Jesus atoned for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father". (CCC615) The satisfaction theory of atonement has been the dominant Catholic theory for the last thousand years, but it is very different from the 'penal substitution' theory proposed by Protestantism which has many theological failings from the Catholic viewpoint. Not the least of which is that it contradicts the dogma of the Trinity.
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That is not what many "reformed" communities teach. Rather, they teach Penal Substitutionary Atonement, which is found nowhere explicitly in Sacred Scripture.
The passage you cited above does not explicitly teach PSA. The same can be said for the other passages which you frequently cite when this discussion comes up. PSA is not explicitly taught in Sacred Scripture.
The only way PSA can be adduced from Sacred Scripture is by interpreting the passages. I suppose that's fine but other interpretations of the method and mode of our salvation can be (and are) adduced from those precise same passages.
Funnily enough, adherents of other interpretive models seem to understand that those key passages can be interpreted in other ways. In my observation, adherents of PSA seem to be the only ones who can't understand how anybody else can possibly have a different viewpoint.
It's a bit strange.
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One of them was a long discussion with Chris, who was Reformed in theology, claimed also to be Calvinist, liberally quoted Calvin, and I think belonged to a Covenant denomination. I don't know if he was a consistent Covenanter, and I don't pretend to know what they are all about anyhow. But he was emphatic that Jesus Christ was damned by the Father, that the eternal Son of the Father was cast aside from the Trinity to face hell alone, albeit temporarily. I challenged this as it was just too odd to believe, at least for this Catholic. But he clarified and drilled down. I know that not all Protestants, or all Reformed for that matter, think this way. But it is a real belief of at least a subset of Reformed folks. It is NOT the imagination of Catholics that you have Reformed people out there who think that way. You COULD say he was an odd man off BUT since it has been observed by others, I'd say it's not that rare.
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In his Treatise on Preparing to Die, Martin Luther said this ‘cry of abandonment’ means Jesus “descended into hell for your sake and was forsaken by God as one eternally damned”.
From the Institutes of Christian Religion by John Calvin:
But, apart from the Creed, we must seek for a surer exposition of Christ’s descent
to hell: and the word of God furnishes us with one not only pious and holy, but replete with
excellent consolation. Nothing had been done if Christ had only endured corporeal death.
In order to interpose between us and God’s anger, and satisfy his righteous judgment, it was
necessary that he should feel the weight of divine vengeance. Whence also it was necessary
that he should engage, as it were, at close quarters with the powers of hell and the horrors
of eternal death. We lately quoted from the Prophet, that the “chastisement of our peace
was laid upon him” that he “was bruised for our iniquities” that he “bore our infirmities;”
expressions which intimate, that, like a sponsor and surety for the guilty, and, as it were,
subjected to condemnation, he undertook and paid all the penalties which must have been
exacted from them, the only exception being, that the pains of death could not hold him.
Hence there is nothing strange in its being said that he descended to hell, seeing he endured
the death which is inflicted on the wicked by an angry God. It is frivolous and ridiculous to object that in this way the order is perverted, it being absurd that an event which preceded
burial should be placed after it. But after explaining what Christ endured in the sight of
man, the Creed appropriately adds the invisible and incomprehensible judgment which he
endured before God, to teach us that not only was the body of Christ given up as the price
of redemption, but that there was a greater and more excellent price—that he bore in his
soul the tortures of condemned and ruined man.
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Thank you. Here is a more accurate view:
Ligonier Ministries
I think if we see Jesus as the substitute, we must ask a substitute for what exactly. Then when we say as the Apostle Paul did, the wages of sin is death, that draws a direct line to the actual wage or penalty Jesus paid.
I’ve been here at CF and others places and it seems when Penal Substitution is raised, immediately an image of The Father taking pleasure in punishing His Son. I understand no one here is making that claim but it is an embedded “thought” expressed in other places.
Where Isaiah 53 says “But the LORD was pleased
To crush Him, putting Him to grief;
If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand” the idea is not a vindictive Father taking pleasure in the punishment but a satisfaction Jesus willingly took on the penalty due us.
I don’t think we can come away from Isaiah 53 without, at the very least, that Jesus is our substitute and that He did pay the wages or penalty due us.
We do see this confirmed by the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 2:
21For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; 23and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. 25For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.
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The Apostle Peter is not alone:
And Aquila is in exact agreement with Symmachus. With regard first to the words which are apparently said in the Person of our Saviour: "Heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee," you will notice in Symmachus they are not so rendered, but thus: "Heal my soul, even if I have sinned against thee." And He speaks thus, since He shares our sins. So it is said: "And the Lord hath laid on him our iniquities, and he bears our sins." Thus the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, (467) became a curse on our behalf:
"Whom, though he knew no sin, God made sin for our sake, giving him as redemption for all, that we might become the righteousness of God in him."
[...]
But since being in the likeness of sinful flesh He condemned sin in the flesh, the words quoted are rightly used. And in that He made our sins His own from His love and benevolence towards us, He says these words, adding further on in the same Psalm: "Thou hast (b) protected me because of my innocence," clearly shewing the impeccability of the Lamb of God. And how can He make our sins His own, and be said to bear our iniquities, except by our being regarded as His body, according to the apostle, who says: "Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members?" And by the rule that "if one member suffer all the members suffer with it," so when the many members suffer and sin, He too by the laws of (c) sympathy (since the Word of God was pleased to take the form of a slave and to be knit into the common tabernacle of us all) takes into Himself the labours of the suffering members, and makes our sicknesses His, and suffers all our woes and labours by the laws of love. And the Lamb of God not only did this, but was chastised on our behalf, (d) and suffered a penalty He did not owe, but which we owed because of the multitude of our sins; and so He became the cause of the forgiveness of our sins, because He received death for us, and transferred to Himself the scourging, the insults, and the dishonour, which were due to us, and drew down on Himself the apportioned curse, being made a curse for us. And what is that but the price of our |196 souls? And so the oracle says in our person: "By his stripes we were healed," and "The Lord delivered him for our sins," with the result that uniting Himself to us and us to Himself, and appropriating our sufferings, He can say, "I said, Lord, have mercy on me, heal my soul, (468) for I have sinned against thee," and can cry that they who plot against Him, not men only but invisible daemons as well, when they see the surpassing power of His Holy Name and title, by means of which He filled the world full of Christians a little after, think that they will be able to extinguish it, if they plot His death. This is what is proved by His saying: "My enemies have spoken evil of me, saying, When shall he die and his name perish?"
- Eusebius of Caesarea, Demonstratio Evangelica, X.1
Eusebius of Caesarea: Demonstratio Evangelica. Tr. W.J. Ferrar (1920) -- Book 10
Chrysostom, Homily on Galatians 3:3 (ACD, vol. 3, p. 108)
The people were liable to punishment since they had not fulfilled the whole Law. Christ satisfied a different curse, the one that says, “Cursed is everyone that is hanged on a tree.” Both the one who is hanged and the one who transgresses the Law are accursed. Christ, who was going to lift that curse, could not properly be made liable to it, yet he had to receive a curse. He received the curse instead of being liable to it, and through this he lifted the curse. Just as, when someone is condemned to death, another innocent person who chooses to die for him releases him from that punishment, so Christ also did.
In reality, the people were subject to another curse, which says, Cursed is every one that continues not in the things that are written in the book of the Law. Deuteronomy 27:26 To this curse, I say, people were subject, for no man had continued in, or was a keeper of, the whole Law; but Christ exchanged this curse for the other, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree. As then both he who hanged on a tree, and he who transgresses the Law, is cursed, and as it was necessary for him who is about to relieve from a curse himself to be free from it, but to receive another instead of it, therefore Christ took upon Him such another, and thereby relieved us from the curse. It was like an innocent man's undertaking to die for another sentenced to death, and so rescuing him from punishment. For Christ took upon Him not the curse of transgression, but the other curse, in order to remove that of others. For, He had done no violenceneither was any deceit in His mouth. Isaiah 53:9;1 Peter 2:22 And as by dying He rescued from death those who were dying, so by taking upon Himself the curse, He delivered them from it.
CHURCH FATHERS: Homily 3 on Galatians (Chrysostom)
Augustine
“This, the catholic faith has known of the one and only mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who condescended to undergo death—that is, the penalty of sin—without sin, for us. As He alone became the Son of man, in order that we might become through Him sons of God, so He alone, on our behalf, undertook punishment without ill deservings, that we through Him might obtain grace without good deservings. Because as to us nothing good was due so to Him nothing bad was due. Therefore, commending His love to them to whom He was about to give undeserved life, He was willing to suffer for them an undeserved death.” (Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, Book 4, chap. 7)
CHURCH FATHERS: Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, Book IV (Augustine)
And Aquila is in exact agreement with Symmachus. With regard first to the words which are apparently said in the Person of our Saviour: "Heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee," you will notice in Symmachus they are not so rendered, but thus: "Heal my soul, even if I have sinned against thee." And He speaks thus, since He shares our sins. So it is said: "And the Lord hath laid on him our iniquities, and he bears our sins." Thus the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, (467) became a curse on our behalf:
"Whom, though he knew no sin, God made sin for our sake, giving him as redemption for all, that we might become the righteousness of God in him."
[...]
But since being in the likeness of sinful flesh He condemned sin in the flesh, the words quoted are rightly used. And in that He made our sins His own from His love and benevolence towards us, He says these words, adding further on in the same Psalm: "Thou hast (b) protected me because of my innocence," clearly shewing the impeccability of the Lamb of God. And how can He make our sins His own, and be said to bear our iniquities, except by our being regarded as His body, according to the apostle, who says: "Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members?" And by the rule that "if one member suffer all the members suffer with it," so when the many members suffer and sin, He too by the laws of (c) sympathy (since the Word of God was pleased to take the form of a slave and to be knit into the common tabernacle of us all) takes into Himself the labours of the suffering members, and makes our sicknesses His, and suffers all our woes and labours by the laws of love. And the Lamb of God not only did this, but was chastised on our behalf, (d) and suffered a penalty He did not owe, but which we owed because of the multitude of our sins; and so He became the cause of the forgiveness of our sins, because He received death for us, and transferred to Himself the scourging, the insults, and the dishonour, which were due to us, and drew down on Himself the apportioned curse, being made a curse for us. And what is that but the price of our |196 souls? And so the oracle says in our person: "By his stripes we were healed," and "The Lord delivered him for our sins," with the result that uniting Himself to us and us to Himself, and appropriating our sufferings, He can say, "I said, Lord, have mercy on me, heal my soul, (468) for I have sinned against thee," and can cry that they who plot against Him, not men only but invisible daemons as well, when they see the surpassing power of His Holy Name and title, by means of which He filled the world full of Christians a little after, think that they will be able to extinguish it, if they plot His death. This is what is proved by His saying: "My enemies have spoken evil of me, saying, When shall he die and his name perish?"
- Eusebius of Caesarea, Demonstratio Evangelica, X.1
Eusebius of Caesarea: Demonstratio Evangelica. Tr. W.J. Ferrar (1920) -- Book 10
Chrysostom, Homily on Galatians 3:3 (ACD, vol. 3, p. 108)
The people were liable to punishment since they had not fulfilled the whole Law. Christ satisfied a different curse, the one that says, “Cursed is everyone that is hanged on a tree.” Both the one who is hanged and the one who transgresses the Law are accursed. Christ, who was going to lift that curse, could not properly be made liable to it, yet he had to receive a curse. He received the curse instead of being liable to it, and through this he lifted the curse. Just as, when someone is condemned to death, another innocent person who chooses to die for him releases him from that punishment, so Christ also did.
In reality, the people were subject to another curse, which says, Cursed is every one that continues not in the things that are written in the book of the Law. Deuteronomy 27:26 To this curse, I say, people were subject, for no man had continued in, or was a keeper of, the whole Law; but Christ exchanged this curse for the other, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree. As then both he who hanged on a tree, and he who transgresses the Law, is cursed, and as it was necessary for him who is about to relieve from a curse himself to be free from it, but to receive another instead of it, therefore Christ took upon Him such another, and thereby relieved us from the curse. It was like an innocent man's undertaking to die for another sentenced to death, and so rescuing him from punishment. For Christ took upon Him not the curse of transgression, but the other curse, in order to remove that of others. For, He had done no violenceneither was any deceit in His mouth. Isaiah 53:9;1 Peter 2:22 And as by dying He rescued from death those who were dying, so by taking upon Himself the curse, He delivered them from it.
CHURCH FATHERS: Homily 3 on Galatians (Chrysostom)
Augustine
“This, the catholic faith has known of the one and only mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who condescended to undergo death—that is, the penalty of sin—without sin, for us. As He alone became the Son of man, in order that we might become through Him sons of God, so He alone, on our behalf, undertook punishment without ill deservings, that we through Him might obtain grace without good deservings. Because as to us nothing good was due so to Him nothing bad was due. Therefore, commending His love to them to whom He was about to give undeserved life, He was willing to suffer for them an undeserved death.” (Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, Book 4, chap. 7)
CHURCH FATHERS: Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, Book IV (Augustine)
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Thank you for the response. Could you please provide links to the quotes you provided as I have above? Thank you in advance.
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How do you handle Isaiah 53? Does it display a Messiah who suffers for our sins?
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Yes that would be odd. I believe I referenced there were some beliefs Jesus suffered in Hell. Not Reformed of course.
Matthew 27:46 would not be this.
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Thanks! Jesus bearing our sins on himself doesn't have to mean that it was the Father who punished him for them. I know of Isa 53, which could be understood that way, but what other passages would describe God punishing Jesus?
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And yet this guy was emphatic that he was Reformed. Maybe he was a liar, I donno. I told him he was crazy, but it did no good.
That was a quote from the initial line of a psalm, the whole of which should be understood as referenced. Jesus had a human anguish that was real, but he also knew that the latter parts of that psalm were what he was all about. I do not think it refers to the Father condemning the Son to be damned. Not at all.
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My understanding has been that God forsook Jesus in the sense that God let the crucifixion happen. God let the sins of the whole world strike Jesus on the cross.
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We know from “It is Finished” that indeed His work was complete.
With Matthew 27:46 showing the complete anguish of Christ’s human suffering. It was at that point He longed for the face to face intimacy He had before the foundations of the earth.
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I think there is a prevalent idea out there which puts the Father in the light of a “cosmic child abuser,”.
When the focus should be on God’s Justice being satisfied.
Which evokes the question of how that was accomplished.
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A thought: If God had completely forsaken Jesus on the cross. How could Jesus then pray to him?
Luke 23:34
But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves.
Luke 23:46
And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT.” Having said this, He breathed His last.
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