As nonbelieving sinners, we all deserve to justly be tortured, humiliated, crucified and go to hell from God. The fact that Christ physically was tortured, humiliated, crucified and murdered and we physically are not, means at lease there is some kind of substitution.
BUT: Is Penal Substitution (PS) happening? Where God is seeing to Christ’s torture, humiliation, crucifixion and murder (punishment), instead of God punishing humans (or saved individuals).
2 Cor 5 "
he made him who knew no sin - to become sin for us - that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ".
Isaiah 53 "
He took the stripes for us - to whom the stroke was due".
He suffers the second death in our place.
We do have the killing of the innocent baby son of David and Bathsheba: Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. 14 But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die.”
15 After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. 16 David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth on the ground. 17 The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them.
David’s innocent son’s illness and death should have been David’s illness and death, so is this penal substitution or is it God’s just way of indirectly further punishing/disciplining David for his sins?
It is a punishment for David - and shows the nation - that even the king cannot get by with murder - thus preserving order.
If we Love Christ more than David loved the son he caused to become ill, than should we be at least as sorrowful as David?
Indeed - that is the point of it.
If I am just one of billions of sinners causing Christ’s time on the cross, then I might be responsible for a few nanoseconds of His time on the cross, but do I play a greater part?
Christ prayed repeatedly His most intense prayer in the Garden which we have only one verse asking: “if there was any other way…”, but what “other way” could there be? If I personally had fulfilled my earthly objective without sinning, Christ would not have had to go to the cross for me, but could I personally have provided “another way”? If I had done it without sinning there would be another way without having Christ go to the cross, so could God have looked down the corridor of time and seen me not needing Christ to go to the cross and stopped Christ going?
No - because Christ paid the exact amount of torment and suffering owed for each sin, for each person, in all of time. You could never do that.
This puts the whole blame for Christ crucifixion on me (I did not keep from sinning) and not just being responsible for a nanosecond of time on the cross.
Christ was born with a sinless nature - you with a sinful nature. Only Christ as God could accommodate the full load of torment and suffering owed by all sinners for all their sins in the lake of fire. His capacity for suffering - much greater than yours. His sinless nature pure - your sinful nature a blemished sacrifice - impure.
We have the first Christian sermon on Pentecost (Acts 2) and similar sermons in Acts that are truly Christ Crucified Sermons, yet say nothing about Christ taking our place on the cross, but say lots about our putting Christ on the cross, so are we to experience a death blow to our hearts (Acts 2:37) or have a sigh of relief because we avoid being disciplined/punished?
Gal 2:20 - crucified with Christ
Romans 6:1-5 buried with him in baptism - death to sin, death to self.
Christ, Paul, Peter, John and the Hebrew writer all describe Christ’s crucifixion as an actual ransom payment, so there is a payment involve, but to whom?
It is God paying the debt that His own Law says is owed for sin - the death sentence -- the suffering-and-death sentence. When the penalty of the law is upheld -- the law is in full force rather than abolished.
Paul in Ro. 3:25 giving the extreme contrast between the way sins where handle prior to the cross and after the cross, so if they were actually handled the same way “by the cross” there would be no contrast, only a time factor, but Paul seems to say: (forgiven) sins prior to the cross where left “unpunished” (NIV), but that also would mean the forgiven “sinner” after the cross were punished.
From Romans 3: 25 Paul tells us: God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. …
Another way of saying this would be “God offers the ransom payment (Christ Crucified and the blood that flowed from Him) to those that have the faith to receive that ransom. A lack of faith results in the refusal of the ransom payment (Christ crucified).
God is not the undeserving kidnapper nor is satan, but the unbeliever is himself is holding back the child of God from the Father, that child that is within every one of us.
Paul goes on to explain:
Ro. 3: 25 …He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished
I do not like the word “unpunished” but would use “undisciplined”.
people condemned to hell both before and after the cross. The Law of God condemns all mankind as sinners in need of salvation.
Rom 3
19 Now we know that whatever the
Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that
every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; 20 because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law
comes the knowledge of sin.
Justification by Faith
21 But now apart from the Law
the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even
the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.
This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the
forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;
Instead of zapping each sinner the moment they commit their first sin - He draws them in grace to Himself... both OT and NT.
26 for the demonstration,
I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that
He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
27 Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. 29 Or is God
the God of Jews only? Is He not
the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.
31
Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.
Before the cross - in Matthew 17 - both Moses and Elijah stand in glorified heavenly form - with Christ on the mount of transfiguration - fully forgiven.
