Forum Thread
False teaching

Thanks for your reply, James

In Romans 3 (as below), what do you think God was not doing in his "forbearance"?  It seems to me that he was not punishing sins (in the context) - why do you disagree, if you do?

Also, would you accept Isaiah 53 talks of the "suffering servant", i.e. Christ, being punished in our place?

Also, how would you understand Hebrews 9 when the writer says that there is no forgiveness of sins without blood?  Why is this forgiveness required? Is it not because o the righteous wrath of God (eg Romans 1)?

Do you completely reject the idea "penal" substitution?

I suggest we approach this vital subject, in the first instance, neither via the discussion about whether Christ’s work of substitution was penal, nor via the discussion of the correct translation and understanding of the word hilasterion but via the assumption that all the Bible is true, including all that it says about who God and Christ are, what they are like, what they have said, are saying, will say, what they have done, are doing, will do. On this assumption it is clear that God and Christ are angry with sinners, that God has punished sinners, and that God and Christ will punish sinners. I am confident that these assertions can be justified beyond reasonable dispute, given adequate space on fulcrum threads to do so. But I will not attempt such a justification unless the assertions are challenged.

Addressing the question of the relationship between the anger of God and the salvation that Christ has brought and brings:

‘The [one] believing in the Son has life eternal; but the [one] disobeying the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him’ John 3:36.

It follows that:

The wrath of God remains on anyone who disobeys the Son. When anyone believes in the Son the wrath of God no longer remains on him but rather he has eternal life. Therefore, to put it in the most general terms, based on this verse alone, something connected with who the Son is, or what the Son has said, is saying or will say, or what the Son has done, is doing or will do, removes the wrath of God from anyone who believes in him.

If I rephrase and say:

….pacifies the wrath of God towards anyone who believes in him

Does anyone agree with the ‘removes’ version and not with the ‘pacifies’ version? Does anyone dispute that the removal/pacification of the wrath of God was achieved by the death and resurrection of Christ?

Addressing next the relationship between the punishment of sinners and the salvation that Christ has brought and brings:

‘For as many as are of works of law are under a curse; for it has been written, “Accursed everyone who continues not in all the things having been written in the roll of the law to do them”’ Galatians 3:10

‘Christ redeemed us out of the curse of the law becoming a curse on behalf of us, because it has been written: “Accursed everyone hanging on a tree”, in order that the blessing of Abraham might be to the nations in Jesus Christ, in order that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through the faith’ Galatians 3:13

‘If a man guilty of a capital offence is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance’ Deuteronomy 21: 22-23.

‘Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out’ Deuteronomy 27:26

The man hung on a tree is under God’s curse because he is guilty of a capital offence and has been punished by death. The curse of the law, of failing to uphold the law, is the punishment of death. Christ becoming a curse on behalf of us, to redeem us, can only mean that he suffered the punishment of death which we as law-breakers deserve.

Phil Almond

Madeline. The operative word is "if".

Thanks, Madeline. However, it may be worth reiterating a key point about Fulcrum, which most people seem to understand. It is that anyone can post on Fulcrum.

Simply because someone posts on Fulcrum, and that post is approved, does not mean that that person necessarily agrees with the ethos of Fulcrum, which for 5 years now has been set out on 'What is the Evangelical Centre?'

Nersen, I'm sure that God's forbearance was about refraining from punishing people for their sins.

Hebrews 9 generally and v.22 to which you specifically refer are about the relation between what Christ has done and its foreshadowing in the OT sacrificial system. Again substitutionary atonement is clearly present, but not the idea that the sacrificial victim is being punished for the sins being atoned for. This is not the main way in which the OT appears to understand sacrifice.

You are right to look to Isaiah 53 and the suffering servant depicted there. This is certainly one of the stronger texts for seeing Christ as being punished for our sins. Even there, however, the clear implication of the way verse 4 is laid out is that our estimation of the servant as having been stricken/afflicted by God is wrong.

Verse 5b is very interesting. The Hebrew word musar (NIV: 'punishment'; ESV: 'chastisement') is an unusual term to describe punishment especially putting to death. Generally the word suggests discipline, instruction or correction and belongs in a teaching/learning context - it is not used for retributive punishment (so the ESV's chastisement is perhaps a better word, though not much in common use). This is consistent with the usage of the verbal root which underlies the word. The normal usage of the word describes a corrective of wrong behaviour rather than the infliction of a due penalty as a satisfaction of justice.

Thanks James - but you did not answer my question about whether you totally reject the "penal" aspect of substition -  it does not seem to me that you do totally reject it but you have not quite said that yet.

Do you totally reject the idea of penal substitution?

I think Phil's points re John 3:36 are strong -do you agree?

Nersen, Inasmuch as I am any sort of theologian at all I am a biblical rather than a systematic or dogmatic theologian. Penal substitutionary atonement is a systematic/dogmatic construct which grows out of an interpretation of scripture. It is not found in any simple and unambiguous form in scripture itself.

Phil Almond's post is a good example of this - the doctrine takes shape out of an interaction of the interpretations of various parts of the scriptures. One reason I haven't engaged with it is because the biblical theologian in me wants to look at each of the texts he cites in its biblical and historical context before I start on the question of whether he has rightly related them to each other to arrive at the conclusions he has. Real Life", however, means that while I *might* have time to reflect on the way he has chosen to relate scripture to scripture, I almost certainly will not have time to respond to his post - and definitely not at the kind of length the discussion merits.

Do I believe there is a penal element in atonement? Yes, I do. I have, however, seen too many simple (simplistic) formulations to want to go beyond that rather bare answer to your question.

Just to put my Girardian oar here - we would say that the atonement does involve penal substitution but that the  angry god being propitiated by the suffering of Christ is us.  Christ offers his suffering to us and if we accept this by faith, then we realise for the first time that we are not innocent. We are angry, vengeful little 'gods' who want others to pay so we can enjoy feeling self righteous and superior.  His suffering is exactly the means by which our eyes are opened to the shameful truth that we habitually justify ourselves as good by contrasting ourselves over and against someone else-that we scapegoat always and everywhere,and that scapegoating leads at the very least to lying and hatred and fairly often to actual physical violence. Faith in Christ means giving up on  'justifying myself' (which is what I do whenever I  compare myself favourably to some other group of persons) and instead embracing the forgiveness offered to all of us in Christ.  He bore our infirmities yet (an ironic yet) we accounted him stricken, struck down by God!! (exclamation marks not being used in Hebrew we tend to miss this irony). when it says 'the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all' this doesn't therefore mean 'because God says that someone's got to pay for all this sin' but because we do - so God in his love sends us Jesus - to satisfy -uncover and forever ruin - our blood lust. The Lord has laid upon him[self] the iniquity of us all because that's the only way we can ever be healed.

Clare says, "...the atonement does involve penal substitution but that the  angry god being propitiated by the suffering of Christ is us."

I have not heard that  before, Clare......where would you point us to in the bible to support your view?

Also,  it seems that you want to avoid the idea of God's wrath versus unrepentant sinners, so how do you understand verses like Matthew 8 v5-13? 

http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Matthew+8%3A5-13

Actually, Clare is stating a very classic 'Anglican'/Catholic/Orthodox (and early church) understanding of the atonement. In fact, the most recent statement by the Church of England on the meaning of the Cross is the Doctrine Commission’s report The Mystery of Salvation (Church House Publishing, 1995) cleary restates the view of the 1938 Commission that “the notion of propitiation as the placating by man of an angry God is definitely unchristian” (p. 213).

Proper understanding of the First Testament accounts of the ceremony of atonement are indeed key to how we understand Jesus' death, as Celinda states. However, carefully read and understood, atonement is indeed about God sacrificing to and for us, as an act of love and purification. This is what is the distinctive uniqueness about our Christian understanding of 'sacrifice', otherwise our faith would be no different from that of the Aztecs or Myans, whose whole system was based on the sacrifice of the innocent to placate the wrath of an angry God.