PSA as central to the Gospel
- Thread starter Dizerner
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Dizerner
Active Member
...or maybe you're fighting for the devil's team all this time...
civic
Active Member
PSA is INJUSTICE 100 %. Its antibiblical. Its proponents do not understand the nature and character of God. It stems from gnosticism, paganism and greek philospohy.
civic
Active Member
projecting
I use to believe and teach the heresy of PSA for 4 decades.
questioning it is what led me out of Calvinism. if PSA was wrong then so was tulip. the doctrines are 2 sides of the same coin. it was developed to go hand in hand with tulip.
Wholeheart
Active Member
The underlining logic of PSA is Christ knew all that was going to happen to Him and sweated blood because he was terrified of his own Father. PSA teaches that God punished his innocent Son for sins he did not even commit.
PSA is a violation of the very ethics of peace and love that Jesus taught. It makes a mockery of Jesus’ own teaching to love your enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil.
@civic @Matthias @Wholeheart
Also, what does PSA stand for in your understanding. I want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding either of you three. Thanks in advance for your time.
Would you three be so kind to state your definition of PSA ~to make sure I'm not misunderstanding your position.
Also, what does PSA stand for in your understanding. I want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding either of you three. Thanks in advance for your time.
Dizerner
Active Member
Welcome back.
You still deny the Trinity?
PSA does teach that Jesus takes our punishment for us.
However, this does not make God a monster nor "break" the Trinity.
civic
Active Member
Penal substitution rest on three basic ideas. First and foremost, the notion of retributive justice, that God requires the death of a perfect sacrifice to forgive our sins. In short, that on the cross Jesus Christ died to pay back God’s justice. Second, that the wrath of God must be appeased, that God is full of wrath towards us and must have that wrath satisfied, or “propitiated” in Christ’s death. And finally, the third notion is that God turned His back on Jesus Christ in His death, that Jesus was forsaken and abandoned because God cannot look upon our sin.
Penal substitution is the most common atonement model within the evangelical church today. It’s often preached with the analogy of a courtroom. God is a holy judge, and we are the guilty sinners. God’s justice demands payment, demands our death, and therefore God’s wrath is against us until payment is made. We deserve punishment, but we are unable to pay back God’s justice or appease His wrath. But Jesus Christ came out of love for us and died in our place; God punished Jesus instead of us, thus paying back the Father’s justice, satisfying His wrath, and saving us from hell. God turned His back on Jesus Christ, and in forsaking Him, God now accepts us as His children. God’s wrath is appeased, God’s (retributive) justice is satisfied, and God can now accept us as His own. This is penal substitution: Jesus Christ is punished (penal) in our place (substitution).
Belousek’s Argument
There are many problems I have with this theory, many of which are far too time consuming to address here. Like I said, I plan to eventually put together a short book which contains a concise argument against penal substitution. But here I want to discuss the main argument in Belousek’s book against penal substitution.
Belousek brilliantly sees the foundational presupposition behind penal substitution to be the idea that God’s justice is retributive, that is, that God’s justice demands equal payment for an offense. In short, penal substitution rests upon the lex talionis, the “eye for an eye” of the levitical law. God’s justice demands our death as payment for sin, and God is bound by this kind of justice and thus cannot forgive our sins without payment. Thus Jesus suffers God’s punishment in our place, so that God’s wrath can be appease and we can be forgiven. But the question we have to ask is this: do the scriptures understand God’s justice in this way? Is the justice of God, revealed to us in Jesus Christ, a retributive kind of justice or a redemptive kind of justice?
Simply, the underlying presupposition of penal substitution, the foundation upon which the entire theory rests, is that God’s justice is retributive, that God’s justice demands payment for an offense, tit for tat.
Belousek argues, rightly, that God’s justice is not retributive. Jesus Himself argues against any “eye for an eye” sort of justice in the sermon on the mount. (Matthew 5:38-42) But penal substitutionary atonement basis its entire paradigm on this idea. Belousek thus carefully and thoughtfully takes us through the bible and shows us that this idea comes not from the scriptures but from Greek philosophy. Aristotle and Socrates, who in turn influenced Augustine and thus infiltrated the west with this idea, are the originators of this kind of justice. The scriptures actually have no concept of retributive justice (not even the lex talionis, Belousek argues, is God’s will). The only kind of justice we see in the scriptures is the justice of mercy, the justice which heals, the justice of redemption. The scriptures present a kind of justice that looks more like “making right what’s wrong” (redemptive justice) instead balancing the legal scales (retributive justice). Belousek brilliantly takes you through ever problematic scripture, from Isaiah 53, Romans 3, the levitical law, and the prophets, in order to show this point.
The beauty of this argument is in its successful identification and removal of the foundation of penal substitution; what remains for the rest of the book is the joyful and systematic demolition of this theory. There is nothing left standing by the end of this book. There is no scripture which has not been examined, there is no presupposition left hiding, penal substitution is effectively put to death. There is an elegance and a brilliance to Belousek’s argument, and I have not doubt that this book will be the end of penal substitutionary atonement for anyone who reads it—and hopefully for the evangelical church as a whole.
If you have ever doubted penal substitution, but then thought, what about Isaiah 53? What about Romans 3? Then please, read this book. Maybe you are someone who wholeheartedly believes penal substitution is the gospel, then please, read this book.
I cannot stress how highly I recommend Belousek’s book. Perhaps one day the church will look back to it and say, “This was the book that once and for all exposed and demolished the heretical penal substitutionary atonement theory!. SDMorris
Dizerner
Active Member
Are you denying that Jesus being punished for YOUR sins is loving?
That makes no logical sense, as that is the epitome of sacrifice.
civic
Active Member
This is my argument against PSA from my own journey and personal study over several years. I'm still studying it and developing a biblical POV.
Dizerner
Active Member
civic
Active Member
Nope my sins were covered / forgiven and Jesus was my Passover.
Dizerner
Active Member
As pointed out in my many other threads, denying substitutionary atonement:
1. Denies God's holiness being upheld, as sin no longer has to be punished.
2. Denies God's place of ultimate worth, as his Blood is a sufficient payment for sin.
3. Denies God's place of supreme authority, as he alone is the Judge of all sin.
The way Christ saves us is by carrying out justice for our sins, not by ignoring them.
1. Denies God's holiness being upheld, as sin no longer has to be punished.
2. Denies God's place of ultimate worth, as his Blood is a sufficient payment for sin.
3. Denies God's place of supreme authority, as he alone is the Judge of all sin.
The way Christ saves us is by carrying out justice for our sins, not by ignoring them.
Dizerner
Active Member
Nope my sins were covered / forgiven and Jesus was my Passover.
So what exactly did Jesus do with your sins?
1. Ignore them.
2. Giggle and wink.
3. Pay their penalty.
You have NO Passover if you have NO BLOOD.
civic
Active Member
You don’t understand the blood and its purpose / function in the Pentateuch
n the purification process, something is needed to re-establish the link between the person to be reintegrated into the worship of the community and their access to the dwelling place since scale disease brought them so close to the realm of death that they were completely disconnected from the altar. This unique reparation offering, then, by means of being the first sacrifice offered by the person recently healed from scale disease and having the sacrificial blood applied to both the altar and to the offerer, serves to re-establish the bond between the person and the altar. Scale disease is as close to death as one can ritually get besides being literally dead, and because of this they have been severed from the altar and the camp (Num 5:2–3; Lev 13:46) so that they cannot “defile” or “make impure/unclean” (yǝṭammǝʾû) this space where God dwells (Num 5:3). In this way, their reintegration into the community and its liturgical life mimics the covenant-inauguration ceremony.
The application of the blood to both the offerer and the altar reinstates the bond between the person and the altar once again. It is important to notice that blood from the purgation sacrifice (ḥaṭṭāʾt) is never used on people.204 Purgation sacrifice blood is only ever used on sancta, to purge the ritual vandalism that impurity and sin produces on these holy objects. This is important because this means none of these non-atoning blood rituals have anything to do with sin and thus with purging people from any “stain” of sin. I will develop this and bring in relevant nuances for the purgation sacrifices in the next two chapters, but here we only need to realize how the fact that no blood from this particular sacrifice is ever used on people necessarily means these blood rituals cannot have anything to do with “overcoming the problem of sin” let alone “substituting for their deserved death” or any other such similar yet mistaken (and problematic) notions. What has become clear from the foregoing, and what will be useful for analyzing certain NT texts later, is that when blood is applied to people it always marks a transition from one metaphysical realm into another—in the direction of greater holiness.
Thus, for the soon-to-be priests, this is a transition from being a regular lay Israelite to a consecrated priest. For the person who has recovered from scale disease, this is a transition from the realm of “death,” from being the “walking dead”205 and thus excluded from community and liturgical life, back to “life” as a full community member. Sacrificial blood used in this way indexes metaphysical transitions up the scale of holiness. None of this has nothing to do with a ritual or symbolic substitutionary death. Conclusion to Covenant Inauguration We have established the “indexing” function of the blood for all three of the sacrificial rituals that feature the distinctive action of applying the blood to both the people and the altar; namely, that it indexes a bond between them. We also further established how this ritual indexes a metaphysical transition, but only for the instance of Aaron and his sons moving from the common (as laity) to the holy (as priests) and for the person who has recovered from scale disease transitioning from death to life.
All this provides a strong warrant to comprehend the covenant inauguration as likewise being about a metaphysical transition for Israel as a whole. That is, the blood ritual is not only about forging a covenantal bond between Israel and God (via the altar), but is also indexing their metaphysical transition from being a regular people to a “treasured possession” (Exod 19:5; cf. Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18) and a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod 19:6).206 In Exod 19:5–6 God says that if they agree to the terms of the covenant, then they will become a new sort of people, they will transition into the realm of the “holy” (19:6), a status the priestly literature in Leviticus confirms in its own way (cf. Lev 20:26; 11:44; 19:2: 20:7).207 The connection between Exod 19:5–6 and 24:3–8 might be missed due to there being a lot of intervening material, but this is simply all the instructions Israel needs to hear first before they can agree to the covenant, which is why Moses reads out the book of the covenant before dashing them with blood (24:3–4, 7).
Once this narrative context is accounted for, then, it becomes clear that the covenant ceremony is establishing not only Israel’s covenantal bond with God, but also their metaphysical transition into a holy people. From this vantage point, therefore, we can safely conclude that for all the differences between these blood rituals that feature sacrificial blood being applied to both people and the altar, they all share common functions. Pulling the various threads together we see that the blood: (a) serves as a visible sign and memorial of the event and, (b) at the very least, ritually indexes or ratifies a relationship between the people and the altar (representing God) (though perhaps it might do more than “index” and may even actualize or generate it), and (c) indexes that a metaphysical transition has taken place (or actualizes this transition). In none of these blood rituals would “substitutionary death” make any sense. It is a foreign concept that is completely out of context for all these rituals. As we saw, ritual blood manipulations are distinct.
The blood from different sacrifices, and even blood from non-sacrifices (as in the case for the first purification stage for scale disease), brings about different outcomes. Also, the action the priest performs with it affects different outcomes. All the specific verbs signify different functions. Blood that is “dashed” does something different than when it is “put” or “sprinkled,” or, as we will see in due course, “poured out.” And it also matters where these ritual actions are taking place. Is it happening to the outer altar or the inner altar (on its horns or the sides)? The veil? The ground? We have yet to explain some of these actions, but the point here is that not all ritual blood is endowed with the same meaning and function.
Therefore, attempting to reduce sacrificial blood to one thing, let alone “substitutionary death,” is fundamentally mistaken. It conflates where the priestly system distinguishes. It misunderstands that nuance and distinction is at the very heart of priestly discernment (e.g., Lev 10:10; 11:47; 20:25; Ezek 22:26; 44:23), which is why there are various types of sacrifices, non-sacrificial rituals, different blood manipulations, etc.
Conclusion As demonstrated, sacrifices have distinct rationales and functions apart from atonement. The daily burnt offerings, for instance, serve the purpose of drawing divine attention. Well-being offerings facilitate sacred feasting between God and humanity, enacting and fostering the union of God and the community. Both the Passover and the covenant inauguration and renewal ceremonies only employ non-atoning sacrifices. And, not only is the Passover a unique “thanksgiving” well-being sacrifice, commemorating God’s deliverance of Israel in the exodus, the initial Paschal meal was not even a sacrifice, let alone some sort of atoning substitutionary death sacrifice. Furthermore, I argued rituals of blood-sprinkling on the people have nothing to do with atonement or substitutionary death. Whenever blood is applied to people, it ritually marks and facilitates specific metaphysical transitions, unique to each cultic context. Now, keeping the larger aim of understanding how the NT authors make use of OT sacrificial imagery and to comprehend various meaning of Jesus’s death, it needs to be appreciated that the only sacrificial interpretation of Jesus’s death that claims to go back to Jesus, is his words at his last Passover. Jesus tethers it both to the non-atoning communal celebrations of Passover and the covenant inauguration by quoting or alluding to Exod 24:8 (“the blood of the covenant”) (Matt 26:26–29; Mark 14:22–25; Luke 22:15–20; 1 Cor 11:23–26). And King Hezekiah already set the precedent for bringing these two celebrations—Passover and covenant renewal—together (2 Chr 29:30—30:27).
DavidTree
Active Member
false reporting
