atpollard
Well-known member
The Baptist Board is currently discussing this issue.
- What exactly does it mean that God is JUST?
- (Would Esau, the Canaanites and the residents of Jericho agree?)
- Scripture that defines God being Just?
The 10 most Commonly referred to points against PSA
- Thread starter Bronson
- Start date
Johann
Well-known member
Cristus Victor-is what he is espousing
Is this a book, a paper? Where is it available?
You do realize PSA is a theory? One among several and that there has never been an official theory of atonement in the church.
5.1. The Essence of the Doctrine
Packer states the doctrine in straightforward terms, indicating both the substitutionary character of Jesus’ death and the penal function of that substitution: Jesus “secured my immunity from judgement by bearing on the cross the penalty which was my due.” Schreiner defines penal substitution in similar terms:
The Father, because of his love for human beings, sent his Son (who offered himself willingly and gladly) to satisfy God’s justice, so that Christ took the place of sinners. The punishment and penalty we deserved was laid on Jesus Christ instead of us, so that in the cross God’s holiness and love are manifested.
We might sketch penal substitution atonement more fully as follows: God, who is righteous and holy, must satisfy his wrath against sin by punishing sinners with death; but God, who is also merciful, provides sinners an escape from divine wrath and retribution by ordaining and accepting Jesus’ sacrificial death as punishment in their place. On the cross Jesus suffered in our place the death penalty that God had decreed as just retribution for our sins; in this way, Jesus propitiated God’s righteous wrath and satisfied God’s absolute justice, thereby making it possible for God to forgive the sins of humanity in accord with God’s law. Evangelical Anglican scholar and preacher John R. W. Stott sums up the doctrine by the formula, “satisfaction through substitution.”
Darrin W. Snyder Belousek, Atonement, Justice, and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012), 84–85.
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5.2. Key Elements of the Doctrine
5.2.1. Satisfaction of Justice
We first lay out several accounts of the penal substitution doctrine of atonement by some of its major apologists. We begin with the account of Charles Hodge, a leading late nineteenth-century American Presbyterian theologian. Hodge’s systematic account emphasizes two major premises of penal substitution, which concern God’s justice and holiness: a holy God can have no part with sinners unless justice is satisfied, and a just God must mete out retributive punishment for sin. Hodge states that God cannot forgive sin “without a satisfaction to justice,” and God’s justice “renders it necessary that the righteous be rewarded and the wicked punished.” God’s justice “demands the punishment of sin. If sin be pardoned it can be pardoned in consistency with the divine justice only on the ground of a forensic penal satisfaction.”11
How, then, can sinners be pardoned their sins if God’s justice necessitates punishment for sin? Only by Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross in their place, which God designs in order to appease divine wrath and satisfy divine justice. Jesus thus suffers by the hand of God the punishment of death that was due to us for our sin:
They were divine inflictions. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. He was smitten of God and afflicted. These sufferings were declared to be on account of sin, not his own, but ours. He bore our sins. The chastisement of our peace was on Him. And they were designed as an expiation, or for the satisfaction of justice. They had, therefore, all the elements of punishment.…
That is, God punishes Jesus as a “forensic penal substitution.” Hodge thus summarizes:
Hence the plan of salvation which the Bible reveals supposes that the justice of God which renders the punishment of sin necessary has been satisfied. Men can be pardoned and restored to the favour of God … because the penalty due to us was laid on Him [viz., Christ]. It is clear therefore, that the Scriptures recognize the truth that God is just, in the sense that He is determined by His moral excellence to punish all sin, and therefore that the satisfaction of Christ which secures the pardon of sinners is rendered to the justice of God. Its primary and principal design is neither to make a moral impression upon the offenders themselves, nor to operate didactically on other intelligent creatures, but to satisfy the demands of justice; so that God can be just in justifying the ungodly.
The linchpin of the logic of penal substitution, as Hodge emphasizes, is the principle of retributive justice: “There is no force in this argument unless there is a necessity for the punishment of sin.” Peter Schmiechen thus aptly observes regarding Hodge’s account: “in penal substitution it is the demand of legal justice that drives the entire theory.”15
J. I. Packer’s account of penal substitution also makes clear that this doctrine is premised squarely on the requirements of retributive justice: “Now we … bring in the word ‘penal’ to characterize the substitution we have in view. To add this ‘qualifier’ … is to anchor the model of substitution (not exclusively, but regulatively) within the world of moral law, guilty conscience, and retributive justice.” Packer echoes Hodge, underscoring both the centrality of legal retribution to the doctrine of atonement and the notion that the principle of retribution is rooted in God’s own character: “the retributive principle has [God’s] sanction, and indeed expresses the holiness, justice and goodness reflected in his law.”17 This major premise of penal substitution—that in a moral universe governed by a just God, sin requires retributive punishment and forgiveness is possible only on the ground of penal satisfaction—is emphasized in William Hordern’s presentation of the early twentieth-century “fundamentalist” view:
Darrin W. Snyder Belousek, Atonement, Justice, and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012), 85–87.
5.2. Key Elements of the Doctrine
5.2.1. Satisfaction of Justice
We first lay out several accounts of the penal substitution doctrine of atonement by some of its major apologists. We begin with the account of Charles Hodge, a leading late nineteenth-century American Presbyterian theologian. Hodge’s systematic account emphasizes two major premises of penal substitution, which concern God’s justice and holiness: a holy God can have no part with sinners unless justice is satisfied, and a just God must mete out retributive punishment for sin. Hodge states that God cannot forgive sin “without a satisfaction to justice,” and God’s justice “renders it necessary that the righteous be rewarded and the wicked punished.” God’s justice “demands the punishment of sin. If sin be pardoned it can be pardoned in consistency with the divine justice only on the ground of a forensic penal satisfaction.”11
How, then, can sinners be pardoned their sins if God’s justice necessitates punishment for sin? Only by Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross in their place, which God designs in order to appease divine wrath and satisfy divine justice. Jesus thus suffers by the hand of God the punishment of death that was due to us for our sin:
They were divine inflictions. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. He was smitten of God and afflicted. These sufferings were declared to be on account of sin, not his own, but ours. He bore our sins. The chastisement of our peace was on Him. And they were designed as an expiation, or for the satisfaction of justice. They had, therefore, all the elements of punishment.…
That is, God punishes Jesus as a “forensic penal substitution.” Hodge thus summarizes:
Hence the plan of salvation which the Bible reveals supposes that the justice of God which renders the punishment of sin necessary has been satisfied. Men can be pardoned and restored to the favour of God … because the penalty due to us was laid on Him [viz., Christ]. It is clear therefore, that the Scriptures recognize the truth that God is just, in the sense that He is determined by His moral excellence to punish all sin, and therefore that the satisfaction of Christ which secures the pardon of sinners is rendered to the justice of God. Its primary and principal design is neither to make a moral impression upon the offenders themselves, nor to operate didactically on other intelligent creatures, but to satisfy the demands of justice; so that God can be just in justifying the ungodly.
The linchpin of the logic of penal substitution, as Hodge emphasizes, is the principle of retributive justice: “There is no force in this argument unless there is a necessity for the punishment of sin.” Peter Schmiechen thus aptly observes regarding Hodge’s account: “in penal substitution it is the demand of legal justice that drives the entire theory.”15
J. I. Packer’s account of penal substitution also makes clear that this doctrine is premised squarely on the requirements of retributive justice: “Now we … bring in the word ‘penal’ to characterize the substitution we have in view. To add this ‘qualifier’ … is to anchor the model of substitution (not exclusively, but regulatively) within the world of moral law, guilty conscience, and retributive justice.” Packer echoes Hodge, underscoring both the centrality of legal retribution to the doctrine of atonement and the notion that the principle of retribution is rooted in God’s own character: “the retributive principle has [God’s] sanction, and indeed expresses the holiness, justice and goodness reflected in his law.”17 This major premise of penal substitution—that in a moral universe governed by a just God, sin requires retributive punishment and forgiveness is possible only on the ground of penal satisfaction—is emphasized in William Hordern’s presentation of the early twentieth-century “fundamentalist” view:
Darrin W. Snyder Belousek, Atonement, Justice, and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012), 85–87.
One little correction my friend that is translation dependentThe word “expiation” does not appear in the New Testament ( Neither does the word Trinity for that matter- emphasis mine),
Bible Search for expiation
The Revised Standard Version 4 results in 4 verses
Rom 3:25
whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins;
Heb 2:17
Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people.
1 John 2:2
and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
1 John 4:10
In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins.
Exported from Logos Bible Software, 7:40 AM January 31, 2024.
civic
Well-known member
True
Thought you might want to use it to support your view.
civic
Well-known member
Thanks and I will
Rockson
Well-known member
So Tom I'm curious. Where would you stand on this issue. My position is maybe a little different than some here. My position is if someone is believing in the substititure work that Jesus did on the cross with his body and the precious blood of Jesus standing to blot out our sins that's really the only thing worth thinking about.
I see no need to believe Jesus received wrath from the Father like when Abraham slew an animal in the place of Isaac. Doesn't have to mean Ab was actually mad at the lamb but merely carried out the death that needed to take place. On the other hand if some want to believe in PSA well I don't even think God cares too much. I think God is looking at do you believe I took your place on the cross or not. I believe everybody on here does and I think that's sufficient. Curious to how you think about it.
Rockson
Well-known member
And I asked what I did in my last post here for what I read you said above. So correct me if I'm wrong but it seems you might agree with me that because there's no official theory of atonement that God is more focused on having people merely believe in the substitionary work on the cross?
civic
Well-known member
Excellent book. I found this book after writing my thesis paper. I will be adding some references to it when I edit my paper. Its still a work in progress.
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Anja
Member
My problem with PSA is that it misuses Scripture, reflects the values of a long gone medieval western culture obsessed with guilt and justice.
Take for instance how PSA harmfully presents God as being angry. PSA suggests that what God wants most is revenge. Sadly, anyone who has been abused as a child won’t have any trouble believing this picture at all. It’s a God who is capricious, who is unpredictable and arbitrary, a God who is endlessly angry, and a God who is out for revenge.
PSA wrongly assumes retributive justice on God’s part, whereas God rejects the idea of responding to evil with evil. What God really wants is a restored and joy-filled relationship with us.
Take for instance how PSA harmfully presents God as being angry. PSA suggests that what God wants most is revenge. Sadly, anyone who has been abused as a child won’t have any trouble believing this picture at all. It’s a God who is capricious, who is unpredictable and arbitrary, a God who is endlessly angry, and a God who is out for revenge.
PSA wrongly assumes retributive justice on God’s part, whereas God rejects the idea of responding to evil with evil. What God really wants is a restored and joy-filled relationship with us.
And it is difficult to reconcile that view of God with this one
2 Corinthians 5:19–20 (KJV 1900) — 19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.
Johann
Well-known member
1. Introduction
a. We know the Bible says sin, judgment, wrath, and hell are real and populated.
b. We know salvation is through faith, and that faith is necessary to be saved.
c. We know the Bible says some are in eternal darkness, fire, for rejecting God.
d. Universalism is not possible in light of what the Bible says to be true.
e. 2 Cor 5:19 is a passage that ensnares grace believers into universalist tendencies
f. Like Universalists they confuse the terms and timing of salvation.
i. Like the Calvinists, they believe if God died for them, they must be saved.
ii. Unlike the Calvinist, they believe Christ died for all.
g. There is a difference between the provision and the possession.
h. There is a difference between what was accomplished and how it is applied.
2. “reconciling the world unto himself”
a. “God was in Christ” – When was this? This was Christ in the flesh, on the cross.
b. Without Christ there was no hope, we were dead, sinners, enemies of God
c. Christ provided reconciliation for the world before God: he provided the means
d. In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins - Eph 1:7
e. The body of his flesh through death provided reconciliation - Col 1:20-22
3. “not imputing their trespasses unto them”
a. How could he do that, when we were all sinners? A: love/grace - Rom 5:6,5:8,5:10
b. Not imputing trespasses, which we deserved, he died for us – 1 Tim 2:6
c. When he died he took away the enmity and made peace – Eph 2:13-17, Rom 5:13
d. John recognized the love of God for Israel – 1 John 4:10, 2:2, 1:9; Heb 10:16-18
e. Not all are forgiven – Rev 18:5, Matt 6:14-15, Heb 3:10-19, Heb 4:3-11
4. “the word of reconciliation”
a. We preach God’s provision to men, so that they can possess it – Acts 26:18
b. Faith is required to partake in God’s provision – Eph 1:12, Col 1:23, 1 Cor 15:2
c. In Christ is salvation, only in Christ is he a new creature – 2 Cor 5:17
d. Propitiation (satisfying God’s justice) is through faith in his blood - Rom 3:25
e. When sins are forgiven through faith, he can justify through faith - Rom 3:26-28
f. Not imputing sins & imputing righteousness are linked - Rom 4:6-7, 2 Cor 5:21
g. Salvation is offered unto all – Rom 3:22, 11:11, 11:15, Titus 2:11, Col 1:5-6
h. Salvation is universally available, but not universally believed by men – 2 Thess 3:2
i. It is not a sin problem, but a Son problem; but if they reject the Son, they must deal with
their sin.
Whats with the universalism. There is no mention of universalism in anything I stated
Are you trying to poison the well?
It's scripture, if universalist misuse the verse that is their problem, and it has nothing to do with the current situation
The point of the passage is God is not shown as the one who is reconciled. God is upfront leading, taking the initiative to reconcile man.
2 Corinthians 5:19–20 (KJV 1900) — 19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.
does that sound like some who needs to appeased, placated, his anger soothed over before willing to establish relations
Totally irrelevant I am neither and I believe Christ died for all but his atonement does not apply its own benefits
though a Calvinist Shedd expresses it well.
It may be asked: If atonement naturally and necessarily cancels guilt, why does not the vicarious atonement of Christ save all men indiscriminately, as the universalist contends? The substituted suffering of Christ being infinite is equal in value to the personal suffering of all mankind; why then are not all men upon the same footing and in the class of the saved, by virtue of it? The answer is because it is a natural impossibility. Vicarious atonement without faith in it is powerless to save. It is not the making of this atonement, but the trusting in it, that saves the sinner: “By faith are you saved” (Eph. 2:8); “he that believes shall be saved” (Mark 16:16). The making of this atonement merely satisfies the legal claims, and this is all that it does. If it were made but never imputed and appropriated, it would result in no salvation. A substituted satisfaction of justice without an act of trust in it would be useless to sinners. It is as naturally impossible that Christ’s death should save from punishment one who does not confide in it as that a loaf of bread should save from starvation a man who does not eat it. The assertion that because the atonement of Christ is sufficient for all men therefore no men are lost is as absurd as the assertion that because the grain produced in the year 1880 was sufficient to support the life of all men on the globe therefore no men died of starvation during that year. The mere fact that Jesus Christ made satisfaction for human sin, alone and of itself, will save no soul. Christ, conceivably, might have died precisely as he did and his death have been just as valuable for expiatory purposes as it is, but if his death had not been followed with the work of the Holy Spirit and the act of faith on the part of individual men, he would have died in vain.[1]
[1] William Greenough Thayer Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, ed. Alan W. Gomes, 3rd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Pub., 2003), 726.
The atonement is not a commercial exchange as PSA would have you to believe. It was originated by Martin Luther and developed by Calvinists as being consistent with their theology. He and Calvin advocated it and it was concretely formulated by the reformed Charles Hodge
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Anja
Member
Exactly, Jesus did certainly die as our substitute. And the cross certainly expresses God’s judgment on sin.
But I don't see God the Son became man so that by his suffering and death he could pay the price of sin. This seems to be based on an idea of punishment as a kind of payment, a repayment; the criminal undergoing punishment ‘pays his debt to society’, as we say. It takes a divine man, however, to pay our debt to divine justice.
Now, I can make no literal sense of this idea, whether you apply it to criminals or to Christ. I cannot see how a man in prison is paying a debt to society or paying anything else at all to society. It's punishing a lawbreaker by being locked up in a prison cell.
I think what PSA does is mix up God's Wrath with man's Wrath.
There is vast difference between the wrath of God and the wrath of man. God’s wrath is holy and always justified; man’s is never holy and rarely justified.
