Penal Substitution is a Beautiful Thing, pt. 1
Well, unless you’re Orthodox, today is Easter (unless of course you refuse to celebrate Easter, (which is fine unless you make ahistorical and factually dubious claims to justify doing so). Aside from the celebrations of Easter that accompany the date traditionally assigned to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, there are a few things that are seemingly inevitable when Easter looms. Time usually has an article about “the real Jesus” which is just a rehash of both the last 500 “Real Jesus” articles and speculation/debate around New Testament studies that people have known about for decades, if not centuries. The History Channel will host a combination of wild speculation and presentations of scholarly material intended for laypeople that never had the misfortune of knowing an MDiv student in real life. Your dear aunt will share a meme about Easter secretly being a scheme to worship Ishtar, and of course, there’re my personal favorites:
People who mistake their distaste for religion generally or Christianity specifically for a research degree will dispute the historicity of the resurrection with far more confidence than even a skeptical reading of the data allows for.
Theology students (or professors) who are nearly indistinguishable from sociology students (or professors) will decry the crucifixion as being an example of a poor brown man being persecuted by “empire.” Their distaste for the idea of “a man dying for sin,” will be on full display as well.
You could probably guess what this essay is about based on the title and what I’ve said thus far. You’d probably be right, but you’d also maybe have some misgivings. In the spirit of getting right to it, I want to attack some misgivings head on and then dive right into the main points of this essay:
I’m not about to suggest that people who reject penal substitution are irredeemable heretics. I do think their view of atonement is deficient and their reasons for dismissing penal substitution are poor (otherwise I’d also reject it), but I hold out hope both minds can be changed and errors can be forgiven.
Penal substitution is not the only way to view the atonement, even for those, like me, who hold to it very tightly. Affirming penal substitution is making it the centerpiece of the atonement, the concept that makes all the other pieces work, not a rejection of or replacement for the other pieces.
Unless specifically stated, any commendation I make of penal substitution shouldn’t be taken as a full-throated condemnation of another theory of atonement. For the most part, I incorporate those views of atonement into my own in some way or another, something I wouldn’t do if I thought they were totally defunct.
With all that said, I want to start by defining the term.
What is Penal Substitution?
That’s a great question. Penal substitution or penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) is a Christian doctrine that can be explained somewhat helpfully by breaking it apart, which makes it somewhat unique amongst compound words and the like. Penal has to do with punishment, often in a legal/judicial context. You’ve heard of, for instance, a penalty. If you’ve looked at a Gideon’s Bible, you’ve likely seen a note detailing that they hand those Bibles out at schools and penal institutes, amongst other facilities, with penal institute usually referring to jails, prisons, and similar facilities. Substitution is, of course, the using of one thing in place of another, such as, for example, my insistence on substituting tomatoes for a vegetable that’s actually intended for human consumption in a non-paste form. To atone is to bridge a gap, make up a difference, or remove an obstacle so that previously separated parties may be together again.
With all of that stated, the short version, with the applicable Biblical inserts, is this: penal substitutionary atonement is a doctrine that teaches that Jesus Christ died on the cross in the place of sinful man and in so doing paid the penalty due for sin, thereby bridging the gap between God and man made by our sin. The precise statement of PSA developed over the course of centuries, as is the case with every other theory of atonement, and saw its most clear formulations beginning with the Protestant Reformation, especially with voices like Luther and Calvin.
Congratulations, reading that has given you both a lesson in Christianese and an extremely brief excursus into church history, which I recommend expanding on by further reading, starting with the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. (It’s easily one of my favorite books and yes, I happily read dictionaries and encyclopedias. You can judge me, but you can’t hurt me.) All that aside, some object to PSA, some for better reasons than others. Instead of addressing objections, I want to talk about why PSA is good and beautiful. Objections can come later, but it’s usually helpful to make a positive case before tearing down the negative.
PSA Is Beautiful Because it Takes Sin Seriously
If you have the time, look at the most popular “Christian” podcasts on iTunes or other outlets sometime. Get a few names and then do some digging on the themes they regularly touch on and emphasize. It’s easy to point out people like Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, or Joel Osteen. You can look up people like T.D. Jakes or Benny Hinn and have a field day. The thing is though, aside from the fact that gleefully dunking on these people isn’t helpful in the long term, it ignores the fact that there’s a reason they’re so popular. The fact is, a not insignificant portion of “Christian” teaching, preaching, and media shares a few themes in common, even once you get past health and wealth malarkey. The preaching and teaching tend to focus on practicalities like having a better marriage and a happy family, or how to have financial peace. The music can end up being indistinguishable from popular songs with romantic themes, albeit without innuendo. At its worst, Christianity presents much to the world that the world could find elsewhere, especially among the self-help and popular psychology sections in bookstores. This is because much of Christianity is content to ignore the most pressing issue that man actually has, and the world isn’t exactly in a place to note or correct that.
The most pressing issue that we have, of course, is sin. That sounds cliche, but it’s deadly serious. It’s because of sin that we die (Gen 3, Rom 5). Disobedience to God in a simple matter gave way to marital strife and fratricide over a few paragraphs. Sin continued made a man brag in ancient rhymes to his wives (note the plural) about his penchant for violence, made manifest in his unwillingness to stop at necessary force when defending himself.
Of course, sin isn’t just disregard for God’s good design in marriage, nor is it merely bloodlust. Sin is, at its most basic, any thought, action, or intention that is out of line with the nature and direction of God. We can rattle off any number of things that are considered sin. Some are obvious and met with little objection. Few people will defend murder on any scale or genocide. We rightly recoil at those who abuse children or other family members. It takes a great deal of mental gymnastics to make someone comfortable with adultery. However, as the lists go on, it’s more and more a simple task to relax our jaws and unclench our fists in anger. Theft is sometimes met with, “Well, why did they steal?” Lying can get passed off as, “a little white lie,” or the like. Biblically, however, sin of all kinds demands a different response.
Throughout Leviticus, especially chapters 4–8, different contingencies are mentioned regarding sin and guilt and the first order response is the same: bring an animal and have it slaughtered. If you can’t afford the animal initially recommended, a cheaper animal is recommended and finally, if you can’t afford that, quarts of flour are recommended. With the exceptions of the near completely destitute, the prescription is clear: blood must be shed. But even then, a whole other sacrifice is required every year.
On what’s commonly called the Day of Atonement, Aaron and the priests who take up his mantle after him are given instructions detailed in Leviticus 16. Briefly, the high priest slaughters and burns a bull for himself and his household before casting lots to select a goat to slaughter and a goat to send out into the wilderness to die. One goat dies and is burnt, with its blood being sprinkled before the mercy seat. The second goat has all the sins of Israel confessed over it and it is taken into the wilderness to be abandoned. Blood, fire, and abandonment are the fate of the animals selected for the Day of Atonement and the animals selected for the sin offerings made everyday per the instructions given in Leviticus. In Leviticus 17, the consumption of blood is forbidden because blood is how atonement is made.
You’ve noticed a theme, surely. Blood, fire, and banishment are the prescriptions for sin laid down by God for his people. The slaughter (and I insist on that term) of an animal is required to deal with sin in Leviticus and in the daily life of the Israelites. Anyone with a modicum or sense knows that killing an animal is no clean or surgical task. Even modern slaughterhouses churn the stomach if focused on for too long. Captive bolt pistols and firearms only make the trauma of slaughter harder to detect from a cursory glance. I say all of this to emphasize: God’s wrath against sin is evident in the blood and fire of the altars of the Tabernacle and the Temple. The question of why sin is such a big deal is sometimes answered with, “Look what God requires in exchange!” Even that, however, leaves a question in the air: why does God take sin so seriously?
We could point to the ruination of man and nature, sure, but those were made by God and so their responding to sin so poorly is a design choice made by God, which leads right back to the question. The question of why sin offends God so much can only find its answer in God himself.
God is holy (Lev 11:45), good (Psalm 34:8), and righteous (Zeph 3:5). To get to the point, sin is everything that God is not. It’s antithetical to his nature. Unlike a magnet, God is repulsed by his opposite. This answers the question of why sin’s a big deal. The question of the fairness or rightness of his response is then a sub question that is answered by both God’s eminence and infinitude. To say that God is the creator of all things who is infinite in all his attributes and eternal in his essences, while drenched in jargon, is evident throughout Scripture, with Isaiah 40–48 presenting a lengthy discourse on these realities, especially in relation to false gods. As such, when one asks why sin is such a big deal, the answer is simple, “Sin is such a problem because it offends God, who is holy, good, and righteous. His being eternal and infinite justifies his response to sin being as severe as it is.”
Penal substitution is beautiful because in it, we see that sin is so serious that God himself comes to deal with it, bearing both the consequences and penalty due for it. God the Son is taken outside the city and slaughtered for the sin of all who believe in him. He bears the pain of sin in his being beaten and crucified, and bears the wrath that sin brings (Isaiah 53: 4–6). He bears the abandonment that sin brings in his being taken outside the city, his disciples abandoning him, and his cry of dereliction from Psalm 22 (although this is not to say the Trinity was broken in this moment, as some would insist; this must be addressed separately). Penal substitution is beautiful because it puts how vile and destructive sin is on full display while showing us God’s capability and willingness to deal with sin in full.
I didn’t intend for this to end up as lengthy as it has, but that’s what happens sometimes. While I’m not sure that Squarespace has a character limit, I’m quite sure that people have limits to their attention spans. As such, I’m going to pause this essay here and pick it back up in a part two. With opening pleasantries dispensed with, I don’t intend on needing a third. I hope you’ll find this helpful and that you’ll read the next piece. If I accomplish my goal in writing these pieces, you’ll see penal substitution as a truly beautiful thing, especially in light of holidays like Easter still having so much space in the public consciousness.