A PSA on Penal Substitutionary Atonement
The idea of penal substitutionary atonement is abhorrent to the postmodern liberal theologian. At its heart, the doctrine is seen as flawed and cruel because the idea of a God who demands a blood sacrifice for little mistakes that we make is appalling. But in reality, liberal theology holds a small view of God and an exalted view of humanity, which skews the perception of this most important doctrine which is demonstrated over and over again in scripture. More importantly, the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement is the heart of the gospel - that Jesus Christ took upon his sinless self all the sin of the world and bore the fullness of God’s wrath in his own flesh on our behalf. That Jesus died the death that we deserve so that, through faith in him, we may have eternal life and reconciliation with a God with whom we were previously at enmity.
We first see God providing a sacrifice for sin in the garden of Eden (Genesis 3). When Adam and Eve sinned by breaking the one commandment not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they had earned death. They tried in vain to cover up their sin using leaves to cover their nakedness. But God instead provided clothes for them made of skins. Skins of what? Animals were sacrificed to cover the sin that Adam and Eve had committed. Their attempts to cover their sin were fruitless (no pun intended); God’s sacrifice was perfect and covered their sin, but there were still consequences: the sin had separated them from God (they were banished from the garden), a curse entered into creation (Adam would toil and Eve would bear children in pain), and death entered into the world (Adam did not die on the day he tasted of the fruit, but he died some 930 years later).
We next see a penal substitutionary atonement in Genesis 22. God tells Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son Isaac whom he loved on the mountains of Moriah. The story of Isaac is a picture of Christ. The father leads the son up the mountain. The son bears the wood for the sacrifice on his back. He says to his father, “Here is the wood and the fire, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” Abraham responds prophetically: “God himself will provide the sacrifice.”
As Abraham binds his son and goes to slay him, the angel of the Lord stays his hand, and then Abraham sees a ram caught in the thicket. The ram is sacrificed in the place of Isaac. This story disturbs the liberal theologian deeply. Why would God demand a human sacrifice? Why would Abraham agree to it? Why didn’t Isaac fight back?
Again, we see a picture of Christ here. Jesus, bearing the sins of humanity in his sinless flesh, drank the cup of the wrath of God to its dregs for us. He had prayed to the Father, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” He submitted to the Father as Isaac had submitted to Abraham. He bore the cross up the same mount and stretched out his hands to be fastened by nails to the wood.
We deserved to be on that cross. Remember that the cross Jesus bore originally was slated for a murderer named Barabbas. Interesting that Barabbas’ name means “Son of the Father.” I don’t think that’s a coincidence. But the death that Jesus died, he died for our sake. He was punished in his flesh on our behalf to atone for our sin. And that is penal substitutionary atonement.
Had Isaac been sacrificed, he would have died for his own sin. Ezekiel 18:20 says “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” So Isaac’s sacrifice would not have been for Abraham, but for Isaac. However, God in his mercy provided a ram to die in the place of Isaac.
Apart from the stories cited above, there are also many verses in scripture that speak to the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ. Remember that the idea is that Jesus bore the punishment due to us in his sacrifice on our behalf. Then consider these scriptures:
Exodus 12:3ff “Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household….and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it…. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.”
The lamb was sacrificed so that God would pass over the house. The blood on the doorposts and lintel formed a sort of cross, as the blood was placed on the crossbeam of the door frame and on both sides.
The Levitical law gave the people of Israel a system for atoning for their sin. In Leviticus 17:11 we read: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.” Hebrews 9:22 echoes this verse when it says “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”
In Isaiah 53 we read about the suffering servant. Beginning in verse 4 we read:
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned - every one - to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
This is as clear a picture of Christ as we have in the Old Testament, and it was written some 700 years before the birth of Christ. Even those who dispute this passage, who said that it was added later by Christians to support their cause, must be silent when we consider that the Dead Sea Scrolls, found in 1947 and holding a complete copy of the scroll of Isaiah from 200 years before Christ’s birth, reveal that the identical passage existed before the birth of Christ.
Some New Testament scriptures that speak to the penal substitutionary atonement are as follows:
Matthew 20:28 “even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a random for many.”
John 1:29 “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’”
Romans 3:23-25 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he has passed over former sins.”
Romans 4:24-25 “It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”
Romans 5:6-10 “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person - though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die - but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
“Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”
1 Corinthians 15:3 “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,”
Based on these and many other scriptures, I believe that the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement is one that is abundantly clear to the student of scripture. The liberal theologian may dislike the idea, but he should embrace the beauty of the grace of God that saw fit to sacrifice his own son on behalf of our sin, so that we through faith may be reconciled to him. This is what makes the good news so good. That we deserved death for our own sin, that we owed a debt we could not pay, and Jesus Christ, the eternal and infinite Godman, paid our debt in full as he hung on the cross and declared, “It is finished.”
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
We first see God providing a sacrifice for sin in the garden of Eden (Genesis 3). When Adam and Eve sinned by breaking the one commandment not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they had earned death. They tried in vain to cover up their sin using leaves to cover their nakedness. But God instead provided clothes for them made of skins. Skins of what? Animals were sacrificed to cover the sin that Adam and Eve had committed. Their attempts to cover their sin were fruitless (no pun intended); God’s sacrifice was perfect and covered their sin, but there were still consequences: the sin had separated them from God (they were banished from the garden), a curse entered into creation (Adam would toil and Eve would bear children in pain), and death entered into the world (Adam did not die on the day he tasted of the fruit, but he died some 930 years later).
We next see a penal substitutionary atonement in Genesis 22. God tells Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son Isaac whom he loved on the mountains of Moriah. The story of Isaac is a picture of Christ. The father leads the son up the mountain. The son bears the wood for the sacrifice on his back. He says to his father, “Here is the wood and the fire, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?” Abraham responds prophetically: “God himself will provide the sacrifice.”
As Abraham binds his son and goes to slay him, the angel of the Lord stays his hand, and then Abraham sees a ram caught in the thicket. The ram is sacrificed in the place of Isaac. This story disturbs the liberal theologian deeply. Why would God demand a human sacrifice? Why would Abraham agree to it? Why didn’t Isaac fight back?
Again, we see a picture of Christ here. Jesus, bearing the sins of humanity in his sinless flesh, drank the cup of the wrath of God to its dregs for us. He had prayed to the Father, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” He submitted to the Father as Isaac had submitted to Abraham. He bore the cross up the same mount and stretched out his hands to be fastened by nails to the wood.
We deserved to be on that cross. Remember that the cross Jesus bore originally was slated for a murderer named Barabbas. Interesting that Barabbas’ name means “Son of the Father.” I don’t think that’s a coincidence. But the death that Jesus died, he died for our sake. He was punished in his flesh on our behalf to atone for our sin. And that is penal substitutionary atonement.
Had Isaac been sacrificed, he would have died for his own sin. Ezekiel 18:20 says “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” So Isaac’s sacrifice would not have been for Abraham, but for Isaac. However, God in his mercy provided a ram to die in the place of Isaac.
Apart from the stories cited above, there are also many verses in scripture that speak to the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ. Remember that the idea is that Jesus bore the punishment due to us in his sacrifice on our behalf. Then consider these scriptures:
Exodus 12:3ff “Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household….and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it…. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.”
The lamb was sacrificed so that God would pass over the house. The blood on the doorposts and lintel formed a sort of cross, as the blood was placed on the crossbeam of the door frame and on both sides.
The Levitical law gave the people of Israel a system for atoning for their sin. In Leviticus 17:11 we read: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.” Hebrews 9:22 echoes this verse when it says “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”
In Isaiah 53 we read about the suffering servant. Beginning in verse 4 we read:
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned - every one - to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
This is as clear a picture of Christ as we have in the Old Testament, and it was written some 700 years before the birth of Christ. Even those who dispute this passage, who said that it was added later by Christians to support their cause, must be silent when we consider that the Dead Sea Scrolls, found in 1947 and holding a complete copy of the scroll of Isaiah from 200 years before Christ’s birth, reveal that the identical passage existed before the birth of Christ.
Some New Testament scriptures that speak to the penal substitutionary atonement are as follows:
Matthew 20:28 “even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a random for many.”
John 1:29 “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’”
Romans 3:23-25 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he has passed over former sins.”
Romans 4:24-25 “It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”
Romans 5:6-10 “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person - though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die - but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
“Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”
1 Corinthians 15:3 “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,”
Based on these and many other scriptures, I believe that the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement is one that is abundantly clear to the student of scripture. The liberal theologian may dislike the idea, but he should embrace the beauty of the grace of God that saw fit to sacrifice his own son on behalf of our sin, so that we through faith may be reconciled to him. This is what makes the good news so good. That we deserved death for our own sin, that we owed a debt we could not pay, and Jesus Christ, the eternal and infinite Godman, paid our debt in full as he hung on the cross and declared, “It is finished.”
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.