THE ATONEMENT SERIES: PART 6
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QUESTION: Consider a scenario where someone brutally rapes and murders a loved one, such as a wife or daughter. The person is caught, tried in court, and sentenced to death. Would justice be served if the judge allowed an innocent volunteer to be executed in the murderer’s place, with the rapist-murderer set free with no punishment?
PENAL SUBSTITUTION is a theory of the Atonement where Christ substitutes Himself for us as the object of punishment due to Sin. The punishment for sin is death. Christ therefore died in our place. This theory began with Martin Luther and the Protestant reformation, with Luther’s strong emphasis of our sinful nature and our consequent deserving of God’s condemnation. The theory was later adopted by John Calvin, and still later formulated into a strict judicial framework by Charles Hodge. The Penal Substitution view of Hodge has had a strong influence on Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism.
LUTHER READING: Because an eternal, unchangeable sentence of condemnation has passed upon sin – for God cannot and will not regard sin with favor, but his wrath abides upon it eternally and irrevocably – redemption was not possible without a ransom of such precious worth as to atone for sin, to assume the guilt, pay the price of wrath and thus abolish sin. This no creature was able to do. There was no remedy except for God’s only Son to step into our distress and himself become man, to take up on himself the load of awful and eternal wrath and make his own body and blood a sacrifice for sin. And so he did, out of the immeasurably great mercy and love towards us, giving himself up and bearing the sentence of unending wrath and death. [Martin Luther, Epistle Sermon: Twenty Fourth Sunday After Trinity]
CALVIN READING: For were it not said in clear terms, that divine wrath, and vengeance, and eternal death, lay upon us, we should be less sensible of our wretchedness without the mercy of God, and less disposed to value the blessing of deliverance. […] that then Christ interposed, took the punishment upon himself, and bore what by the just judgement of God was impending over sinners; with his own bleed expiated the sins which rendered them hateful to God, by this expiation satisfied and duly propitiated God the Father, by this intercession appeased his anger, on this basis founded peace between God and men, and by this tie secured the divine benevolence toward them. [John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Ch. 16, §2]
HODGE READING: [T]he work of Christ is a real satisfaction, of infinite inherent merit, to the vindicatory justice of God; so that He saves his people by doing for them, and in their stead, what they were unable to do for themselves, satisfying the demands of the law in their behalf, and bearing its penalty in their stead; whereby they are reconciled to God, [… This doctrine] shows how the curse of the law is removed by Christ’s being made a curse for us; and how in virtue of this reconciliation with God we become, through the Spirit, partakers of the life of Christ. [Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, pp. 563-564]
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