"He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to Yahweh." Proverbs 17:15
As I dig deeper into this topic of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA), I get a lot of questions from people who don't really advocate for the doctrine, but who also don't necessarily see anything wrong with it. One of the questions I get is "why does it matter?" This article is not intended to be a comprehensive examination of all that Penal Substitutionary Atonement teaches. For that deeper dive, you can go here. What I want to do is hit the major points of conflict with scripture and answer the question as to why it should matter to us in the Lord's church. A better way to ask this, then, would be to ask whether or not PSA is scriptural. I believe that it is not and will do my best to show that in this article.
The very first verse I posted at the top of this article says that when we justify the wicked and condemn the just, either are an abomination to God. Yet this is exactly what PSA teaches that God does to Jesus on the cross. He condemns the just, Christ so that He is able to justify those who are wicked, the sinners. Over the years, decades, and centuries that PSA has been taught, it has slipped in that this is somehow just, that somehow God's need for justice is satisfied by not just punishing an innocent man, but by pouring out the entirety of His wrath on His innocent Son! That is as far from justice as one can imagine. Consider a murderer going to trial and the judge says "you have been found guilty of murder, but instead of punishing you, the court is going to forgive your crime, but first, I am going to torture and then kill my firstborn son." In what way is that justice? What would we say of such a judge who did that?
The idea of justice carries with it the idea of making something right before the law. A person who is guilty before the law must answer to the law and be condemned for their action suffering any penalty the law may require. A judge may be merciful to the criminal and not bring the full weight of the penalty for the crime. A judge or jury may even acknowledge the guilt of the person, but forgive the debt owed due to the crime. We even see an example of what forgiveness ought to look like. In Matthew 18:23-27 a king is brought a man who owes ten thousand talents. This is a hyperbolic amount of money equivalent to billions if not trillions of dollars. A debt the man could not repay. The king then orders the man and his family and all his possessions to be sold to pay down the debt. This of course is still absurd because there is no way such a sale would even pay a single talent*. The man pleads with the king, worshipping him even, to have patience with him and he would pay the debt. Instead, the king forgives the debt. No one was punished. No one was made to pay anything. The debt was simply released. God has this power with regard to sin. For those who turn to Him, confess Christ, who repent, who appeal to Him (in baptism), God wipes the debt away. Jesus, while on Earth, demonstrated this as well. In Matthew 9:2-7, Jesus declares the sins of the man with palsy to be forgiven. To show that his sins had been forgiven indeed, Jesus heals him of the palsy. Hanging on the cross between two thieves, one was penitent and appealed to Jesus who declared that thief would be in Paradise (Hades) with Him on that day. God does not require punishment to forgive. In fact, that wouldn't be forgiveness at all. That would be payment of the penalty according to the law. And saying that the payment of penalty can be made by an innocent party misses the entire idea of what justice and forgiveness are about.
Deuteronomy 24:16 - "Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin."
Ultimately, for Jesus to be put to death for the sins of another would violate the law of God that He was under at the time of His death, thus, God would be violating His own law.
Before I move on to the next point, I am compelled to also point out, there simply are no verses whatsoever that say that God punished Jesus on the cross or that God expended His wrath upon Jesus at any time. Such statements simply do not exist in scripture, nor are such thoughts implied by scripture.
*1 Talent is approximately 75 pounds. Gold on this day is equal to 3,789.80$/oz * 16 oz/pd * 75 pds = 4,512,492$. 10,000 talents is roughly 45 billion $.
PSA teaches that Jesus became actual sin on the cross which is why God punished Christ. Christ became adultery, murder, theft, idolatry, blasphemy, etc. on the cross. In fact, Jesus became all the sins ever committed, being committed, and ever to be committed by mankind such that He didn't just become representative of each kind of sin, but He became all the sins that ever would be committed by mankind. This creates a huge dilemma. It means one of two things:
Each of these is blasphemy. The first choice blasphemes God by saying that which is eternally Holy became unholy, unclean, vile, evil, sin. The second blasphemes Jesus by denying He is God, separating the Godhead because sin separates from God (Isa 59:2). If Jesus literally became sin, then He was separated from the Father and the Spirit and the Godhead is broken.
There are several passages that must be addressed in regard to this, answers given to passages that seem to raise objections to this.
In this passage, Jesus is on the cross being crucified. He cries out and seems to be asking why His God has forsaken Him. This is the surface reading. The reality is, Jesus is doing the thing that many teachers in His day would do to draw attention to passages of scripture. They did not have chapters and verses like we do, so they would say the first line of a Psalm to draw attention to that Psalm. In this case, Psalm 22 is being referred to. This Psalm is about the crucifixion of Jesus ultimately, though David is writing here initially. If you read the whole thing, David eventually demonstrates that while he may feel like he has been forsaken by God because there are enemies all about him and they are doing wickedness to him, because of his faithfulness (and ultimately because of Christ's faithfulness) God is indeed with them and did not forsake them. Though there are those who do wickedness, God will redeem that wickedness and use it for good. Jesus was not forsaken on the cross, though He was surrounded by enemies. God was with Jesus, in unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit redeeming the sinful actions of man murdering Jesus to provide atonement for all mankind.
This is the one that, at first glance, seems to say the very thing that PSA teaches, that Jesus became sin. Again, we have to expand out our understanding from just the singular proof-text to the broader teaching of scripture. What does it mean that Jesus was "made to be sin for us"? The answer is found in Romans 8:3 and Hebrews 2:16-18; 4:15. Christ "was made to be sin" in that He was made to be human. He came in the likeness of sinful flesh, was tempted like as we are tempted, yet without sin. Whatever Christ became is what He redeemed. To the extent that He did not become, He did not redeem. It is not that Christ literally became murder, idolatry, blasphemy, etc. It's that He became man and not once did he "know" sin, even on the cross.
This is usually referenced as the scapegoat model of atonement. Jesus isn't becoming sin. He is bearing them away, carrying them off. In enduring the sin of murder that the Romans and Jews literally perpetuated against Christ, He bore the sins of the whole world in the shedding of His blood. Hebrews 9:28 says that Jesus suffered once to bear the sins of many. John the Immerser is quoted in John 1:29 "Behold, the Lamb of God, who bears away the sin of the world!"
In forgiving us of our sins, Jesus washes us clean in His blood and takes our sins away from us so that we are clean and holy. Those sins are not transferred to Him making Him somehow guilty of our sin, the essence of the thing that separates us from God. Those sins are carried away by Him when we are baptized, participating in His death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 6:3-7) so that we are then regenerated, justified before God.
If Jesus suffered punishment in our place for sin, then this makes God unjust for punishing twice for the same sin. Jesus did not die for the sins of an elect few as Calvinism teaches. Jesus dies for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). If this means that Jesus suffered punishment for all the sins of every man throughout time, then either universalism is true (which the Bible teaches is false), or God punished Jesus for sins that He will later punish those who never obey the gospel for. This is a double jeopardy situation that is recognized as unjust.
Deuteronomy 25:1-3 - "If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked. And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number. Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee."
In the Law of Moses, a man was to be given only the punishment due him, and no more. To punish twice would be to violate this law. The Jews were so aware of this law that they made sure to give one less stripe in case they miscounted (2 Cor 11:24).
Furthermore, if Jesus was a substitution for us, then we cannot participate in His death, burial, and resurrection without breaking the point of substitution. Throughout the New Testament we see that we are participatory in the death of Christ on the cross: Romans 6:3-7; Gal 2:20; 5:24; 6:14; Col 2:11-13; Phil 3:9-11. "I want to know Christ, and the power of His rising, share in His suffering, conform to His death. When I pour out my life to be filled with His Spirit, joy follows suffering, and life follows death." Baptism is one of the central teachings of the New Testament and it is how man makes that appeal to God for forgiveness (1 Peter 3:21) and that through which God operates (Col 2:11-13) to cleanse us and make us whole (Eph 5:26). When you make Christ a substitute, you take away baptism and our participation with Christ on the cross that the Bible teaches we must participate in to be in the likeness of His resurrection.
Finally, we are commanded throughout scripture to forgive others as God has forgiven us (Matthew 6:12-15; Mark 11:25; Luke 6:37; Luke 11:4; Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:13). If God could not forgive sins without punishing someone else for it first, if it was necessary for God to torture and kill His Only Begotten Son before He could forgive our sins, as PSA teaches, and we must forgive as God forgives, then we cannot forgive others without first torturing and killing our firstborn child in their place. PSA makes God into a monster and, by implication, we must be like Him - monsters too - in order to "forgive" those who sin against us. God is not a monster. He is willing to forgive freely (Matthew 10:8; Romans 3:24). The sending of His Son into the world to die so that we may live is akin to the father sending his son off to war, knowing he will give his life to ensure the freedom of others. It was an act of love, of grace, of healing (Isa 53:5), not retribution, wrath, and punishment.
We must forgive as God has forgiven us, with love and grace in our hearts seeking reconciliation, not retribution.
There is much more to be said about what Penal Substitutionary Atonement teaches versus what the Bible teaches in regard to the death of Christ and the forgiveness of our sins. I hope this is sufficient to start the conversation, to show that perhaps we should examine PSA more closely in light of scripture, and that maybe PSA does not align with what the scriptures teach. Let us study it together from the scriptures and seek unity in the truth of God's words.