Penal Substitution and the Early Fathers

There has been a Lot of talk about the matter of "Penal Substitution" in recent years.   Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) is the view that the death of Christ on the cross paid a penalty of guilt on behalf of others – hence “penal” and “substitution”.  The gist of the objection to PSA is that it allegedly makes God look like some sort of monster, since the penalty is paid to God and the “wrath of God” is satisfied, a point sometimes expressed forcefully in revivalist settings and/or among the neo-Calvinists.  Steve Chalke and others have used the term "cosmic child abuse", since God pouring out wrath on his own Son seems offensive to modern sensibilities. 

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A couple of nuances need to be discussed.  Other atonement "pictures" abound in scripture.  Believers are described as "adopted" into God's household, liberated from bondage.  "Christus Victor" is an image of Christ as victor over Satan and death.  Clearly these are fine and based in scripture and belief in PSA does not preclude belief in other atonement images.  And that, I think is the critical point.  Critics of PSA seem to assume an “either-or” scenario, rather than a “both-and”.   Advocates of PSA do not reject other images of how the cross reconciles man to God.  But critics of PSA seem to say that the less “vindictive” views of atonement necessarily rule out PSA.

Some make a distinction between "substitution" and "penal substitution".  Derek Flood is one who suggests that atonement is about “cleansing” and not about satisfaction of a legal requirement owed to God.  In Flood’s view “substitutionary atonement broadly speaks of Christ’s death being vicarious: Christ bearing our sin, suffering, sickness, injustice, and brokenness.  Penal substitution is a subset of substitutionary atonement which focuses specifically on the penal aspects of that vicarious suffering, understood in the context of fulfilling the demands of judicial retributive punishment and thus appeasing God’s anger.” 

I do get the objection.  Certainly, from a certain perspective, clunky explanations and angry sermons can make God look pretty unappealing to unbelievers and even to many believers.  But I'm not sure the point of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy is to make God look accessible and friendly.   I've heard it said that God did not wish for human beings to have any other view of the consequences of human arrogance and rebellion against Him than a view that is, in fact, horrible and ghastly, hence the day of atonement is all about death, blood, burning flesh.   But at bottom line, the question is not what we like or dislike about this or that doctrine, it is what does scripture teach and how Christians have long understood scripture on this topic.  So here are the reasons I think the Flood and other critics of PSA are wrong:

First - Tabernacle and day of atonement.  I'm just not sure how we can read the Old Testament descriptions of the Day of Atonement and not come away with a view something akin to penal substitution.  God appears in a cloud over the “Mercy Seat”, the high priest transfers the sins of the people onto the sacrificial animal, then cuts that animal’s throat, sprinkling the blood liberally on various objects in the temple. It is not enough for the sacrifice to vicariously bear the sins of the people, he must die and his flesh must be burned so that the smoke rises to heaven.  Yes it is gruesome, but Leviticus is written to an agricultural people not at all unused to killing and eating their livestock, so our squeamishness about it all may be our cultural hang-up, not to be imposed on the text.  And on the other hand it seems likely God really intended to link death and sin.   "Apart from the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins."   The lamb of the Day of Atonement is killed after taking on the sins of the people.  It has seemed pretty clear to most evangelicals who have simply read the Old Testament without the filter of postmodern social justice sympathies that sin brings a penalty and the Day of Atonement removes that penalty.

Second - Isaiah 53  I know some try to say that this passage - long held to be a messianic prophecy - relates to Israel and can't be directly tied to Christ, but I just have to disagree.  The New Testament cites Isaiah 53 at least 12 times in reference to Christ.  The church fathers make the connection as well.  And with regard to the "penal" part of "substitution, take a good look at the highlighted words...

"…we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away.  Yet who of his generation protested?  For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.  ⁹ He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence,  nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin..."  (vs 5-10)

In all honesty, I fail to see how anything but willful blindness can lead an honest reader of the text to miss the point.  The messiah would have the sins of the people laid on him and would be punished for those transgressions.  How can this not be read as the payment of a penalty, hence penal?  It our iniquity he bears, hence substitutionary. 

Third – Colossians 2:13-14 – The certificate of debt  Much is made of the fact that PSA overemphasizes a legal view of atonement, one that owes too much to modern, western assumptions about law and courtroom procedures.  But Paul, writing in a Roman context states:  “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”  In other words, there is a legal debt, according to the Apostle Paul, that we owe, a debt that was paid on the cross.  Again, the elements are there, legal or penal debt, and substitution in the form of the debt being paid by Christ.  

Fourth- Hebrews   When we take a good look at the Jewish temple context of the first century epistle to the Hebrews, the references to the Old Testament tabernacle and temple, then couple that with the statements from the writer of Hebrews that say pretty clearly Christ entered a heavenly temple with his own blood...how much academic parsing of words and contexts is necessary to miss the point that millions of Christians have understood for centuries?  What else would a Jew, familiar with the temple and the Day of Atonement, the lamb, and the blood on the altar, infer?  Hebrews tells us "the blood of goats and bulls cannot take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4) but "with one sacrifice he has forever perfected those who are being sanctified". (Hebrews 10:14)  Even if one removes the “legal” aspect, how does the cross, the sacrifice, the blood still not come off as harsh if that is the concern?  And more, the writer emphasizes that we must not neglect this great salvation in the strongest terms, “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. (Hebrews 10:26-27).   There it is, recognize the substitute or pay the penalty – judgment, even vengeance executed by God (v30).

Fifth- Church Fathers.  In this case, the claim is often made that the church fathers did not teach penal substitution.  Such a claim is easily found on the Wikipedia discussion of the topic, but anybody with a Google search can find that it is simply not the case.  One example is a direct response to Derek Flood.  

While it may be true that the Fathers did not use exactly the same lingo that later clerics and reformers would, there is no question that the language of punishment for sin, paying a legal penalty and judgment of the Father are present in the writings of the Fathers. 

As I noted above, those who object to PSA seem to fail to allow that one can hold to more than one view of atonement simultaneously.  The objection seems to be that if Christ’s death leads to an adoption as sons, it cannot simultaneously be a satisfaction of a legal debt. 

The opponents of PSA seem to apply this “either/or” logic to select passages from the fathers.  Thus whenever a church father uses imagery other than PSA, it is argued that PSA is excluded, when in fact the Fathers quite often use multiple images in the same breath – they allude to both PSA and some other picture of atonement.

(The following quotations in longer form can be found here and many can be read in full context at the Catholic NewAdvent site.)

 

Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 275-339), Proof of the Gospel (bk. 10, ch. 1)

So it is said: ‘And the Lord hath laid on him our iniquities, and he bears our sins.’ Thus the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, became a curse on our behalf:

...And the Lamb of God not only did this, but was chastised on our behalf, and suffered a penalty He did not owe, but which we owed because of the multitude of our sins; and so He became the cause of the forgiveness of our sins, because He received death for us, and transferred to Himself the scourging, the insults, and the dishonour, which were due to us, and drew down upon Himself the appointed curse, being made a curse for us.

Key phrases here are "chastised on our behalf" and "suffered a penalty he did not owe".  So substitution is involved and punishment is involved.  What part of PSA is missing?

Ambrose of Milan (339-397), Flight from the World, ch. 7, sect. 44

And so then, Jesus took flesh that He might destroy the curse of sinful flesh, and He became for us a curse that a blessing might overwhelm a curse, uprightness might overwhelm sin, forgiveness might overwhelm the sentence, and life might overwhelm death. He also took up death that the sentence might be fulfilled and satisfaction might be given for the judgment, the curse placed on sinful flesh even to death. Therefore, nothing was done contrary to God’s sentence when the terms of that sentence were fulfilled, for the curse was unto death but grace is after death.

Here again, note the key words "sentence", "satisfaction...judgment".   and "curse...unto death".  In what way is this language conceptually different from PSA?

John Chrysostom (c. 350-407), Homilies on Second Corinthians, Homily XI, sect. 6

If one that was himself a king, beholding a robber and malefactor under punishment, gave his well-beloved son, his only-begotten and true, to be slain; and transferred the death and the guilt as well, from him to his son (who was himself of no such character), that he might both save the condemned man and clear him from his evil reputation; and then if, having subsequently promoted him to great dignity, he had yet, after thus saving him and advancing him to that glory unspeakable, been outraged by the person that had received such treatment: would not that man, if he had any sense, have chosen ten thousand deaths rather than appear guilty of so great ingratitude?

Here again, a king, in this case Christ himself, "transferred the death and the guilt" that belonged to a “malefactor under punishment”. So there is a legal aspect of guilt and punishment, and a substitution where that guilt and punishment are transferred.   This is PSA.  What part of PSA is missing?

But my final quotation from Augustine is rather important for a sobering reason.  In Augustine's day, the particular heresies the church had needed to deal with often concerned the nature of Christ as fully God and fully man.  The early church insisted Christ was fully God - who pre-existed with the Father from all eternity, but also fully man.  Christ was physically born.  He lived in a body.  He died physically on a cross and rose physically.  Augustine in dealing with Faustus, who seems to have despised the incarnation, directly charges that denying the reality of the death of Christ was heretical, and in this context he defends Christ's death as willfully bearing our punishment.

Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Against Faustus. bk. 14, sect. 6

If we read, ‘Cursed of God is every one that hangeth on a tree,’ the addition of the words ‘of God’ creates no difficulty. For had not God hated sin and our death, He would not have sent His Son to bear and to abolish it. And there is nothing strange in God’s cursing what He hates. For His readiness to give us the immortality which will be had at the coming of Christ, is in proportion to the compassion with which He hated our death when it hung on the cross at the death of Christ. And if Moses curses every one that hangeth on a tree, it is certainly not because he did not foresee that righteous men would be crucified, but rather because He foresaw that heretics would deny the death of the Lord to be real, and would try to disprove the application of this curse to Christ, in order that they might disprove the reality of His death. For if Christ’s death was not real, nothing cursed hung on the cross when He was crucified, for the crucifixion cannot have been real. Moses cries from the distant past to these heretics: Your evasion in denying the reality of the death of Christ is useless. Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree; not this one or that, but absolutely every one. What! the Son of God? Yes, assuredly. This is the very thing you object to, and that you are so anxious to evade. You will not allow that He was cursed for us, because you will not allow that He died for us. Exemption from Adam’s curse implies exemption from his death. But as Christ endured death as man, and for man; so also, Son of God as He was, ever living in His own righteousness, but dying for our offences, He submitted as man, and for man, to bear the curse which accompanies death. And as He died in the flesh which He took in bearing our punishment, so also, while ever blessed in His own righteousness, He was cursed for our offences, in the death which He suffered in bearing our punishment. And these words ‘every one’ are intended to check the ignorant officiousness which would deny the reference of the curse to Christ, and so, because the curse goes along with death, would lead to the denial of the true death of Christ. 

Christ is described as "dying for our offenses" and "bearing our punishment".  If he took on the curse that belonged to us and took on the punishment, again what part of PSA is missing?  I have to wonder.  Christ was "cursed of God", not just cursed generically, but cursed of God according to Augustine.  Augustine warns that certain heretics would deny the "application of this curse to Christ", in his time for reasons that were different than current objections to PSA, but the point has to be considered.  What might Augustine say today to someone who questions the “application of the curse” to Christ?  Critics of PSA do not deny the historicity of the cross or the physical incarnation and physical death of Christ.  But Augustine’s point is not just about Christology, it is about soteriology.  “And as He died in the flesh which He took in bearing our punishment, so also, while ever blessed in His own righteousness, He was cursed for our offences, in the death which He suffered in bearing our punishment.”  The incarnation, the physical death and physical resurrection are all tied to “bearing our punishment”.   IF we do not believe Christ bore our punishment, then we are eroding the Biblical purpose of the cross.

Gelasius of Cyzicus (fifth century), Church History (ii, 24, in Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte, vol. 28 (Leipzig: Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1897–), p. 100)

After a period of three years and at the beginning of the fourth he thus draws near to his bodily suffering, which he willingly undergoes on our behalf. For the punishment of the cross was due to us; but if we had all been crucified, we would have had no power to deliver ourselves from death, ‘for death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who did not sin’ (Rom. 5:14). There were many holy men, many prophets, many righteous men, but not one of them had the power to ransom himself from the authority of death; but he, the Saviour of all, came and received the punishments which were due to us into his sinless flesh, which was of us, in place of us, and on our behalf.

How, I wonder, can one read a statement like this and not see "penal" and "substitution" clearly taught?  He "received the punishments which were due us" and this was "in place of us and on our behalf"  

Gregory the Great (540-604), Church History - Morals on the Book of Job, vol. 1 (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1844), bk. 3, sect 14, p 148

‘Whereas this Man dies not on His own account, but on account of that other, thou didst then move Me to the afflicting of This one, when thou didst withdraw that other from Me by thy cunning persuasions.’  And of Him it is rightly added, without cause.  For ‘he was destroyed without cause,’ who was at once weighed to the earth by the avenging of sin, and not defiled by the pollution of sin.  He ‘was destroyed without cause,’ Who, being made incarnate, had no sins of His own, and yet being without offence took upon Himself the punishment of the carnal.

Key PSA phrases, "avenging of sin", "punishment of the carnal".  That is PSA in a nutshell.

I wonder at times what is behind this sort of obvious missing the point of both scriptural passages and their quotations in the early Fathers.  I often wonder if the need to publish and discover new approaches to topics for dissertations isn't in and of itself an enemy of orthodoxy, for it forces PhD candidates to push the envelope and encourages the sort of novelties that stretch doctrine in bad directions.  But one would think mentors at institutions of higher learning would at least make an effort to correct things like this. 

Perhaps some descriptions of PSA have been brittle, harsh and lacking tact in certain circles.  Perhaps some preachers have gone too far in linking sin and judgment to scare folks into repentance.  But there is a bottom line here.  "It was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin". That is Penal, it is Substitutionary and it is Atonement, and it cannot be dismissed because we think it makes God look bad.  It is the primary image of atonement, without excluding other images, but it is ultimately the means of our salvation.  For without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.