The Atonement: Was It Penal Substitution?

It seems to me that the broad Christian world believes that Christ died for the purpose of paying the death penalty incurred by people because of their sins. This is not the early teaching of Christianity though. Y’shuah himself said that the reason he died was to ransom many (Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45). Paul says we were bought with a price (I Co 6:20). I don’t think that Christian literature contains the notion of penal substitution until the writings of Anselm, a notable 11^th century English cleric. His teaching, upon which subsequent teachers have built, was that people earned death through their sins, and that God came in the form of Jesus to pay that death penalty so that people might live.

There are problems with this teaching.  First, did Y’shuah really pay the penalty of sin? The Bible teaches us that “the soul that sins, it shall die” and “the wages of sin is death”, but is this penalty paid by the crucifixion? We still die. Wait, you say, the penalty is eternal death. Okay, suppose it is. Jesus did not stay eternally dead. The second problem is that it hardly makes sense that an all-powerful God can’t just forgive without exacting a penalty. We do it all the time, and we are only human. Third, is it reasonable that God killed himself to appease himself? Fourth, the Bible teaches us that Christ died for all, but this would either mean that everyone will be saved from the penalty of breaking the law, or some will not be even though Y’shuah paid the penalty for them.  I could go on, but this is a good start at encouraging a look at the issues.

What one believes about the atonement has to align with and probably flow from what one believes about God (is he primarily love, or is justice paramount?), about Christ (was he God, or was he just a good man?), about the law (is it inexorable, exercising an unbending penalty?), and about man (are we basically good with a capacity to make mistakes, or are we essentially evil?).

Welcoming Pain

The pain of life is my segue into the awareness of the addictions that I need to transform into preferences if I am to be freed from the emotional patterns that bring that pain.

Because these painful experiences serve such a purpose, I welcome them.  For example, when I originally started writing this, I was experiencing a hurt occasioned by someone not living up to my addiction to having them care enough about me to fulfill what to me was an important promise. I decided to welcome this pain because it provided me with an occasion to realize that I have an addiction.  That realization was the first step to reprogramming it so that I am no longer addicted to them keeping their word. I can upgrade that addiction into a preference, and if they then fail me, it won’t trigger that same emotion. Instead, I will realize that I don’t need their integrity. There are other ways of being loved.

The Bible teaches us to welcome these events.

James 1:2-4: “² Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, ³ knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. ⁴ And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” 

Matthew 5:11 tells us of a specific type of suffering in which we can be glad: “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.”

I Peter 4:13: “but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.”

In that experience, I had to choose between (1) being hurt and letting it preoccupy me and keep love from flowing out from me and (2) thinking about what I have instead of what I don’t have.  I also had a choice between (1) emotionally insisting that people don’t fail me and (2) preferring that they are honest with me while I accept that sometimes they won’t be, and what really matters is that God will not fail me (Deuteronomy 31:6 and Hebrews 13:5).   

By the way, I was able to assert myself with them on the issue and express my desire that they keep their word, while inwardly being alright and not being bent out of shape over what I perceive as their failure.  It’s an issue of reprogramming.

How to reprogram is where we are now going.