Some Thoughts on Penal Substitution and Atonement Theories

This post is linked to my column in the April 1, 2023 Winnipeg Free Press. 

Prepared by Robert J. Dean, ThD, Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics, Providence Theological Seminary. 

The second article of the Nicene Creed, which was finalized at the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD, includes the phrase “he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate.” The name “Pontius Pilate” locates the crucifixion of Jesus within history as an event that occurred in a specific place and at a particular time. The inclusion of the short phrase “for us” indicates that Jesus’ death upon a cruel instrument of Roman torture is not simply an event which can be relegated to the distant past. Rather, it is one of enduring importance for people of every age.

In the phrase, “for us,” the church confesses that Jesus Christ through his death has accomplished something of eternal significance which we human beings could not accomplish for ourselves. When Christians seek to describe what Christ has accomplished, they often reach for the term “atonement.” 

The word atonement was coined by the early English Reformer William Tyndale and it meant exactly what its parts would seem to indicate: atone-ment. So when Christians speak of atonement, they are attempting to give voice to how Christ has acted to overcome everything that divides the creation from its Creator; this includes not only the repair of the breach in the relationship between God and humanity, but also the healing of the wounds of division which mar relations between human beings themselves and between human beings and the rest of the creation — each understood as consequences of the ruptured relationship between God and humanity. 

While the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Chalcedon (451) established the ground rules for which later Christians were to speak of the divinity of Christ and the unity of divine and human natures in the single subject of Christ respectively, various theologians have observed that no ecumenical council has ever offered a definitive prescription for how Christians are to speak of the atonement. 

This is perhaps a reflection of the richly variegated way that Scripture itself speaks of Christ’s atoning death. For example, the New Testament speaks of Jesus’ death on the cross as: our ransom (Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:12; 1 Tim. 2:6); an example for us (Phil. 2:3-8; 1 Pet. 2:21-23); his triumph over the principalities and powers which hold us in bondage (Col. 2:15; Rom 8:2); the expiation of our sin (Heb. 2:17; Rom. 3:25-26; 1 John 2:2); our reconciliation (Rom. 5:10-11; 1 Cor. 1:19-20); the tearing down of the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles, and the creation of the new eschatological people of God (Eph. 2:11-22). 

The Gospel of John within its pages presents a rich tapestry of images and interpretations of the significance of Jesus’ death. The crucified Christ is depicted as the Passover Lamb (1:29, 19:36) and the golden snake lifted on a pole in the wilderness (3:14). He washes the disciples’ feet as an enacted parable of his coming crucifixion (13:1-11); and tells his disciples that he is going aways “to prepare a place” for them (14:3). While dying on the cross, Jesus creates a new family, joining his mother and the beloved disciple together in one household (19:25-27).

Evangelical theologians today are increasingly aware of the diverse ways that Scripture describes the ultimately inexhaustible work of Christ. The evangelical Episcopal preacher Fleming Rutledge, in her tour de force The Crucifixion, warns readers to avoid forcing “the various themes and motifs used by the New Testament to expound the crucifixion of Christ” into “one narrow theoretical tunnel.” 1 

The biblical scholar Scot McKnight, in his book called A Community Called Atonement, employs a metaphor from the world of golf, equating the various metaphors and images with golf clubs that allow a golfer to hit a variety of shots as the circumstances require. A golfer who attempted to play an entire round with just a driver and a putter would be at a supreme disadvantage to someone carrying the full complement of fourteen clubs. 

McKnight writes, “It is easy to be faithful to one biblical metaphor for the atonement – say ransom or justification – and work hard at making everything fit into that image. The difficult art of bricolage, of taking all the biblical images and combining them into an expression that manages to keep all of them in play at the same time, is much more demanding. To return to our image, we are in search of a bag in which all the clubs can fit.” 2 

Throughout the history of the church there have been various attempts to discover a “a bag in which all the clubs can fit” through the development of various theories or models of the atonement. The Swedish Lutheran theologian Gustaf Aulén’s attempt to classify these theories of atonement into three different categories in his book Christus Victor (1931) proved to be particularly influential. 

According to Aulén’s schema, theories of atonement can be classified as objective (as exemplified in Anselm of Canterbury), subjective (as exemplified in Peter Abelard), or classical/dramatic (argued for by Aulén himself, which he claims represents the view of the Church Fathers). 

While substantive, Aulén’s schema is overly reductionistic and fails to do justice to both the full scope of thought of the figures it holds up as exemplars and to the biblical testimony itself. In recent years, a variety of theologians and biblical scholars have attempted to formulate their own groupings of theories or metaphors of atonement. 

The British Reformed theologian Colin Gunton put forward victory, justice, and sacrifice as the major interpretive metaphors for the atonement. Scot McKnight suggests that there are five big metaphors for atonement: “incorporation (into Christ, who recapitulated Adam’s life), ransom or liberation, satisfaction, moral influence, and penal substitution.” 

The Anglican theologian Mark McIntosh characterizes the conceptual domains for salvation as encompassing medical, legal, cosmichistorical, military-political, sacrificial, and mystical metaphors. Fleming Rutledge has recently suggested that there are two overarching categories that describe what is happening in the cross of Christ: 1.) “God’s definitive action in making vicarious atonement for sin”; 2.) “God’s decisive victory over the alien Powers of Sin and Death.” 

However, following that assertion the rest of her book is devoted to unpacking eight different biblical motifs that provide windows into the magnificent mystery of the cross. As has likely become apparent, there is little scholarly consensus surrounding how to classify and count the various models and theories of atonement. 

One of the earliest and most significant attempts to offer a sustained and systematic treatment of the mechanism of the atonement is found in the work of the 11th century bishop Anselm of Canterbury entitled Cur Deus Homo (“Why God Became Man?”). Anselm argues that a holy God cannot simply turn a blind eye to the evil unleashed in the world through sin. There must be justice and justice can only occur if humanity is punished for its sin or if satisfaction is made to God for the offense that humanity has caused to his infinite holiness. In contemporary terms, we might think of satisfaction in terms of reparations. Anselm insists that God does not opt to punish humanity but instead chooses the path of satisfaction. The only problem is that there is nothing that human beings have that God needs or that they could offer to God as satisfaction for the offense they have committed. This is where, for Anselm, the necessity of the incarnation enters the picture. Only a God-man could offer a life not only unblemished by sin, but of infinite worth, that could serve as a reparation for the transgression of humanity against God’s infinite holiness. 

With Martin Luther’s rediscovery of the doctrine of justification by faith during the Reformation, forensic metaphors for the atonement begin to occupy an increasingly important place in the imagination of the burgeoning Protestant movement. Considering that the language of justification itself emerges from the context of the courtroom, it should perhaps not be surprising that these forensic metaphors rose to increasing prominence. Though it must be said that Luther himself could speak of atonement in a variety of different registers including not only the forensic, but also the participatory (speaking of the marriage between Christ and the soul), and the dramatic (delighting in Christ’s triumph over the unholy triumvirate of Sin, Death, and the Devil). 

The second-generation Swiss Reformer John Calvin continued to emphasize a forensic understanding of atonement and could speak of Christ bearing the punishment that sinners rightfully deserved. While the substitutionary pattern of the Reformers and their progeny resonated with that of the earlier satisfaction theory, by introducing the variable of punishment they had radically changed Anselm’s equation. 

In the 19th century, Princeton Seminary became the major site of intellectual resistance against the emerging forms of theological liberalism in the United States. The theologian Charles Hodge and his successors at Princeton, including B.B. Warfield, became staunch and influential proponents and defenders of penal substitution. 

Penal substitutionary atonement has occupied a central place in the popular evangelical imagination when it comes to thinking about Christ’s work on the cross. Some evangelical preachers and organizations have at times seemingly equated a penal substitutionary interpretation of the cross with the Gospel itself. 

While this would be unnecessarily reductionistic, it is important to see that penal substitution does resonate with important aspects of the biblical testimony. First, it treats the incomparable majesty and transcendent holiness of God with utmost respect. 

Second, it recognizes that the offence of sin is not a trifling matter but must be regarded with utter seriousness – justice must be done and be seen to be done. 

Third, it stands within the folds of the great Christian tradition in affirming the substitutionary character of Jesus’ death, recognizing that Christ acts “for us.” 

Fourth, it attempts to integrate into its framework passages such as Galatians 3:13 (“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us”) and 2 Corinthians 5:21 (“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin”). (Although, it should be noted that these verses do not speak of Christ bearing an extrinsic or additional penalty, but simply bearing the weight of sin and the curse.) 

There are perhaps also cultural and historical factors playing into the evangelical attraction to penal substitution, ranging from the movements lineage that goes back to the Protestant Reformation, to the litigious and transactional character of the modern world within which evangelicalism was born and continues to thrive. 

Penal substitutionary accounts are not without their problems and penal substitutionary views of the atonement have come under intense scrutiny in recent decades. Many of these criticisms more often find their target in the presentations of penal substitution circulating at the popular level or emanating from local pulpits then they do in the work of more nuanced and sophisticated proponents of penal substitution, like the evangelical Anglican theologian James Packer, who taught for many years at Regent College in Vancouver. 

The easily criticized popular account presents the story of a God who is mad as hell with humanity on account of its sin and therefore decides to work out his anger management issues by mercilessly smiting an innocent bystander by the name of Jesus. Far from good news, this caricature of the Gospel, presents a merciless God of dubious character who somehow saves the world through committing an act of gross injustice. 

Such a portrayal must be combatted and corrected for the sake of the Gospel. Perhaps there is no better place to start than with what may be the most famous verse in all of Scripture: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). Here we see that what is given in the death of Christ is nothing other than the life of the Son of God. This means that Jesus is not some innocent bystander who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jesus is certainly innocent, but he is not a bystander. 

Rather, Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God, which means that on the cross we see the alienation of sin being swallowed up in the fathomless depths of God’s own love. If this is the case, and as John 3:16, points out, then it means that God is not in some conflicted emotional or motivational state when it comes to the human creature. Already in 400 A.D., St Augustine appears to have been attempting to correct such a mistaken notion, writing: 

Is it really the case that when God the Father was angry with us he saw the death of the Son on our behalf and was reconciled to us? Does this mean then that his Son was already so reconciled to us that he was even prepared to die for us, while the Father was still so angry with us that unless the Son died for us he would not be reconciled to us? . . . Would the Father have not spared his own Son but handed him over for us, if he had not already been reconciled? . . . I observe that the Father loved us not merely before the Son died for us, but before he founded the world. 3 

Augustine observes that the atonement does not affect a change in God, but rather affects a change in us and our situation before God. That change could be described as a translation from death to life, or in the words of John 3:16, entrance into “eternal life.” Eternal life in the Gospel of John begins in the here and now, as through the Holy Spirit, the Son who dwells in the heart of the Father, comes to dwell within the hearts of believers (John 14:15-20). 

This insight serves as an effective bridge to one final criticism of penal substitutionary theory, namely that it risks separating the cross from the life and ministry of Jesus on the one hand and the resurrection on the other. Under the purview of penal substitutionary theory, it is difficult to offer a convincing or coherent account of Jesus’ life and ministry or to describe the resurrection in a way that makes it nothing more than an accessory to Good Friday. 

Holding together the life and ministry of Jesus with his cross and with his resurrection is not a struggle unique to evangelicals holding to penal substitution. Most accounts of the atonement and forms of Christian spirituality struggle in this regard with liberal and progressive Christians, along with some Mennonites, emphasizing the life and teachings of Jesus; evangelicals and Roman Catholics tending to emphasize the cross; and Pentecostals and the Orthodox placing unique stress upon the resurrection. 

The failure to hold together Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, can result in characteristic distortions in the practice of the faith with those emphasizing the life and teachings of Jesus particularly susceptible to legalistic ideologies of both the left- and right-wing varieties. Those who focus exclusively on the cross can tend toward a transactional approach to spirituality that ultimately makes little difference for how one lives in the world. While those prioritizing the resurrection can find themselves trending towards (3) triumphalism, ranging from the Prosperity Gospel prevalent in global charismatic circles to the ethnonationalism on display in contemporary Russian Orthodoxy. 

Theories of atonement are ultimately meant to serve as lenses and primers for engaging with the story of Jesus Christ. They are not meant to be replacements for that story. For as the former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams once said, “the job of doctrine is to hold us still before Jesus.” 4 

When all is said and done, no one is saved by holding to any particular theory of the atonement, rather we are saved by Jesus Christ who simply is our atonement. At its most basic level, the ecumenically received understanding of the atonement is just this: “He has done it! Jesus Christ is our reconciliation!” What better news could there be than that? 

Footnotes 

1.    Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015), 208.

2.    Scot McKnight, A Community Called Atonement (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007), 35.

3.    Augustine, De Trinitate, XVII.4.15.

4.    Rowan Williams, Christ on Trial: How the Gospel Unsettles Our Judgement (Toronto: ABC Pub., 2003), 37.