Penal Substitution Evidences the Godness of God - Murray Campbell

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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The author writes over 2700 words (not including quotes from others), including several Scriptures, but cannot cite any Bible verse that tells us the Father punished the Son. Because there isn't one. Period. Yes, that's right. PSA (Penal Substitutionary Atonement) is not found in the Bible. 

We discuss this in more detail here.

We will be redacting large sections because the author spends most of the article dealing with Rob Buckingham's opinions about PSA. We find this largely irrelevant. We want the author's biblical case.

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“Bearing shame and scoffing rude,

in my place condemned he stood,

sealed my pardon with his blood:

Hallelujah, what a Savior!”

(...)

Penal Substitution is older than the Reformation

(...)

A thousand years before the Reformation, the Early Church Fathers taught, affirmed and wrote about PSA. Here are a few examples,

“If the Father of all wished His Christ for the whole human family to take upon Him the curses of all, knowing that, after He has been crucified and was dead, He would raise him up, why do you argue about Him, who submitted to suffer these things according to the Father’s will, as if he were accursed, and do not rather bewail yourselves?” (Justin Martyr)

“Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, having fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. This He did that He might turn again to incorruption men who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by the appropriation of His body and by .the grace of His resurrection. Thus He would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire.” (Athanasius) (Read these quotes very carefully. Neither of them tell us the Father punished Jesus.)

“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 “everyone” 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.” (Augustine) (Augustine did indeed believe in PSA. And of course he was a brilliant theologian, held in esteem across all branches of Christianity. Yet we gingerly question his opinion. We think he was wrong.)

Not only did the early church affirm and explain PSA, (The author only manages a single [though important] example. We would need more documentation in order to assent to his claim.)

but so did Christian theologians throughout the early and high middle ages, the Reformers, and Evangelicals from the 18th through to the 21st Century. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, John Bunyan, John Owen, Martyn Lloyd Jones, John Stott, and Tim Keller are but a few of the countless names who preached and believed that Christ died in the place of sinners and satisfied the righteous anger of God. (These later witnesses are certainly important, but we would suggest that they are simply falling in line with tradition. Perhaps they have written on PSA persuasively, but if so, we would need to see their defenses.

Further, we have yet to see the author's biblical defense of PSA.)

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Does the Bible teach and affirm penal substitutionary atonement?

The answer is yes. Both Old and New Testaments teach that PSA is central to atonement and they do so by their employment of specific language (ie propitiation) and in the many symbols, metaphors, and images that are sprinkled across the pages of the Bible.

If I may cite 3 examples here: (We hope these are his best examples...)

First, the temple was central in Israel’s life and key to ministry of the temple was the sacrificial system, and at the heart of the sacrificial system was the blood of an animal taking the place of the sinner to avert the wrath of God. (We would like to see documentation of this assertion, because the Bible is very clear that the spilled blood turns away wrath, not transfers it.)

Indeed, the most sacred day in the calendar was Yom Kippur. Kippur (or atonement), carries connotations of forgiveness, ransom, cleansing and averting God’s wrath, and this final aspect is clearly on view in the teaching about the day of atonement in Leviticus 16. (The sacrificial animals were not punished, neither by the priest nor by God. The blood was spilled on the altar, which is the type for Jesus' blood spilled on the cross. The spilled blood turns away God's wrath. God's wrath is not transferred to Jesus. He did not substitute for us.)

A second example is the Servant Song of Isaiah 53; it may only constitute a small part of this prophetic book and an even tinier part of the OT, but its significance is rarely overestimated. The Servant Song delivers more than a penal substitutionary view of the atonement, but PSA lays at the heart of its presentation of the work of God’s servant. (Isaiah 53 does not say God executed punishment on the Servant. Read it for yourself. 

We discuss this in detail here.)

The four Gospels either explicitly quote or implicitly reference the Servant Song more often than any other OT passage. R.T France is correct when he talks about Jesus‘ repeated self-identification with the servant of Isaiah 53. Thus, the entire trajectory of Jesus’ earthly ministry as recorded in Scripture is an embodiment of the suffering servant whose life culminated in a cross and death, before climaxing in a resurrection:

“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.”

(Notice that this passage never says that the Father punished Jesus. He was punished [the punishment that brought us peace was on him], but the Father did not do this, the Jews and the Roman soldiers did this.

Further, the Lord "laid upon him" our sin, not our punishment. "Laid" is 

paga, cause to light upon, Perfect3masculine singular הִפְגִּיעַ with accusative of thing + ב person Isaiah 53:6. 

Jesus carried our sin, the sin laid upon him like a burden. He was the bearer, like someone taking out the garbage.)

A third example is Paul’s tome, the letter to the Romans. Paul explains that the primary human condition is sinful rebellion against a righteous God who is now revealing his wrath against us. No human effort can save us from this judgment, only the substitutionary death of Christ. The great turning point of Romans is that masterful exegesis of the gospel in 3:21-26, which spells out God’s gift of righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus Christ and by his propitiatory death on the cross. (Let's actually quote the passage: 

Ro. 3:21-26 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished — 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

With the Scripture before us, we cannot see anything about the Father punishing Jesus. Nor do we see anything about Jesus substituting for us. As mentioned, Jesus' death was sacrificial, not substitutionary.)

Throughout Romans, Paul explores the full gamut of the atonement, in all its facets and with many of its wonderful implications, but laying at its heart is PSA.

“With the other New Testament writers, Paul always points to the death of Jesus as the atoning event, and explains the atonement in terms of representative substitution – the innocent taking the place of the guilty, in the name and for the sake of the guilty, under the axe of God’s judicial retribution” (J.I Packer, Knowing God)

There is one point where I found agreement with Buckingham, and that there is no single dimension to the Bible’s presentation of the atonement. The Bible offers us richness in the significance of Christ’s death on the cross: from Christus Victor to example, and indeed penal substitution. Buckingham (and do some theologians) calls these ‘theories’. The weakness of the word theory (and metaphor for that matter) is that it can imply a disjunction between theory and reality. This is why I prefer to use the language of facet and aspect to describe the different parts of the atonement. I think this matters because the cross carries more than symbolism, it affects actual judicious judgment, brought upon the Son in the place of sinful human beings. The cross brings real salvation and genuine reconciliation. We can no more speak of the cross as metaphor and symbol, as we would of the Federal Court of Australia sentencing a guilty person to prison. There may be symbolism and metaphor to be found, but the atonement cannot be reduced to those categories; it is an actuality.

The old rugged cross

Much more can be said, but I hope this is enough to help readers grasp what’s at stake with the atonement. I imagine Buckingham wants to give people confidence in the message of the cross, but denuding the cross of its power and refusing the Bible’s own testimony doesn’t build confidence. It strips people of the Christian hope. The world needs a God who judges and a God of mercy: that God should take onto himself in his Son my sin and its penalty, this is the kind of good news that saves lives and secures hope for the future. Of course, it’s controversial. The cross creates shame and embarrassment and disagreement, but the way forward isn’t to reframe the cross so that it fits more neatly with the wisdom of the Greeks and the morals of the Romans, Instead, let us cling ever tighter to the old rugged cross.

(Wow. The author had a substantial opportunity to explore his doctrine in its intricacies, but completely missed it. But it's no surprise, because as we mentioned there is no verse in the Bible that tells us the Father punished the Son for our sins.)