Over at Coffee and Bible, I came across this — the whole article is well worth a read. (HT Dave Bish)
Penal substitution has to be “central” for me because I read my bible. That may sound like a ridiculously blank statement, so I’ll explain what I mean. When I read my bible, I am presented with a God who gets angry. This is not all of who God is, or necessarily the main thing, but it’s there in black and white. Sure, he’s slow to anger, compassionate and gracious, but he gets angry. Recently I read through Jeremiah – the first main point is: Jerusalem’s going under because the people are sinful; God (in his sovereignty over the nations) is going to send an army to carry out his judgement. He’s like a potter who’s going to dash his vessel Judah on the ground. Do I think that’s great? Do I get a sort of masochistic pleasure from this? Does this make God attractive to a 21st century student? No. Welcome to the bible: God gets angry.
I submit that the whole argument about penal substitution stems from a problem with the idea that God gets angry and kills people when they sin. At the end of the day it’s God’s anger and retributive justice that offends the human heart above all.
Penal substitution, that God in Christ bore the penalty for our sin, is a perfectly natural and consistent development of the story and theology of the Old Testament, perfectly in line with God’s character revealed in the Hebrew scriptures.
Following from my bible reading, the realisation that I am a sinner who deserves to be put to death would only lead to despair if it were not for the demonstration of God’s justice and love at the cross. With OT verses about God’s burning hatred of all that is impure ringing in my ears, there is no hope and no assurance if I am merely left looking at an example of selfless non-violence or seeing evil powers being defeated . . . .
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