Christ is the Lamb of God — the one to whom every lamb offered at Israel’s altar pointed forward.
His death is sacrificial in character, and the nature of his work was declared in advance by his own self-testimony: ‘For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45).
Without this substitutionary logic, the death of Christ becomes incomprehensible.
The Account Is Closed
The Old Testament conception of ransom (kippur) carries the sense of covering — a payment that settles a debt in full, cancels the outstanding obligation, and requires no further restitution.
The account is closed.
Why Would God Call His Son Sinful?
2 Corinthians 5:21 presses further: ‘For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’
The question that verse forces is arresting. Why is the eternal Son — perfect, fully divine, sinless — reckoned sinful?
Paul supplies the answer himself in Galatians 3:13: ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.’
In his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, God himself bore the curse. We should bear the curse and deserve to bear it — yet he bore what we deserved.
It cost Christ his life and death that we might know blessing, peace, God’s favour, life in abundance, eternal life. Because he bore in our stead judgment, condemnation, death and hell.
Only One Coherent Answer
Without this substitutionary logic, the death of Christ becomes incomprehensible.
Why did the wrath of God fall on Christ at Calvary? Three answers present themselves, and only one is coherent.
Either God is unjust. Or the Bible’s presentation of God is simply mistaken and immoral. Or — when the wrath of God was inflicted on his eternal Son and borne by him for us — it was right and just, and accomplished our forgiveness and reconciliation.
The third is the answer of Scripture, the creeds, confessions, and catechisms.
And it’s worth noting that this substitution was entirely voluntary. The Son freely committed himself to the Father’s redemptive purpose. Penal substitutionary atonement is not something imposed upon an unwilling victim, but embraced by a willing Saviour.1On the necessity of penal atonement, see Adam Neder, ‘Sin,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 749-52
The First Objection
Two objections recur with particular persistence and deserve response.
The first is that penal substitution is merely one perspective among several — alongside identification, victory, example, moral influence, satisfaction and reconciliation.
This is true, and the concession should be made generously. The atonement is many-faceted, and the New Testament deploys multiple categories to illuminate its meaning.
But the multiplicity of perspectives does not diminish the centrality of any one of them. It means that all are true simultaneously.2A highly influential exposition and defence of these matters is J. I. Packer, ‘What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution,’ Tyndale Bulletin 25 (1974): 3–45; republished in Celebrating the Saving Work of Christ. Collected Shorter Works of J. I. Packer (Paternoster Press, 1998), 1: 85-123. For critical discussion, see Stephen R. Holmes, ‘Penal Substitution,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 295-314.
The substitutionary nature of Christ’s work, moreover, isn’t confined to the cross alone. It extends across his whole life — his active obedience rendered in our name no less than his passive obedience endured in our place.
The Second, and Sharper
The second and more rhetorically charged objection brands penal substitution as ‘cosmic child abuse’ — the image of a vengeful Father punishing his Son for what was not the Son’s fault, with inherent violence, sadism on God’s part and masochism on Christ’s.
But this caricature depends on a fundamental misreading of both the character of God and the teaching itself.
The wrath of God is not arbitrary cruelty. It is the holy and necessary reaction of moral perfection — righteousness — against sin. God, being who he is, can do no other.
And penal substitution, crucially, is self-substitutionary. It is God himself who bore our sins at the cross of Christ.
It is not the Father punishing an unwilling third party, but the Triune God himself — in the Person of the Son — bearing the penalty that God’s own justice demands.3‘Jesus’ complete Godhood means that he is not a third party to the relationship between God and mankind. In him God does not inflict the penalty on another, he absorbs it himself. Likewise his complete manhood allows him to act in our place. There is a kinship bond between Christ and humanity that is not diminished by the fact that he was “without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Put these two together and we have what has been called ‘the double-identification of Christ’: he is one with sinners (we are saved ‘in Christ’ Romans 8:1) and he is one with the Father (John 10:30). The doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the perfect humanity of Christ are the key defences of the morality of penal substitution. The allegation of child abuse may be evocative (provocative?), but it is vacuous.’ (Thompson and Doyle, ‘The Death of Christ 1’).
Stott’s treatment of this point remains unsurpassed, and the same truth is enshrined in the hymn: ‘In my place condemned he stood.’4The phrase ‘In My Place Condemned He Stood,’ is from the hymn by Philip P. Bliss, Man of Sorrows! What A Name, first published in 1875. The line appears in the second stanza, ‘Bearing shame and scoffing ruse, In my place condemned he stood, Sealed my pardon with his blood.’ See the valuable volume by J. I. Packer and Mark Dever, In My Place Condemned He Stood: Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement (Crossway, 2008).
Note where the alternative leads. To remove substitution is not to escape divine violence. It is to leave the sinner to answer for his own sins — which is the only alternative the gospel does not allow.5‘Surely the primary issue with which penal substitution is concerned is neither the morality nor the rationality of God’s ways, but the remission of my sins; and the primary function of the concept is to correlate my knowledge of being guilty before God with my knowledge that, on the one hand, no question of my ever being judged for my sins can now arise, and, on the other hand, that the risen Christ whom I am called to accept as my Lord is none other than Jesus, who secured my immunity from judgement by bearing on the cross the penalty which was my due’ (Packer, ‘What did the Cross Achieve’, 27). Adam J. Johnson, ‘Violence,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 791-796.
Calvin on Isaiah 53:6
Calvin’s comment on ‘the LORD has laid on him [Christ] the iniquity of us all’ is tremendous:
‘Here we have a beautiful antithesis. In ourselves we are scattered, in Christ we are collected; in Christ we find the road by which we are led to salvation. Our sins overwhelm us; but they are transferred to Christ, in whom we are acquitted. When we were perishing, separated from God and hastening to hell, Christ took upon himself the filth of our iniquities and rescued us from eternal destruction. (This refers of course only to the punishment of sin, for he was free from all guilt.) Let each one of us weigh his own sins carefully, that we may truly taste the grace [of Christ] and begin to see the fruit of his death.’6Calvin, Commentaries; Haroutunian ed., 155.
Notice the parenthesis. Even here, Calvin is careful: the transfer concerns punishment, not guilt. Christ never became guilty.
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- 1On the necessity of penal atonement, see Adam Neder, ‘Sin,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 749-52 ↩︎
- 2A highly influential exposition and defence of these matters is J. I. Packer, ‘What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution,’ Tyndale Bulletin 25 (1974): 3–45; republished in Celebrating the Saving Work of Christ. Collected Shorter Works of J. I. Packer (Paternoster Press, 1998), 1: 85-123. For critical discussion, see Stephen R. Holmes, ‘Penal Substitution,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 295-314. ↩︎
- 3‘Jesus’ complete Godhood means that he is not a third party to the relationship between God and mankind. In him God does not inflict the penalty on another, he absorbs it himself. Likewise his complete manhood allows him to act in our place. There is a kinship bond between Christ and humanity that is not diminished by the fact that he was “without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Put these two together and we have what has been called ‘the double-identification of Christ’: he is one with sinners (we are saved ‘in Christ’ Romans 8:1) and he is one with the Father (John 10:30). The doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the perfect humanity of Christ are the key defences of the morality of penal substitution. The allegation of child abuse may be evocative (provocative?), but it is vacuous.’ (Thompson and Doyle, ‘The Death of Christ 1’). ↩︎
- 4The phrase ‘In My Place Condemned He Stood,’ is from the hymn by Philip P. Bliss, Man of Sorrows! What A Name, first published in 1875. The line appears in the second stanza, ‘Bearing shame and scoffing ruse, In my place condemned he stood, Sealed my pardon with his blood.’ See the valuable volume by J. I. Packer and Mark Dever, In My Place Condemned He Stood: Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement (Crossway, 2008). ↩︎
- 5‘Surely the primary issue with which penal substitution is concerned is neither the morality nor the rationality of God’s ways, but the remission of my sins; and the primary function of the concept is to correlate my knowledge of being guilty before God with my knowledge that, on the one hand, no question of my ever being judged for my sins can now arise, and, on the other hand, that the risen Christ whom I am called to accept as my Lord is none other than Jesus, who secured my immunity from judgement by bearing on the cross the penalty which was my due’ (Packer, ‘What did the Cross Achieve’, 27). Adam J. Johnson, ‘Violence,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 791-796. ↩︎
- 6Calvin, Commentaries; Haroutunian ed., 155. ↩︎