In my own experience, the PS model does not do an adequate job covering all the aspects of the atonement. It simply falls short of making sense of the whole of scriptural teaching on the atonement. The ideas within it have a place within biblical understanding of the atonement but it certainly isn’t the be all, end all theory as many in the evangelical world claim it to be, again, in my experience. You may have a different experience of the teaching and in fact have been taught differently.
The substitution is in experiencing the wrath of God against sin. The atonement in that sense is propitiatory. If not God’s wrath, then what is being propitiated? That it is a substitution is in that we deserve it and not Christ.
That’s the problem; it isn’t just a matter of propitiation or appeasing God. There are so many more layers to it including the incarnation, the Law, the role of humanity, relationship, freedom from death and sin, the connection between death and sin, the blood, etc… Again, there isn’t a denial of the substitutionary component to the atonement, it just isn’t focused on as the sole component in a way that I’ve experienced in many evangelical churches, YMMV.
Forgiveness at its most basic level is the generous release of an acknowledged debt. In commercial terms, which is where we derive the image in the NT,
We didn’t derive the image in the NT, God gave it to us in order for us to understand it.
… it is entirely reasonable to think that God’s forgiveness will look slightly different from ours.
As I said about God’s Justice.
God is King and Judge of the world. Part of his faithfulness to creation is to execute justice within it, to maintain the moral order he has established–which is not some impersonal justice, but one that is reflective of his own holy nature–in essence, to make sure that that wrongdoing is condemned and punished…
We all acknowledge the power of rulers to forgive their subjects, that is a part of their
position. Who they forgive and how that is accomplished and why they are forgiving reflect their character. We could get into the direct arguments against PS that says punishing an innocent, perfect person isn’t justice. I won’t argue that because I’m not against the idea of PS, nor that He took on our punishment in a certain sense, I am pushing back against just the flaws in seeing the atonement
only as PS to the exclusion and detriment to all the other aspects that are clearly there.
Given this, forgiveness cannot be a simple affair of “letting it go”, or passing it over for God. His own character, his holiness, his righteousness, his justice means that he cannot treat sin as if it did not happen. … As a number of the Fathers said, a God who doesn’t enforce his law is a God whose word cannot be trusted.
No one argues that He does. Neither PS proponents nor non-PS proponents argue any such thing.
All the same, the cross is the way that God makes that sin is punished and yet still forgives sinners by not making them suffer for sins themselves. PSA is not a denial that God forgives, but an explanation of how God forgives justly. It is how He, as King of the universe, goes about lovingly forgiving His enemies who deserve judgment. He suffers the judgment in himself… The Son suffering judgment on the cross is God forgiving us.
But again that definition of Justice is a human one from a particular position; someone must absolutely pay and suffer in order for their to be any forgiveness, but we see that isn’t true even in our own lives. “Crossing the line” of the law works both ways; there is only “sin” in so far as there is a law against (or for) certain things. If jaywalking is suddenly voted out of the books, jaywalking is no longer illegal. If sneezing in public is suddenly voted into the books, sneezing in public is illegal. So, even within PS theory as a legality theory there is much more to sin, forgiveness, debt, etc… than what is commonly painted.
The second thing to recognize is that our forgiveness is dependent upon his forgiveness, on the basis of Christ’s atoning work. We can let things go, forgive as we’ve been forgiven, forgo vengeance, and avoid retribution because we know that these things are safely in God’s loving hands. We do not have to exact judgment. Justice for the sins I suffer are handled the way my own sins are handled–either on the cross or at the final judgment.
Well, yes, but there is also the fact in scripture that people can indeed “sin against us.” Meaning, someone can sin against me as an independent being. I can forgive that sin or not, and I’m expected to because someone has forgiven me much. I don’t make an innocent person suffer to forgive personal sin against me, quite the opposite. But individual sin and individual forgiveness is to be seen in the larger view of the fact of sin, the fact of the law, how that interacts, and what it means that the Law was nailed to the cross with Christ as well as Him becoming sin.
As I said in the beginning; In my own experience, the PS model does not do an adequate job covering all the aspects of the atonement. It simply falls short of making sense of the whole of scriptural teaching on the atonement. The ideas within it have a place within biblical understanding of the atonement but it certainly isn’t the be all, end all theory as many in the evangelical world claim it to be, again, in my experience. You may have a different experience of the teaching and in fact have been taught differently. I’ve no wish to try to argue someone out of what their beliefs are, I’m explaining my own.
Grace and peace,
K
