May 24, 2010 issue
A biblical theory?
By Reta Halteman Finger Harrisonburg, Va.Is the penal substitutionary atonement theory of Jesus’ death biblical or unbiblical?
Mark Baker of Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary in Fresno, Calif., was asked to apologize for stating that it was unbiblical. Is Baker right or wrong? I would challenge any reader to make a biblical case for penal substitutionary atonement — “that Jesus took the punishment sinners deserve, satisfying God’s requirement for justice.”
The Apostle Paul does make the case that Jesus died “for us” as a sacrifice for sins, but can you find the notion that this was a forensic, legal transfer of sin from humans onto Jesus as he hung on the cross? As a 17-year-old at Eastern Mennonite College in the late 1950s, I heard Don Augsburger clarify in our theology class that Jesus “paid the price for our redemption,” not “the penalty for our sin.” Since then I have learned, along with Baker, that “God’s work through the cross is richer and deeper than any of our explanations of it.”
The problem with penal substitution is the logic of too many evangelical or fundamentalist students I have known — that if Jesus already paid the penalty for my sin, then I can pretty much do what I want. That is neither Anabaptist nor biblical, for it’s the whole of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection that points the way to salvation.
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