It began with the German Reformation leader Martin Luther and continued to develop within the Calvinist tradition[1][2][3][4][5] as a specific understanding of substitutionary atonement.
It states that God gave himself in the person of his Son, Jesus, to suffer the death, punishment and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty for our sin.
In other words, the doctrine of union with Christ affirms that by taking the punishment upon himself Jesus fulfils the demands of justice not for an unrelated third party but for those identified with him.
If, in the penal substitution understanding of the atonement, the death of Christ deals with sin and injustice, his resurrection is the renewal and restoration of righteousness.
Isaiah 53:4–6, 10, 11 refers to the "suffering servant": Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
[16] Key New Testament references which can be interpreted to reflect a vicarious atonement of Jesus' death and resurrection include: On the basis of Romans 3:23–26, N. T. Wright has argued that there are, in fact, different models of penal substitution in which ideas of justification work together with redemption and sacrifice.
[1][2][9] It has been generally recognized that only hints of penal substitutionary atonement can be found in the writing of the Early Church, with the most explicit articulations arriving during the time of the Reformation.
[3][4][10] Scholars vary when interpreting proposed precursors to penal substitution in the writings of some of the Early Church fathers, including Justin Martyr (c.100-165), Eusebius of Caesarea (c.275–339), Athanasius (c.300–373) and Augustine of Hippo (354–430).
Some see Augustine as speaking about penal substitutionary atonement in his exposition of Psalm 51: "For even the Lord was subject to death, but not on account of sin: He took upon Him our punishment, and so looses our guilt"[19] and in his Enchiridion he says: "Now, as men were lying under this wrath by reason of their original sin... there was need for a mediator, that is for a reconciler, who by the offering of one sacrifice, of which all the sacrifices of the law and the prophets were types, should take away this wrath... Now when God is said to be angry, we do not attribute to Him such a disturbed feeling as exists in the mind of an angry man; but we call His just displeasure against sin by the name “anger” a word transferred by analogy from human emotions.
[25] The dominant strain in the soteriological writings of the Greek Fathers, such as Athanasius of Alexandria (c.296/298–373), was the so-called "physical" theory that Christ, by becoming man, restored the divine image in us; but blended with this is the conviction that his death was necessary to release us from the curse of sin, and that he offered himself in sacrifice for us.
[26][note 4] It was not until Anselm of Canterbury (1033/4–1109) wrote his famous work Cur Deus Homo (1098) that attention was focused on the theology of redemption with the aim of providing more exact definitions.
"[46] Calvin made special appeal to the Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah 53 and to 1 Peter 3:18–22 with its reference to the "Harrowing of Hell"—the release of the spirits of those who had died before Christ.
Both are set by Calvin within the context of Pilate's court of judgment to which, according to Dillistone, they do not properly belong;[47] nevertheless, the image of "one who has borne the stripes and the chastisement which should, by strict desert have fallen"[48] upon others, within the divine purpose, is, on all sides agreed to be an essential element in the story.
'The chastisement of our peace,' the punishment necessary to procure it, 'was' laid 'on him,' freely submitting thereto: 'And by his stripes' (a part of his sufferings again put for the whole) 'we are healed'; pardon, sanctification, and final salvation, are all purchased and bestowed upon us.
Ever since the doctrine of penal substitution received full expression in the Reformation period, it has been the subject of continual criticism on biblical, moral and logical grounds.
"[58][a] His objections were as follows: Calvin's general framework, coinciding as it did with a rising respect for law, considered as a bulwark against the ferments of war, revolution and civil insurrection, remained normative for Reformed Christians for the next three centuries.
Moreover, if Socinus spoke from the point of view of the radical reformers, there were also Catholics for whom the idea of a "legal" penal substitution would weaken the magisterial doctrines of sanctification, the spiritual life of the believer, and his or her appropriation of the divine mystery through the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist.
[59] Anglican theologian F. W. Dillistone stated that "no strictly penal theology of the atonement can be expected to carry conviction in the world of the twentieth century.
Additionally, a view of human salvation which defines it in terms of once-and-for-all acquittal has to deal with its relationship to subsequent actions[69] and the lives of those not born at the time of the Paschal Mystery.
[71] Proponents of penal substitution contend that critics overlook the repeated declarations of Jesus that he intended to die on the cross, and that his death was the very purpose for which he was born on the Earth (John 12:27).
Jesus himself taught that "greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13) and repeatedly announced that he was intentionally going to Jerusalem, knowing that he was heading to his death (Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22).
He defines the term model, in a theological sense, as "explanatory constructs formed to help us know, understand, and deal with God, the ultimate reality."
Theologians who advocate penal substitution are keen to define the doctrine carefully, rather than, as Packer says; "the primary question is, not the rationality or morality of God but the remission of one's sins."
[72] What matters in Packer's view is that "Jesus Christ our Lord, moved by a love that was determined to do everything necessary to save us, endured and exhausted the destructive divine judgment for which we were otherwise inescapably destined, and so won us forgiveness, adoption and glory.
"[58] However, John Stott critiques loveless caricatures of the cross as "a sacrifice to appease an angry God, or ... a legal transaction in which an innocent victim was made to pay the penalty for the crimes of others" as being "neither the Christianity of the Bible in general nor of Paul in particular."
"[73] Controversy has arisen over a statement made by Steve Chalke that "The cross isn't a form of cosmic child abuse—A vengeful Father punishing his Son for an offense he has not even committed.
The debate has largely been conducted in evangelical circles,[75] though the dismissal of the doctrine of penal substitution on moral grounds by Jeffrey John, an Anglo-Catholic priest and Dean of St Albans, in a broadcast talk during Holy Week 2007[76][77] has drawn fire in his direction.