Is penal substitution possible?

A stock objection to penal substitution and vicarious atonement is that it's just not possible for one individual to assume the guilt of another individual. I've discussed this on various occasions, but now I'd like to approach it from a different angle:

i) Keep in mind that both sides have a burden of proof. The fact that critics of penal substitution/vicarious atonement raise the objection shouldn't put Christians on the defensive, as if the viewpoint of the critics is the default position. Both sides need to argue for their position. Critics are not entitled to shift the onus onto Christians. 

ii) Then there's the issue of whether this is even the kind of question we can settle a priori. In many cases, we believe something is possible because it is actual. Reality entails possibility. 

In many cases we don't attempt to justify the possibility of something a priori. Rather, we believe it's possible because we have concrete evidence that it's possible. Because we have evidence that something really happens or really exists. 

In the first instance, Christians believe in penal substitution/vicarious atonement because that's a revealed truth. Because that's what happened on the cross. That's the design of the atonement.

That's not based on intuition but experience. And that can be a legitimate source of knowledge. We rely on that for many things.

iii) What's the general principle that underlies the objection to penal substitution/vicarious atonement? In human affairs, there are many cases in which one party acts on behalf of another party, or in place of another party. 

Moreover, this may be asymmetrical. For instance, a private lacks the authority to do some things a general is entitled to do whereas a general has the authority to do whatever a private can do. So a private can't take action above his grade but a general can take action below his grade.

In that respect, a superior can take the place of a subordinate, but a subordinate can't take the place of a superior. By parity of argument, the Incarnate Son can take the place of sinners. 

iv) Consider an illustration. Suppose a gamer designs a video game with artificially intelligent characters. Most of the virtual characters are coequal. 

However, the gamer has one character who represents himself. Within the world of the game, that character has authority over all other characters, because he's the virtual counterpart of the designer. As their superior, he has the right to take the place of another or others. 

Anderson vs. Abasciano on John 3:16

James Anderson has responded to Abasciano on John 3:16.

Born under the law

Does vicarious atonement require an Incarnate Deity? Apostate Dale Tuggy denies that, although he fails to explain how the death of a merely human messiah can have any vicarious significance. What makes his death different than the death of any Christian martyr? Evidently, unitarians resort to theological voluntarism. The vicarious atonement is just an arbitrary divine fiat?

Let's compare that to Christian theology. God bears a different relationship to his own law than creatures do. The Ten Commandments are inapplicable to God–not because God is amoral, beyond good and evil, but because God isn't that kind of being. Likewise, there's a fundamental asymmetry. For instance, we have a duty to worship God whereas God has no reciprocal duty to worship us!

If we keep God's law for humanity, we're just doing what we're suppose to do. And if we fall short, there's no extra credit assignment we can do to make up for our deficit. 

If, by contrast, God chooses to be born under the law, to submit himself to the penalties of his own law, that's sheerly meritorious. God had no obligation to do that in part or in whole. 

Abasciano's decoy

https://www.jamesagibson.com/2018/04/24/the-irrelevance-of-whoever-in-john-316-and-what-really-matters-a-response-to-brian-abasciano/

Accident of birth

Stephen J. Graham

@sjggraham 

Suppose God sent to Hell everyone who was born in South America before 10am. The rest of us go to heaven. Is there any reason on Calvinism to think there is anything wrong with God holding people morally accountable for being born in South America before 10am?

Secular Outpost Retweeted

Stephen J. Graham

@sjggraham

Can South Americans born before 10am complain to their creator "Why did you make me thus?" Who are they that they should talk back to God? (cf Romans 9:20)

Stephen J. Graham

@sjggraham

I'm asking whether it makes any moral sense for God to hold someone accountable for something beyond their control. I don't think the issue is about divine command ethics.

I wouldn't normally comment on some random tweet by an atheist, by since this was retweeted by Jeff Lowder at the Secular Outpost, I'll bite:

i) God wouldn't be holding folks morally accountable for when and where they are born, but for their sin. For instance, if an arsonist trips a silent alarm, and the police arrest him before he had a chance to get away, he wasn't held accountable for his poor timing. That's an incidental circumstance. 

ii) Since many South Americans are Christians, it would be morally wrong for God to damn them. For one thing, God would be breaking his promise to save those who trust in Jesus.

ii) In addition, it would be wrong for God to damn those whom Christ redeemed. Since Christ atoned for the sins of Christians (i.e. the elect), there's no judicial basis for damning them. Admittedly, some professing Christians are nominal Christians, but I'm referring to the elect.

iii) Hence, Rom 9:20 doesn't apply.

iv) Sometimes we're responsible for things beyond our control and sometimes not. Depends on the example. If a mother leaves her newborn baby on my doorstep, I'm not responsible for the child in the sense that I'm not its father. And I didn't create that situation. But having been thrust into a situation not of my own choosing, I'm responsible to see to it that the newborn doesn't die on my doorstep from exposure or predation. 

The invention of writing

Christopher Hitchens had a stock objection to Christianity. He recycled this objection in multiple debates. He'd rehearse the antiquity of man on conventional dating schemes, then point out that for most of human history, God did nothing to prevent human suffering, and then, 2000 years ago, he intervenes in a Third World backwater.

As I've pointed out before, that objection reflects his theological ignorance. The purpose of the atonement was never to eliminate suffering, but to make it possible for God to justly forgive sinners.

But there's another issue. According to current archeological information, writing was only invented about 5000 years ago, in the ancient Near East. Suppose the atonement took place 70,000 years ago. There'd be no written record to copy and disseminate knowledge about that event. Writing is a medium of mass communication. Until the advent of writing, it would be impossible to accurately preserve and widely disseminate a public record of the atonement. And not coincidentally, the site of the atonement is also the site where written languages first evolved. Moreover, pictograms are ambiguous. It took longer to develop alphabetic writing systems. 

John 3:16 teaches limited atonement

"John 3:16 Teaches Limited Atonement" by Prof. James Anderson.

Jesus' Fulfillment Of Psalm 22

Isaiah's Suffering Servant prophecy gets more attention than other Easter prophecies, as it should. But one that ought to get more attention than it does is Psalm 22. I wrote about it a couple of years ago. And here are links to the audio and video of a recent discussion James White and Michael Brown had about the psalm.

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered,
Was all for sinners' gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression,
But Thine the deadly pain.
(O Sacred Head, Now Wounded)

Craig on penal substitution

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs_5o5Ph6Ig&feature=youtu.be

Is Jesus a propitiation?

He is the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 2:2).

whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith (Rom 3:25).

1. "Propitiation" is the traditional rendering. But is that correct? An alternative rendering is "expiation". The typical distinction is that one expiates sin while one propitiates an agent. Propitiation is more personal while expiation is more impersonal. 

2. Roughly two sources form the possible background:

i) Cultic usage involving Yom Kippur. Sacrificial blood in relation to the inner sanctum.

ii) Extrabiblical usage in which a ritual is used to appease an angry deity or vengeful spirit. 

3. An objection to (i) is that Paul doesn't typically make explicit and extensive use of the Mosaic cultus, unlike Hebrews. 

i) Yet as a rabbi steeped in the OT, that would be a subliminal presupposition for much of his theology.

ii) It may also be that he doesn't usually employ those categories because so much of what he writes is addressed to gentiles. Yet it would always be in the back of his mind, within easy reach. 

iii) In addition to that, Paul may well be suggesting that Jesus replaces the OT sacrificial system. A type/antitype relation.

4. Another objection to the cultic sense is that produces a jumbled image of Christ as priest, victim, and mercy-seat all rolled into one. That, however, fails to distinguish between conceptual consistency and figurative consistency. The Bible uses picture language (concrete metaphors, enacted parables) to illustrate different facets of redemption. Sometimes that produces mixed metaphors. But picturesque metaphors needn't be realistic. 

5. An objection to "propitiation" is that it casts God in the role of a petty, vindictive heathen deity. 

i) That's not an exegetical objection. Rather, that's based on a preconceived notion of what is fitting for God.

ii) One crucial difference between the Biblical/Pauline conception and the pagan conception is that in the pagan notion of propitiation, humans take the initiative to pacify an angry god or spirit. The losing side has an incentive to broker a truce, while the winning side has no such incentive. 

Moreover, their rituals sometimes have the power to manipulate vindictive gods or vengeful spirits. 

By contrast, the biblical God takes the initiative to resolve hostilities. That reflects divine condescension and clemency. Normally, it's up to the offending party to seek reconciliation with the offended party. But because sinners are unable and unwilling to take the initiative in that regard, the offended party (God) initiates reconciliation with the offending party (sinners). Sinners don't propitiate God. Rather, the Redeemer takes that action. 

And God can't be arm-twisted. He's the one who set up the sacrificial system in the first place. 

iii) I think it likely that Paul is trading on both associations. In Romans as well as the Pauline corpus generally, you have the theme of God's wrath. That, of course, has an OT background, as well as an eschatological dimension. But "propitiation" would also resonant with a gentile audience by intersecting with shared connotations. 

At the same time, Paul has a foot in the OT. And he wishes to show that Jesus fulfills the OT. The mercy-seat was a placeholder. The cross supersedes the mercy-seat.  

6. If we confine ourselves to the Fourth Gospel and 1 John, Johannine theology lacks the same sustained, explicit emphasis on God's wrath that we find in Paul, although that's touched on in a few passages (e.g. Jn 3:36). Of course, if we include Revelation in the Johannine corpus, then divine wrath looms large.

However, I think the notion of divine wrath is somewhat anthropomorphic. It's not that God actually loses his temper. Rather, I think divine "wrath" is a colorful way to express divine judgment against injustice. And the whole point of atonement in the Fourth Gospel and 1 John is to avert eschatological judgment for Christians. So in that more abstract sense, "propitiation" has a place, although a more generic term might be preferable. 

This also resolves the tension of the Son placating the Father. That's not the level at which the transaction operates. Rather, it concerns the satisfaction of divine justice. 

7. 1 Jn 2:2 may be an alternate formulation to express the same idea conveyed in 1:7: "The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin".

Parsing penal substitution

Many evangelicals regard penal substitution as the heart and soul of the Gospel. Indeed, on one definition, penal substitution is a definitive feature of evangelical identity. Yet many Arminians reject penal substitution. Catholics, Orthodox, and Anglo-Catholics typically reject penal substitution. Some objections are philosophical. I've addressed philosophical objections. In this post, I'd like to focus on some prooftexts for penal substitution. Because these texts share a common theme, I won't repeat the same comments on every text. What I say about one text is often applicable to another. 

I'm going to focus on the most straightforward passages. I'll resist the temptation to include the Johannine doctrine of the atonement (e.g. Jn 1:29; 11:51-52; 1 Jn 2:2), in part because there's no one compact verse that summarizes the Johannine doctrine. Rather, it's strung out in several different passages, so a proper treatment needs to study these in combination. That merits a separate treatment. By the same token, I'll resist the temptation to include Rom 3:21-26, in part because that's a very complex passage, with some loaded terms. So that, too, merits a separate treatment. In addition, Rom 3:25 and 1 Jn 2:2 employ the controverted term hilasmos. That also merits separate analysis.  

One hermeneutical consideration to keep in mind is that Scripture isn't written in a technical way that absolutely excludes every conceivable interpretation but one by process of elimination. If it were written that way, it would be impossibly cumbersome and inaccessible to most readers. Instead, the style of Scripture is designed to convey a general impression to the implied reader. 

Terminology

Vicarious atonement

A vicarious or substitutionary relation or transaction involves one agent acting on behalf of another. He does or undergoes something so that a second party won't have do it or undergo it. A one-to-many relation is a common clue for a vicarious or substitutionary action. 

Penal substitution

That's a special case of the general principle (vicarious atonement). In this type of transaction, one agent suffers punishment to spare a second party. 

Imputation

The recipient has ascribed status, as if he personally performed the meritorious or demeritorious action, when, in fact, that's the result of a second party.

Representation

This is sometimes presented as an alternative to substitution. Yet representation is typically substitutionary: an agent acting in the interests of another. Acting on their behalf by doing something for them, instead of their doing it themselves. 

Identification

This is sometimes presented as an alternative to substitution. Christ suffers with us rather than suffering for us. 

That, however, is a false dichotomy. It's quite possible for an agent to share in the suffering of another, yet switch places. Take the famous case of Fr. Kolbe, who volunteered to die in the stead of a fellow inmate. 

Patronage

A common rap against vicarious atonement, penal substitution, sole fide, and imputation is the charge of legal fiction. Merit and demerit are not transferrable. 

Keep in mind that that's just an intuitive objection. It's not a claim that's demonstrably true or false in the sense that a weather forecast is demonstrably true or false. Moreover, intuition often depends on the particular illustration.

Consider an analogy. Take the caste-system in the stereotypical high school. An honor/shame culture in miniature. You have high-status students and low-status students. 

Imagine the cafeteria. A low-status student is walking past the tables, looking for a spot to sit, as he carries his lunch tray. As a low-status student, he's picked on. In addition, he can't sit just anywhere. Some students don't want to sit by him. 

Another student sticks his foot out and trips the low-status student. He falls down, spilling the food and drink on his clothes. The other students cheer. He feels humiliated. 

Then another student gets up and walks over to him. A high-status student. He's the star quarterback. Most popular kid in school. Hip and cool. The boys wish they could be him while the girls wish they could be with him.

The quarterback has achieved status. He attained his topspot on the pecking order through athletic prowess, by winning state championships.

The cafeteria falls dead silent, waiting to see how the high-status student will respond to the plight of the low-status student, sprawled on the floor. Will he make fun of him? Will he shame him further by taunting him. The suspense is intense.

The quarterback reaches out his hand, raises the fallen student, and pats him on the chest. His action instantly transforms the social dynamic. By siding with the humiliated student, by expressing symbolic solidarity through his physical gesture, he transfers his high-status to the low-status student. He instantly elevates the student's social standing. The unpopular student now has ascribed status by virtue of his patron's achieved status. 

By the same token, the quarterback's action implicitly condemns the schadenfreude of the other students. Now they feel humiliated. His noble action exposes their ignoble reaction. His gesture lowers their status. They've gone down a notch while the unpopular student went up a notch. As students exit the cafeteria, the pecking order has undergone a sudden adjustment. 

Not for our sins only

1 John is written to a Christian community…Its  concern, as we have seen, is with the sins of Christian believers after their conversion, emphasizing that "the blood of Jesus…purifies us from all sin" (1 Jn 1:7), that "if anybody sins we have an Advocate with the Father" and that he is a propitiation "for our sins" (1 Jn 2:1-2, my italics). But having introduced an explicit theology of atonement to deal with the specific problem of "our" sins now, after conversion and baptism, the author adds, almost as an afterthought, that of course this is God's way of dealing with sin always and everywhere: "and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world". There is not one "propitiation" for us and another for the rest of the world, but Jesus (kai autos) is the only sacrifice, and the only way of salvation for all. The point is not that Jesus died for everyone indiscriminately so that everyone in the world is in principle forgiven, but that all those  forgiven are forgiven on the basis of Christ's sacrificed and in no other way. J. R. Michaels, "Atonement in John's Gospel and Epistles," C. Hill & F. James, eds. The Glory of the Atonement (IVP 2004), 116-17.

A simple argument for penal substitution

There are fine-grained exegetical arguments for penal substitution by scholars like Thomas Schreiner and Simon Gathercole. But I'd like to sketch a simpler argument:

i) In the Gospels, one individual (Jesus) does something for the benefit of second parties. That's a one-to-many relationship. He takes an action for the good of many. Not something they do by themselves and for themselves, but something one individual does on behalf of others. That, in itself, is vicarious. A benefit accrues to them as if they themselves did it, when in fact someone else did it. And that's not an incidental consequence, but by design.

ii) And it has a more specific dimension. He suffers punishment. As a result, those who trust in him won't suffer eschatological judgment.   

The principle doesn't turn on a particular verbal formulation in the NT, or picturesque metaphors. It's operates at a more generic level. 

Did sacrificial animals die in place of people?

A while back, Bnonn Tennant did a provocative post. I won't link to it because, in preparation for the Zombie Apocalypse, his estimable blog has gone underground, but I will quote what I take to be some representative samples of his argument, then comment on them:

The Levitical system of sacrifices was not intended to model substitutionary atonement; it was about sanctifying the space and the people that God dwelt in the midst of.

When we read Leviticus, we read it through the lens of the cross. This is good, because Leviticus points to the cross; it was fulfilled there. However, the cross did more than one thing. Our default view is penal substitution—but I don’t believe that is how it fulfilledLeviticus. If we read Leviticus with substitution in mind, our interpretation becomes quite confused, and we miss what it is actually all about.

my contention is that they needed to cleanse it of ritual impurity. That is really the only reason that makes sense. They were purifying it to ensure it remained fit for God’s habitation.

The bull is for decontaminating the high priest; one goat is for decontaminating the people; another is for Azazel, a spiritual being; and the ram is for a burnt offering, which reestablished a relationship between the people and God.

the defilement is of a symbolic nature rather than a moral one.

In ritual settings, both words refer to purging or purifying. In Leviticus, therefore, I think we should translate kipper as “to make a purging,” rather than “to make atonement.” This is because, just as with the “sin offering,” it is clearly not referring to moral guilt; it is referring to decontamination. Obviously a place cannot incur, nor be purged of guilt. Rather, what is in view is the restoring of this space to a state fit for God to dwell in, by sprinkling God’s throne (the lid of the ark) with blood. The same thing happens in verse 18 with the altar: the priest “makes atonement for” the altar by sprinkling it with blood. He is not removing moral guilt; he is purging it from ritual uncleanness.

This understanding of atonement is corroborated in what happens next: the other goat is sent away. It is not sacrificed; its blood is never applied to anyone or anything. Rather, the ritual impurity of the people is symbolically transferred to it, and it is driven out of sacred space

The goat doesn’t “pay for” the impurity with its life; rather, it removes the impurity from the borders of the camp, carrying it into the wilderness, which was the domain of Azazel.

So what the Levitical system is modeling for us is not substitution; it is the need for forensic justification—for being declared fit for God’s presence purely on the basis of faith, as demonstrated in obedience to the cultic laws.

The connection between the blood of animals, and the blood of Jesus, is not that animals had to die in the place of people to turn away God’s wrath. Indeed, as any Christian knows—but hasn’t necessarily thought through—“it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). Rather, the blood made the area symbolically suitable, clean, for habitation by God. The point is not to turn away God’s wrath through a substitutionary sacrifice, nor to model the turning away of God’s wrath through a substitutionary sacrifice. It is to demonstrate the extreme unapproachableness of God in view of the depravity of man. 

i) Whether Azazel is a demonic being in Leviticus is highly disputable. However, it isn't clear to me that Bnonn's argument depends on that identification. And my response doesn't require me to refute that identification.

ii) I can't help wondering if Bnonn's argument isn't designed to undergird his Amyraldism and sidestep Owen's double jeopardy argument. If you believe that Christ died for everyone, and if you construe his death in penal substitutionary terms, the question is whether penal substitution in tandem with universal atonement entails universal salvation. Historically, many Arminians reject penal substitution for that very reason. 

iii) Since I'm not a traditionalist, I don't objection to iconoclastic interpretations, per se. And I agree with Bnonn that conventional translations can be prejudicial. 

iv) I don't see how one can avoid a vicarious transaction in some of these examples, where the offering is a stand-in for the sinner or worshiper. A graphic example is the scapegoat, where the guilt of the Israelites is symbolically transferred to the scapegoat, via the gesture of the priest, then the scapegoat is driven out of the camp, symbolically separating guilt from the guilty. 

Penal substitution builds on the generic vicarious principle, but adds a more specific nuance, where one thing is punished in place of another. To put the matter in reverse, absent a surrogate, the sinner or worshipper would suffer punishment in his own person.

v) Although I don't assume that every offering in Leviticus foreshadows the Cross, I think Leviticus is using several different pictures to foreshadow the redemptive significance of the Cross. No one picture is intended to capture in full the concept of penal substitution. Rather, these need to be viewed in combination. Different pictures to illustrate different facets of vicarious atonement and penal substitution. To say, therefore, that the scapegoat wasn't sacrificed misses the point. No one type of offering was meant to cover the entire idea. 

vi) The fundamental problem I have with Bnonn's analysis is that he erects a false dichotomy. I can grant the distinction between moral and ritual purity/impurity. I can grant the sacred spatial framework. 

Problem though, is that his dichotomy only pushes the question back a step. So what does sacred space signify? What does ritual defilement signify? Cultic holiness represents actual holiness. Cultic unholiness represents actual unholiness. These are emblematic pictures or enacted parables. You don't literally enter God's presence by entering the tabernacle or the inner sanctum. Rather, that's a pictorial representation. Concrete spatial metaphors or figurative tokens that stand for real good and evil. 

It's entirely consistent with the symbolic nature of the Levitical cultus that these gestures and actions symbolize vicarious atonement, penal substitution, thereby prefiguring the redemptive death of Christ on behalf of and in place of (elect) sinners. 

Joel Green on penal substitution

Joel Green is a leading Arminian NT scholar and critic of penal substitution. I'm going to comment on some of his objections to Tom Schreiner's exposition of penal substitution in J. Beilby & P. Eddy, eds. The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views (IVP 2006).

By what logic can it be assumed that anger is quenched by acting on it in this way? That is, even if we grant these two claims regarding the divine "penalty," on what basis does it follow that Jesus' dying quenches the anger directed at us by God? Does the transfer of guilt satisfy the demands of justice? (112).

i) Problem with Green's criticism is that he's raising a philosophical objection to an exegetical question. Schreiner is doing exegesis, not apologetics. Schreiner's aim is not to defend what the Bible says; he takes the revelatory status of Scripture as a starting-point in this discussion. His aim is to interpret the witness of Scripture regarding penal substitution. There are well-worn objections to whether guilt is transferable from one party to another, but while that's worth discussing, that's a separate issue. That can be a question of inerrancy, where a critic of penal substitution admits and rejects the witness of Scripture.

ii) Also, even at a philosophical level, it isn't necessary to defend penal substitution directly (which doesn't mean that can't be done). If, say, one can defend the revelatory status of Scripture, then that indirectly defends whatever Scripture teaches. 

Given the anthropathy at work in attributing this sort of anger to Yahweh, can we so easily escape the reality that redirecting anger at an innocent party does not (or at least need not) return the guilty party to good graces? (112).

The human family, not God, needs transformation, a reading that does not mesh well with this emphasis on the atonement as assuaging God's anger (114).

Penal substitution doesn't require a category of literal divine anger or wrath, &c. It can easily translate that colorful language into a more abstract concept like divine justice. Indeed, the necessary presupposition of penal substitution isn't divine wrath, but divine justice. That's the essential principle. 

If this logic is explanatory of the divine economy, how are we to understand those biblical accounts in which forgiveness is extended apart from the satisfaction of wrath (e.g., Mk 2:1-11)? (112).

That's a dubious argument from silence. The fact that Jesus forgave sinners like the paralytic without explicit reference to penal substitution or vicarious atonement doesn't imply that remission is independent of penal substitution or vicarious atonement. Indeed, Jesus would be working at cross-purposes to extend forgiveness apart from his redemptive death. It's more logical to infer that when Jesus forgave the paralytic, that was with a view to his impending death on the cross. That's why he came from heaven in the first place. His redemptive death is the presumptive basis for forgiving sins, in advance of his redemptive death. The relationship is teleological rather than chronological. That's why OT saints can be forgiven ahead of time. 

And although that's more abstract, it remains personal. Justice and injustice are properties of moral agents. 

Green's alternative disconnects the forgiveness which Christ extended to sinners like the paralytic from his death on the cross, as if Christ didn't have that in mind. It is in his proleptic capacity as the Redeemer that Christ forgave the paralytic. It makes no sense to disengage forgiveness from atonement. That renders the atonement superfluous. 

Schreiner has not addressed one of the principal questions raised against the model of penal substitutionary atonement, namely, that it presumes a breakdown of the inner-trinitarian life of God…How can one claim that the Son had to die on the cross in order to propitiate God's anger? (114).

That objection is misconceived. The Son didn't die to placate the Father's wrath. Divine justice is an attribute which the Trinitarian persons share in common. Although vicarious atonement to satisfy divine justice involves a contrast between Father and Son at the level of action, it does not involve a contrast between Father and Son at the level of justice. It's not as if the Father is the repository of divine justice, rather than the Son. No one person of the Trinity is sole custodian of cosmic justice. As an essential divine attribute, justice is common property of the Father, Son, and Spirit alike. 

I'm unsure how the model of penal substitutionary atonement generates transformed life (114).

Green acts as though penal substitution is defective if it fails to address salvation as transformation. But that assumes salvation should be reducible to a single overarching principle. Likewise, it assumes that salvation and atonement ought to be conterminous. 

If, however, sin has two basic components–moral corruption and culpability–then it's logical for salvation to have corresponding components. Penal substitution atones for guilt. That's the work of the Son. Sanctification generates transformation. That's the work of the Spirit. These are distinct, but complementary categories. It would be pointless to sanctify hellbound sinners. 

Focussed as it is on the individual, on forensic judgment and on the moment of justification, how can this model keep from undermining any emphasis on salvation as transformation and from obscuring the social and cosmological dimensions of salvation? If the purpose of God will be actualized in the restoration of all things, then how is this purpose served by a theory of penal substitution? How does the model of penal substitutionary atonement carry within itself the theological resolution of racism? What becomes of the soteriological motivation for engaging in the care of God's creation? Against the backdrop of texts like Col 1:15-20 and Eph 2, these are not peripheral questions (114). 

i) It's unclear what Green means by the restoration of all things. Only a universalist subscribes to that imagery without qualification. But in orthodox theology, not all agents will be reconciled to God. The damned are permanently alienated from God.

ii) It's unclear what Green means by the "cosmological dimension of salvation" and the "care of God's creation". Although the NT uses "cosmological" language, it doesn't use that in the modern astronomical sense. Most of the universe is lifeless and inhospitable to biological life. 

If he's indulging in a radical chic allusion to ecology, that stretches the concept of salvation. It's anachronistic to act as though the NT rubberstamps modern environmentalism, green energy, anthropogenic global warming, &c. 

The Benefit Of Christ's Death

From a sixteenth-century book about justification, titled The Benefit Of Christ's Death:

let us run unto [Christ] with the feet of lively faith, and cast ourselves between his arms, [since] he allureth us so graciously, crying: "Come unto me, all you that labour and are heavy laden; and I will refresh you;" what comfort or what joy in this life can be comparable to this his saying there, when as a man, feeling himself oppressed with the intolerable weight of his sins, understandeth so sweet and amiable words of the Son of God, who promiseth so graciously to refresh and rid him of his great pains?...

O great unkindness! O thing abominable! that we, which profess ourselves Christians, and hear that the Son of God hath taken all our sins upon him, and washed them out with his precious blood, suffering himself to be fastened to the cross for our sakes, should nevertheless make as though we would justify ourselves, and purchase forgiveness of our sins by our own works; as who would say, that the deserts, righteousness, and bloodshed of Jesus Christ were not enough to do it, unless we came to put to our works and righteousness; which are altogether defiled and spotted with self-love, self-liking, self-profit, and a thousand other vanities, for which we have need to crave pardon at God's hand, rather than reward….

Now, if the seeking of righteousness and forgiveness of sins, by the keeping of the law which God gave upon mount Sinai, with so great glory and majesty, be the denying of Christ and of his grace [Galatians 5:4], what shall we say to those that will needs justify themselves before God by their own laws and observances? I would wish that such folks should a little compare the one with the other, and afterward give judgment themselves. God mindeth not to do that honour, not to give that glory to his own law; and yet they will have him to give it to men's laws and ordinances. But that honour is given only to his only-begotten Son, who alone, by the sacrifice of his death and passion, hath made full amends for all our sins, past, present, and to come…

let us give the whole glory of our justification unto God's mercy and to the merits of his Son; who by his own bloodshed hath set us free from the sovereignty of the law, and from the tyranny of sin and death, and hath brought us into the kingdom of God, to give us life and endless felicity….

for the love of his only begotten Son, [the Father] beholdeth [Christians] always with a gentle countenance, governing and defending them as his most dear children, and in the end giving them the heritage of the world, making them like-fashioned to the glorious image of Christ….

O happy is that man that shutteth his eyes from all other sights, and will neither hear nor see any other thing than Jesus Christ crucified; in whom are laid up and bestowed all the treasures of God's wisdom and divine knowledge! (15-16, 21-23, 26, 69, 93)

For whom did Christ die?

http://faculty.wts.edu/posts/for-whom-did-christ-die/

What does panta denote?

Freewill theists need to be more flexible about universal quantifiers ("all"). They seize on pas/panta to prooftext universal atonement, yet that's frequently employed as a hyperbolic or idiomatic generality. To take some Johannine examples:

"Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them" (Jn 8:2).

Does this mean every human being came to the temple that morning to hear Jesus? 

How about: "All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them" (Jn 10:8).

Is Jesus saying all the OT prophets were thieves and robbers? Hardly. 

Or this: "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn 13:35).

Does every human being know that? What about people who don't know any Christians? 

Or this: "Jesus answered him, 'I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret'" (Jn 18:20).

Did that include Jews living in the Diaspora (e.g. Rome, Alexandria)? 

What about: "And they came to John and said to him, 'Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him'" (Jn 3:26).

Or this: "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" (Jn 4:29).

Or this: "So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast" (Jn 4:45).

Is the lottery sincere?

In Calvinism, doesn't the butcher first determine that you won't like liver, and then offer you liver? That doesn't come across as a sincere offer.

That's a comment on my analogy in this post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/01/chopped-liver.html

I'd like to respond to it separately, because it has several permutations. 

i) God doesn't directly and individually address the Gospel offer to anyone. It's not like Gabriel appears to every human being. No one's name is on the Gospel offer. It's not a question of God making an offer to people face to face and one by one. Indeed, tens of millions of people never hear the Gospel offer.

So it's not as though God is personally encouraging the reprobate to take him up on the offer. Rather, it's an all-purpose promise that's filtered through second-parties. Preachers and evangelists who don't know who's elect and who's reprobate.

ii) Let's take a comparison. Suppose you buy a lotto ticket. There's an implied promise that if you have the winning number, the prize money is yours.

But the machine has no idea who you are. The ticket machine isn't making you an offer. 

iii) Moreover, does every ticket-holder have a chance to win the lotto? Depends on what you mean. The promise is that if you have the winning number, the prize money is yours. But every ticket-holder can't have the winning number. In that respect,99.9999% of ticket-holders have no chance of winning, since the vast majority of ticket-holders are bound to have a losing number. By design, the intention of the lottery is to limit the offer or promise to a single winner, to the exclusion of everyone else. Most customers go into the process doomed to lose. Their ticket number predetermines the outcome. Yet we wouldn't say that makes the lotto a scam.  

My point is not that that's a direct parallel to the Gospel offer, but it illustrates the complexities and unspoken assumptions about what makes an offer or a promise a bona fide offer or true promise. 

iv) Let's take a different comparison. Suppose two uncover cops infiltrate the mob. In fact, the two cops are partners.

Suppose the Don discovers that one of the agents is an undercover cop, while he's suspicious of the other agent, but unsure.

So he proposes to test the ultimate loyalties of the suspected agent. He names the agent he knows to be an infiltrator. He then tells the suspected agent to shoot him dead.

He does that to smoke out which side the suspected agent is on. He doesn't expect the suspected agent will kill his partner to maintain his cover. 

v) By the same token, Scripture depicts the atonement as having a twofold purpose. It's designed to save some, but drive others away or expose their ultimately loyalties. Intended to inculpate or aggravate their guilt. For instance:

7 But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me: because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart (Ezk 3:7).

Why does Yahweh send Ezekiel on a mission when he predicts the prophet's failure to win over his audience? Is the futility of the task "insincere"? But it demonstrates how hardhearted they are.

Likewise,

34 And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed” (Lk 2:34).

So the atonement is divisive of by design. Intended to stir up opposition. 

By the same token:

20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God (Jn 3:20-21).

39 Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind” (Jn 9:39).

37 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

“Lord, who has believed what he heard from us,

    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,

40 “He has blinded their eyes

    and hardened their heart,

lest they see with their eyes,

    and understand with their heart, and turn,

    and I would heal them.” (Jn 12:37-40).