Recently, I have been reflecting on the penal substitution theory of the atonement as it relates to the significance of Jesus death, both in the thinking of Jesus himself and in the understanding of his first followers. And the conclusion that I came to in both of those posts is that a penal substitution understanding is essential and necessary for a proper understanding of the atonement. The witness of Holy Scripture requires us to conclude that Jesus died for our sin. He took the place we deserved when he was nailed to the cross, and, in his death, he satisfied the just and due penalty for our sin required by a Holy and Righteous God.
This my seem like an injustice to us, that the innocent Son of God was unjustly punished by His Father for the sins of human beings, but simply because our modern sensibilities may view this as distasteful and hard to swallow, we cannot simply dismiss this understanding of the cross as so-called “cosmic child abuse”. Any attempt to bypass the offense of the cross to make it more palatable must ultimately be rejected. It is the very injustice of the cross that makes the Gospel beautiful and powerful, because that injustice was suffered by God himself that we might be reconciled to Him. He himself paid the penalty that He himself required so that we might be saved.
However, if we truly believe that this understanding of the cross is true and necessary, then it would make sense that we would see it throughout the history of the church. In their attempts to disprove this view, some critics of penal substitution suggest that the theory did not exist in the early church. They argue that it first appeared in the late eleventh century in the writings of Anselm of Canterbury, specifically in his work Cur Deus Homo. It was then further developed in the 13th century by Thomas Aquinas in his work Summa Theologiae, and then crystalized into the doctrine we know today in the 16th century by John Calvin in The Institutes of Christian Religion.
While the contributions of these works to our understanding of the atonement certainly hold great value, these critics question that if a penal substitution theory of the atonement is so central and essential, then why is not represented in the theological tradition before the 11th century. It is further argued that the early church fathers unanimously held to a Christus Victor or ransom theory of the atonement, and that if that’s how the earliest theologians viewed the atonement, then so should we. The problem with this argument, though, is that this it is often more assumed than it is demonstrated.
So, in what follows, rather then examining the views of any specific church father, I would simply like to list some resources that challenge this prevailing understanding of the development of the theology of the atonement.
Books
Jeffery, Steve, et al. Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007.
McDonald, H.D. The Atonement of the Death of Christ: In Faith, Revelation, and History. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1985.
Articles
Chatfield, Graeme. “Penal Substitutionary Atonement in the Early Church Fathers, the Creeds, and Trinitarian Theology.” The Pacific Journal of Baptist Research 10/1 (May 2015). 3-10.
Vlach, Michael J. “Penal Substitution in Church History.” The Masters Seminary Journal 20/2 (Fall 2009). 199-214.
Williams, Garry J. ” Penal Substitutionary Atonement in the Church Fathers.” Evangelical Quarterly 83/3 (Fall 2011). 195-216.
Weblinks
“Historical Reflections on Substitutionary Atonement” posted at FullerStudio.Fuller.edu
“Penal Substitution a Sixteenth-Century Innovation?” posted at ReformationTheology.com, 05.11.12
“No Christus Victor Here – Atonement According to the Apostolic Fathers” posted at HolySpiritActivism.com, 04.07.14
“A Common (But Bad) Reason for Rejecting Penal Substitution” posted at Christianity.com, 07.15.14
“Did Early Christians Believe in Substitutionary Atonement?” posted at TheGospelCoalition.org, 04.03.15
“Penal Substitution as a Theory of Atonement in the Early Church Fathers” posted at OrthodoxChristianTheology.com, 06.03.15
“Penal Substitution in the Church Fathers: Part II” posted at OrthodoxChristianTheology.com, 11.26.15
“10 Things You should Know about Penal Substitution” posted at SamStorms.com, 05.02.16
“Penal Substitution In The Writings Of The Church Fathers” posted at PirateChristian.com, 05.04.16
Now, we certainly do not want read later theological concepts back in to the early church fathers anachronistically, but we may conclude that “an author can be held to teach the penal doctrine if he plainly states that the punishment deserved by sin from God was borne and dealt with by Jesus Christ in his death on the cross.” This means that the early church fathers can be shown to affirm the essential features of a penal substitution view, even if their understanding of that essential truth was not as developed as it would be by later authors. The church fathers were not univocal or unanimous in their support of the Christus Victor view as critics of the penal substitution view claim. They seemingly held a multifaceted understanding of the atonement with no one view overshadowing any others.
And this final observation is quite instructive for Christians today. No one view, no matter how essential, central, and necessary it is, can exhaust the mystery of Jesus’ death on the cross. So, even while affirming the centrality of the penal substitution view, we must not overlook or ignore other possible significances. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is to the Christian faith like a beautiful diamond whose many facets all shine forth the glory of God in our salvation.
Faith seeking Understanding 