In recent years, it has become rather faddish for critics of traditional atonement theory to dismiss the idea of penal substitution as a form of cosmic child abuse. In other words, these critics assert that it is a morally evil injustice for God to punish His innocent Son for the sins of all other human beings. They further assert that this kind of “redemptive violence” is simply incompatible with a God who is love. Stephen Chalk and Alan Mann, in their book The Lost Message of Jesus, state it this way:

The fact is that the cross isn’t a form of cosmic child abuse—a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed. Understandably, both people inside and outside of the church have found this twisted version of events morally dubious and a huge barrier to faith. Deeper than that, however, is that such a concept stands in total contradiction to the statement “God is love”. If the cross is a personal act of violence perpetrated by God towards humankind but borne by his Son, then it makes a mockery of Jesus’ own teaching to love your enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil.

Later, they give their understanding of the atonement when they state:

The truth is, the cross is a symbol of love. It is a demonstration of just how far God as Father and Jesus as his Son are prepared to go to prove that love. The cross is a vivid statement of the powerlessness of love.

This moral influence theory of the atonement is not new or original with Chalk and Mann. It was first advanced by a medieval scholastic theologian named Peter Abelard (1079-1142), who

“emphasized the primacy of God’s love and insisted that Christ did not make some sort of sacrificial payment to the Father to satisfy his offended dignity. Rather, Jesus demonstrated to humanity the full extent of God’s love for them” (Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 803)

In other words, on the cross, God showed to what extent He was willing to go to demonstrate the depth of His love for humanity, and His great love so demonstrated should cause human beings to respond in love to God. Certainly, God is love (1 John 4:7-21) and the cross is a demonstration of God’s love (Romans 5:8), but the above definition simply does not go far enough to explain why the cross is effective as a means of salvation for human beings. In what follows, I will give some reasons why this critique, that penal substitutionary atonement is “cosmic child abuse”, is completely unfounded and why a penal substitution view of the atonement is essential to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

First, it goes against the overwhelming testimony of Holy Scripture. It is no overstatement to conclude that the nearly unanimous witness of the Biblical authors from beginning to end is that Christ died as a substitute for the sins of humanity. There is not enough space here to quote all the verses that would serve to prove this point, so a few will simply have to suffice. As it relates to the Old Testament, one could argue that the entire sacrificial system was pointing to the death of Jesus, because that system is based upon the foundational assumption that the death of animals can substitute and atone for the sins of human beings. But, the premier text on this topic is the “Suffering Servant Song” of Isaiah 53, which says in part:

But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds. We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all. (verses 5-6)

And, in the New Testament, there are numerous verses that could be quoted to show that the first followers of Jesus understood his death as a substitutionary atonement for sin. Due to space limitations, a few will have to suffice. In 1 Corinthians 15:3, Paul says, “For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” Also, in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” In Romans 4:25, he says “He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” And not only Paul, but we see that the other writers of the New Testament understood the atonement in this way as well. In 1 Peter 2:24, Peter wrote, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness.” And in 1 Peter 3:18, he wrote, “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God.” In 1 John 4:10, John writes, “Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice (propitiation) for our sins.” And the author of Hebrews, says in Hebrews 2:9, “But we do see Jesus—made lower than the angels for a short time so that by God’s grace he might taste death for everyone.”

In light of all this, we are safe to conclude that the Old and New Testament authors unanimously understand the death of Jesus as a substitute making atonement to God for the sins of humanity.

Second, this view also misunderstands the essential character and nature of God in two ways. First, as it relates to His character, proponents of this kind of moral influence theory exalt God’s love over and against His other attributes, namely His holiness and justice. God’s character attributes cannot be so divided as to pit them against one another. He is a God of love, but he is also and equally a God of holiness and justice. Moreover, His attributes are interrelated, such that his love is just and holy, and his holiness and justice are loving. To pit God’s justice against His love is to recapitulate that ancient heresy attributed to Marcion of Sinope (c. 85-c. 160), who believed the wrathful Hebrew God of the Old Testament was a separate and lower entity than the all-forgiving God of the New Testament. That heresy was rightly condemned by the fathers of early church.

Also, as it relates to the nature of God, this view fundamentally misunderstands the doctrine of the trinity. These critics of the traditional penal substitutionary view seem to assume that the Son was an innocent third party separate and distinct from God the Father. Therefore, they argue that it is unjust for God to punish the Son for the sins of all humanity. However, the Son is not some innocent disconnected third party in this discussion; no, the Son is God himself. The second person of the trinity was incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth, so it was the second person of the Trinity that died on the cross. We must not disconnect God’s threeness (in persons) from his oneness (in essence). After all, Christians are fundamentally monotheists; Holy Scripture clearly teaches that there is one God. So, we must conclude that all three Persons are the same God. In other words, there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons. So, if the second person of the trinity died on the cross for the sins of humanity, then we must say that God himself died on the cross for the sins of humanity. Thus, the Son was a willing participant in the crucifixion, as God took the sins of humanity onto himself.

The atonement, a penal substitutionary atonement, is at the very center of the Christian Gospel, that Jesus Christ bore the sins of humanity on the cross and died in their place to satisfy their deserved punishment before a just and holy God. Let us not shrink from this fact in fear or shame, but embrace it as the glorious demonstration of God’s love that it is.