Penal Substitution = Universal Salvation?

One  objection to penal substitution is that implies universal salvation, and we know that’s not right. According to Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey and Andrew Sach in Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution, the argument can be laid out something like this: 

(a) According to penal substitution, Jesus’ death fully pays the debt of those for whom he died.

(b) Jesus died for all people.

(c) From (a) and (b) it follows that Jesus’ death fully pays the debt of all people. 

(d) But the Bible teaches that some people will pay their own debt in hell.

(e) From (c) and (d) it follows that God is unjust, for in hell he demands payment for a debt already paid in full by Christ. In other words, he punishes the same sin twice.

(f) This conclusion (e) is unthinkable, and so we must reject penal substitution (a) on which the whole argument rests.

But rejecting penal substitution (a) is not the only way out of this “unthinkable” conclusion (f). We could reject universal redemption (b) instead, and that’s what some—me, for instance—do.

Of course, those who reject universal redemption don’t do it simply to “prop up penal substitution.” 

Rather, particular redemption was part of the fabric of Reformed theology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and only when this was denied did some become uncertain about penal substitution.

There are, however, many people who hold to both penal substitution and universal redemption without holding to universal salvation. I’m guessing they just affirm it all without thinking too much about how it fits together. But traditional Arminians usually do reject penal substitution, holding to a governmental theory of the atonement, and the argument above is one of the reasons.

Round the Sphere Again: Bible

Moses
Steve Hays at Triablogue outlines his argument for Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.

John the Baptist
Don Carson walks us through Matthew 11:2-19, the passage in which John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”.

Here are three of the questions answered:

• Why did John ask this question?
• Why does Jesus mention the blessings without the judgments?
• Why is the least in the kingdom, this side of the cross, greater than John the Baptist? 

Jesus
How did Jesus view the Bible?

[I]t is impossible to revere the Scriptures more deeply or affirm them more completely than Jesus did. The Lord Jesus, God’s Son and our Savior, believed his Bible was the word of God down to the tiniest speck and that nothing in all those specks and in all those books in his Bible could ever be broken..

Jesus’ Doctrine of Scripture by Kevin DeYoung. (The post is highly recommended; the comments no so much.)

God
“[T]he Bible isn’t mainly about me, and what I should be doing. It’s about God and what he has done”—Teach Children the Bible Is Not About Them by Sally Lloyd Jones at Desiring God Blog.

Theological Term of the Week

apostasy
The abandonment or renunciation of a profession of the Christian faith.

• From scripture

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons… (1 Timothy 4:1 ESV).

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us (1 John 2:19 ESV).

• From Why Some Leave Christ by Charles Spurgeon:

In all our churches, among the many who enlist, there are some who desert. They continue awhile, and then they go back to the world. The radical reason why they retract is an obvious incongruity. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us” (1 Jo 2:19). The unconverted adherents to our fellowship are no loss to the Church when they depart. They are not a real loss, any more than the scattering of the chaff from the threshing-floor is a detriment5 to the wheat. Christ keeps the winnowing fan always going. His own preaching constantly sifted His hearers. Some were blown away because they were chaff. They did not really believe. By the ministry of the Gospel, by the order of Providence, by all the arrangements of divine government, the precious are separated from the vile, the dross is purged away from the silver [so] that the good seed and the pure metal may remain and be preserved. The process is always painful. It causes great searching of heart amongst those who abide faithful and occasions deep anxiety to gentle spirits of tender, sympathetic mold…I put it to myself. I put it to those who are the officers of the church. I put it to every member without exception: Will ye also go away? 

• From An Exposition of Hebrews by Arthur Pink:

 [I]t needs to be remembered that all who had professed to receive the Gospel were not born of God: the parable of the Sower shows that. Intelligence might be informed, conscience searched, natural affections stirred, and yet there be “no root” in them. All is not gold that glitters. There has always been a “mixt multitude” (Ex. 12:38) who accompany the people of God. Moreover, there is in the real Christian the old heart, which is “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked”, and therefore is he in constant need of faithful warning. Such, God has given in every dispensation: Genesis 2:17; Leviticus 26:15, 16; Matthew 3:8; Romans 11:21; 1 Corinthians 10:12.

Finally, let it be said that while Scripture speaks plainly and positively of the perseverance of the saints, yet it is a perseverance of saints, not unregenerate professors. Divine preservation is not only in a safe state, but also in a holy course of disposition and conduct. We are “kept by the power of God through faith”. We are kept by the Spirit working in us a spirit of entire dependency, renouncing our own wisdom and strength. The only place from which we cannot fall is one down in the dust. It is there the Lord brings His own people, weaning them from all confidence in the flesh, and giving them to experience that it is when they are weak they are strong. Such, and such only, are saved and safe forever.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions.org: What is apostasy?
2. David N. Samuel: Apostasy
3. David Murray: Dealing with Apostasy
4. John Owen: The Nature of Apostasy
5. James White: Apostates and Apostasy (mp3)

Related terms:

• perseverance of the saints
• saving faith

Filed under Salvation

Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.