Theological Term of the Week

penal substitution

The teaching that in his death Christ substituted for sinners, atoning for them by bearing the just penalty of God for their sin in their place; also called substitutionary atonement or Christus Vicarious.

 

• From the Scots Confession by John Knox, chapter 9:
  

  [We confess t]hat our Lord Jesus offered himself a voluntary sacrifice unto his Father for us, that he suffered contradiction of sinners, that he was wounded and plagued for our transgressions, that he, the clean innocent Lamb of God, was condemned in the presence of an earthly judge, that we should be absolved before the judgment seat of our God; that he suffered not only the cruel death of the cross, which was accursed by the sentence of God; but also that he suffered for a season the wrath of his Father which sinners had deserved.

• From Herman Ridderbos in Paul: An Outline of His Theology, page 190:
  

  [T]he substitutionary character of Christ’s death on the cross … recurs time and again in Paul’s epistles, when it is said that Christ “died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3; 2 Cor. 5:14); or “died for us” and “gave himself up for our sins” (Rom. 5:6, 8; 14:15; 1 Thess. 5:10; Rom. 4:25; 8:32; Gal. 1:4; 2:20). To be sure, the expression “for us” in itself does not yet signify “in our place; it indicates that the death of Christ has taken place “in our favor.” Nevertheless, the substitutionary significance of these expressions cannot be doubted. And it is corroborated by such expressions as that in 2 Corinthians 5:21: God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us; cf. Romans 8:3 and Galatians 3:13, where it is said that Christ has become a curse for us. In these passages the thought of the substitutionary (atoning) sacrifice is unmistakable, a thought that is enunciated in almost so many words when the phrase “One died for all’ is explained by the words “so then all have died’ (2 Cor. 5:14). Even is one could give certain passages taken by themselves another sense, the whole complex of the pronouncements mentioned above can allow no doubt to remains as to the “atoning,” substitutionary character of Jesus’ death, and every effort to detract from it readily does wrong to the most fundamental segments of Paul’s gospel.
  

• From Athanasius, On the Incarnation, Chapter 4:
  

  But beyond all this, there was a debt owing which must needs be paid; for, as I said before, all men were due to die. Here, then, is the second reason why the Word dwelt among us, namely that having proved His Godhead by His works, He might offer the sacrifice on behalf of all, surrendering His own temple to death in place of all, to settle man’s account with death and free him from the primal transgression.
  

Learn more

1. From Theopedia: The Penal Substitutionary Theory of the Atonement
2. Dr. Steve Sullivan:  Substitution (.pdf)
3. Al Mohler: Why Do They Hate It So? The Doctrine of Substitution (mp3 from this year’s Together for the Gospel Conference.)
4. D. A. Carson: Why Is the Doctrine of Penal Substitution Again Coming Under Attack?

Have you come across a theological term that you don’t understand and that 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. 

Sunday's Hymn: In Bunhill Fields

This Sunday’s hymn isn’t written, really, by someone buried in Bunhill Fields, but the last verse as we sing it is. John Rippon is best known for his hymnal, A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors, Intended to Be an Appendix to Dr. Watts’ Psalms and Hymns. (You have to love those Puritanish titles, don’t you?) He included this hymn in it, but he took out two of Perronet’s original verses and added two of his own. We retain one of the verses he  added as our last stanza.

All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name 

All hail the power of Jesus’ Name! Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown Him Lord of all.
Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown Him Lord of all.

Let highborn seraphs tune the lyre, and as they tune it, fall
Before His face Who tunes their choir, and crown Him Lord of all.
Before His face Who tunes their choir, and crown Him Lord of all.

Crown Him, ye morning stars of light, who fixed this floating ball;
Now hail the strength of Israel’s might, and crown Him Lord of all.
Now hail the strength of Israel’s might, and crown Him Lord of all.

Crown Him, ye martyrs of your God, who from His altar call;
Extol the Stem of Jesse’s Rod, and crown Him Lord of all.
Extol the Stem of Jesse’s Rod, and crown Him Lord of all.

Ye seed of Israel’s chosen race, ye ransomed from the fall,
Hail Him Who saves you by His grace, and crown Him Lord of all.
Hail Him Who saves you by His grace, and crown Him Lord of all.

Hail Him, ye heirs of David’s line, whom David Lord did call,
The God incarnate, Man divine, and crown Him Lord of all,
The God incarnate, Man divine, and crown Him Lord of all.

Sinners, whose love can ne’er forget the wormwood and the gall,
Go spread your trophies at His feet, and crown Him Lord of all.
Go spread your trophies at His feet, and crown Him Lord of all.

Let every tribe and every tongue before Him prostrate fall
And shout in universal song the crownèd Lord of all.
And shout in universal song the crownèd Lord of all.

[John Rippon added this verse in 1787]

O that, with yonder sacred throng, we at His feet may fall,
Join in the everlasting song, and crown Him Lord of all,
Join in the everlasting song, and crown Him Lord of all!

 

—-Edward Perronet (Listen: Coronation)

 

Other hymns, worship songs, etc. posted today:

• The Fourth Sunday After Easter at Magic Statistics
• Out of Bondage at The Happy Wonderer
• O Saviour, Precious Saviour at Hiraeth
  
• Before the Throne of God Above at Seasoning of the Heart
• We Rest on Thee, Our Shield and Our Defender at Whatever Things…
• Praise to the Lord at Field Stone Cottage
• Lord’s Day 16, 2008 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Joy Unspeakable at JoythruChrist
• At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing at Conjubilant With Song.

Have you posted a hymn today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar and I’ll add your post to the list.

Saturday's Old Photo

This photo is taken from the editorial page of The Whitehorse Star, Tuesday, April 8, 1980. I intended to post it for last week’s Saturday’s old photo so I could compare that year’s April weather to this year’s April weather, but last Saturday ended with no time for posting. That turns out to have been not such a bad thing, because Wednesday evening’s swirling blizzard makes April, 2008 even more backward, season-wise, when compared to April, 1980.

 

Who are those people in the photo? No one keeps clippings of old newspaper photos unless it has something to do with them, do they? So, yes, this is me with my two oldest children.

 

Here’s the text that accompanies the photo.

Need we say more?

The snow is gone from almost every lawn and roof in the city. The river ice is breaking up. The sky is a brilliant blue and the air, though still brisk, is fresh and clean. After a long and dreary winter of asking ourselves why we’re here, a day like today comes as a shouted answer to that question. This picture of Becky Stark and her two children, Andrew and Libby, walking in the sun near their home today is a more eloquent evocation of spring, youth and hope than anything that could be written here and so we will leave today’s editorial comment up to it. Welcome back to life, Whitehorse.

How does that compare to this year? So far, this April, it’d be impossible to be an “eloquent evocation of spring.” I refuse to shovel in April, so I trudge through a couple inches of snow on the walkway to get to my car in the driveway. The yard itself has snow better measured in feet than inches.

 

We all had a big laugh yesterday over oldest daughter’s footwear, given that “[t]he snow is gone from almost every lawn.” You’ll also notice that she’s the only one with mittens on, and big bulky ones at that. Let’s just say she had trouble with transitions.

 

If I remember right, we were on our way to the park for some morning outdoor play. We lived in a small apartment, so we took daily strolls to the park and almost daily strolls to town. And yes, both tots are squished into a stroller built for one.

 

Earlier that morning I’d taken the cat to the vet to be spayed. My husband had made the appointment and the kids and I had dropped the cat off for her surgery. Late that afternoon I got a call from the vet’s office saying the cat was ready to go home, so I drove up to get her. In the office, the receptionist told me that they hadn’t had any record of our cat’s appointment, and they wouldn’t have known my name or how to contact me to tell me to come get the cat, except that they’d seen my photo, along with my name, in that afternoon’s newspaper.

 

As it turns out, our cat’s appointment had been with the other vet.

 

On the Thursday evening after this photo, when we were all gone for an hour, the cat chewed her stitches out. The vet had  to leave the movie theatre in the middle of a movie* to stitch her back up, and she came home wearing an old plastic bleach bottle around her neck. Back then, Whitehorse was a little less civilized, so the vet made his own plastic collars for pets because he knew most of his clients would balk at the cost of the manufactured ones. (A few years later, we’d have a dog sent home wearing a cut and stapled file folder collar.)

 

So there you have it: A snapshot of the good old days when vets tried their best to keep their prices down, I still had that purse, and spring came when it should.

 

*According to the ad on this page in the newspaper, he would have been watching 101 Dalmatians, “the canine comedy caper of the century!”