In the 'Lost message of Jesus' Steve Chalke suggests that the traditional portrayal of penal substitution looks like 'cosmic child abuse.' The following by John Stott helps us see that this is not the case.
We must not . . . speak of God punishing Jesus or of Jesus persuading God, for to do so is to set them over against each other as if they acted independently of each other or were even in conflict with each other. We must never make Christ the object of God's punishment or God the object of Christ's persuasion, for both God and Christ were subjects not objects, taking the initiative together to save sinners. . . . The Father did not lay on the Son an ordeal he was reluctant to bear, nor did the Son extract from the Father a salvation he was reluctant to bestow. There is no suspicion anywhere in the New Testament of discord between the Father and the Son, 'whether by the Son wresting forgiveness from an unwilling Father or by the Father demanding a sacrifice from an unwilling Son' [quoting Marshall]. There is no unwillingness in either. On the contrary, their wills coincided in the perfect self-sacrifice of love. (In 'The cross of Christ')
2 comments:
And Stott sticks to penal substitution Paul?
Not sure he does ... and certainly these words by him, throw the traditional understanding of penal substitution into the wind ...
nice to find you here by the way!
Jools
Great to hear from you. I think that you will find that Stott was big into penal substitution. His book 'the cross of Christ', from which this quote is taken, is a huge defence of the doctrine. It maybe that penal substitution has been caricatured by its critics.
Paul
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