Q. On p. 243 you once more get to the heart of the matter— God’s own righteous character, and how that affects his actions, namely the judge of the earth must, according to his very nature, enact justice, must judge justly. Put another way in Pauline terms, God cannot pass over or ignore human sin forever. A Righteous God must deal with it. This it seems is the basis for saying retributive justice is a necessary function of a righteous... Read more

Q. I think the conclusion drawn at the end of the first redemption chapter is helpful in explicating guilt— guilt means someone has done something wrong, and only by punishment or pardon can the guilt be expiated or done away with. This is quite helpful. Guilt shouldn’t be associated with the past fact of having done something wrong, in itself. Otherwise, a person is perpetually guilty since the past cannot be erased. Also helpful is the discussion of tenses. Just... Read more

Q. Thinking further about this, it would seem that the issue is not an issue of law. It’s an issue of God’s unchanging righteous character. After all, Gal. 4 is clear that Christ came to redeem those under the Mosaic law out from under the Mosaic law (and under the stoicheia—the elementary principles and teachings Gentiles were under), and Rom. 10.4 says Christ is the telos, the end/terminus/goal/fulfillment of the Mosaic law as a means of right standing or righteousness... Read more

Q. If in fact Christ’s death satisfies God’s justice issue in regard to our sins, completely satisfies it, why then do we need a legal pardon at all? If the demands of justice are met by Christ, then a pardon would seem to be completely unnecessary because the issue has been resolved. God no longer has anything against us, and we are no longer his enemies. We just need to be reconciled to God by grace through faith. Please explain... Read more

Q. I wonder if it would help the discussion of penal substitutionary atonement if we stuck to the letter of what Paul says. He says that God made Christ sin. Full stop. We might not fully understand what that entails, but let’s say it’s true. Then suppose we add the idea that God punishes sin, in this case, rather than saying God punishes Christ as a person. Does this alleviate the concern about God punishing an innocent person, and thereby... Read more

Q. You say on p. 184 that every orthodox Christian not only affirms that Christ did not sin, but that he could not sin. Actually, this is not true. Plenty of orthodox Christians say that Christ’s temptations were real, and his resisting them meritorious, virtuous. If he could not do otherwise, there is no virtue in that, never mind no free choosing of the good. Perhaps it would be better to say the following, as Phil. 2.5-11 suggests. In the... Read more

Q. In your discussion of the justification for penal substitutionary atonement you stress that perhaps the main objection to the theory is that it is thought to include the notion that God punished Christ, an innocent person, for our sins, a premise you deny. You stress that Christ voluntarily chose to be our substitute and so his death is not a punishment inflicted by the Father. Please explain this distinction a little bit. I mean Isa. 53 certainly says it... Read more

Q. One of the problems with analytical philosophy as practiced in North America is that to the average reader of the practice it involves battles over semantics, as if all words should have very precise, very limited meanings. But of course, words often have a spectrum of meanings, and in any case, meaning is determined by the context in which a word is used. Words don’t have meanings in isolation. It is not true that ‘in the beginning was the... Read more

Q. What’s the difference between saying God punished Jesus for our sins, and saying, for instance, God sent his Son to suffer in our place for our sins, which was God’s will? Is this simply to avoid the idea that Jesus deserved to be punished, and that if God punished someone who didn’t deserve to be punished, even as a substitute for others, then God is not fair and just, but rather cruel? A. It’s hard to know what motivates... Read more

Q. Your chapter on the Reformers and their views on the atonement is helpful, not least because few of our readers will have known the nature of Socinius’ critique of penal substitution theory, nor Grotius’ response and so-called governmental theory. What you do not discuss, unfortunately is Erasmus, to whom we actually owe the language of imputation (cf. my Romans commentary pp. 121-22). As J. Fitzmyer points out in his Romans commentary, Erasmus, like Calvin, used the common legal language... Read more