I am going to leave to jollyblogger the tricky task of defending his hero C.S.Lewis AND penal substitution which a quote at The Destruction Of Gog certainly seems to suggest will be a challenge.
I am frankly still disappointed with the whole debate we have been having as to be honest I am not overly interested in what Lewis, or any of the other theologians had to say on the subject. You may note that I havent even quoted Grudem yet.
What is much more important is to interact honestly with the biblical data. I am not convinved that either Richard or Sven have fully done so in their recent posts. The fact that so many people understand that God is angy with sin and that Jesus died to take away that anger might suggest to me that perhaps the doctrine is fundementally true. How can anyone suggest that it is NOT godly to be angry at the state of the world today? If I get angry when I see sin, surely God has more right to than I. Do I want to live in a world where God ISNT angry at our sin? Do I want to live in a world where God isn’t planning to fix things and repay everyone according to what they have done? No I don’t, for how could such a world make any sense, and how could such a God be just? He would be like a judge who refused to administrate any penalties that the law defines for any crime no matter how serious. Such a judge would not last very long as a judge without public uproar. Murderers turned loose because the judge felt punishment was somehow immoral? The thought is dreadful.
But also, given that I do live in a world where God will punish sin, do I want, living in such a world to be able to get off my portion of the punishment due to given out? YOU BET!!!!
Is there any good news left if we ditch penal substitution?
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