<\/span>UPDATE #3<\/span><\/strong> This post examines possibly the most controversial article Wright has written. In it, I question his ability to criticize some who dismiss Penal Substitutionary Atonement, while approving of Steve Chalke, stating his own support for a form of PSA and decrying angrily the value of the book, Pierced For Our Transgressions<\/em>. I posed a number of questions to Bishop Wright in private e-mails, and sadly, he declined my offers for him to clarify his position further on my blog.<\/p>\n UPDATE #2<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n UPDATE #1<\/span><\/strong> There is clearly a theological storm brewing. Bishop Wright has entered the fray<\/a>, and appears reluctant to stand firmly on one side or the other of the debate. He doesn\u2019t mention the disagreement between UCCF and Spring Harvest<\/a>, but he doesn\u2019t have to since the issues are clearly the same. I am sure he did not read my post from last Friday on this subject<\/a>, and the comments that have been flying around here about it \u2014 but his statements definitely are as apt to the discussion as if he had!<\/p>\n Wright begins an important article by explaining that he is disappointed with Jeffrey John<\/a>, who he feels denies the biblical doctrine of the wrath of God. Wright is clear that:<\/p>\n \u201cThe biblical doctrine of God\u2019s wrath is rooted in the doctrine of God as the good, wise and loving creator, who hates \u2014 yes, hates, and hates implacably \u2014 anything that spoils, defaces, distorts or damages his beautiful creation, and in particular anything that does that to his image-bearing creatures. If God does not hate racial prejudice, he is neither good nor loving. If God is not wrathful at child abuse, he is neither good nor loving. If God is not utterly determined to root out from his creation, in an act of proper wrath and judgment, the arrogance that allows people to exploit, bomb, bully, and enslave one another, he is neither loving, nor good, nor wise.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So far so good, but Wright seems to want to put the blame for the Dean of St. Alban\u2019s rejection of penal substitution firmly at the door of evangelicals who, he feels, have been teaching a caricature of the true biblical teaching. Speaking of what has occurred he says:<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what happens when people present over-simple stories with an angry God and a loving Jesus, with a God who demands blood and doesn\u2019t much mind whose it is as long as it\u2019s innocent. So if both Jeffrey John and evangelicals have got it wrong, in his opinion, what does Wright feel is the correct understanding?<\/p>\n \u201c. . . this, I think, is as clear as it gets in Paul \u2014 in Romans 8:3, where Paul says explicitly that God condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus Christ? Paul does not say that God condemned Jesus; rather, that he condemned sin; but the place where sin was condemned was precisely in the flesh of Jesus, and of Jesus precisely as the Son sent from the Father. And this, we remind ourselves, is the heart of the reason why there is now \u2018no condemnation\u2019 for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1) . . .\u201d<\/p>\n [Wright then introduces Romans 3 and states] \u201cTo put it somewhat crudely, the logic of the whole passage makes it look as though something has happened in the death of Jesus through which the wrath of God has been turned away. It is on this passage that Charles E. B. Cranfield, one of the greatest English commentators of the last generation, wrote a memorable sentence which shows already that the caricature Dr. John has offered was exactly that:<\/p>\n \u201cWe take it that what Paul\u2019s statement that God purposed Christ as a propitiatory victim means is that God, because in His mercy He willed to forgive sinful men and, being truly merciful, willed to forgive them righteously, that is, without in any way condoning their sin, purposed to direct against His own very Self in the person of His Son the full weight of that righteous wrath which they deserved. (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans<\/em>, 2 volumes, Edinburgh: T & T Clark; vol. 1, 1975, p. 217.)\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c. . . It isn\u2019t that God happens to have a petulant thing about petty rules. He is the wise and loving creator who cannot abide his creation being despoiled. On the cross he drew the full force, not only of that despoiling, but of his own proper, judicial, punitive rejection of it, on to himself. That is what the New Testament says. That is what Jesus himself, I have argued elsewhere, believed what was going on.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Wright seems to want to expound a somewhat subtle and nuanced view, the likes of which some people believe Packer and Stott themselves hold<\/a> \u2014 where we are allowed to say that Go He begins in such a way that we are warned that his overall opinion is not positive: \u201cI was all the more frustrated when I came upon a new book . . <\/em>.\u201d He then acknowledges:<\/p>\n \u201cI can fully understand the frustration, within that tradition, at the way in which some recent writers from within the evangelical world have cast doubt, or worse, on penal substitution as a whole. There do seem to me to be some evangelicals who have done what Jeffrey John has done \u2014 rejected the doctrine because of the caricatures.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We are left to wonder if he is speaking about Steve Chalke<\/a>. \u201cJust as a lightning-conductor soaks up powerful and destructive bolts of electricity, so Jesus, as he hung on that cross, soaked up all the forces of hate, rejection, pain, and alienation all around him.\u201d<\/em> (The Lost Message of Jesus<\/em>, p. 179).<\/p>\n This is disingenuous to the extreme; firstly it seeems clear \u2014 at least to me \u2014 that to Chalke the wrath involved is not God\u2019s wrath. In any case, the article Chalke wrote explaining himself after the book makes it plain that it is not some kind of caricature of penal substitution he has rejected as cosmic child abuse, but the very concept itself. If Chalke has changed his mind, he should issue a statement to that effect.<\/p>\n Wright then speaks of the notorious passage in which Chalke talks about \u201ccosmic child abuse\u201d and says:<\/p>\n \u201cI cannot tell, from this paragraph alone, which of two things Steve means. You could take the paragraph to mean (a) on the cross, as an expression of God\u2019s love, Jesus took into and upon himself the full force of all the evil around him, in the knowledge that if he bore it we would not have to; but this, which amounts to a form of penal substitution, is quite different from other forms of penal substitution, such as the mediaeval model of a vengeful father being placated by an act of gratuitous violence against his innocent son. In other words, there are many models of penal substitution, and the vengeful-father-and-innocent-son story is at best a caricature of the true one. Or you could take the paragraph to mean (b) because the cross is an expression of God\u2019s love, there can be no idea of penal substitution at all, because if there were it would necessarily mean the vengeful-father-and-innocent-son story, and that cannot be right.<\/p>\n Clearly, Steve\u2019s critics have taken him to mean (b), as I think it is clear Jeffrey John and several others intend. I cannot now remember what I thought when I read the book four years ago and wrote my commendation, but I think, since I had been following the argument through in the light of the arguments I myself have advanced, frequently and at length, about Jesus\u2019 death and his own understanding of it, that I must have assumed he meant (a). I have now had a good conversation with Steve about the whole subject and clarified that my initial understanding was correct: he does indeed mean (a). The book, after all, wasn\u2019t about atonement as such, so he didn\u2019t spell out his view of the cross in detail; and it is his experience that the word \u2018penal\u2019 has put off so many people, with its image of a violent, angry, and malevolent God, that he has decided not to use it. But the reality that I and others refer to when we use the phrase \u2018penal substitution\u2019 is not in doubt, for Steve any more than for me. \u2018There is therefore now no condemnation\u2019 in Romans 8:1 is explained by the fact, as in Romans 8:3, that God condemned sin in the flesh of his Son: he bore sin\u2019s condemnation in his body, so we don\u2019t bear it. That, I take it, is the heart of what the best sort of \u2018penal substitution\u2019 theory is trying to say, and Steve is fully happy with it. And this leads to the key point: there are several forms of the doctrine of penal substitution, and some are more biblical than others.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I say it again. If Chalke has changed his mind \u2014 or indeed if, as Wright claims, he never meant it the way we have all assumed \u2014 he should say so publicly, and apologise for all the upset this has caused the Church<\/strong>. I have asked Oasis to contact Chalke to appear on this blog for an interview, and this has not yet been forthcoming. I am afraid, as much as I respect a man like Wright, he should not be speaking for and on behalf of Steve Chalke, who should clearly do that himself.<\/p>\n In fact, Steve Chalke has spoken very clearly about his views since all the controversy \u2014 in an article which remains online<\/a> and is VERY different from what Wright claims Chalke has told him are his views:<\/p>\n \u201cThe extraordinary thing is that supporters of penal substitution, following Hodge\u2019s lead, tend to hold it as a \u2018God-given truth\u2019 \u2014 the only biblical explanation of the atonement. Indeed for them to question this model is to question the atonement itself. So, for instance, one recent letter I received claims that I \u2018demolish the fundamentals of the Christian faith\u2019 and another that I am \u2018liberal\u2019. However, this supposed orthodoxy is no orthodoxy at all . . .<\/p>\n In The Lost Message of Jesus<\/em> I claim that penal substitution is tantamount to \u2018child abuse \u2013 a vengeful Father punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed.\u2019 Though the sheer bluntness of this imagery (not original to me, of course) might shock some, in truth, it is only a stark \u2018unmasking\u2019 of the violent, pre-Christian thinking behind such a theology. And the simple truth is that if God does not relate to his only Son as a perfect Father, neither can we relate to Him as such.<\/p>\n If we follow Hodge\u2019s understanding of the atonement it is Jesus\u2019 death, no more no less, that becomes our \u2018good news\u2019. This reductionist approach shrinks or \u2018down grades\u2019 the whole gospel to a single sentence: \u2018God is no longer angry with us because Jesus died in our place.\u2019<\/p>\n Indeed, that is exactly why evangelistic presentations based on penal substitution often don\u2019t even bother to mention the resurrection, because for them it serves no direct purpose in the story of our salvation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Having then carefully positioned himself as against Jeffrey John, but for Steve Chalke, perhaps inevitably given the current climate, Wright turns to discuss Pierced for Our Transgressions<\/em> more fully. What he says is shockingly surprising. He begins by claiming that the writers are totally unaware of the possible nuances to PSA and to Wright\u2019s idea that people like Chalke can speak about cosmic child abuse, but still somehow uphold some watered down form of the othodox teaching of the church about the cross.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd my sorrow, reading Pierced for Our Transgressions<\/em>, is not only that the book seems to be unaware of this possibility, but that, despite the ringing endorsements of famous men, it is deeply, profoundly, and disturbingly unbiblical . . . it abstracts certain elements from what the Bible actually says, elements which are undoubtedly there and which undoubtedly matter, but then places them wi This post has become too long already, but sadly Wright is by no means finished . . . I will just give you some of the headlines. You may want to go and read the whole post yourself<\/a>.<\/p>\n
In January 2008, the following post was identified as the 11th all-time most popular post with readers of this blog<\/a>. The 12th most widely read post was \u201cThe Toronto Blessing\u201d\u2014When the Church Seemed To Be Going Mad<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
The servers hosting N. T. Wright\u2019s article<\/a>, as well as Steve Chalke\u2019s<\/a>, seem to have been having trouble with the demand to download them, so I have added mirrors to Wright<\/a> and Chalke<\/a> to help more people read them. The authors of Pierced For Our Transgressions<\/em> have now responded to Wright\u2019s comments<\/a> in a similar vein to my article.<\/p>\n
\n![](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/298\/2007\/04\/nt_wright.jpg\")
\u201c You\u2019d have thought people would notice that this flies in the face of John\u2019s and Paul\u2019s deep-rooted theology of the love of the triune God: not \u2018God was so angry with the world that he gave us his son\u2019 but \u2018God so loved the world that he gave us his son\u2019. That\u2019s why, when I sing that interesting recent song \u2018In Christ alone my hope is found\u2019, and we come to the line, \u2018And on the cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied\u2019, I believe it\u2019s more deeply true to sing \u2018the love of God was satisfied\u2019. I commend that alteration to those who sing that song, which is in other respects one of the very few really solid recent additions to our repertoire. So we must readily acknowledge that, of course, there are caricatures of the biblical doctrine all around, within easy reach \u2014 just as there are of other doctrines, of course, such as that of God\u2019s grace.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nd punished sin in Jesus, but not that Jesus Himself was punished for sin. To me, at least, that kind of statement seems to be trying to have your cake and eat it. This is certainly what Wright seems to do when he then turns to discuss Pierced for Our Transgressions<\/em>.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/298\/2007\/04\/Chalke5-704635.jpg\")
<\/a>If you are like me, and remember that Wright strongly endorsed Steve\u2019s book, you will by now have begun to wonder how he can square that particular circle given some of his earlier comments. To begin with, he claims that the following statement of Chalke indicates that he does, after all, believe the cross of Jesus had something to do with wrath.<\/p>\n\n
\nthin a different framework, which admittedly has a lot in common with the biblical one, but which, when treated as though it were the biblical one, becomes systematically misleading.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n