In the church of my youth, I was told that Jesus was crucified in my place – that I should have hung there instead, and then still gone to Hell afterwards. It’s taken many years to examine and finally reject the doctrine of ‘penal substitution’, but the result of doing so is that the cross of Christ (and what happened there) has become even more central to my faith. I cling to it more tightly, am even more grateful for it, and rely on the redemption Jesus made available to us through it more closely.
I realise that, for some, this will be difficult to allow yourself to contemplate, especially when penal substitution is taught as an absolute, foundational truth in Evangelical denominations, but I ask readers to suspend judgement and read this with an open heart. I offer it with love.
https://www.patheos.com/articles/was-jesus-really-crucified-instead-of-you
P.S. Once a month, Patheos publish one of my articles via a different route which bypasses my usual blog, so I share those articles with a short introduction and a link (as above).
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