Featured JonC's view of Substitution in the Atonement

pot...kettle comes to mind!

 

Isaiah 53:5 says this, which you deny"

But He was pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities

 

Zactly.

 

Logical Reasoning

If God has no need or sense of justice to punish sin in order to forgive that sin then, Jesus came and died on the cross for nothing. God had no need to send Jesus He could have just decreed it done without the death, Burial and resurrection of Jesus. Further more hell would not be necessary for man or the fallen angels because punishment isn't necessary for anyone. Such philosophy leads to universalism and denies the justice of God.

Scripture

2 Thessalonians 1:9
They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,

Eternal destruction is the punishment for sin without Christ.

1 Peter 2:24
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

What does it mean to bear our sins? What reasonable conclusion can we come to with regard to that statement? Someone who is not a substitute would not be in that position. To bear our sin means to take our sin from us and put it on Him. That in essence is a substitute. This is what scripture says.

Geneis 22

The story of Abraham and Isaac where God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is an example of what a substitute is.

Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way;  and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

What does it mean when God said He laid the "iniquity" of us all? What is the act of laying our iniquity on someone else? The clear and unambiguous truth is that Jesus is our substitute. That is why God laid our sin on Jesus.

1Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,

What does it mean "the righteous for the unrighteous"? The context here is the suffering for sins. Again this is clear unambiguous scripture showing that Christ (the righteous)suffered the penalty for our (unrighteous) sin. That is substitutionary doctrine.

It cannot be said that Christ died for us because of our sin and yet Christ is not our substitute. Both cannot be true. That idea goes against the law of noncontradiction. It is a clear and unambiguous contradiction. Christ cannot die for us and not be a substitute. Death is the punishment for sin. Jesus died (which is punishment) for our sin (the thing that must be punished) therefore He is our substitute.

Whether or not others in the past have held to a position or not is not proof nor even evidence of something being right our wrong. That is a logical fallacy known as the band wagon fallacy. Those who use such arguments most likely have a weak position and find it necessary to use logical fallacies to prop up their errant view they struggle to defend.

Further, working to tie a particular doctrine a specific group of people is further evidence of a weak argument that one is struggling to support from scripture. Again, whether or not a particular group holds to a specific view of scripture does not make the point right or wrong. This is another logical fallacy known as the adhominem. It is attacking a source to prove the value of the position. Weak.

So far all I have seen to support the ungodly view that Christ was not a substitute by and large is "The emperor has no clothes" type arguments. In other words "its true because I say its true and if you don't believe what I am saying then its because you are insufficient in some way. Neither being a liberal nor a Calvinist proves or disproves an argument not does it lend any level of value to the argument. Starting an entire thread crying about people calling one a liberal then using "your argument comes from Calvinists" is the same thing. It's hypocrisy.

Making an argument by narrowing the ability to communicate the argument is not honest. In other words saying that the Bible has to say certain exact words and no other form of wording will be acceptable for a position to be true is not honest. That is not how things are commonly communicated today nor in scripture. We all know this. For instance Jesus in Luke 24 pointed back to the OT as scripture that spoke of Him. He even said that Abraham waited His coming. Yet there was no specific details of Him as a whole. Yet we can know that OT scripture spoke of Him in many ways. This narrowing standard of communication is not honest and it again, shows a weak argument.

Now on the definition of propitiation:

Definition of propitiation


1: the act of gaining or regaining the favor or goodwill of someone or something : the act of propitiating : APPEASEMENTa sacrifice in propitiation of the gods… she showed every possible desire to conciliate him, and there was an air of humble propitiation in all she did, such as I have seen pervade the bearing of a child towards a hard master.— Charles Dickens

2: something that propitiates or appeases specifically : an atoning sacrifice

First, I would say that both examples of this word here supports Christ as our substitute but when we use one and not the other to water down its meaning to support a definition that it does not define that lacks integrity. I posted the second one alone because the first one had already been misused.

Christ as our substitute and dying for our sin is an act of regaining goodwill from God. Propitiation in the context of scripture, every time it is used in in the context of Christ being our substitute.

Now that I have explained how 1+1=2 it can be said that the argument that says Christ was not our substitute has been debunked.

 

So here is what will happen. You only quoted one small part of my post, that appears is the only part you can respond to and ignore the entire rest of the post. What you will then do is later in some other post in some other thread accuse me of not having used scripture to defend it. You think just because you ignored it you can act as if it never happened. This is common from you.

Then you use a logical fallacy called the bandwagon fallacy to respond with.

Your response is noted and so is your lack of substance. Remember I pointed this out later. I will be saving both posts for future references.

 

I looked at twelve different bible versions and what I find is that the people considered Him stricken and punished by God. The text, as I see it, does not say God was the one that punished the Son. That has to be read into the text.

 

I will give the literal translation from the Hebrew

"surely grief of us He, He has borne and sorrows of us He has carried them, and yet we, we esteemed Him being stricken, One being sticken by God, and being afflicted" (Isaiah 53:4)

The Hebrew, "muk·kêh", is the particliple, masculine singular construct. This means that Jesus Christ is "stricken BY God". The same is with "ū·mə·‘un·neh", "being afflicted", BY God.

There is no "agent" involved here.

 

Again I repeat my last post

 

You just described PSA

 

Isa 53:4 In fact, it was our diseases he bore, our pains from which he suffered; yet we regarded him as punished, stricken and afflicted by God. Complete Jewish Bible

Isa 53:4 R13Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, R14smitten by God, and afflicted.ESV+

Isa 53:4 But he lifted up our illnesses, he carried our pain;N13 even though we thought he was being punished, attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done.N14 NET+

As you can see all of these and the others that I have indicate that the people considered Him as to be punished/stricken by God. The text does not say He was punished by God.

"But in the case before us, where it is not the sins, but “our diseases” (חָלָיֵנוּ is a defective plural, as the singular would be written חָלְיֵנוּ) and “our pains” that are the object, this mediatorial sense remains essentially the same. The meaning is not merely that the Servant of God entered into the fellowship of our sufferings, but that He took upon Himself the sufferings which we had to bear and deserved to bear, and therefore not only took them away (as Mat_8:17 might make it appear), but bore them in His own person, that He might deliver us from them. But when one person takes upon himself suffering which another would have had to bear, and therefore not only endures it with him, but in his stead, this is called substitution or representation - an idea which, however unintelligible to the understanding, belongs to the actual substance of the common consciousness of man, and the realities of the divine government of the world as brought within the range of our experience, and one which has continued even down to the present time to have much greater vigour in the Jewish nation, where it has found it true expression in sacrifice and the kindred institutions, than in any other, at least so far as its nationality has not been entirely annulled." Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

 

My PSA Theory is simple... Jesus Christ stood where I could not stand and did what I could not do!... So simple a child could understand it... Brother Glen

 

What esteemed meaning?

1 : to set a high value on : regard highly and prize accordingly an esteemed guest. 2a : to view as : consider esteem it a privilege. b : think, believe. (Websters)

 

"Indeed, he bore our illnesses, and our pains-he carried them, yet we accounted him as plagued, smitten by God and oppressed", https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/15984

"Yet it was our sickness that he was bearing, Our suffering that he endured. We accounted him plagued, Smitten and afflicted by God", Isaiah 53:4

ACCOUNTED, ": to show what happened to (someone or something) : know where (something or someone) is", Definition of ACCOUNT FOR (SOMEONE OR SOMETHING)

 

Also translated as regarded, thought, accounted, considered so you see it is still that the people did this. That is what all the bibles show. From what I have read in various commentaries and seen in the bibles that I have I do not see God as the one punishing the Son.

The idea that the Father has to punish the Son seems to be something that one theological view requires but it is not what is found in the text of the bible unless you read it into the text.

Was the Son our substitute YES, did He bare our sin YES, is redemption found only in the risen Son YES.