We are continuing our examination of the booklet The Gift of Redemption by Lester Troyer. Last month I wrote an introductory article wherein I laid out my approach and summarized my concerns. Readers who have not read that article are strongly encouraged to start there.
Misunderstandings
One of my concerns about this booklet is that Troyer misunderstands the opposing view. Most of his arguments are levied against positions that don’t actually exist. First, he misunderstands PSA by thinking its adherents believe that Jesus, on the cross, not only bore our sins but also became a sinner. He gives a list of quotes from evangelicals which he thinks shows that they believe Jesus “became a loathsome sinner on the cross.” In fact, none of these quotes say that Jesus became a sinner, but rather that He was judged/condemned for our sins. This is a crucial distinction, and the author misses it.
Nearly all who believe in PSA reject the idea that Jesus Himself became a sinner on the cross. Rather, it is believed that He suffered as if He were a sinner. He remained spotless, but was killed as a criminal. He was denied the presence of the Father as if He had Himself rebelled against Him. He suffered as a sinner and in our place, while not becoming sinful in His person. He is an innocent substitute, a spotless lamb, enduring judgment in our place.
Now, if it were true that PSA required that the divine Son Jesus Christ became a sinner in His nature and person, that is a reason to object. The perfect Son of God could not become a sinner in His nature, but it is not necessary for Him to become a sinner in order for Him to be condemned as one. He is not condemned for His own sin, but for ours. He endured what we deserved to endure. He remained perfect, yet was judged as a sinner—because of our sins!
Troyer gets this right on page 14 when he says, “Jesus willingly suffered, died, and shed His blood for the remission of my sins without a trace of sin ever to be found in Him.” I am in full agreement with this! Nothing about this is at odds with the PSA view, which says that Jesus remitted our sins by taking them on Himself and suffering in our place.
Second, he misunderstands PSA by thinking its adherents believe that Jesus paid for the sins of the whole world. He thinks that PSA requires that Jesus endure the just penalty for every sin ever committed. For example, he says on page 3 that “These evangelicals see Jesus…as personally guilty for the sins of the whole world.” On page 5 he says, “Substitutionary atonement assumes that the Father punished the Son for the sins of the whole world.” Based on this, he objects to PSA because he thinks it means that all people are saved, whether or not they believe. “This would include every unrepentant sinner, every mass murderer, and the most perverted among men who die having scorned the mercies of God.”
If this were true of PSA, it would distort the gospel. The Bible is clear that not all will be saved. But if Jesus paid the just penalty for all the sins of every human, then God must allow every person into heaven whether or not he believes in Christ. The author thinks this is the logical conclusion of PSA, and he objects to PSA on these grounds. But this misrepresents PSA. PSA teaches that Christ’s death is sufficient to save all people, but it is only applied to them when they believe in Jesus. Those who do not believe will suffer eternally in hell for their sins.
Troyer critiques PSA because he thinks the view requires universal salvation. But that’s not the view, as a careful study would show. This is a “straw-man argument.” A view is constructed which does not represent the actual view (PSA in this case), then that view is deconstructed, leaving the impression that the view is invalid. But since the view has not been properly portrayed, it is not properly critiqued. Undiscerning readers of this booklet will think they have understood the problems of PSA when in fact they have not encountered the real view because it has been misrepresented.
Third, his treatment of PSA is reductionistic. For example, he thinks that, because PSA emphasizes Christ’s propitiation of the penalty for sin, that it does not also accept other biblical language such as remission, redemption, ransom, blood, etc.. He also thinks that PSA is only concerned with payment for sin and not about repentance and forgiveness. He says, “Penalty paid is not a call to repentance and regeneration. It cannot infuse righteousness, grace, or mercy.”
First Roadblock
The author has four objections to the penal theory of the atonement, which he calls “roadblocks”. He defines the first roadblock by saying, “The grievous error of substitutionary atonement is that the penalty for sin becomes a substitute for the remission of sin through the blood of Christ” (emphasis original). His wording is unclear, but what I think he means is that substitutionary atonement defines Christ’s work as His paying a penalty for sin rather than as His remitting sin. Essentially, this is an issue of terms. Is it right to describe Christ’s atonement as satisfying a divine penalty imposed on sinners, or is it right to describe it as paying a price to free sinners?
This gets to the center of the disagreement between PSA and the author of this booklet. It’s the subtitle of this book, “Price or Penalty?”. Did Jesus suffer the penalty of sin on the cross, or could he free us without needing to be punished for our sins? The author prefers the term “price” to “penalty” because he thinks it captures the biblical emphasis. He describes this same conflict as being between “substitutionary atonement” and the view that the atonement is about the “remission of sin”.
Let’s define some terms. First of all, what does he mean by “substitutionary atonement”? He understands this to mean that “Jesus was…charged with the sins of the world” because “justice could not have been satisfied unless the penalty for sin, and the wrath of God upon sinners, was laid upon Jesus as our substitute.” This is a fairly good summary of the doctrine. It focuses on the means by which Jesus frees us from sin—He pays for them Himself.
What he means by “remission of sins” is less clear. He describes the effects of this remission in several ways. He says, “…on the cross, the power of sin, the wages of sin, and the penalty for sin are canceled…” He also says, “The ransom for sinners was paid in full and the wells of salvation opened wide.” And that “God had a far greater plan than to exact the penalty for our sins on His Son. There was a sacrifice made, so exceedingly precious and of such dynamic power as to pay for our release from the bondage of sin.” But the question remains, how does Jesus do this? The author repeatedly rejects any justice-satisfying, wrath-absorbing language, yet assumes that sin can be forgiven by the sheer power of His death. He struggles to define what price means against penalty, or to explain how our sins can be dealt with apart from Christ’s substitutionary work.
It’s not that he misses the issue, but his explanation is internally inconsistent. He says, “The sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice justifies the sinner while totally bypassing the penalty for sin. Justice is satisfied without penalty as men repent and believe.” Justice is satisfied without penalty? Troyer gives no explanation of how Christ’s death brings forgiveness. But even more problematic is that he misses the key biblical teaching–starting in Genesis 3–that death is the penalty for sin. As Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death.” This is precisely why Christ “died for our sins” (cf. Gal. 3:13, 1 Pet. 3). It seems impossible to say that Christ died “the righteous for the unrighteous” and yet totally bypassed the penalty for sins.
He says that on the cross “justice is satisfied without penalty.” Now, if justice satisfaction is what you want, penal substitution is what you get. The core of penal substitutionary atonement is the belief that Jesus satisfied the justice of God on the cross. Troyer speaks of justice being satisfied, as of a legal code that needs to be upheld, yet says there is no judgment rendered to satisfy that justice. He wants to have his cake and eat it too, to speak as if Christ satisfied God’s justice while denying that He actually experienced anything corresponding to a penalty meted out by that justice. He recognizes that justice must be satisfied, yet insists that Christ did not satisfy justice on the cross. How then can sins be remitted?
According to the author, to believe in PSA is to believe that Christ suffered a specific penalty corresponding to specific sins, and that this suffering satisfied the righteousness of God. In contrast, his view is that Christ paid the price for sins, remitting them through His blood, but in such a way as did not require Him to satisfy God’s righteous wrath against sin. In this view, what Christ actually did remains unclear.
The author rejects wholesale the notion that Christ’s death satisfied God’s wrath against our sins. If this is true, we are of all men most pitiable. Just as Christ’s redemptive work would have been null and void if He had not resurrected from the dead (cf. 1 Cor. 15), so also His work does not help us if it does not deal with our primary problem—sin! The Bible tells us that we are by nature sinners and lawbreakers, enemies of God and therefore subject to His wrath because of our sins. If our Savior did not actually appease God’s just wrath against us because of our sins, we have no hope of salvation.