{"id":314,"date":"2009-04-13T19:11:03","date_gmt":"2009-04-13T19:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/do-i-deny-penal-substitution.html"},"modified":"2009-04-13T19:11:03","modified_gmt":"2009-04-13T19:11:03","slug":"do-i-deny-penal-substitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/do-i-deny-penal-substitution.html","title":{"rendered":"Do I Deny Penal Substitution?"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. I simply deny it pride of place.  Here’s what I wrote in October, 2006<\/a> about my lunch with John Piper:<\/p>\n

\n

One thing that won’t surprise anyone who knows about these things:
\nJohn Piper basically equates a penal substitutionary understanding of
\nthe atonement with the gospel. I am unwilling to do that. I don’t
\ndisparage that theory of the atonement (see my recent endorsement on
\nthe back of the 20th Anniversary Edition of Stott’s The Cross of Christ<\/span>),
\nbut I believe the birth\/death\/resurrection of Jesus Christ to be the
\npivot point of cosmic history. Thus, I do not think that one<\/span>
\ntheory interpreting that event to be sufficient. Every theory of the
\natonement is 1) human, and 2) bound to a context. The penal
\nsubstitution — while there are seeds of it in Pauline writings — is
\ntied to the development of the Western legal mind. Nor am I willing to
\ncondemn the billions<\/span> of
\nfaithful Christians who have lived and died in the past two millennia
\nwith alternate understandings of the atonement (here see Gustav Aulen, Christus Victor<\/span><\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other words, PSA is one theory of the atonement. Beneficial, but not exclusive. Not even first among equals.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No. I simply deny it pride of place.  Here’s what I wrote in October, 2006 about my lunch with John Piper: One thing that won’t surprise anyone who knows about these things: John Piper basically equates a penal substitutionary understanding of the atonement with the gospel. I am unwilling to do that. I don’t disparage…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-theology"],"yoast_head":"\nDo I Deny Penal Substitution? - The New Christians<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/do-i-deny-penal-substitution.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do I Deny Penal Substitution? - The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"No. I simply deny it pride of place.  Here’s what I wrote in October, 2006 about my lunch with John Piper: One thing that won’t surprise anyone who knows about these things: John Piper basically equates a penal substitutionary understanding of the atonement with the gospel. I am unwilling to do that. I don’t disparage…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/do-i-deny-penal-substitution.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-13T19:11:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tony Jones\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Do I Deny Penal Substitution? - The New Christians","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/do-i-deny-penal-substitution.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Do I Deny Penal Substitution? - The New Christians","og_description":"No. I simply deny it pride of place.  Here’s what I wrote in October, 2006 about my lunch with John Piper: One thing that won’t surprise anyone who knows about these things: John Piper basically equates a penal substitutionary understanding of the atonement with the gospel. 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