I wrote a lot of things and fed it to ChatGPT to reword everything for me so I sound more intelligent... Lol. It's sourced on all facts, no worries.
1. The Penal Substitutionary Atonement: A Cornerstone of Reformed Soteriology
First, we must state unequivocally: Reformed theology has long affirmed the doctrine of
penal substitution—that is, Christ bore the penalty due to sinners in their place, satisfying the demands of God's holy justice. As Isaiah prophesied,
"He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace" (
Isa. 53:5,). And Paul, in
Romans 3:25-26, declares that God put Christ forward as a
propitiation by his blood, so as to be both just and the justifier.
The
Westminster Confession of Faith (
chap. VIII.4-5) affirms this:
“This office the Lord Jesus did most willingly undertake... to satisfy divine justice, procure His Father’s favor, purchase a peculiar people, give an everlasting inheritance...”
“The Lord Jesus, by His perfect obedience and sacrifice of Himself, which He through the eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of His Father...”
Here the confession makes explicit that Christ satisfied justice—a justice that, according to Scripture (
Rom. 1:18;
2:5), demands punishment for sin, not merely a notional "penalty." There is no suggestion of a bifurcation between penalty and punishment
Therefore, to suggest that Christ bore only a "penalty" in some abstract or legal sense while avoiding the true "punishment" of sin appears to cut against the grain of this vital truth.
2. Penalty is Punishment Under Divine Justice
The distinction in the statement between "penalty" and "punishment" may be a modern attempt to sanitize or soften the substitutionary nature of the atonement, perhaps to align it with a less retributive framework. But in the Reformed tradition, the
penalty for sin is nothing less than the punishment rightly deserved under God’s justice. As
Romans 6:23 says,
“The wages of sin is death.”
Now, Christ, being sinless and fully God, could not suffer the
eternal punishment of the damned (e.g., despair, corruption, continued rebellion)—but He did endure the
equivalent punishment in His own person, especially under the wrath of God, climactically on the cross.
As Calvin wrote in his
Institutes (II.16.10):
“If Christ had died only a bodily death, it would have been ineffectual. It was necessary for him to undergo the severity of God’s vengeance, to appease his wrath and satisfy his righteous judgment.”
Thus, Calvin does not separate "penalty" from "punishment" but sees them as overlapping—
Christ bore the punishment as penalty.
3. The Cross and the Cup of Wrath
To say Christ did not bear our punishment is to minimize or redefine the "cup" He trembled before in Gethsemane. That cup, rich in Old Testament imagery, is the cup of divine wrath (cf.
Ps. 75:8; Isa. 51:17;
Jer. 25:15). On the cross, He was
forsaken (
Matt. 27:46)—not because the Trinity was divided, but because He stood in the place of sinners and bore the curse of the Law (
Gal. 3:13).
This curse is not abstract. It is punitive. And it is personal.
The Larger Catechism, Question 49:
Q. How did Christ humble himself in his death?
A. Christ humbled himself in his death, in that having been betrayed by Judas, forsaken by his disciples, scorned and rejected by the world, condemned by Pilate, and tormented by his persecutors... and most of all, in conflicting with the terrors of death and the powers of darkness, feeling and bearing the weight of God’s wrath...
Answer: Christ humbled himself in his death, in that having been betrayed by Judas1, forsaken by his disciples2, scorned and rejected by the world3,
thewestminsterstandards.com
This is critical: Christ
bore the wrath of God—that is, the
punishment for our sin. Wrath, in Scripture, is not a passive consequence; it is
active, judicial punishment.
The Heidelberg Catechism
Lord’s Day 15, Q&A 37:
Q: What do you understand by the word “suffered”?
A: That during His whole life on earth, but especially at the end, Christ bore in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race.
www.heidelberg-catechism.com
The Catechism makes no room for a mere legal fiction. Christ endured the punishment of wrath in His very person—body and soul.
4. A Caution Against Redefining Atonement
Some modern theologians attempt to draw fine distinctions to avoid the offense of divine wrath or retributive justice. But the Reformed tradition, faithful to Scripture, affirms that the punishment Christ bore was real and necessary. He bore not only a legal penalty but the
personal, divine punishment due for sin—that we might go free.
5. Why This Distinction (Penalty vs. Punishment) Is Problematic
In some contemporary theological circles—particularly among certain streams of liberal Protestantism or New Perspective influences—the term “penalty” is retained in a vague, abstract way, but “punishment” is dismissed as too violent, too retributive, or unworthy of a loving God.
However, the Reformed tradition stands firmly on the principle that the penalty of sin is punitive in nature. Christ did not merely absorb consequences; He stood under the judicial sentence of the Law as if He were the transgressor (
2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13).
@fastfredy0
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