Why Have You Forsaken Me?

[Arial]

Question.

Did the Atonement glorify God?

Yes ?
No?

Yes. Through the atonement He accomplished His ultimate purpose. That of destroying evil. Col 2:15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, triumphing over them in him.

Gen 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall crush your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

Rev 21:1-4 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, not crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

 

[fastfredy0]

Did the Atonement glorify God?

Yes ?
No?

God determines all things. Therefore, all things glorify God ... though some aspects of "things" do not bring God pleasure, there is the greater good to be considered in such aspects.

Atonement - a term which describes “the whole scope of Christ’s saving work.”
Matt. 3:17 and behold, a [m]voice from heaven said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased and delighted!”
So, I vote: YES

Can God not be pleased by what He does? I don't believe so.

 

[Carbon]

@Arial @fastfredy0

I say yes also.
I believe Jesus himself said so.

Jesus spoke these things; and raising His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, so that the Son may glorify You, John 17:1.

I glorified You on the earth by accomplishing the work which You have given Me to do. John 17:4.

Notice Jesus speaks of glorifying the Father by the means of a work finished here on earth, and its the finishing of that work which glorified the Father.

 

[Carbon]

The death of Christ.

The gospel tells us that our creator has become our redeemer. It announces that the son of God has become man "for us and for our salvation" and has died on the cross to save us from eternal judgment. The basic description of the saving death of Christ in the Bible is as a propitiation, that is, as that which quenched God's wrath against us by obliterating our sins from his sight. God's wrath is His righteousness reacting against unrighteousness; it shows itself in retributive justice. But Christ has shielded us from the nightmare prospect of retributive justice by becoming our representative substitute, in obedience to his Father's will, and receiving the wages of our sin in our place.

By this means justice has been done, for the sins of all that will ever be pardoned were judged and punished in the person of God the Son, and it is on this basis that pardon is now offered to us offenders. Redeeming love and retributive justice joined hands, so to speak, at Calvary, for there God showed himself to be "just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus."

Do you understand this? If you do, you are now seeing to the very heart of the Christian gospel.

J. I. Packer

 

[Carbon]

Here is a paragraph from Herman Witsius, from his book "Economy of the Covenants between God and Man.

XII 4thly,
Nothing can appear more absurd than to exclude from the satisfactory sufferings of Christ, by way of eminence, that sorrow of his soul, that great trouble and heaviness, that horror and amazement, that exceedingly great sorrow, even unto death, those clots of bloody sweat, those prayers and supplications, with tears and strong cries, the result of all this agony; which the Holy Ghost so circumstantially describes.
This exceeding trouble and agony did not arise only from the sympathy of the soul with the body, nor from the mere horror of impending death; it was something else that afflicted the soul of Christ, namely his bearing the sins, not of one, but of all the elect; he had beheld the awful tribunal of God, before which he was presently to appear, in order to pay what he took not away; he saw the Judge himself, armed with all the terrors of his incomprehensible vengeance, the law brandishing all the thunders of its curses, the devil, and all the powers of darkness, with all the gates of hell just ready to pour in upon his soul; in a word, he saw justice itself, in all its inexorable rigour, to which he was now to make full satisfaction; he saw the face of his dearest Father, without darting a single ray of favor upon him, but rather burning with hot jealousy in all the terrors of his wrath against the sins of mankind, which he had undertaken to atone for.
And whithersoever he turned, not the least glimpse of relief appeared for him, either in heaven or on earth, till with resolution and constancy he had acquitted himself in the combat.
These, These are the things, which, not without reason, struck Christ with terror and amazement, and forced from him his groans, his signs, and his tears.
And if all this was not for the expiation and satisfaction for our sins, what reason can be assigned, why the other sufferings of Christ, within the three hours of darkness, should be accounted so?

 

[Carbon]

A couple questions.

1) Is Penal substitution taught here?

2) Does this mean Jesus' suffering, in fulfillment of the Servant's role, should be conceived of in penal and substitutionary terms?

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

New American Standard Bible

​

The Exalted Servant​

13 Behold, My Servant will prosper,
He will be high and lifted up and [a]greatly exalted.
14 Just as many were appalled at you, My people,
So His appearance was marred beyond that of a man,
And His form beyond the sons of mankind.
15 So [b]He will sprinkle many nations,
Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him;
For what they had not been told, they will see,
And what they had not heard, they will understand.

The Suffering Servant​

53 Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For He grew up before Him like a tender [c]shoot,
And like a root out of dry ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we would look at Him,
Nor an appearance that we would take pleasure in Him.
3 He was despised and abandoned by men,
A man of [d]great pain and familiar with sickness;
And like one from whom people hide their faces,
He was despised, and we had no regard for Him.
4 However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore,
And our pains that He carried;
Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted,
Struck down by God, and humiliated.
5 But He was [e]pierced for our offenses,
He was crushed for our wrongdoings;
The punishment for our [f]well-being was laid upon Him,
And by His wounds we are healed.
6 All of us, like sheep, have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the wrongdoing of us all
To [g]fall on Him.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
And as for His generation, who considered
That He was cut off from the land of the [h]living
For the wrongdoing of my people, to whom the blow was due?
9 And His grave was assigned with wicked men,
Yet He was with a rich man in His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.
10 But the Lord desired
To crush Him, [i]causing Him grief;
If He renders [j]Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His [k]offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the [l]good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.
11 As a result of the [m]anguish of His soul,
He will [n]see it and be satisfied;
By His knowledge the Righteous One,
My Servant, will justify the many,
For He will bear their wrongdoings.
12 Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great,
And He will divide the plunder with the strong,
Because He poured out His [o]life unto death,
And was counted with wrongdoers;
Yet He Himself bore the sin of many,
And interceded for the wrongdoers.

 

[Carbon]

A couple questions.

1) Is Penal substitution taught here?

2) Does this mean Jesus' suffering, in fulfillment of the Servant's role, should be conceived of in penal and substitutionary terms?

Isaiah 52:13-53:12​

​

New American Standard Bible​

​

​

The Exalted Servant​

13 Behold, My Servant will prosper,
He will be high and lifted up and [a]greatly exalted.
14 Just as many were appalled at you, My people,
So His appearance was marred beyond that of a man,
And His form beyond the sons of mankind.
15 So [b]He will sprinkle many nations,
Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him;
For what they had not been told, they will see,
And what they had not heard, they will understand.

The Suffering Servant​

53 Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For He grew up before Him like a tender [c]shoot,
And like a root out of dry ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we would look at Him,
Nor an appearance that we would take pleasure in Him.
3 He was despised and abandoned by men,
A man of [d]great pain and familiar with sickness;
And like one from whom people hide their faces,
He was despised, and we had no regard for Him.
4 However, it was our sicknesses that He Himself bore,
And our pains that He carried;
Yet we ourselves assumed that He had been afflicted,
Struck down by God, and humiliated.
5 But He was [e]pierced for our offenses,
He was crushed for our wrongdoings;
The punishment for our [f]well-being was laid upon Him,
And by His wounds we are healed.
6 All of us, like sheep, have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the wrongdoing of us all
To [g]fall on Him.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
And as for His generation, who considered
That He was cut off from the land of the [h]living
For the wrongdoing of my people, to whom the blow was due?
9 And His grave was assigned with wicked men,
Yet He was with a rich man in His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.
10 But the Lord desired
To crush Him, [i]causing Him grief;
If He renders [j]Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His [k]offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the [l]good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.
11 As a result of the [m]anguish of His soul,
He will [n]see it and be satisfied;
By His knowledge the Righteous One,
My Servant, will justify the many,
For He will bear their wrongdoings.
12 Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great,
And He will divide the plunder with the strong,
Because He poured out His [o]life unto death,
And was counted with wrongdoers;
Yet He Himself bore the sin of many,
And interceded for the wrongdoers.

It's pretty obvious Penal Substitution is at the heart of Isaiah 53. There are many anti-PSA people, who find the notion completely unacceptable but still cannot deny it, they just claim it is simply outrageous.

Hofius (a scholar), who finds PSA completely unacceptable, is compelled by the sheer weight of evidence to admit that the teaching is there, even when he would rather it were not.

 

[Carbon]

It's pretty obvious Penal Substitution is at the heart of Isaiah 53. There are many anti-PSA people, who find the notion completely unacceptable but still cannot deny it, they just claim it is simply outrageous.

Hofius (a scholar), who finds PSA completely unacceptable, is compelled by the sheer weight of evidence to admit that the teaching is there, even when he would rather it were not.

Again, I do realize that the idea or thought that Jesus could be forsaken by God has been so disturbing to so many people that various theories have been invented to explain it.

Here is a very silly argument against PSA. "The eye for an eye theory."

These people try to use Jesus's command to love your enemies and mix it with other scriptures to try and prove their theory. For example, Jesus said on the cross, "Father forgive them, they know not what they do." By these two scriptures taken from context, they claim Jesus taught the opposite of PSA. And there is so much more.

These people forget the context. Exactly what Jesus is talking about. But I guess we can make scripture prove whatever we would like it to prove. Sad, very sad.

These are the types of false teachers who use what is called emotional objection. They try to use the force of an emotional argument., The purpose is to overwhelm the hearer/reader instead of using context. Many people find themselves agreeing, not because they have been persuaded by context and truth, but because they have been swept along by emotional tide. It's actually manipulation.

 

[Carbon]

Some claim PSA started with Calvin and the Reformers. But it's easy to see they do not know scripture, nor do they know church history or the ECF's.

 

[brightfame52]

Question.

Did the Atonement glorify God?

Yes ?
No?

Yes it did

 

[Carbon]

There are many people out there who shouldn't be teaching, yet they ask questions like, " Where is the wrath?"
They claim it isn't mentioned in scripture that the Father poured out His wrath on the Son in our (the elect) place.

But if people were serious about what scripture teaches on this, they would see it clearly in scripture. I wonder how so many can not see the clearly obvious teachings.

PSA is taught throughout scripture, the OT is full of it, and the NT expounds on it throughout, because it is an important doctrine.

If you are a genuine believer, God's word is the final on all things. If you do not believe what the bible teaches, fine, but don't claim it is teaching something different. That makes you a false teacher and even a heretic.


Scripture teaches in both the old and the new that Jesus suffered the wrath of God in our place. PSA is an essential part of the gospel. Matter of fact, if you remove PSA you lose the gospel.

If you disagree, then it's on you to prove it wrong using scripture. I know some will say you cannot prove a negative, but don't take a cheap way out. It shouldn't be difficult if your theory is in scripture. So, I challenge you.

It is also pretty obvious the the Father killed the Son, it was all part of His predetermined plan.


There are some pretty stupid reasonings out there. For example:
Would you being angry at someone to the point of killing them take that anger out on your own son who always did you right and kill him instead, so you could feel better about the person who made you angry?

Do you notice this has absolutly nothing to do with scriptural truth concerning PSA? It's pretty much emotional vomit.

Again, these are the types of false teachers who use what is called emotional objection. They try to use the force of an emotional argument., The purpose is to overwhelm the hearer/reader instead of using context. Many people find themselves agreeing, not because they have been persuaded by context and truth, but because they have been swept along by emotional tide. It's actually manipulation.


They will say things like, "what kind of person does that?"
or,
"what kind of message does that speak about God if we think He did that?"

Can you see the manipulation?

 

[Carbon]

Scripture teaches in both the old and the new that Jesus suffered the wrath of God in our place. PSA is an essential part of the gospel. Matter of fact, if you remove PSA you lose the gospel.

Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would be “struck down,” “afflicted,” “smitten,” “punished,” and “crushed” by God for our sins, rebellion, and iniquities (cf. Isa 53:4-6, 10 CSB). Although Isaiah does not use the word wrath, God is clearly pouring wrath on this Suffering Servant.

 

[Carbon]

Jesus became a curse for us, and a curse is God's wrath upon lawbreakers Gal 3:13

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”—

 

[Carbon]

Jesus became a curse for us, and a curse is God's wrath upon lawbreakers Gal 3:13

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”—

Liberal Christianity (which isn't Christian) would disagree of course.

 

[Carbon]

Thinking on these things, namely, PSA; I am starting to think one of the major reasons it is rejected is because of sin. Much of the church today has forgotten how sinful sin is. It's not such an awful thing anymore. People look at convicted killers and people like Hitler and say, "Now that's evil, that sin!"
We just don't know how far we have fallen, how much we deserve hell. How much we deserve God's wrath for eternity.
We just do not know how far we have fallen (it's a radical fall) and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. If we knew how sinful sin is, to a holy God, we would begin to know God does not just let it slide. His wrath, as scripture teaches burns greatly. And the only one who is able for various reasons to save us is God Himself. And all of scripture, both old and new shows and teaches about the Lamb of God enduring wrath in our place. The OT sacrifices point to Christ. Isaiah explains his whole life was a sacrifice. Psalm 22 explains the crucifixion in great detail. There is just no way around it.
To deny the PSA IMO is to deny the gospel. And denying the gospel shows, well.............

 

[fastfredy0]

but don't claim it is teaching something different. That makes you a false teacher and even a heretic.

.... or it could means one makes an honest mistake or have not studied much .... or the Bible is unclear or mental deficiency (my excuse ... giggle).
.... maybe everyone is a false teacher to some degree.

Scripture teaches in both the old and the new that Jesus suffered the wrath of God in our place. PSA is an essential part of the gospel. Matter of fact, if you remove PSA you lose the gospel.

If you disagree, then it's on you to prove it wrong using scripture. I know some will say you cannot prove a negative, but don't take a cheap way out. It shouldn't be difficult if your theory is in scripture. So, I challenge you.

I am not going to take up the challenge... I tend towards PSA but my readings give me the idea that all the theories fall short in some respect. Also see James Boyce Systematic Theology – The Atonement of Christ (theories and pros and cons)

 

[GoKart Mozart]

Some claim PSA started with Calvin and the Reformers..

That would be silly.
Penal Substitutionary Atonement has its roots (start) in medieval feudalism and Anselm of Canterbury's "Satisfaction Theory."

Substitution, that is Christ doing for mankind what man could not do for himself is certainly present early on.
Fully developed PSA does not exist prior to Anselm and its development is a product of the Reformation.

 

[GoKart Mozart]

..my readings give me the idea that all the theories fall short in some respect. Also see James Boyce Systematic Theology – The Atonement of Christ (theories and pros and cons)

I tend to agree with this. There are several models that demonstrate aspects Christ's work. None are all encompassing.

 

[Carbon]

That would be silly.
Penal Substitutionary Atonement has its roots (start) in medieval feudalism and Anselm of Canterbury's "Satisfaction Theory."

Substitution, that is Christ doing for mankind what man could not do for himself is certainly present early on.
Fully developed PSA does not exist prior to Anselm and its development is a product of the Reformation.

Long before Anselm. It's taught throughout scripture.

 

[Carbon]

That would be silly.
Penal Substitutionary Atonement has its roots (start) in medieval feudalism and Anselm of Canterbury's "Satisfaction Theory."

Substitution, that is Christ doing for mankind what man could not do for himself is certainly present early on.
Fully developed PSA does not exist prior to Anselm and its development is a product of the Reformation.

What matters most is what the bible teaches on the subject. But considering Anselm and so many other ECF's isn't it interesting to know that we are not the first generation to look to scripture for its teaching on it? Also, we do not look to previous generations as a source of authority, they are valuable sources of wisdom. They looked to and studied scripture on these things in the face of persecution. It would be hard to ignore the opinions and learnings of such giants of the faith such as Athanasius and Augustine.