"Throughout my 63 years as an evangelical believer, the penal substitutionary understanding of the cross of Christ has been a flashpoint of controversy and division among Protestants. It was so before my time, in the bitter parting of ways between conservative and liberal evangelicals in the Church of England, and between the Inter-Varsity Fellowship (now UCCF) and SCM in the student world. It remains so, as liberalism keeps reinventing itself and luring evangelicals away from their heritage. Since one’s belief about the atonement is bound up with one’s belief about the character of God, the terms of the gospel and the Christian’s inner life, the intensity of the debate is understandable. If one view is right, others are more or less wrong, and the definition of Christianity itself comes to be at stake."See here for the rest of the well thought out and passionately argued article. Vintage JIP.
Evidently penal substitutionary atonement has been a very hot topic for a lot longer than Packer realizes. For God put the death nail in it when Noah got off the boat.see Gen. 9:5 NIV. No man's life can be taken by bloodshed and the result NOT be having to account to God. Since God loves obedience rather than a sacrifice your salvation hinges on the Way you account to God regarding the sin of Jesus' crucifixion.
ReplyDeleteLike you say. A Welchman is a sorry disruptive lot, aye?
Theodore A. Jones