Ambiguities of the Atonement

Navigating the nuances of Jesus's death for sinners

Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash

“In my place condemned he stood.”

I believe that. I can affirm, with very few qualifications, penal substitutionary atonement (PSA). My friend Rory Shiner has a good article on it here. Or else, see my post, Myth Busting Penal Substitution.

My qualifications are normally due to caricatures, hyperbole, and mistaken explanations of PSA. I cringe when I hear someone say things like “God hates your sin so much he gets revenge against Jesus” just as much as I roll my eyes when I’m told that PSA is “divine child abuse.”

While there is atonement theology without substitution, there is definitely substitution in the atonement, see Simon Gathercole’s short little book on the subject.

And yet, such wonderful truth, Jesus bore and bore away our sin on the cross, does have complexities.

What does it mean that Jesus died “for” us?

Who or what does God actually condemn on the cross?

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