In this article, Gary Williams interacts with Steve Chalke's negative view of Penal Substitution. Chalke had expressed the view that the idea of Christ suffering in our place smacks of cosmic child abuse.
Williams clearly shows that Chalke has misunderstood this teaching, has not realised that it was the view of many in the Early Church and that is not a creation of the Reformers. He also points out that the doctrine of the trinity safeguards the bible's teaching on the atonement, because it shows us that Christ's suffering and death were planned by all 3 members of the trinity: it was not imposed on an unwilling victim.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
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I am interested, and indeed somewhat pleasantly surprised, to read Williams saying "Penal substitution, rightly understood, does not teach that ‘God […] brought about the violent death of his Son’". But it seems that it is not just Chalke's mistake but also the mistake of a number of well known Christian leaders such as CJ Mahaney, who explicitly promote this understanding of the atonement as based on God killing Jesus. See this discussion on my blog a few months ago. In reply to me, Adrian Warnock wondered if he was alone in understanding penal substitution in the way Chalke does, and sadly he was not completely alone. This misunderstanding is alive, well, and living in London (in fact very near to Williams' Oak Hill College) among other places, and Chalke was right to object to it.
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