Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 163:649 (Jan 2006)
Article: Periodical Reviews
Author: Robert D. Ibach, Jr.

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BSac 163:649 (January-March 2006) p. 110

Periodical Reviews

By The Faculty and Library Staff of Dallas Theological Seminary

Robert D. Ibach

“Can Punishment Bring Peace? Penal Substitution Revisited,” Steve Holmes, Scottish Journal of Theology 58 (2005): 104–23.

Holmes explains that this article grew out of his experience at a conference on the theme “Theologies of the Cross.” In the midst of a diversity of perspectives on the Atonement all the participants were united in their rejection of “the traditional Reformed and Evangelical idea of penal substitution” (p. 104). In this article Holmes defends this doctrine in the face of several strong challenges.

Holmes first provides a statement of the doctrine, beginning not with Anselm’s account in Cur Deus Homo but with John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. Holmes explains that Anselm’s view of the atonement of Christ is based on the model of satisfaction of a feudal lord’s offended honor rather than the punishment due one who has failed to obey divine legislation. In fact Holmes asserts that “Anselm’s account is not even properly described as substitutionary, as the scheme only makes sense if the God-man acts in solidarity with the whole of creation, instead of in its place” (p. 107). On the other hand Calvin’s account of the Atonement is based on the “strong Biblical tradition of metaphors of sacrifice” (ibid.). This section concludes with a summary of Calvin’s exposition of the Apostles’ Creed, which demonstrates that “in Calvin’s creedal narrative soteriology, then, there is more than just penal substitution, but this model of the atonement plays a significant part” (p. 113). This clarification of Anselm’s view and the corresponding emphasis on substitutionary atonement in Calvin and later Reformed theology is informative and useful in framing the doctrine accurately.

Holmes then responds to several common objections to the doctrine of penal substitution. First, in response to the claim that God is not constrained by justice but could simply forgive sin, Holmes explains that “God cannot just waive the law because it is the essence of law that it cannot just be waived” (p. 114). Second, to the charge that penal substitution destroys the unity of the Trinity, Holmes shows that in the Atonement the “Father and Son are utterly united” (pp. 117–18). Third, to those who find distasteful the concept that God is so full of anger that His wrath needs to be satisfied by the shedding of blood, Holmes points out that “the sustained Biblical witness to the wrath of God is a witness that God regards sin as something serious” (p. 118). Fourth, to the criticism that penal substitution

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