Many argue that the moral government view undermines
God’s justice, for it means that the sins of forgiven people go unpunished.
Indeed, one of the most frequent arguments made on behalf of the penal
substitution view is that it makes sense of how an all-holy God can forgive
sinners without compromising his just wrath toward sin. Two things may be said
in response.
First, it is not at all clear how the penal
substitution view makes sense of God’s justice when it is premised on the
incoherent notion that guilt can be transferred from a guilty party to an
innocent party. To say that our sins were paid for when God smote Jesus does
not clarify anything. It just adds another mystery to the discussion.
Second, there is nothing unholy about forgiving
people. On the contrary, God’s forgiveness is as much an expression of his
holiness as is his just anger toward sin. This objection, like the penal
substitution theory from which it arises, assumes there is a rule in the
universe that says past sins have to
be punished (though not necessarily the person who committed them!). But why
assume this? We do not insist on this when we forgive people. Why must God?
Indeed, as noted earlier, if God insists on payment, he does not truly forgive
people. Furthermore, the Bible frequently teaches that God, out of his love and
mercy, can and does simply forget the sins of the past when a person repents
and turns to him (Ps. 103:8-14). He is a God who truly forgives, for he cancels
their debt without payment. (Gregory A Boyd and Paul R. Eddy, Across the Spectrum: Understanding Issues in
Evangelical Theology [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2002], 130,
emphasis in original)