In his monograph refuting Penal Substitution, Philippe De La Trinité, quoting from the commentaries of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), wrote the following against common proof-texts for this theory of atonement:
God made him into sin
for us
“Christ never knew sin,
and God made him into sin for us so that in him we might be turned into the
holiness of God” (2 Cor 5:21).
“God made him into
sin for us.” This may be interpreted in three ways. Firstly, in view of the
fact that under the old law, a sin-offering was called “sin”: “They (the
priests) shall eat the sins of my people and shall lift up their souls to their
iniquity” (Hos 4:8, Douay), that is, they shall eat the sin-offerings. And thus
the sense of “he was made into sin” is that he was made a victim or sacrifice
for sin. Secondly, inasmuch “sin” may stand for resemblance to sin or
punishment for sin, as, for example, in: “God sent us his Son, in the fashion
of our guilty nature, so ample, in: “God sent us his Son, in the fashion of our
guilty nature, to make amends for our guilt” (Rom 8:3); in which case what is
meant is that God made him assume a mortal body capable of suffering. Thirdly,
inasmuch as something is said to be this or that, not because it really is so,
but because it is thought to be so. The meaning would then be that God made
Christ pass for a sinner: “He would be counted among the wrongdoers” (Isa
53:12). (Comm. in 2 Cor. 5, lect. 5, n. 201)
Christ himself
becoming an accursed thing
“From this curse invoked
by the law Christ has ransomed us, by himself becoming, for our sakes, an
accursed thing; we read that, There is a curse on the man who hangs on a gibbet”
(Gal 3:13).
When the Apostle
says: “becoming, for our sakes, an accursed thing,” he explains how we were set
free. Now an accursed thing is an evil thing, and, just as there are two kinds
of evil, namely the evil of sin and the evil of punishment, so there are two
kinds of curse and, consequently, two different ways of interpreting this
passage.
Christ, then,
redeemed us from the evil of sin—taking out text in the first sense—and this
he did by becoming himself an accursed thing, just as he redeemed us from death
by dying. Not that there was any sin in him: “He did no wrong, no treachery was
found on his lips” (1 Pet 2:22), but he was accursed in the opinion of others,
chiefly the Jews, who thought him a sinner. “We would not have given him up to
sin, and God made him into sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21). The apostle is careful to
say “an accursed thing” and not simply “accursed” (maledictus) in order
to show that the Jews held him to be consummate wickedness (sceleratissimum).
“This man can be no messenger from God; he does not observe the sabbath” (John
9:16). “It is not for any deed of mercy we are stoning thee; it is for
blasphemy; it is because thou, who art a man, dost pretend to be God” (John
10:33) . . .
Taking the same text
in the sense of the evil of punishment, then, Christ freed us from our punishment
in suffering it himself, death included. But this punishment was ours due to
the curse of sin. Therefore, when he died for us, he took this curse of sin
upon himself. Therefore, when he died for us, he took this curse of sin upon
himself and it said to have become an accursed thing for us. Which is similar
to what is said in the Epistle to the Romans: “God sent his Son, in the fashion
of our guilty nature,” that is, in mortal flesh; and “Christ never knew sin and
God made him into sin for us,” that is, he suffered the punishment of sin when
he offered himself for our sins (Comm. in Gal. 3, lect. 5, n. 138-9).
“He did not even
spare his own Son but gave him up for us” (Rom 8:32)
When he says that the
Father did not spare . . . this means “did not absolve from suffering”—for he
had no sin from which to be absolved. It would be irrelevant to quote here: “Spare
the rod, and thou art no friend to thy son” (Prov 13:24). But it was not for
the sake of his Son—for he is in all things perfect God—that God failed to
spare him and subjected him to suffering, but for our sakes. And so St. Paul
says: “He gave him up for us all,” that is, he exposed him to the Passion for
the atonement of our sins; and elsewhere, he describes Christ as “handed over
to death for our sins” (Rom 4:25). “God laid on his shoulders our guilt, the
guilt of us all” (Isa 53:6).
The Father handed him
over to death in decreeing his Incarnation and suffering, and in inspiring in
his human will the love of charity which would lead him spontaneously to accept
his Passion. Thus Christ is also said to have handed himself over: “He gave
himself up on our behalf” (Eph 5:2).
Everything is to be
found in the Son of God as in its first and pre-containing cause (sicut in
primordiali et praeoperativa causa): “He takes precedency of all, and in
him all subsist” (Col 1:17). Hence, if he is given us everything is given
us; as St. Paul continues: “and must not that gift”—that is, the gift of all
that can work to our advantage: on the highest level, the divine Person, given
us for our enjoyment; then the intellectual spirits, given to us for our
company; and finally, the lower creation, given us for our utility in both bad
times and good. “Everything is for you . . . and you for Christ, and Christ for
God” (1 Cor 3:21-22). And thus it is evident that “those who fear him never go wanting”
(Ps 33:10) (Comm. in Rom. 8, lect. 6, n. 713-14). (Philippe De La
Trinité, What is Redemption? [Steubenville, Ohio: Emmaus Road, 2021], 92-94)
