Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried
our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But
he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the
chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All
we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and
the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he
opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep
before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from
prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut
off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because
he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the
pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of
his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant
justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a
portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because
he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the
transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the
transgressors. (Isa 53:4-12)
This is
perhaps the passage that is cited by proponents of penal substitution to argue
in favour of their theory of atonement and the contention that “to bear sin”
means “to bear the legal guilty and penal punishment of sin.” Writing in
response to such a claim, S.G. Burney, a critic of penal substitution, noted:
Remarks.—however strong these citations
from Isaiah liii may appear, the entire contents of the chapter can never be
harmonized with the penal theory. We consequently are under the necessity of
making the prophet contradict either himself or the penal theory.
This might be shown from a comparison of many
expressions in the chapter; but it is sufficient to direct attention to the
following:
(1) “When thou shalt make his soul [life] an
offering for sin.” His death was sacrificial and therefore not penal, for, as
we have seen, a penal sacrifice is a contradiction in the adjective.
(2) “He shall see his seed”—see those to whom
his own nature is imparted, or who are born of God. If he died a penal death,
then he imparts penal righteousness to men, and saints and Satan are clothed in
the same garments, as we have previously seen.
(3) “Shall see the travail of his soul, and
shall be satisfied.” How can the fruits of penalty be a source of satisfaction
to the penalty bearer? Penalty, as we have seen, can not satisfy God, for he is
angry with the wicked (the only penalty bearers) every day; nor satisfy
justice, which is defrauded by all penalty bearers of its claims to their
loving obedience; least of all, how can penalty satisfy the penalty bearer,
for, having no power to remove its cause, it is neither a satisfaction in
itself nor the means of subsequent satisfaction.
On the contrary, if Christ’s travail was such
as comes from loving fidelity, then we can very readily see how can be
satisfied with the fruits of that travail. It is like the satisfaction that
comes to the generous benefactor, or to the self-sacrificing mother, who
contemplates with ineffable pleasure the restoration of a sick child which her
travail of soul has instrumentality saved from death.
(4) “By his knowledge shall my righteous servant
justify many.” If this text read: By his penal sufferings my unrighteous enemy
shall justify any, then it would be in harmony with penal substitution. But
reading as it does, all the exegetes and casuists in Christendom can not
harmonize it with the penal scheme. This nothing but the most defiant dogmatism
can do.
The terms knowledge,
righteous, servant, and justify,
each of itself excludes penality.
If Christ justifies men by substitutionary
suffering, then he does not justify them by his knowledge. If he is a penal
substitute for sinners, then he is confessedly guilty or unrighteous, and if he
is guilty, then he is not a servant in the sense in which Christ is recognized
as such; and if he is not perceptively righteous, then he can not be righteous
or justify others, except with the penal righteousness, with which Satan
himself is justified.
We can not know precisely how Christ by his
knowledge justifies many, but we know the fact. We know the fact that the
physician by his knowledge restores the patient; that the wise man may impart
his wisdom to others without being able fully to comprehend the process. So of
Christ’s knowledge in justifying many. We know that he “learned obedience by
the thing which he suffered, [thus] being made perfect he became the author of
eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.” (Heb. v. 8, 9.)
By the knowledge thus “learned” he is able to
justify or make righteous those that obey him by making them partakers of his
own righteousness, etc. (Heb. x. 12; 2 Peter i. 4.)
(5) “Therefore will I divide him a portion
with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong.” For his
services God “hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every
name.” (Phil. ii. 9-11.)
How could God so honor one for the
righteousness that consists in bearing a penalty? The idea seems preposterous
in the extreme.
(6) “And made intercession for transgressors.”
This finds one striking verification in the prayer on the cross: “Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke xxiii. 34.)
I have had frequent occasion to say that if
the penal theory is true—if pardon is based upon punishment and comes
necessarily out of it, as all consistent penalists hold, then prayer, intercession,
and every other means are worthless. If God has made punishment the condition
of pardon, then to intercede or pray for pardon is a reflection upon the divined
integrity.
Yet Christ prayed for his persecutors. If that
has not any pertinency or significance in it, and we know it has, then it
proves beyond all reasonable question that his sufferings did not offset the guilty
and infallibly insure the salvation of all for whom he died, as
substitutionists teach.
These quotations, taken from the fifty-third
chapter of Isaiah, can not be harmonized with the doctrine of substitution.
They, by their logical consequences, contradict it. Hence, it follows, if that
doctrine is true, the prophet contradicts himself. Or, if he does not
contradict himself, he squarely contradicts the doctrine, and penalists
egregiously misinterpret the prophet. His language can not mean what they
assume it to mean. (S.G. Burney, Atonement
Soteriology: The Sacrificial, in Contrast with the Penal, Substitutionary, and
Merely Moral or Exemplary Theories of Propitiation [Nashville: Cumberland
Presbyterian Publishing House, 1888], 261-64; on the topic of the Servant' justifying many because of His knowledge, see John Murray on Isaiah 53:11 and the Knowledge of the Servant Justifying Believers)
