Chris Dates of Rethinking Hell wrote the following about the Christological necessity of rejecting conscious eternal torment if one holds to Penal Substitution:
The
Christological Danger of Eternal Torment
Meanwhile, whereas
traditionalists charge conditionalism with being Christologically problematic,
it seems the real danger to orthodox Christology lies in their own tendency to
locate the substitutionary work of Christ in his suffering. In support of the
idea that the union of Jesus’ divine and human natures rendered him uniquely
capable of enduring God’s infinite wrath, Grudem writes, “When Jesus knew that
he had paid the full penalty for our sin, he said, ‘It is finished’
(John 19:30).” (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 578; italics in original.)
Grudem’s use of the perfect-tense “had paid” makes explicit what logically follows
from treating Christ’s pain as that in which his substitutionary work consists:
On the cross Jesus completely bore the punishment of hell—separation from God
and infliction of suffering—and only then did he die. But if the finite
duration of his suffering is the substitutionary equivalent to the eternity of
suffering awaiting the risen, undying wicked, why did he go on to die? If “he
had paid the full penalty for our sin,” as Grudem says, what penalty was left
to pay with his death?
The doctrine of eternal torment
thus risks rendering Jesus’ death irrelevant, unnecessary, and arbitrary. One
can hardly imagine a more egregious heresy; to Paul, the substitutionary death
of Christ is paramount in importance and definitional of the gospel itself (1
Cor 15:1–3), and one who preaches another gospel—such as one denying the
substitutionary death of Jesus—should be accursed (Gal 1:6–9). Conservative
evangelicals are ordinarily adamant that it is heresy to deny the
substitutionary death of Christ. Bruce Ware, for example, insists that “open
theism is an unacceptable and nonviable view for Christians who desire to
remain biblically faithful.” (Ware, “The Gospel of Christ,” 310.) Among his
reasons is that in open theism, “no actual substitution can be made, for
God cannot know, when Christ hangs on the cross, any actual person who
will yet be conceived. His death must be seen as a substitution in general, not
a specific substitution for sinners who deserved the judgment he received on
their behalf.” (Ibid., 333; emphasis in original.) John Piper includes belief
in the “substitutionary dimension of the death of Christ” in his small list of
salvation prerequisites. (Piper, “What Must Someone Believe.”) J. I. Packer and
Gary Parrett insist that “Christ’s atoning death” features at the center of the
gospel, and that while there “are many aspects of this glorious atonement,”
nevertheless “the other aspects of the atonement disappear if at its heart it
is not a substitutionary atonement.” (Packer and Parrett, Grounded in the
Gospel, 98; italics in original.)
But if it was not until Jesus
died that his substitutionary, atoning work was complete, why did he say, “it
is finished,” just prior to dying (John 19:30)? The answer lies in “the
idea of prolepsis or anticipation,” illustrated by the famous phrase “dead man
walking,” in which “the man walking is not yet dead but the reality of his
death is very much present.” (Mostert, “Radical Eschatology,” 403.) E. W.
Bullinger refers to biblical figures of speech as prolepsis or anticipation
“when we anticipate what is going to be done, and speak of future things as
present.” (Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 914) Accordingly, as explained
by John Gill, Jesus said “it is finished” because all those things he was given
to do—“that he should be incarnate, be exposed to shame and reproach, and
suffer much, and die; the whole work his father gave him to do”—all these
things “were now done, or as good as done.” (Gill, An Exposition of the New
Testament, 2:117; emphasis added.) And after Jesus drew his final breath,
and his heart stopped beating, this work that was “as good as done” moments
before was, in fact, done. (Christopher M. Dates, "The
Righteous for the Unrighteous: Conditional Immortality and the Substitutionary
Death of Jesus," McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry 18
[2016-2017]:69-92, here, pp. 80-82)
