Penal substitution is premised on a substitutionary death,
so death is essential to it. However, death played no role in the numerous
non-animal sacrifices of the Old Testament (grain, flour, baked goods, wine,
oil, incense). How might burning flour fulfill the just demand for the sinner’s
death? Yet for certain sins, a tenth of an ephah of semolina could accomplish
the same atonement as an animal sacrifice (Lev. 5:11-13). Penal substitution
cannot explain the bloodless sin offering or any of the other vegetal offerings
in the Old Testament.
Moreover, even in animal sacrifice, killing was not the
key moment but merely a means of obtaining the materials to be offered (blood
and meat). If (as penal substitution implies) killing the animal was the key
moment that accomplished atonement—satisfying God’s wrath—why is it barely
mentioned in the ritual instructions?
Conversely, if what follows the killing is of lesser
importance, why is such careful attention given to those acts?
Penal substitution is solely focused on dealing with
sins, but many sacrifices were not occasioned by sin: whole-burnt offerings and
peace offerings. These sacrifices featured was applied to the altar, and their
meat was burned on it. They were distinguished from sin offerings only by
seemingly minor differences in how the blood was applied and how the meat was
distributed between the altar, the priests, and the offerers. Yet these
sacrifices were occasioned not by guilt and expectation of punishment but by
awe, devotion, joy, or thanksgiving. Penal substitution can make no sense of
these sacrifices.
An avid systematizer, Calvin tried to manufacture a
fundamental distinction between sin offerings and all these other types of
Mosaic sacrifice in order to carve out a nice for the logic of penal substitution.
He writes:
Though [Mosaic sacrifices] were various in form, they may
all be referred to two classes. For either an oblation for sin was made by a
certain species of satisfaction, by which the penalty was redeemed before God,
or it was a symbol and attestation of religion and divine worship, at one time
in the way of supplication to demand the favour of God; at another, by way of
thanksgiving, to testify gratitude to God for benefits received; at another, as
a simple exercise of piety, to renew the sanction of the covenant, to which
latter branch, burnt-offerings, and libations, oblations, first-fruits, and
peace offerings, referred. Hence let us also distribute them into two classes.
(Calvin, Institutes 4.18.13)
He goes on to say that the sin offerings alone prefigured
Christ’s sacrifice, while the other sacrifices prefigured the spiritual
offerings we now make to God.
Although this distinction seems very neat and tidy within
Calvin’s system, it defies the fundamental similarity of all these offerings as
phenomena—each progressing through the same ritual steps (carried out by the
same ritual actors with the same basic materials in the same setting),
following the same basic rules, and differing only in small ways. In light of
this fundamental similarity, one would more naturally assume that these were
essentially similar phenomena reflecting the same basic logic and that the small
variations merely indicated different applications of this logic. Moreover, it
must be admitted that no statement in Scripture justifies this privileging of
sin offerings as a special case—a unique sacrifice unlike all others. If indeed
(contrary to Calvin) all the Mosaic sacrifices do share a basic logic, it
cannot be penal substitution, which addresses only the problem of sin.
Along the same lines, penal-substitution theory cannot
make sense of the New Testament’s sacrifices of obedience, worship, charity,
martyrdom, and so forth. How would it explain St. Paul’s “living sacrifice” of Christians
(Rom. 12:1)? Is Paul calling on us to submit to torture so that others do not
need to suffer for their sins/ Obviously not. The theory would have similar
difficulty explaining Paul’s praise of the Philippians’ contribution as “an
acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God” (Phil. 4:18); these financial gifts have
nothing to do with suffering, punishment, or sin.
Finally, penal substitution violates the logic of sacrificial
purity. It envisions the sacrificial victim being symbolically loaded with the
guilt of the offerer, so that its death might expunge that guilt. Yet all
sacrifices must be pure and unblemished. Imputing guilt to the victim would
constitute a major blemish, making the sacrifice unacceptable to God. Moreover,
if the sin offerings were thus loaded with guilt, how is it that their
remainder was eaten by the priests as a “most holy thing” (Lev. 6:22 [29])? How
could meat loaded with guilt be called “most holy”?
Penal substitution’s supposed transfer of guilt is often
associated with the placing of the offerer’s hands on the animal’s head. Yet
this gesture was not exclusive to sin offerings; it was also used in peace
offerings and whole-burnt offerings; it was also used in peace offerings and
whole-burnt offerings, neither of which implied any guilt to be expunged. As we
saw in chapter 5, the placement of a single hand represented association of the
offering with its offerer, not transfer of guilt. Only in the case of the
scapegoat ritual were sins confessed over an animal, but that ritual bears no
resemblance to sacrificial hand-pressing: two hands were placed on the
scapegoat (not one, as with the sacrifices); and the scapegoat ritual was not a
sacrifice at all, since the animal was not offered on the altar but instead
sent away into the desert—being laden with guilt, it was no longer fit to be
offered to God.
It should now be clear that penal substitution is not
plausible as a rationale for Old Testament sacrifice. Therefore, it cannot be
the rationale for Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross since ethe Cross was the
fulfillment of those Old Testament sacrifices, sharing their rationale and
basic significance and only transcending them as the universal actualization of
that rationale and significance. Nor can it be rationale for the sacrifices of
the Christian life since these are rooted in the meaning of both the Old
Testament sacrifices and that of Christ. If the theory of penal substitution
atonement is to stand, it cannot stand as a sacrificial theory. (Jeremy Davis, Welcoming
Gifts: Sacrifice in the Bible and Christian Life [Chesterton, Ind.: Ancient
Faith Publishing, 2022], 288-91)
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