For the past few years, I’ve been rethinking the atonement. That doctrine is vast, beautiful, nuanced, and confusing. It’s also arguably the most important doctrine in the New Testament. N.T Wright launched me into the journey and other voices have come alongside as well to help me form what I consider to be a far more biblical view of atonement. Previously, my view of atonement would have gone something like this:

• Humanity was created perfect and good.

• Humanity’s sinned broke relationship with God and was an offense to his holiness.

• God cannot be in the presence of humanity because of sin.

• Someone has to pay the price for the sin humanity has committed so we can go to heaven.

• God steps in and kills his son so that he can forgive humanity.

• Now that God has killed Jesus, he’s no longer angry at us. 

• Good news, we can run back to God because he poured wrath out on Jesus. 

And that was intended to be good news. You can still hold onto that being good news, just don’t think about it too long or hard. Don’t spend too much time thinking about whether or not that makes sense with the storyline of scripture. Don’t think about whether or not it’s really forgiveness if someone (God in this case) gets paid off. Don’t think about the way the Trinity is pitted against itself. Ignore those things and the story works. But if, like me, you can’t ignore those things, what other ways of understanding this Good Friday are there? 

Unlike many people who reject the traditional PSA view, I do hold onto it as a motif through which we can understand the cross. While I’m convinced Christus Victoris the best motif to use as an overarching framework, there are certainly still aspects of PSA that we see in the biblical description of the atonement. 

There are a few things one must keep in mind when thinking about the atonement. 

First, God did not kill Jesus; people killed Jesus. We killed Jesus. People who were under the power of the ‘prince of the air’ killed the Author of Life. Peter says it like this in Acts 4:10, "let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.” People killed Jesus. According the Apostles’ Creed, “he suffered under Pontus Pilate,” not under the hand of God. It was the plan of God, but it was the hands of humans (Acts 2:23).

Second, from the beginning, the scriptures are clear that the wages of sin is death. When Adam and Eve sin in the garden, death is introduced into the world, This was not part of God’s original and good creation - this was a devastating addition to God’s creative work. When thinking about the atonement, keep in mind that what sin earned is death - not some arbitrary punishment. Sin didn’t deserve whipping, scourging, or beatings - sin earns death - which is exactly what Jesus takes on our behalf. 

Finally, keep in mind that when Paul writes about the crucifixion he claimed the cross conquered the cosmic powers of sin and death (Col 2:15). It was Satan who was defeated by the cross (1 John 3:8) and Satan who had previously held humanity in bondage to fear of death (Her 2:14-15) - not God. If God needed Jesus to die, you'd have to reverse all of that and say that it was God who was holding humanity in slavery to fear of death (not the devil) and it was God who Jesus defeated on the cross (not the cosmic powers of darkness). The whole narrative is flipped upside down.

In light of that, what might a more Biblical version of PSA look like? 
First, we have to define who/what is being punished (penal)? Sin and the enemies of darkness that empower and embolden sin are being punished. After all, Paul will claim that those powers were made a mockery of on the cross (Col 2:13-15). Paul also writes that "Jesus condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom 8:3). It’s sin that’s condemned and punished because sin is the very thing that fractures God’s Shalom. Death defeats death; sin kills sin; evil envelops evil.

Second, what is the punishment (penal) for sin? Most typical versions of PSA would suggest that that punishment of sin is punishment... it's God’s wrath. Is that what the scriptures teach? I don’t think so. From the beginning (see Genesis 1-2), the result of sin is clearly defined as death. Don't make general (some arbitrary punishment inflicted by God) what God has made specific. The wages of sin is death, not beating or punishing (Rom 6:23). To be clear, Jesus takes our punishment - WHICH IS DEATH. And death from the beginning is not from God, it's actually his absence. Which is why Jesus cries out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" That's God's wrath.

When Peter writes about the effects of the cross, he claims that “by his wounds, we are healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Here’s what Peter did NOT say. He didn’t say that by his wounds God is appeased. He didn’t say that by his wounds God’s anger is satisfied. By Jesus’ wounds, WE are healed. We were the ones who needed the cross, not God. 

Third, who is being substituted? Jesus in our stead. However, we shouldn't split up the Trinity and pit one member against the others. The Father is not angry while Jesus is loving. When Jesus was on the cross, the scriptures tell us very clearly that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself" (2 Col. 5:19). I’d suggest that God’s wrath was poured out in his absence, not through his active scourging of his son. The cross is not divine child abuse, it’s divine love. The cross is not about appeasing God's blood-thirst (that's a pagan understanding of god), it's about displaying God's love and forgiveness.

As a quick review and correction to the faulty narrative above:

• Penal = sin is punished and killed. Death kills death, sin kills sin, evil envelops evil. The cross doesn’t appease God, the cross reveals the self-emptying love of God (Phil 2:5-11). We didn’t need Jesus to die so that God could be around us, we needed Jesus to die so that we could be around God. God can absolutely be in the presence of sin - just look at the life of Jesus; it’s sin that has trouble being in the presence of God. All throughout the scriptures it’s God pursuing humanity, not the other way around. The cross is God’s greatest pursuit. Through the cross we are brought back to God.

• Substitution = Jesus in our place. Sin earned death, Jesus took the death that sin earn and gave us life. On the cross Jesus doesn’t pay God for the sin we’ve committed, on the cross Jesus forgives the sin we’ve committed. Think about it: if my friend owes me $100 and his dad pays me $100 on his behalf, can I go to my friend and say, “I’ve forgiven your debt?” No way, I have the $100 in my pocket. Now, to be sure when a someone forgives another they are absorbing the cost of the wrong and not repaying it. In that way we can say that Jesus paid the penalty of sin - he absorbed it. But let’s be clear, in the biblical narrative sin is forgiven! When the Apostle Paul talks about the debt of sin, he claims that the debt is “canceled” not “paid off” (Col 2:13-14).

• Atonement = the world is now reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:19) - God is not reconciled to the world; he was never fractured from it. The cross was about making humanity right, it was about healing humanity; it wasn’t about changing God. After all, God is immutable.

That’s good news. God is good through and though. God is love, and God has always been love. The cross reveals what God is like and provides a way for us to be free from our real Enemies - sin and death.

That’s why it’s Good Friday