DID JESUS GET MY DEATH PENALTY FOR MY SINS?

Was Jesus punished for our sins by God on the cross?  Penal means punishment. This theory is called the penal theory. Paul said in Galatians that anyone hanged on a tree is cursed by God and that Jesus became a curse for us because of this. He means that God cursed Jesus for our sins. Some say he did not but when he quoted the Law saying there was a curse on the person hanged on a tree first it is clear what he meant. See Galatians 3.

Evangelicals harp on about how terrific the evidence is for the Bible being true. Deuteronomy says it takes one error to prove a prophet a fraud no matter how good his predicting skills are or how good the evidence is. Can’t they see that the illogical atonement theory – which is one apparently evil doctrine among several in the Bible - could just be that very one failure that we need to justify us throwing the Bible into the fire? It is in fact a major blunder worse than any inaccuracy by an alleged prophet.

It seems terrible to think that the Son of God had to die to make atonement to God for sinners if he was not God himself. It is like God making him do the dirty work. But since the atonement idea is immoral no matter if Jesus is God or not we cannot say that this problem means that Jesus must be God. Those who deny that Jesus was God say that God hating parting with his son and it was very costly to him so the fact that Jesus was not God did not make it any easier. It would be callous to say that God could not have cared much when he could raise Jesus to life for true love does not think like that. How could it be immoral for a non-God to suffer for our sins if that was the only way to make atonement? Some say that God made Jesus suffer and die for us though it was not equal in value to the penalty we owe God for sin and because of what Jesus did God let us off the rest of the debt (page 125, The Metaphor of God Incarnate). But in that case he could have let us off the whole lot. And why make Jesus do all that instead of making us pay a bit ourselves which would be fairer?
 
God is said to be closer to us than we are to ourselves. God is all-knowing. Some would say that it follows that Jesus' suffering is the same to God then as if God himself is suffering though Jesus is not God.

The Church says that the New Testament expression that the blood of Jesus washes away our sin only means that the life of Jesus given to God for us atones our sin by taking the divine death penalty away from us. The Bible uses this expression so the Church is probably right. It expresses the idea of Jesus taking our sins away by bearing the death penalty due to them.
 
The penal theory insists that the worst pain for Jesus was not how his friends all let him down and how he was nailed ignominiously on the cross but how he was literally abandoned by God himself. He did not just feel abandoned but was abandoned. This idea argues that this abandonment is the main thing. Without it there would be no real penal atonement for sinners. It is based on the notion that the loss of God is the only real punishment. Even if it is wrong for Jesus to be executed so that sinners may avoid being executed by God if they repent, Jesus being hated by God is far worse. It violates Christianity's pretended ethos of love.
 
Christians say that it would be unfair for Jesus to take our punishment if he were not God. They say Jesus is God and is the one wronged by our sins. We deserve the death penalty for sin. He wanted to set us free from that punishment so he took the penalty on himself and suffered and died for our sins. They say this was fair because Jesus was God. But what would you think of a judge who went to jail for a criminal he wanted to keep out of jail? He would be making a laughing stock of justice. He would be insane.
 
Christendom asks Jesus to wash away her sins with his precious blood. She does not think that the blood is like bleach and that it can cleanse the soul of sin like a garment. What she means is that she is telling Jesus to forgive her sins because he has shed his blood to pay the price that they deserve. So the sins are punished by punishing somebody else for them. Some forgiveness that! Somebody being punished for your sin in your place is worse than you being punished!
 
The Bible always uses cup to refer to God's metaphorical cup of wrath and anger and desire for retribution. Jesus asks God to deliver him from the cup meaning retribution for sinners on the cross. He offers the cup of his blood at the Last Supper to indicate divine vengeance. "In the Bible the image of the cup almost always evokes the idea of God's wrath against sin. Christ, it is written, died 'for sinners'; he died in their place and not only in their favour ... he is, therefore, 'responsible' for all, the guilty one before God!" From Life and Lordship of Christ (Sheed and Ward, 1989). That is a Catholic book and shows that Catholicism allows belief in the penal doctrine of atonement. It also shows the horrific meaning of the chalice at Mass. The Mass honours this blasphemous God of vengeance and hate who uses hypocritical love and mercy to suck you in.
 
If a serious allegation is made against people, evidence is needed to back it up. And it has to be good evidence and be enough and strong enough. The Christians say we make the death of Jesus our own by accepting that Jesus endured capital punishment at God's hands in our place. That accuses us of deserving it and of nailing Jesus to the cross ourselves. It is sheer bigotry when the evidence is insufficient. Also, what makes it worse is that if God can become man to be executed in our place then it follows that he can allow Johnny to be hanged for Thomas's crime. It is so evil and wrong that evidence is actually irrelevant!
 
What a hideous God the doctrine of blood atonement by Jesus presents to us! What a horrible Jesus who would die for the love of a God like that! When you make injustice against anybody the core of your faith and spirituality, the whole tree is rotten hypocrisy. What right has a Christian to call you guilty of anything when they are so unfair?

The tragic death of Jesus is weaponised by believers many of whom are anti-Semitic for religious ends.  We must not lose sight of how warped and sick this is.

Christians in the know, hate Jesus.  They gloat over his death. The Cross, the Vindication of God by DM Lloyd Jones page 4 confesses that since Jesus deliberately chose the death of the cross and to be guilty of our sins it is no pity of him. That Jesus told the women of Jerusalem not to pity him seems to back up this idea. The cross says sin is to be punished and sin should not be pitied. The cross then bears witness against the idea: "A person who has done wrong and is sorry cannot go back and change the past and so is entitled to be pitied." The cross was evil. If it is no pity of Jesus then he deserves no praise for dying for us at all. Because if he did it would mean he did the right thing. So Jesus sinned by dying on the cross for sinners! It would have been a sin for him to make himself guilty of our sins for it is bad enough for those for who are guilty to be guilty but worse for somebody innocent to be guilty! The Church might answer that God wanted to be offered obedience as well but a sinless incarnation could have offered that while Jesus the sinner paid the death penalty. Much of Christianity is morally repugnant. It’s worse than pornography.

BOOKS CONSULTED

A SUMMARY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, Louis Berkhof, The Banner of Truth Trust, London, 1971
APOLOGETICS AND CATHOLIC DOCTRINE, Most Rev M Sheehan DD, M H Gill & Son, Dublin, 1954
DOCUMENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, edited by Henry Bettenson, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979
ESSENTIALS, David L Edwards and John Stott, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1990
JESUS THE ONLY SAVIOUR, Tony and Patricia Higton, Monarch Tunbridge Wells, Kent, 1993
KNOW WHAT YOU BELIEVE, Paul E Little, Scripture Union, London, 1973
OXFORD DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY, Simon Blackburn, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996
PROFOUND PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY, Rev George Jamieson BD, Simpkin, Marshall, & Co, London, 1884
RADIO REPLIES 3, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul, Minnesota, 1942
THE ATONEMENT: MYSTERY OF RECONCILIATION, Kevin McNamara, Veritas, Dublin, 1987
THE BIBLE TELLS US SO, R B Kuiper, The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1978
THE CROSS OF CHRIST, Christadelphian Publishing Office, Shaftmoor Lane, Birmingham
THE CROSS THE VINDICATION OF GOD, DM Lloyd Jones, Banner of Truth, Edinburgh
THE LIBERATION OF PLANET EARTH, Hal Lindsey, Lakeland, London, 1975
THE METAPHOR OF GOD INCARNATE, John Hick, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1993
THE POWER OF THE CROSS, Tony Ling, CMI Publishing, Coventry 1995
THE SACRED EXECUTIONER Human Sacrifice and the Legacy of Guilt Hyam Maccoby Thames and Hudson, London, 1982
WHO WILL DELIVER US, Paul Zahl, Fount Original, Collins/Fount, London, 1983
WHY DID CHRIST HAVE TO DIE? Radio Bible Class, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1986
WHY GOD PERMITS EVIL, Dawn Bible Students, East Rutherford, New Jersey

BIBLE VERSION USED

The Amplified Bible