|
The wondrous crossAtonement and penal substitution in the Bible and historyLightweight crossTHE WONDROUS CROSS When we sing (or used to sing) ‘Tell me the old, old story’, we know that ‘story’ is shorthand for a narrative of what Jesus did for us on the cross, and why, and how it benefits us. Dr. Holmes (Baptist minister and lecturer in theology at St. Andrews) writes that the New Testament has many (consistent, complementary) such ‘stories’, of which penal substitution is one. He has written a strong book in support of this view, and forcefully expounds, explains and defends penal substitution. It is a serious study, well worth reading. Its strengths are the centrality accorded to the cross, the repeated insistence that ‘Beneath the cross of Jesus’ we find, without cost or contribution, our eternal and assured salvation, and the way he relates penal substitution to the ‘modern mind’ and takes on present day critics. The book is weak on the Old Testament, concluding that from Genesis 22, through Leviticus and on to Isaiah 53, we are offered no explanation of how and why sacrifice works. Page 60 makes the historical gaffe that the Church of England began at the Reformation! And the general position that the New Testament allows, but does not demand, penal substitution, falls below what many of us would wish to say. Alec Motyer, © Evangelicals Now - October 2007 |