On the Penal Satisfaction Theory of Atonement

 The question must be answered,

WHY IS THE ATONEMENT NECESSARY?

Who or what demanded it? We pass by the first answer, that it was necessary to satisfy the claim of Satan, who had captured the sinful race of men, and was holding them as his prisoners. For more than a thousand years this was the common answer. I do not say the only answer, because here and there one, like Athanasius, and John of Damascus, declared that the satisfaction was paid to God the Father. But under the stimulus of the Gospel quickening the intellect, this theological crudity of a tribute to Satan was outgrown, and the way was opened for a thorough discussion of the necessity of Christ's atoning death, for He must be lifted up, He must needs have suffered. Out of the various answers we shall have time to speak of only three: first, God's essential justice; secondly, man's obduracy in sin; and thirdly, the requirements of a Divine government, offering conditional pardon to a race of sinners. The first and the last locate the necessity on the Godward side, while the second locates it wholly on the manward side.

God is Light

 SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES IN THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN - Part 2. 

But John's most effectual refutation of error is in the bold statement of the truth as verified by experience. We call the especial attention of preachers of the Gospel to this peculiarity of John. Christians, if genuine, not nominal, cannot be reminded too often that their religious life is "a matter of positive, demonstrable, realized facts," the witness of the Spirit crying in their hearts, Abba, Father, the transition from death to life consciously realized, which is the beginning of life eternal in the persevering believer who knows that he is in Christ and Christ in him, and "that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son," and is conscious of the indwelling of the Comforter and Sanctifier, making him a "habitation of God through the Spirit."

God's Justice and Our Ideas of Justice

Well does Professor Shedd say:

How can a man even know what is meant by justice in the Deity, if there is absolutely nothing of the same species in his own rational constitution, which, if realized in his own character as it is in that of God, would make him just as God is just? If there is no part of man's complex being upon which he may fall back with the certainty of not being mistaken in his judgments of ethics and religion, then are both anchor and anchorage gone, and he is afloat upon the boundless, starless ocean of ignorance and scepticism. Even if revelations are made, they cannot enter his mind.

Who can confidently adore and sincerely love a being who may, in the inmost essence of his being, be pure malignity in the outward guise of benevolence?

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 13.

On The Penal Satisfaction Theory of the Atonement

The [penal satisfaction] theory [of the atonement] for three hundred years widely prevailed in both branches of orthodoxy — Calvinism and Arminianism — although it logically belongs to that branch which teaches an unconditional election and a particular or limited atonement.

It is grounded upon the necessity of satisfying that moral attribute of God called exact, or distributive, justice, defined by Webster as that "which gives every man his exact deserts." This principle of essential justice, or eternal right, demands punishment for violated law. If the sinner is exempted from penalty, it must be inflicted upon some substitute who is personally not worthy of punishment; otherwise, if himself guilty, he could not be a substitute for the guilty. He must suffer for his own sins.

Now there are several reasons why I have never been able to preach this theory of the atonement.