Penal satisfaction is compelled to insist irrationally and outrageously that God’s alleged “wrath at the cross” manifests His “love.”

If, as penal satisfaction advocates maintain, God’s wrath was the active ingredient in the atonement, then they are absolutely forced to assert that such a display at the cross was a manifestation of “love,” regardless of the obvious thrust of Scripture and normal human sensibilities.  This rationalization inevitably and pervasively twists proper definitions and perceptions, justifying atrocities that are by no means justifiable.  Do we get the tragic ethical payoff of such an atonement theory?  A revelation of God’s wrath from heaven only shows love for us if it falls on our threatening enemies!  Not if we get harmed by it!  (Discipline is a different matter entirely.)

Such twisted conclusions are what comes of ignoring the concordant usage of Biblical vocabulary in theology.  Other terms get contorted and distorted in order to adjust to “what’s s’posed to be,” regardless of gross cognitive dissonance.  This also means that many a theologian exerts might and main to distinguish God’s “basic attitude” from his “external” or “phenomenal” or “governmental” manifestations of wrath, etc.  All unnecessary!

WILLIAM LAW’S RATIONALIZATIONS ABOUT GOD’S WRATH AND GOD’S “NATURE”

The same goes for William Law’s recoiling from the thought that “wrath” was a part of God’s “nature”–a reflex that betrays more discomfort with the rationalizations of Calvin’s penal satisfaction than it conveys honesty with straightforward Biblical language.  Calvin’s whole system in fact collapses in principle when he alleges that God’s wrath necessarily fell on His Son; so not surprisingly, he himself immediately starts to waffle, for even Calvin can see that Christ’s innocence shatters the very possibility of a righteous God actually expressing real wrath against him.  [5/14/10]

BAPTISM DENOTES OUR IDENTIFYING WITH CHRIST’S UNDESERVED DEATH AND WELL-DESERVED RESURRECTION

To get immersed into Christ by baptism is to experience the graciousness of the Holy Spirit that he received from God by his resurrection in marvelously super-compensating response to his enduring the gross injustices leading to his crucifixion for our sakes and because of our sins against him. Therefore baptism equates to our “identifying” with his undeserved death rather than to his “identifying” with our deserved death. [5/04/10]