The issue in Isaiah 53:4-5 is not whether Christ was getting punished for his own sins or ours; rather, it was whether he was being punished at all, or instead undergoing strict discipline for an awesome life-and-death battle against Satan to win peace and healing for Israel and ultimately all humankind.

The righteousness, obedience, or faithfulness of the entire life and career of the Lord Jesus Christ was decisive for our salvation—including, most notably, our justification—yet not, as the Protestant Reformers theorized, because it was “imputed” to sinners (or even merely to “the elect”) when they believe, so as to become “their own” possession. Much rather, it was because of the EXTREME REWARD that it rendered Christ worthy of receiving, yet which he, in turn, gives away FOR FREE (hence the expression “free” grace) to all sinners who, under the hearing of this Explanation and Proclamation of extraordinary divine power, are thereby drawn back to God, submit in faith, and consequently receive the Holy Spirit as experiential pledge of the promised full inheritance to come.

It’s at this point that the proper role of imputation (logiz-) kicks in. It is precisely this faith, generated by the power of God’s proclaimed Explanation for the cross—namely, that without such a conclusive public execution any alleged subsequent resurrection would be placed in permanent doubt and regarded as a probable hoax—that God considers, regards, credits, counts, or imputes AS RIGHTEOUSNESS! And of course the ensuing coming of the Holy Spirit “finishes” the job by maturing us in actuality into conformity with the image of Christ (including assorted fruits of righteousness). [3/3/11; 3/18/24]

The dogma of “penal substitution” is disturbingly reminiscent of certain psychotropic drugs—notoriously, Prozac, Zoloft, and similar SSRI antidepressants.—it all too often produces severe, disinhibited, non-characteristic, bizarre, even violent, side-effects, plus disfiguring after-effects that too easily get misattributed to non-theological factors. Results of following the regimen are unpredictable in specific cases (“every body is different and responds uniquely,” “no two individuals react exactly the same,” etc.) and can be grossly out of character, and profoundly shocking. The punitive inferno of “penal satisfaction” is like a sleeping fire-breathing dragon or a slumbering volcano. It might even be said that this vaunted cure for human sinfulness is all too often worse than the illness of sin itself because, counterintuitively, it strangely exacerbates sin, making people mean, vengeful, unforgiving, conceited, arrogant, self-righteous, devious, hypocritical, exclusivistic…(“Please carefully read the enclosed drug warnings concerning known side-effects, adverse symptoms, etc.”). You get the idea. It’s like so many psychiatric drugs; they produce disfiguring tics, which do not always manifest until after withdrawal from the insidious substance (which simultaneously triggers, aggravates, and masks its own dreadful effects). Hence, the destabilized state of being “in withdrawal” from penal substitution may risk prompting any seething resentments to finally break surface unexpectedly with devastating consequences. [3/4/11; 3/23/24]

In commenting on Isaiah 53:4a, “Surely he hath born our infirmities and carries our sorrows…,” the Geneva Bible, note “f,” declares, “That is, the punishment due to our sins: for the which he hath both suffered and made satisfaction, Matt. 8:17, I Pet. 2:24 [emphases added].” On the contrary, neither scripture cited declares any such thing. Matthew explains its meaning with reference to Jesus’ expelling demons and healing the sick. And Peter expressly asserts that he bore “our sins” themselves, not any punishment for them. ‘Satisfaction‘ is nowhere in sight, nor even implied.

The Geneva notes proceed similarly in comment on the next phrase, 53:4b, “…yet we did judge him as ^gplagued, and smitten of God, and humbled.” “^gWe judged evil, thinking that he was punished for his own sins, and not for ours.” Yet nowhere is it written that he “was punished…for our sins,” and certainly not by God! Rather was he smitten by Satan, as Genesis 3:15 and Revelation 12 both make unambiguously clear at the outset and conclusion of Biblical Scripture, with no different doctrine sandwiched in between. The real issue in Isaiah’s text is not whether he was punished for his own sins or for ours (real answer: neither), but that he was undergoing necessary endurance training with the goal of achieving peace for us all after an ominous duel-to-the-death, winner-take-all engaging of a supremely daunting foe.

However, the Geneva Bible notes extend their error into the succeeding verse, 53:5, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was broken for our iniquities: the ^hchastisement of our peace [was] upon him, and with his stripes we are healed,” “^hHe was chastised for our reconciliation, I Cor. 15:3 [emphases added].” Yet that is hardly what this text teaches, much less the cited New Testament passage, especially not if punitive “chastisement” from God is intimated. Rather, Christ endured the Father’s discipline (LXX, paideia), without a hint of resentment or sin in response, nor of any wrath from God whatsoever.

Still, Geneva is not satisfied to cease and desist. In a culminating error it next asserts at 53:6, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid uopn him the ⁱiniquity of us all,” “ⁱMeaning, the punishment of our iniquity, and not the fault itself [emphases added].” Well that’s a comfort! Nay, but the diametric opposite is the case in actuality. This scripture, like its parallels and echoes elsewhere, speaks of (and seems to mean) precisely the “fault,” i.e., the seriously harmful, injurious felony that landed the just, holy, and innocent One on a tree, under a wickedly misplaced curse! [3/5/11; 3/23/24]

Turretin erred in alleging that God’s unique Son stood as ‘surety’ for human debts of sin.

It stretches parables beyond the breaking point to insist that they be put to the yeoman service of abstract, technical dogmas. Case in point: the parable of the unjust debtor in Matthew 18:21-35. It teaches simply that we should forgive the sins (conceived as “debts“) of others against us, even as God forgives our sins (likewise represented as “debts” to Him) without demanding payment of any kind. Now, in line with the post-Reformation Genevan-Italian Calvinist theologian Francis Turretin, to interpose the assumption that all such forgiven debts of sin must be paid for by someone who stands as “surety” for our debts is to burden the poor parable to the brink of collapse. Instead, God Himself “absorbs” the loss from love, expressed as gracious forgiveness. He “stands surety” for His own “losses”; He did not exact them from His beloved Son at the bitter cross. For in tandem with the Father’s loss of His dear Son to a wretchedly dishonorable and undeservedly agonizing demise stands Christ’s own individual loss of life (though without loss of divine favor!) in the event. Accordingly, the role of Jesus on the cross was that of displaying, manifesting, and revealing to mankind exactly how his Father (whose perfect image and characterization he in fact is, after all) was at that very moment responding to the sins of His slayers, for is this not PRECISELY THE DEMONSTRATION OF GOD’S LOVE THAT WE NEED TO KNOW IN ORDER TO GET CONCILIATED TO HIM?

To imagine rather, with Turretin, that not only was even full “REPAYMENT of the debt” not sufficient to achieve forgiveness (flying in the face of abundant conciliatory appeals throughout the New Testament), but that additionally EXACTION OF PUNISHMENT was required, is not merely to make the analogy ‘walk on all fours,’ but to squash it ignobly like roadkill under THE JUGGERNAUT OF PENAL IMPOSITION, YEA, PUNITIVE PRESUMPTION! Thus does Turretin deal treacherously with Scripture in general and the Gospel in particular. We can leave it to God to judge those who depart from His Words. But we must not delay to correct them by whatever further Light He beams forth from Scripture in our day, furnished so abundntly with sophisticated and even computerized analytical tools unavailable until only decades ago. What excuse can we plead to keep plodding along in the treacherous aging ruts of fallible human traditions? [12/22/10; 8/15/23]

The Lord Jesus Christ paid for us and our salvation at the staggering loss of his own precious blood, for GOD REIMBURSED HIM WITH THE UNSPEAKABLE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT OF LIFE TO FURTHER DISBURSE FREELY TO ALL WHO BELIEVE, SO AS TO CLEANSE THEM FROM ALL SIN AND THEN EMPOWER THEM WITH MIRACULOUS FAVORS IN ORDER TO TESTIFY TO GOD’S KINGDOM OF JUSTICE AND HENCE DRAW ALL MANKIND BACK TO GOD THEIR SAVIOR. [12/22/10; 8/15/23]

That the Greek preposition huper is by no means to be understood in a ‘substitutionary’ sense is clear, among other texts, from 1 John 3:16: “By this we know love, seeing that he, for our sakes, lays down his soul. We also ought to lay down our souls for the sake of the brethren.” That Francis Turretin* can so blithely overthrow the clear and simple meaning of such a Scripture where a perfectly obvious, uncomplicated, and ethically compelling parallel is drawn by the Holy Spirit is further evidence of the treachery of his scholastic tradition against the premial justice of God as laid down within inspired apostolic Scripture.

*Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol. II (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1994): 428. [12/22/10; 8/15/23]

Even as God gave His Son the Spirit “without measure” in order to heal and cure, in accordance with Isaiah’s prophecy (53:4), “Surely he bore our infirmities,” as Matthew quotes (8:17), so also God bequeathed Jesus the superabundant gift of the Holy Spirit, poured out at Pentecost and ever since, because he was willingly yet unjustly “pierced on account of our transgressions” and “crushed on account of our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5), for those supremely sinful human deeds of wicked ‘punishment’ that “God laid on him” (Isaiah 53:6) “brought us peace” and by those vicious wounds “we are healed.” The modus operandi was exactly the same on both fronts, contrary to Francis Turretin*, et al.

*Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol. II (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1994): 427. [12/22/10; 8/15/23]

Jesus did not suffer the ‘punishment due our sins‘ but rather the [unjust—”in his humiliation his judgment was taken away“! Isaiah 53:8 LXX, Acts 8:33] punishment of/from/by our sins! [12/22/10; 8/15/23]

The Devil has himself to thank for provoking the Power that is presently nullifying his kingdom and works of darkness. Seemingly clueless about the redemptive storm he would unleash by perpetrating such a magnitude of injustice and horror as the official, public, cruel crucifixion of his only rival for dominion over the world, he was foiled into overlooking the comparatively untapped potential of God’s restorative justice to save the upright and reward them despite even the interposition of death itself—in fact, all the more so because of its wrongful interruption of Jesus’ flawless career! [12/23/10; 8/15/23]

“Becoming a curse” did not entail “imputation” of sin.

According to one of the favorite scriptures of Penal Substitution doctrine, Galatians 3:10-14, those who are “of works of Law” are “under a curse” because Deuteronomy 27:26 declares, “Accursed is everyone who is not remaining in all that has gotten written in the scroll of the Law [of Moses] to do them” (Galatians 3:10). Therefore, by the logic of their theory, we should expect that the Lord Jesus was cursed because those lawlessnesses were all “imputed to him.” This teaching is pervasive among those who hold the position. BUT THAT’S NOT HOW IT HAPPENED! Galatians goes on to say that “Christ reclaims us from the curse of the Law, becoming a curse for our sakes, for it is written, ‘Accursed is everyone hanging on a pole, that the blessing of Abraham may be coming to the nations in Jesus Christ, that we may be obtaining the promise of the Spirit through the faithfulness [of Christ]” (Galatians 3:13-14). So there is no need of “our sins/transgressions/lawlessnesses” being imputed to Christ at all in order for him to “become a curse for our sake.” Rather, he became a curse by a completely separate provision than either sinning himself or getting “our sins imputed.” Is anyone paying attention here? Jesus was cursed WRONGFULLY, not “rightfully on account of imputed sins so that God could exhaust His holy wrath against the sins.” So because he suffered WRONGFULLY, God was justified in REVERSING THE CURSE (which obviously entailed death) by RAISING JESUS FROM THE DEAD AND SUPERCOMPENSATING HIM WITH “THE BLESSING OF ABRAHAM” SO THAT WE COULD OBTAIN “THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT THROUGH THE FAITHFULNESS [OF CHRIST].” There is a whole new WORLD OF DIFFERENCE between these “two ways of getting cursed” and their results!

Furthermore, Scripture does not speak of “bearing the curse” as our theologians and hymn writers are wont to do. That strikes of the popular false interpretation of “bearing guilt/penalty” instead of bearing (i.e., enduring) inflicted sins. Moreover, Christ did not “bear our curse”; he suffered under his own, albeit deviously invoked. Still, all these curses derived from the Law of Moses, so when his curse was FLIPPED INTO A BLESSING BY RESURRECTIONAL JUSTICE, the rumble was felt throughout that old decrepit covenant and shattered its temporary authority over the children of Israel. [9/24/08]

“Those who are by nature finite, and have fallen captive to decay because of having turned away from God, are presented, through the calling back of the One into eternal life, with the hope, indeed, the certainty, of following after him (I Cor. 15:21-22).” —Hans Urs von Balthasar, CREDO: Meditations on the Apostles’ Creed (San Francisco: 1990 [Verlag Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1989]), p. 59. [9/24/08]

Jesus died “for” (huper) our sins so as to benefit us thereby precisely by getting subjected to or “surrendered to” (Isaiah 53:6) those sins of wrongful abuse and crucifixion, for it was these that evoked God’s righteousness to raise him from the dead with manifold recompense and glory/proof. THE ONLY BENEFIT TO US WAS IN THE SUPERCOMPENSATING AWARD TO HIM WHICH HE GRACIOUSLY SHARES WITH ALL WHO BELIEVE IN HIM…PERSEVERINGLY. [9/27/08]