I do not understand the difference some make between the "Doctrine of Penal Substitution" and "Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement". They are one in the same just as the Doctrine of Evolution is identical to the Theory of Evolution and the Ransom Doctrine and Ransom Theory are the same. Calling something a "doctrine" only means it is a teaching (it does not lend validity to the doctrine and is, IMHO, a childish distinction).
Well stop making the distinction then and call it a doctrine, which is what it is. The reason Evolution is called a theory and not a law (never a doctrine) is scientific and nothing to do with theology. You know perfectly well that in the past you have attempted to make a difference between a 'doctrine' and a 'theory' of P.S.
Take your Bibles out and look a bit closer. What does Scripture say? Christ suffered on our behalf, for us, representing mankind as the “second Adam”, bore our sins in His flesh, became a curse for us, it was the will of the Father that He suffer at the hands of wicked men, the Father offered Him, He offered Himself, by His stripes we are healed. All of this is basic Christianity.
But it makes no sense without Penal Substitution. You have the Father crushing the Son for no reason, and then saying to us, "See what you've made Me do!" Or you have Jesus as a sort of autistic teenager saying, "I love you so much I'm going to jump off the Golden Gate bridge for you!" To which we might answer, "That's impressive, but how would it show how much You love us?" There is no purpose behind it.
The Bible tells us that
'God set Him [Christ]
forth as a propitiation [a sacrifice that turns away wrath]
by His blood through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness' (Romans 3:25-26). Psalm 7:11 tells us that
'God is a just Judge; and God is angry with the wicked every day.' God's anger is not like ours which may flare up and subside in a moment. It is a righteous anger and it burns steadily against sinners. So how is God's anger propitiated? Only by the suffering and death of Christ upon the cross which satisfies His justice.
Do you see what is missing (what the doctrine of penal substitution has added)? Scripture never calls what Christ suffered a punishment suffered instead of us. Scripture never even calls what Christ suffered a punishment except it be by the estimation of “wicked men”. Not only is this idea foreign to Scripture but it is foreign to the first centuries of Christianity.
Let's go through Isaiah 53:4ff.
'Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.........' Here at once is substitution. He has made our burdens His (Matthew 8:16-17; Revelation 21:4).
'.......Yet we [emphatic pronoun]
esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted......' And in this the Bible does not say we were wrong. Where we were wrong is in our understanding of
why He was stricken.
'.......But He was wounded for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace was upon Him......' we can stop there, I think. Chastisement is a penalty and He suffered it instead of us. that is penal substitution. But who is responsible for this chastisement?
Two questions:
1. Who transferred our iniquities to Christ?
'And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all' (v.6).
2. Who punished Him? '
Yet is pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief' (v.10). It is God the Father who has 'chastised' the Son. To chastise someone is to punish him. And God the Father has punished Christ in the place of us. Penal Substitution. the case is proved.
Two quick points which come from John Stott. We must never suppose that the Father inflicted upon the Son a punishment that He was unwilling to bear (John 10:18). Nor must we ever suppose that on the cross, the Son extracted from the Father a mercy that He was unwilling to extend (John 3:16).
Now add in what that definition left out. Penal Substitution holds that God punished Christ over and against passages that clearly state it is an abomination for God to condemn the righteous. That is what wicked men do, not God.
Scripture teaches that God made Christ to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). What does that mean? Isaiah 53:6 tells us. All our sins were laid to the account of the sinless Christ. He was personally innocent but judicially guilty. In Psalm 69, which is very clearly messianic (cf. vs 9, 21), Christ describes His sins as real (vs 5, 7, 19).
Penal Substitution holds that God has to satisfy the demands of divine justice so for this reason God has to punish our sins in Christ. Again, this is absent Scripture except to condemn retributive punishment as a human wisdom to be abolished. Scholars have systematically developed the doctrine/ theory from Scripture, but it is not in Scripture itself. That is why it is both a doctrine and a theory, without distinction. Those little words matter a whole lot.
It is very clearly in Scripture, in Romans 3:26; 1 John 1:9. How can God be just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness? Because Christ Himself is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:2).