“Did Jesus drink a cup of wrath?” This question was recently posed to me by a reader of my book Welcoming Gifts: Sacrifice in the Bible and Christian Life. The question arises from Jesus’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will but as You will” (Matt. 26:39). According to proponents of the penal-substitution theory of atonement,…
In the appendix of Welcoming Gifts, I argue that Penal-Substitution Atonement (also known as Substitutionary Atonement) is not plausible as an explanation of biblical sacrifice. This theory says that Christ saved us by taking upon Himself the punishment due our sins. It begins with the biblical teaching that the consequence of sin is death—not just physical death but spiritual and eternal death. It understands this consequence as a punishment owed for offending…
